We begin this week’s edition of the MIS with the news that Hip Hop band Soul II Should have been added to the line up for August’s House of Common Festival.

Possibly of more interest to many of you is that the event is now being listed as Madness’ only London show for 2017. With the band always (please correct us if we’re wrong!) arranging at least one London date for their Christmas tours, does this mean that the much-anticipated near yearly string of December gigs won’t be taking place this year? It’s certainly looking like a possibility.

Back to The House of Common line-up, and Dennis Bovell, Sherwood & Pinch and Norman Jay have also joined the roster, which was already boasting such acts as De Le Soul, Craig Charles, Dawn Penn, Toddla T, Hackney Colliery Band, David Rodigan and a special appearance by The Skatalites. The Minor Madness kids stage is also returning.

On to this week’s articles, and do we have a competition for you. Were you one of the many who failed to get their hands on the Drip Fed Fred 7” which was released to coincide with this year’s Record Store Day? Well, we’ve bagged a copy and are giving you the chance to win it. You’ll have to do a little bit of work to be in with a chance, but as you’ll see, it’s nothing difficult.

So, without further ado let’s get this issue underway.

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

May 2017

Friday 19th – Wirral Live, Tranmere Rovers stadium, Birkenhead

http://bit.ly/WirralLive17

 

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

Sunday 2nd July – Spiritland Talks – Madness Q & A ** SOLD OUT **

Sunday 9th July – Bospop, Weert, Netherlands

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 – V Festival, Hylands Park

Sunday 20th – V Festival, Weston Park
Friday 25th – Portsmouth – Victorious Festival Opening Party
https://www.victoriousfestival.co.uk/buy-tickets/
Sunday 27th – The Big Feastival, Alex James’ Farm – Headliners. More info at:
http://uk.thebigfeastival.com
Monday 28^th – House of Common, Clapham ** Tickets now on sale! ** More info here: http://www.madness.co.uk/houseofcommon/

 

September 2017

1st-3rd Electric Picnic, Ireland  ** Sold out Festival**

 

November 2017

17^th – 20^th November – The House of Fun Weekender – Minehead

 

Suggs – My Life Story – Australian Performances

Thursday 20th April – Enmore Theatre, Sydney

Saturday 22nd April – Astor Theatre, Perth

Monday 24th April – Comedy Theatre, Melbourne

 

The Silencerz

Friday 23rd June – Mill Hill Festival

Saturday 22nd July – The 100 Club. Featuring Lee Thompson with support from The Skapones and MIS DJs

 

CLANG

Saturday 29th April – Chelsea Arts Club, London, SW3 6EB
Near Jazz Experience

June 8th – Kino Teatr, St Leonard’s, East Sussex. Supporting Blurt.
** Rescheduled **

 

Voice of the Beehive

Saturday October 7th, Indie Daze. All Dayer from 1pm.  Kentish Town Forum. NW5 London
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

 

Don’t Let Them Catch You Crying – Remixes

Three new dub remixes of the track “Don’t Let Them Catch You Crying”, from the current album, are now available.

Leo Zero, the London based remixer and producer, has created the new mixes. You can buy them from Madness artist pages on iTunes and Amazon, and many other music sites. They can also be streamed through Spotify.

The mixes are the “Leo Zero remix” and his “Tufnel Parkas” mix, available both as a dub and full instrumental versions.

The former samples “Rocksteady beat” from the start of The Prince before riffing on the title song. The latter mixes make atmospheric use of the backing vocal stems and there is much looping of the guitar stabs on the tracks.

It’s perhaps fitting that Leo Zero has previously worked with Bryan Ferry, as this particular Madness track from the Can’t Touch us now LP is the most dance music based track from the latest batch of Madness and so suited to elongated 12″ length instrumental musings. Certainly more so than some others. Even if these remixes won’t dazzle the general fan, they are a nice experiment that highlight in stripped down parts, some of the elements that go towards the finished Madness song on the album.

We feel a dubplate coming on.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XPQSD2K/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp

Jonathan Young. Our thanks also go to Mark Doherty for a heads-up.

 

 

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Suggs Kicks off Spoken Word Australian Tour

http://www.noise11.com/news/suggs-kicks-off-his-spoken-word-australian-tour-20170420

“I’ve been a long time in this business. I’ve seen a lot of things,” Suggs tells Noise11.com. “I’ve had a lot of ups and a lot of downs. It was my 50th birthday recently and a rather strange thing happened. My cat fell off a shelf and died. It got me thinking about fate and all the crossroads and how different my life could have been. I thought I’d write a show about it. So I do a one-man show with a keyboard player and we deconstruct a few Madness songs. I just tell the particular story of how I got to be where I am”.

It was 40 years ago when Madness first appeared on Top of the Pops. It was a career-changing moment for Suggs. “I think Cliff Richard was on,” he said. “I remember even then being astonished at how much make-up he was putting on. It was pretty much like the 60s almost. The studio had three red light bulbs and one yellow one. It was a very lo-fi TV show but sometimes 15 or 16 million people were watching. It was a big moment. People talk about ‘when do you think you’d make a career out of it’ and it was that moment”.

 

 

LIVE AND INTENSIFIED  –  BLUEFEST

Madness Drive the Huge Crowd Crazy

https://www.northernstar.com.au/news/madness-drive-the-huge-crowd-crazy/3168102/

THE Mojo tent became the House of Fun when the nutty boys of Madness took the stage on Sunday night.

Slightly more portly than in their heyday, the dapper London lads nevertheless turned on a high-energy show, with a pounding, bass-heavy rock-steady beat and Lee Thompson’s full-throated sax driving proceedings.

Suggs, the eternal cheeky-chappie master of ceremonies, is in good voice and good humour; he takes the mickey throughout, except when honouring the departed, such as ska elder Prince Buster, whose song Madness gave the band their name, and Amy Whitehouse, whose premature death inspired the reflective Blackbird from 2016’s fine Can’t Touch Us Now.

Otherwise, except for excursions into satire and social comment, it’s all high octane silliness and smiles.

“Hey you, don’t watch that, watch this,” bellows Suggs, opening the show with One Step Beyond, a song which, like most of the two dozen or so that follow, is immediately picked up by the adoring fans who join in with gusto.

In quick succession come Embarrassment, NW5, My Girl and then a comical standout from the new album, a tale of lust that would do the band’s grubby godfather Ian Dury proud.

They even pinch one of Billericay Dickie’s rhymes (cleaners/misdemeanours) as the narrator relates how he, a rotten little Herbert, is being pursued by a shotgun toting dad whose “princess made of sherbert” he has wronged.

The backgound graphics to all this are a delight: a cityscape collage of London sites, with whizzing hot air balloons, Pythonesque Victoriana, white doves fluttering against a black ground.

For Mumbo Jumbo, an irresistibly danceable ska blast at the “crap” politicians’ talk, images flash by of Cameron, Trump, Charlie Chaplin, flying pigs!

Mr Apples is lighter, but still about a dodgy geezer, a pillar of the community by day who likes to slip over to on the wrong side of town by night. More hypocrisy.

It’s the last night of a long tour for the band and they have loved their time in Australia, and prove it with a respectable version of Highway to Hell, courtesy of guitarist Chris Foreman.

Then it’s House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, Our House, and It Must Be Love, and Can’t Touch Us Now and “Cairo” for the encore.

Ever the gent, Suggs says it’s been a pleasure and with that we can concur. The lights go up but Always Look on the Bright Side plays, spurring punters to dance with unbridled joy, singing along madly.

 

 

MIS FEATURE – SPECIALIVE READING

Specialive Reading – Saturday April 29th (Featuring MIS Room 2 Take Over)

This coming Saturday is the Specialive All Dayer in Reading, if you fancy a load of ska, punk and more for just a £10, then come to the Facebar, the event is raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust and Youth Music.

Tickets here.

http://www.skastickers.co.uk/specialive-reading

MIS is taking over Room 2 at Reading.

We are delighted “The Launchers” will be joining us as our House Band in room 2. They will be performing 3 Twenty minute sets during the day including some original tunes of their own now added to their set since their debut gig with us at The Dublin Castle last August, alongside playing some ska classics too.

We’ve deliberately scheduled them to be on when the Room 1 is in changeover mode and just has a DJ playing, so you can catch them and their appearance compliments the 10 great bands in room 1.

We’ve also got spoken word from Owen Collins fresh from his poetry appearance at the last House of Fun Weekender. He’ll be joined by Skint boat Millionaire.

We’ve comedic covers from “Get Giro, Spend Giro, Sleep.”

We’ll be playing plenty of Madness through out the day of cause when DJing, including some rarities, and performing the odd game from the band “Greatest Show on Earth box set game”.

We urge you to join in “Shiite fever” too the worst Suggs album lead karaoke we can muster, to his channle 5 CD backing tracks. And Tony McBoney the Skeleton (last seen in the Driving in My Car Video) will be leading the ghostly game of dead twister at the end of the night. Join us for a Nutty Saturday Night.  We might even have Sammy the ska dancing spider with us if he’s available.

Timings in room 2 include…

MIS DJ’s – all day.

4.45 – Get Giro, Spend Giro, Sleep  (20 minute set)

5.45 – The Launchers (20 Minute set 1)

6.45 – The Launchers (20 Minute set 2)

7.45 – The Launchers (20 Minute set 3)

9.15 – Dead Twister

All of this side shows, the main room where The mighty Inflatables (who will be no stranger to MIS readers by now) headline a line up of Ska, punk bands known to Specialized circles.

They will be assuring a bouncy fitting climax to a great day and night of music.

The Full Line Up of the main room is.

City Scaffold 2pm-2.45

HMS Swagga 3.00-3.45

Collective AKA 4.00-4.45

Rage DC 5.00-5.45…

The Jammed 6.00-6.45

The Ten Bob Notes 7.00-7.45

The Corsairs 8.00-8.45

Raffle 8.45-9.15

Millie Manders & The Shut Up 9.15-10.00

The Inflatables 10.00-11.00

The Feckin Eejits 11.15 – Midnight.

 

See you there.

 

 

MIS COMPETITION

Honour Amongst Thieves Competition – Steal our Drip Fed Fred 7 inch. 

Are you finding yourself slightly Drip Fed up?

Did you miss out on record store day after queueing up?

Or do you not want to face paying over the odds on eBay for the latest cool Madness collectable that’s being flogged on still sealed and un-listened to, with its poster inside of unread lyrics, when it you really feel it should be sitting on your shelf already collecting your dust?

Well fear not. We’ve stolen a copy for one reader.

Next weekend; April the 29th, we are declaring Record Steal Day.

The day when just like Madness back in the 70’s we support an independent record store by nicking a record from them, and assuring they can right off the loss for tax purposes.

Next, just like the 70’s We take it to a party, where someone else then steals it again from us. And that person could be you!

If you would like to steal this record from us, you can do just that.

It will be with us in Reading @ our Specialive Room 2 take over gig next Saturday. At some point we will be putting it on display & it will be suddenly stolen again.

If you would like to be the name on the envelope where it’s then hidden into and secretly posted off before we realise where it’s got to.

You need to do 3 things to participate in this crime.

1. Sit on your arse in your UK adressed household, or steal your UK friends adress off them as accomplice who’s watching the gate, & then dont bother going to any record store, anywhere in the world.
2. Promote Specialive Reading event tickets this week somewhere online and send us link proof that you did that for us.  A tweet, tumblr or facebook post anything is fine long as it’s all nice.

This is the important link to mention:  http://www.skastickers.co.uk/specialive-reading

(Or you can buy a ticket and send us proof you are coming to the gig also.)

3. Email your UK adress for delivery to:  operationMIS@outlook.com

Title your email Honour Amongst Thieves.

4. The winner will be chosen by a random number and written on the envelope live next Saturday Evening in Reading, and posted shortly afterwards, and then all your addresses will be deleted to avoid the postman being kneecapped when delivering to you.

(Please note we haven’t really stolen this record, it’s been purchased. We have actually supported a UK record shop for you.)

Competition open to all, following the above rules.

Now all stand and raise your champagne glass to this Wonderful Record being on vinyl at last, Freddie is a man of class after all. his week, MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby, goes back in time to report on what was

 

 

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 676 – Sunday 22nd April – Saturday 28th April 2012

Following last week’s announcement which revealed the latest batch of dates for the next leg of the Suggs one man show tour, we began with news of another addition. On Saturday 6th of October, our favourite frontman was booked to perform at the South Holland Centre, Spalding.

If you needed a reminder as to what other dates Suggs was booked for we pointed you in the direction of the whole listing online.

On to the articles, it was over to subscriber Janet Simmons who was kind enough to give us her thoughts and glowing review of the recent Madness performance at The House of Blues, Las Vegas.

“Once the concert started, it was a non-stop party, from One Step Beyond to Night Boat To Cairo. The band was in stellar form with their continuous movement and good music.

The whole set was full of my favorites, as for thrills, I think the biggest one was having Thommo play his sax not 15 feet away from me on stage left. And for antics, there was the usual messing about by Suggs and Carl.

 There’s not much I can say about Madness that hasn’t been said already. So I’ll just say this: Let’s keep it going One Step Beyond!”

Moving on, and we reported that Chris Foreman’s fan camera treats reached a new level, as this year he’d added new equipment to his fan cam filming. Yes, ladies and gents. In Mexico we saw Hat Cam. In this issue we decided to show you Showtime seen from the top of  Chris’s head! We kid you not!

Next, and it was over to Retro Madness who were telling us all that there was just one day left to take advantage of their buy 3 T-Shirts and get a 4th free. If you bought 4 of their cheapest T-shirts you could get them for a mere £2.60 each!

Elsewhere, and the majority of the issue was taken up by D Trull’s amazing and detailed review of the band’s recent performance in San Diego, California. A fantastic write-up with a selection of YouTube clips to accompany it.

We brought this issue to a close with a reminder that MIS Online would be hosting a Mad Meet at the Hope and Anchor to coincide with the next Ska Orchestra gig. Miss it at your peril!

10 years ago…

Issue number 416 – Sunday 22nd April to Saturday 28th April 2007

With the last seven days proving to be rather quiet, it should have come as little surprise to the MIS readership that this was a slightly slimmer than usual issue.

That said, the Madness news that had landed in our mailbox over the past week made it into the issue.

We kicked off proceedings with some MOT news. The band were booked to perform at ‘The Living Bar’, Brixton, on Friday 27th of April. If you weren’t able to catch them there they were booked to play The Hope and Anchor on the 8th of June and The legendary Dublin Castle on the 13th of July. These boys played all the best venues!

Next, it was over to ‘Mr Wheeze’ who told us that Push Posters were currently offering some slight discounts on Madness t-shirts and posters. A discount code printed in this issue would give you a rather pleasant 15% of the advertised price.

On to the articles, and we began with the news that Madness were booked to perform at the Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup – Britain’s only jockey’s competition, where teams of riders from all over the world compete over six races for the trophy.

Moving on, and after the huge success of E4’s first original television programme, Skins, E4 had commissioned their first ever sitcom. The TV show would be called Baggy Trousers, and we were told that it would take a satirical look at life in a UK suburb.

Baggy Trousers was written by Ian Morris and Damon Beesley with much of the material apparently based upon their own experiences of growing up in the commuter belt. Morris was a former C4 comedy commissioning editor whose script editing credits include Peep Show and Ruddy Hell!

It’s Harry and Paul. Meanwhile Beesley was a comedy producer whose previous work included executive producing Jimmy Carr’s stand-up tour video.

We brought this slim issue of the MIS to a close with the news that Madness’ appearance at Glastonbury 86 had was now up on eMule for download.

15 years ago…

Issue number 154 – Sunday 21st April to Saturday 27th April 2002

We started this week’s issue off with news that the music of Madness continued to be used by UK television advertisers. A carpet firm decided to play ‘Madness’, edited in such a way that the vocals didn’t appear, whilst the Madness version of ‘Money, Money, Money’ could be heard during “This Morning”, which advertising the Midday Money competition.

Now, we all knew that Suggs was a clever chap, but even we were surprised when he managed to broadcast his BBC6 radio show, despite being in Holland at the time. To be fair, when asking people to email their requests as normal, he did hint that “They can’t be played today”. A clue to perhaps indicate that he didn’t put 2 extra flights into his schedule that day.

Probably the most exciting bit of news to come from this episode of Suggs’ radio show was him confirming that the band would be playing a mini tour at Christmas.

The largest article this week came courtesy of subscriber, Mr. J, who kindly put together a massive review of Madness’ Saturday night gig as part of Heineken Night Live. The article not only covered a lowdown of the gig (complete with full track listing), but also reviewed the pre gig meet as well.

This issue really turned out to be one full of fantastic announcements.

Not only did we have Suggs mentioning the Christmas tour (as detailed earlier), but news reached us that Chrissy Boy’s wife, Mel gave birth to a 7lb baby boy on Saturday 13th April 2002, named Frankie Albert Foreman.

Not one to rest on his laurels, the hardest working man in show-business, Lee Thompson, returned from Holland, only to announce the next ‘Like Father, Like Son’ gig, which would be taking place at The Hope and Anchor on Saturday 27th of April. The band would be second on the bill as they were supporting ‘The Voice’, with ‘Redhed’ also playing. News in from subscriber Dan Kemsley was that at this gig (and future ones, too) the band would be selling multimedia discs for your PC. Here’s what Dan said at the time;

“You pop it in and one of four tracks come on (each disc has a different tune, bulldog, clever trevor, sunny etc…) at the same time there is a slide show full of pictures of the band. 

Quite nifty if I may add!!!”

Finally, we finished off with details of a ‘spot the difference’ competition currently being held on the Madness Trading Ring, and Jon welcomed back Rob, who would be returning from the sunnier climes of Cuba in the next few days.

Rob Hazelby

 

 

TIME…

Yes, it’s that time again as we draw another issue to a close.

The Australian Tour may have been and gone, but we’re not quite finished with it just yet, and neither should you.

Why, well YouTube user George Cervini has put together a 50 minute long video detailing concert highlights from earlier this month. Check it out at the below link;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Vpoh3ZqE0&feature=youtu.be

And finally, Stack Magazine have just uploaded their video interview with Suggs, who joined the publication for a pint and a chat at their local;

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1309184512497544&id=253066311442708

Enjoy the clips, and we’ll see you next week.

Have a good one!

Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams

(With thanks to George Cervini, Stack Magazine, Noise11.com and NorthernStar.com)