Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 930 – Sunday 5th March to Saturday 11th March 2017
Continuing on from issue 929b, we begin with further Voice of the Beehive news.
Tickets are now on sale for the Indie Festival featuring the reunion gig of this (sort of) Madness off-shoot, which takes place at the Kentish Town Forum on the 7th of October. If you buy a couple of tickets from the Louder Than War website you’ll pay a mere £1 in fees and get an event badge in the post along with your tickets!
http://louderthanwar.com/shop/tickets-2/indie-daze-4-festival/
The 6 band concert has the group as the penultimate outfit on the bill. The House of Love headline with a special set list for them, and Crazyhead and Salad are also bands in reunion modes at this gig, along with a more acoustic set from the duo of Miles and Erika from the Wonderstuff. This diverse line-up points to a ticket demand we predict will be high.
Said to be a one off event, there is talk of a possible Beehive warm up, and if that is planned we’ll let you know in a future issue.
Back to Madness, and if you visit our regular Showtimes section that two further dates have been added to the band’s summer tour; Hylands Park on the 19th August and Weston Park (as part of the V Festival) on the 20th.
The band look to have one busy year of touring ahead of them.
Enjoy the read!
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
SHOWTIMES
See below for all forthcoming Madness and Madness related gigs and events. If there’s something we’ve missed off or you feel should be added then please let us know.
Madness
April 2017 – The Overseas Leg
Monday 3rd – Ex Theatre, Tokyo, Japan
Thursday 6th – Hong Kong, China, Rugby Seven’s Opening Concert.
Monday 10th – Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth, Australia
Thursday 13th – Festival Hall, Melbourne, Australia
Saturday 15th – Hordern Pavillion, Sydney, Australia
Sunday 16th – Byron Bay, Australia http://www.bluesfest.com.au/schedule/detail.aspx?ArtistID=873
May 2017 – Back in the UK
Friday 19th – Wirral Live, Tranmere Rovers stadium, Birkenhead
Sunday 28th – Bearded Theory Spring Gathering, (Pallet stage headline), Derbyshire
http://www.beardedtheory.co.uk/
June 2017 – The Cornish Leg
Friday 16th – Eden Sessions, Eden Project, St. Austell, Cornwall ** SOLD OUT **
http://www.edensessions.com/lineup/madness/
July 2017
Saturday 29th July, Camp Bestival – Headliners
August 2017
Thursday 3rd – Scarborough Open Air Theatre
http://www.scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/
Friday 4th – Falkirk Football Stadium
http://www.falkirkfc.co.uk/madness-in-falkirk/
Saturday 5th – Lytham Festival, Lancashire
https://www.lythamfestival.com/events/madness/
Saturday 12th – Kent County Showground
https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Maidstone/The-Kent-County-Showground/Madness-in-Kent/12902396/
Friday 18th – Hardwick Hall
http://www.hardwicklive.co.uk/madness-live/
Saturday 19th – Hylands Park ** New **
Sunday 20th – V Festival, Weston Park ** New **
Friday 25th – Portsmouth – Victorious Festival Opening Party
https://www.victoriousfestival.co.uk/buy-tickets/
Monday 28th – House of Common, Clapham ** Tickets now on sale! ** More info here: http://www.madness.co.uk/houseofcommon/
November 2017
17th – 20th November – The House of Fun Weekender – Minehead
The Silencerz
Saturday 1st April – The Bull Theatre
Friday 23rd June – Mill Hill Festival
Saturday 22nd July – The 100 Club. Featuring Lee Thompson with support from The Skapones and MIS DJs
CLANG
Friday 14th April (Good Friday Bank Holiday) – The Islington, London
Voice of the Beehive
Saturday October 7th, Indie Daze. All Dayer from 1pm. Kentish Town Forum. NW5 London ** New **
http://louderthanwar.com/shop/tickets-2/indie-daze-4-festival/
BUY IT
Madness – New Album – You Can’t Touch Us Now
** Out Now! **
16 Track CD, 12 Track Vinyl
SIGN OF THE TIMES
It’s always nice to see our favourite band in the press, so below are just a few of the articles featuring Madness that have appeared over the past few weeks…
Suggs on ITV Morning Show
Suggs appeared on breakfast TV show Lorraine, with a guest host, to talk new album, songwriting and observing London, House of Common, Football and meeting the Chelsea pensioners.
Speaking about the new series and appearing on Benidorm, Suggs revealed what a great time the had with the cast and crew, saying the Chris loved the place so much he wanted to be written in as a regular out of work musician.
The two tour bus situation was bought up (Actually due to smokers/non smokers and size of the touring vehicles) and jokingly stated by Suggs to be a Good boys bus and a Naughty boys bus, with regular swapping at service stations.
SKY NEWS : Mike & Suggs at The DC
Talking about the importance of small venues in growing and breaking talent in the pop music industry, how it was for Madness in the Dublin Castle in the 70s.
(Watch to the end if you want to see some news reader we’ve never heard of dissing the band)
BBC London News
Back last year Suggs was speaking about small venues such as the DC and going off to deliver the new album on its release.
MIS FEATURE – THE BED & BREAKFAST MEN
Dublin Castle – The Bed & Breakfast Men
We have written this little tune in tribute to Madness and that fine venue that has launched a thousand musical ships.
“Dublin Castle Home Again
Red paint in the London Rain
Calls you through the falling down
The sound that makes the soul of
Camden Town”
A limited run of the CD single will be on sale on March 11th in Dublin Castle with all the money going to Julia’s House Hospice. Many thanks to Steve Farthing, Rob Taverner & all on Madchat for their support, & in celebration of our charity gig for Madchat at Dublin Castle in March.
Special Thanks to George Odom for producing the song (and playing most of the instruments!), Go Studios, Wayne Kelly & the happy team at MGL Media for making the video. Also big thanks to Ellie for her fine acting skills as The Ukulele Girl 
We hope you spot all the references and enjoy our affectionate salute to Camden’s finest band ;-D. Why not take a trip and check it out for yourself? Thanks,
The Bed & Breakfast Men
I REMEMBER WAY BACK WHEN
This week, MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby, goes back in time to report on what was going on in the world of Madness 5 years, 10 and 15 years ago this week.
5 years ago…
Issue Number 669 – Sunday 4th March – Saturday 10th March 2012
This issue began with the news that the Specialized album featuring the one and only Lee Thompson would be available to pre-order from 9:00am Monday. We advised you to get your order in quickly and do your bit for charity by purchasing a copy.
It was over to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival next as we reported that Suggs would be taking part in a one week run at the renowned event. MIS subscriber Colin Galbraith put this little poem together to welcome Mr. McPherson to bonnie Scotland;
The Seventh Son
He’s London’s journeyman, the hat stomper of Cairo
he’s the Nutty King, and the Prince of Soho
he’s one of Camden’s seven sons
and he’s off on the road with his jokes and puns
At the festival in August our man will glow
and thrill the crowds with his one-man show
he’ll grab the limelight and take all the glory
as he thrills all Edinburgh; Suggs and his life story
Next, we went back to Camden as Dublin Castle Landlord revealed that Suggs, Jools Holland and the Kentish Town band, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis were all in Camden this week for a BBC music documentary.
Henry the landlord of The Dublin Castle posted…
“Thank you Suggs and Jools Holland for supporting the Dublin Castle again today. Watch out for a BBC documentary folks coming your way soon.”
Also pointing to a photograph taken by record store Rok Pete.
“Here’s a photo of Suggs, Lewis from ‘Kitty, Daisy and Lewis’ and Jools Holland ‘busking for burgers’ outside the mixer on inverness street this afternoon.
No, they were filming for something…”
The picture showed Jools sat a piano in Inverness Street Market (scene of the Madness Camden Crawl gig) next to the two singers, by a burger van.
The busking scene for the documentary was widely reported as a music video in the national press, alongside mentions of the unfortunate news of the murder tent opposite where evidence was still being collected following a recent fatal stabbing in the area at night.
Further on, we reported that following the news that that Islington gig would now be on June 2nd, The Ska Orchestra were now playing in Brighton on the original date in May.
With Madness due to appear in Mexico on the 25th March the Mexican MIS team were in full swing organising a meet to coincide with the event, and a number of competitions, too! What would happen when Tequila met Madness? We’d have to wait and find out!
Talking of competitions, to celebrate the forthcoming release of “Madness – Forever Young, The Ska Collection”, Union Square’s Label Manager, Holly Barringer, had kindly donated two advance copies of the album for us to give away as prizes.
To be in with a chance of winning, you just needed to tell us:
– How many tracks are featured on ‘Forever Young – The Ska Collection’
– Name the two previously unreleased tracks featured on the compilation
If you weren’t one of the lucky ones you could pick the album up yourselves for a mere £7.20 on Amazon and a bargain-tactic £6.99 via play.com.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that the highly anticipated Los Angeles gig on Monday 16th April would be announced shortly.
10 years ago…
Issue 409 – Sunday 4th March to Saturday 10th March 2007
With the year’s Brit Awards done and dusted the majority of us wouldn’t give this annual music awards ceremony another thought until next year, when we’d once again be moaning at those presented with various accolades and praises.
One Madness fan however, had taken it upon themselves to ensure that next year Madness would finally be given the award for their contributions to the music industry.
Here’s the blurb from the site;
“As suggested by Virgin Radio’s DJ, Ben Jones; today sees the launch of the campaign to get British Ska band Madness nominated for a Brit Award in 2008!
For years Madness have been overlooked for an award despite being one of the country’s best loved bands…
Hi Folks, hope this finds you well. So after the dust settles on the Oasis performance, let’s start the campaign to give next years award to Madness.
Truly a great British band, so many hits, so many great memories, so many of us brought up on their music over the past 25 years.
Plus they are a band that has undoubtedly left their mark on modern music, so what do you think…..after he won the Sun’s ‘Biggest Brits Caner’ award I am sure Suggs is up for it!!!
(DJ Ben Jones – www.virginradio.co.uk)
Please leave your messages of support for the campaign here and if you really fancy getting involved how about adding a link / our logo to your own website?!
We promised to keep you posted on any further developments, and would be adding a link to the page on the MIS web site in the next update.
On to the articles, and we kicked off with a selection of the best questions and answers that had cropped-up on the official Madness Messageboard over the past week or so. One of the most interesting posts came from a fan who first saw the band back in 1980, and who caught Lee Thompson’s jacket when he chucked it into the crowd. 27 years later, and the recipient still had it hung up in their wardrobe.
It was over to Germany next, as Jon Young reported that the video for NW5 had been filmed for the promotion of the comedy film “Neues Vom Wixxer”
The Neues Vom Wixxer soundtrack CD was due to be released on March 16th. The “Doppel Wixx Deluxe” double CD edition featured NW5 as the fourth track.
We moved over to Soccer AM next, as reported that Suggs and Woody appeared on yesterday’s show to promote Sorry, and talk Madness in general.
Playing loads of old School Madness clips early in the show, (including House of Fun, One Step Beyond and Baggy Trousers,) the presenters Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain welcomed the lads to the show which also featured Sean Bean and the Kaiser Chiefs as guests. A short band biog was read out over the House of Fun video, which mentioned the Bands singles, 80’s chart history and Madstock concerts.
A clip of Sorry was played and Tim said they loved the new material and asked about how the young rappers became involved. Suggs recounted the story of how he had read that Sway thought “Driving in my Car” was a great song when he was growing up and liking Madness and Suggs found this odd with him being a rapper.
The Camden Gazette was our next port of call, as the publication’s web site reported that a website to raise awareness of Camden’s rock heritage showed that a fifth of London’s most illustrious rock ’n’ roll sites lay within Camden.
Seven out of 37 locations linked to Britain’s musicians lay close to Camden Town Tube station.
The Roundhouse, in Chalk Farm Round, was the venue that once played host to seminal concerts by Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Doors and Pink Floyd.
Down the road, at Chalk Farm Tube station, Madness posed for the cover of the Absolutely album.
With the forthcoming release of Sorry it’d been a busy weekend for Madness. However, we were sure some of you had either missed, or weren’t able to catch Madness on either Top of The Pops 2 or Al Murray’s Happy Hour. Well, you could stop panicking, as a couple of kind individuals from the online Madness community had come to the rescue, making the footage available for either download or stream.
We brought this issue to a close with a reminder that tomorrow would see the UK single release of ‘Sorry’.
15 years ago…
Issue 147 – Sunday 3rd to Saturday 9th March 2002
Always keen to help you save your pennies, the MIS Online team (well, Jonathan!) finally managed to track down the recently released Madness fruit machine.
Armed with a whopping £25 the MIS co-editor gave the rest of us the full lowdown on not just how the machine looked, but also how each of the sub-games played. So, how did Jon get on?
“Overall All an excellent entertaining pub gambler, but did I win?
Never hit the jackpot. I certainly emptied prize money in excess of 25 pounds but this all had gone back into the machine in my attempts reach “Baggy Trousers” and it is such a sad sight to see all the lights go out and read “No More Madness”!
Oh well. One born every minute. This fruit machine is as honest as the day is long”.
These Madness fruit machines have since become one of the more valuable Madness collectibles. If you want one, you’ll need some serious pennies, and a fair bit of room.
We’re usually fairly up to date with Madness news, but a snippet in from subscriber Graham Hewson printed this issue actually related to a special guest who appeared at a ‘Like Father, Like Son’ gig which took place towards the start of the year.
Here’s Graham;
“It seems that the recent gig at Fould’s school back at the start of the year had the added treat of a special guest. Just like the real early days of Madness when Carl would take the stage for the intro to `One step Beyond`, this time the privilege fell to the one and only John Hasler. Back in a Madness-related band for the 1st time in a long time.
Not only did John enjoy being on stage but he was very chatty with one Madmeet regular and this man got John to agree to SKA DJ at a future mad meet.
What a star!”
As far as we know Mr. Hasler has yet to be roped into actually taking part in the role of DJ. Perhaps it’s time for someone to ask nicely.
We finished off the issue with a nice review of Ian Dury’s “Ten More Turnips From The Tip”, which appeared in the March 2002 issue of Q magazine. Giving the album a very respectable 4 out of 5, the reviewer rounded-off saying;
“One of British pop’s great partnerships goes out on a high”.
How very true.
Rob Hazelby
LIVE INTENSIFIED
The Silencerz are lined up to play at Saracens RFC are we are forewarned that a certain Lee Thompson may not be performing; indeed that is the case. This puts a whole new dynamic on what to expect. Will the band be up to it….?
It’s the first time I’ve been at this venue – a typical Rugby social club, I guess. The walls are adorned with signed framed rugby shirts, team photos and array of opponents club crests, certainly makes it an interesting place to have a drink + watch a band. The stage itself is spacious enough to fit a relatively large band; tonight we have 3 in the brass section, drums, keyboard, bass, lead + rhythm guitars and lead singer of course. The band make their way on to the stage and are all instantly recognisable. So who’s this fellow standing at the mike wearing an overcoat and rabbit mask?! Yes folks – it’s Daley Thompson perhaps showing an instant starting point to match the zaniness of Lee. Most definitely, Like Father Like Son!!
The band kick off, perhaps slightly cheekily with a LTSO song, Step It Up Sister. It’s great way to start the show + the sound is spot on tonight; the sound engineer/mixer has nailed it. The band play the usual array of songs here, including the bands self-penned Callie Road and Havin A Laugh. When I say to a mate who’s new to the Silencerz that It’s their own song he thought it was a cover on the basis it sounded that good. Praise indeed!
Guitarist Nick has written 4 songs which all got an explanation and lyrics printed recently in MIS so it’s great that those are also played tonight. Better Days and also Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea are played and both sound great, even at first listen. As is often the case with any new band material, it can be the 2nd or 3rd listens where it starts to resonate. Gently lilting ska pop is what I remember and in particular the refrain on ‘…Devil…’ of the song title at the end of each verse.
The Silencerz arrange their covers often in an expansive way confidently weaving in an extra minute or so into the original recorded versions, sometimes by slowing down their take on the covered tune. These expanded versions, including The Beatles’ Down Let Me Down, Maxi Priest’s Wild World and Dawn Penn’s No No No are all thoroughly appreciated by the audience.
It’s a massive set list with a 20 minute break, the band have played in total for about one hour 40 minutes. Classic covers, lesser known covers to the general public and a sprinkling of their own stuff. Magic.
The way Nick and the other guitarist mix and swap lead and rhythm guitar duties is superb; Ned on top quality bass, with his constant grin works to brilliant effect. The sax is included within the brass of trombone + trumpet and although we are Lee Thompson-less tonight, the band adapt by playing a cracking set. Daley has commanded the delighted crowd by singing very well tonight. If I saw this band without knowing anything about them, I would want to see them again. I hope to do just that on 1st April at the Bull Theatre in Barnet. Check ‘em out – on that day in particularly you’d be a fool not to!
Set List 1
Step It Up Sister
Skinhead Girl
Fu Man Chu
Callie Road
Freedom Street
Having A Laugh
Iron Shirt
Mother & Child Reunion
You Can Get It If You Really Want It
Better Days
The Prince
Set List 2
My Girl
Midnight Rider
Don’t Let Me Down
Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
Wild World
Bangarang
No No No
Don Logan
Rudy
Guns Of Navarone
Let Your Yeah Be Yeah
54 46 Was My Number
Enjoy Yourself
Daren West
DANCE CRAZE SCREENINGS
Two exclusive screenings of 2Tone’s legendary film at The London International Ska Festival 2017
13 April – Prince Charles cinema, Leicester Sq
Screened from film cinematographer Joe Dunton’s own 70mm copy!
16 April – Islington Assembly Hall (gig screening)
+ Rhoda Dakar, Phoenix City All-stars (Dexys set), The Equators and more tba!
Tickets selling fast at www.buytickets.at/hotshotscorcher
THAT FACEBOOOK / TWEETS OF A DOVE
Buzzing
“Believe me bees this is the last thing I expected too. A lot of it had to do with Woody playing with us. Also can’t wait to see Crazyhead & Mary Biker. There will be a warm up a few days before. This is a one off thing, don’t expect a US tour, its going to be a blast.”
Tracey Belland Voice of The Beehive.
“The secret’s out. The Beehive are back together. It’s only been 25 years. Can’t wait. Should be the hottest ticket in town.”
Woody
TIME…
And finally…
This week saw series 9 of TV series “Benidorm” grace our TV screens once more. The old-fashioned style comedy series set in a Spanish holiday park isn’t something we’ve been following, but as it’s on series 9 it must certainly generate decent viewing figures.
The final episode of the series will be screening in 8 weeks time. If you remember, this finale is the one featuring Madness as themselves.
We’ll give you heads-up a week before the show airs so you don’t miss it.
And with that, we’re done.
Have a good week!
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Jamie Chalmers, Daren West
and The Bed & Breakfast Men)
The Author
