Hello, good evening, and welcome to yet another edition of the MIS Newsletter.
Keen-eyed readers may have noticed that last week’s issue featured an email subject detailing issue number and dates of one issue, yet the banner in the email contained the issue number and dates of another.
We apologise for any confusion caused, The relevant member of the MIS team has been given a severe talking-to, and has promised that this won’t happen again. Until the next time, at least!
On to more Madness related news, and we have further gigs to report on this week. On either Friday 20th or Sunday 22nd July, the band will be appearing at the FIB Benicàssim Fest, Spain. We’re unsure about which date because the festival runs from the 20th to the 22nd, but we don’t when during that weekend Madness will take to the stage. We do know that it won’t be Saturday 21st July, as they’ll be performing at Perpigan, in the South of France.
If any readers do manage to find out the exact date Madness will be at the FIB Benicàssim Fest, then please let us know.
The other date also announced this week was that on Friday 3rd August the band will be performing at A Summer’s Tale Festival, Westergellersen, Germany.
We do have other new non-Madness gigs added to our Showtimes section, so please take a look!
Now, the big piece of news this week can be found in our MIS Feature. How do you fancy bagging a free copy of the forthcoming limited edition B-Sides album released to coincide with this year’s Record Day? Pop over to that section for more information.
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.
Friday 6th July – Englefield House, Reading – More Info
Saturday 7th July – Euston Park, Suffolk – More Info
Friday 13th July – Ragley Hall, Alcester – More Info
Saturday 14th July – Alnwick Castle, Northumberland – More Info
Thursday 19th July – Bellaria Igea Marina, Beky Bay, Italy
Either Friday 20th or Sunday 22nd July – FIB Benicàssim Fest, Spain ** new **
Saturday 21st July – Perpignan (South France / North Catalonia) ** new **
Friday 27th July – Galway International Arts Festival – More Info
July 28th/29th – Car Fest. Announced on Chris Evans’ Radio Show!
August 2018
Friday 3rd August – A Summer’s Tale Festival, Westergellersen, Germany ** new **
Friday 10th August – Strijp-S, Eindhoven, Netherlands
November 2018
Friday 30th Nov – Monday 3rd Dec – The House of Fun Weekender
Ticket hotline 08450261274 / http://www.butlins.com/madness
Suggs
March
What a King CNUT Tour 2018
A life in the realm of Madness.
26th – Newcastle ** rescheduled date **
September
6th – 9th – Festival No:6 – Portmeirion
November
1st – Suggs & Friends – Porchester Hall, London. Annual Charity show for Pancreatic Cancer UK ** new **
The Silencerz Featuring Lee Thompson
Saturday 31st March – The Black Horse, Barnet ** new **
Sunday 1st April – Dublin Castle, Camden
Terry Edwards / Mark Bedford
Wednesday 4th July, Dublin Castle. Q&A & music from Tony Bugbear
Deaf School
Wednesday 28th March, The GB Club, Liverpool
Thursday 29th March, The GB Club, Liverpool
Near Jazz Experience
Saturday 21st April – Vinyl Frontier, record store day. Appearance and gig at the store in Eastbourne ** new **
Friday 11th May – The garage Islington (Supporting – Adrian Sherwood) ** new **
Wednesday 8th August – Varanger Festival – Norway ** new **
Buy It
Madness “I do Like to be B-Side the A-Side”
Out for Record Store Day 2018; 21st April
Fans of Madness have been requesting a vinyl release of their B-sides for some time now. ‘I Do Like To Be B-Side The A-Side’ contains the B-sides for the first eleven Madness 7 singles.
Collated on a 12 LP on heavyweight black vinyl, the album’s packaging has been designed by long-time Madness collaborator Paul Agar and features a wonderfully surreal black and white image of the band on a diving board at a holiday camp, 1950s style.
Director Julien Temple (The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners) takes a stage show, adds some drama, archive, animation and music, then shakes it all up for MY LIFE STORY where Suggs, takes a hilarious, yet moving, look back at his life in a musical form.
Is it a drama? Is it a comedy? Or a music hall dream? Whatever it is hold on to your seats as Suggs goes on to stumble and plummet through the trap door of failure; then trampoline back up to catch the passing trapeze of show business success.
£9.95. Limited to 250 copies. A5 paperback photo-zine. 36 pages.
Hanging Around Books’ tenth release (HA010), “Kimono Our House: Madness In Japan 1982” features rare and previously unseen photographs of the Nutty Boys taken by Andre Csillag at various locations during the band’s 1982 tour of Japan.
As Andre writes:
“In May 1982 I was asked by the manager of Madness, the late and sadly missed Matthew Sztumpf, to accompany the band on their first Japanese tour. These shots were taken over a period of a week in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya and on bullet trains inbetween.”
“It was an intense week of gigging, travelling, promotional work and making history. While in Japan, the band had their first number one on the UK singles chart and were filmed live via satellite from Tokyo introducing the video for that week’s chart topper, “House Of Fun” — a first for the BBC and Top of The Pops.”
“Thanks to Graham “Suggs” McPherson, Cathal Smyth, Lee Thompson, Chris Foreman, Mike Barson, Mark Bedford and Dan “Woody” Woodgate for their time and the enjoyable madness.”
Andre Csillag, February 2018.
MIS Feature
Beside the B-Side Competition
This week the new B-sides album, “I do like to be b-side the a-side”, arrived at MIS Towers. A lovely looking thing it is too, reminding us slightly of the rise and Fall for its sepia toned images. We particularly like the solitary diving penguin on the inner sleeve, peering down from the diving board and kind of feel it’s sat there looking down at Madness who have all dived into the pool already. Well done Paul Agar again on the art.
Having admired the vinyl album that’s arriving April 21st for Record Store Day in stores on the event day, the good news is we are now giving it away early. Possibly to you dear reader. So you can admire it next and sit home playing it rather than braving those queues for a copy. Here’s how to pick up this penguin…
You must have a UK address we can send it to you at.
If we judge it to be the best picture of You Beside a B-side, you are the winner.
Here’s what your picture needs to be…
You, (the named competition entrant) stood next to a “thing”, with you holding a sign upon which you have written the title of a Madness B side. Amuse us with your fitting juxtaposition and land B-side up at the top of our list.
So let’s give an example. You write “Riding on my Bike” clearly readable and visible on a piece of paper, hold it up, and stand next to a bike and someone takes your picture. You email us the picture. That’s a suitable B-side picture. Just think of a better one now and you might win. Send it in.
Photoshopping is allowed ( as long as you are seen to be holding the sign in the picture no just writing the title on a picture that already exists please. That will get you rejected.)
Drawing or art of any kind is allowed as part of your picture, but You must be real in the picture and really holding the sign. Your sign must be clearly visible and identifiable.
You can use an actual Madness record held B side to camera as the sign if its really clear what one it is in the picture. ( i.e. not distant from camera or obscure/too generic to notice).
Just standing next a record alone though doesn’t count as your picture.
What’s a B-side?
In this competition, it is a song title that must be released under the artist name of Madness. It must be available on a physical format. It’s not about side two of LPs and albums in this competition. It’s single formats. As a general rule if the song has a video then that’s the a side mate. We don’t mind much about things like a double A-side, 12” bonus tracks and EPs tracks, or flexi discs etc. being considered under the phrase B-sides here. Go ahead. They are fine. If still in doubt, you can email us and ask, we will reply to any rejected pictures anyway. Be Safe taking your pictures. We accept no responsibility for anyone or thing you damage by being too daft. You did that, you nutter.
Have fun and good luck. You have until April 7th. We can’t wait to see your Bsides.
Competition open to anyone to enter, except Jon, Rob, Simon, Paul at MIS.
Jonathan Young
With thanks to Ian Taylor.
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 724 – Sunday 24th March – Saturday 30th March 2013
It’d been a busy seven days in the Madness world. Near the start of the week the band announced their “Madness at The Palace” gig, which would see them appear at the legendary Alexandra Palace on Saturday 28th September, and then on Friday they performed outside at the BBC Television Studios as part of the celebrations to mark the sad closure of BBC Television Centre.
In honour of Madness’ final performance at such a legendary venue, Jonathan kicked off the articles by taking a whistle-stop tour through some of the band’s many performances at the BBC Television Centre. The band were accompanied by the one and only Wilko Johnson, who at the time was diagnosed as being terminally ill. Thankfully, against all odds Wilko would defy the illness and go on to make a full recovery.
Moving on, and it was something far jollier – A report from the Manchester Evening news, where Suggs explains that he was more than a little Manc;
“My mum was born in Manchester and lived above a chip shop,” Suggs said. “She moved down to London when she was 18 or so.”
Next, and it was over to the band’s press release where they’d just announced that they’d be performing at Alexandra Palace on Saturday 29th September;
“Buckingham Palace didn’t have a slot for us this year so we googled palaces and would you believe it there’s one right round the corner from where we live. We can’t play on the roof but we can certainly reign supreme at Ally Pally”
Although the Ally Pally gig was months off, plans were already well underway for the obligatory Madmeet, and in the article that followed Jon Young and Owen Collins were explaining that the back room of The Dublin Castle had been hired out for the afternoon prior to that evening’s gig. Jonathan and Owen promised to man the DJ decks, churning out a selection of fantastic Nutty Sounds to Pub-Step-Beyond.
Further on, and we went over to Paul Rodgers for more of his Madness Stats, Facts and Figures articles. Paul’s big news this week was that Complete Madness had now managed 105 weeks in the top 100 and 186 in the top 200 (remember there was no published chart beyond number 100 when Complete was originally available). Time and again it had proved to be Madness’ enduring compilation.
It was on to Suggs related news next, as we reported that Suggs appeared on Channel Four’s Sunday Brunch Show, with Tim Lovejoy. Thanks to the wonders of Four on Demand, you could catch the appearance if you’d missed it. If you couldn’t be bothered to watch it you didn’t have to. We’d knocked a brief synopsis detailing what was discussed and went on.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that the French MIS team were currently celebrating 30 years since the Rise and Fall tour dates.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 464 – Sunday 23rd March – Saturday 29th March 2008
We began by wishing all our readers a very happy Easter, and pointed out that while our readers had been busy nibbling all that chocolate we’d been hard at work putting the issue together.
Those hoping to catch the band live this year would no doubt be pleased to learn that this week Madness confirmed that they’d be performing at Sandown Park Racecourse in the coming August. We had all the details in this very issue. We suggested you took a look and then bought those tickets!
Elsewhere we had news on the planned demolition of the legendary Crown and Goose pub, and a transcription of Edwina McPherson’s appearance on the BBC’s “One Life” TV series which aired earlier in the week.
As well as that little lot, we had news in from Jean-Pierre Boutellier, who told us that after much work, he’d produced a new and extended version of the 1983 bootleg “Nutty Dread”.
Elsewhere, we had a massive transcript from a 2005 article taken from Mojo magazine, and if that wasn’t enough, we had our regular half decade lookback.
15 years ago…
Issue Number 202 – Sunday 23rd March – Saturday 29th March 2003
With Suggs appearing in a week long stint at the Cambridge Theatre, performing in the `Our House` musical, it probably come as no surprise to learn that this weeks MIS featured the Madness frontman quite heavily.
The MIS’ very own Jonathan Young was lucky enough to attend Suggs’ first performance, and upon his return, produced a brilliant lowdown of proceedings. With such a detailed report, Jonathan did have to warn those who had not yet seen the show, but were going to, that his write up contained numerous spoilers.
During Suggs’s short acting stint, and extra biog page was added to the program. Jonathan was kind enough to type it up for the rest of us who were unfortunately unable to attend and pick one up.
With Lee currently residing temporarily in Australia, one radio station down under took advantage of its special guest, and got our favourite saxophonist as a guest on Gold Coast radio Station 4zzzfm.
Rob Hazelby
Sign of the Times
Glasgow Pavilion Theatre forced to cancel ALL weekend shows
Glasgow Pavilion Theatre forced to cancel ALL weekend shows, (including Suggs) as boss reveals heartbreak over Sauchiehall Street fire.
Firefighters smashed their way into the theatre yesterday as crews desperately battled to save the building amid a fire on Sauchiehall Street. The Glasgow theatre backs on to the site where the blaze took hold. devastated Pavilion chiefs revealed that smoke, ash and black dust have blanketed the cherished theatre.
“We ask that you hang onto your tickets for any shows that have been affected by this as they will still be valid for any potential rescheduled dates.” The venue stated. Dates could be some time in coming, structural engineers start to assess the building from Monday.
Live and Intensified
Madness Frontman Proves he’s Ultimate Dinner Party Guest at Nottingham Show.
If you were put on the spot to choose your perfect dinner guests, Graham McPherson aka Suggs, frontman for iconic group Madness, would have to be very high up on your invite list.
Open, humble and a natural story teller, he delivered a well paced performance at the Theatre Royal with his second autobiographical show, Suggs: What A King Cnut, A Life In The Realm Of Madness.
Very few people can command an audience for two hours while making it feel like ten minutes, but Suggs managed it.
Appearing on stage sat on a throne in a black wig and white mac, he made quite the first impression as he set the scene for the events leading up to his 2016 Glastonbury appearance, where having been drinking all night, he invaded the stage during Primal Scream’s set to “liven it up a bit”, got covered in mud, and lost a shoe.
He took us right back to when he was a teenager and a string of failed career attempts; his apprenticeship as a plasterer consisted of two stolen buckets and a trowel from Woolworths, a career change as a painter and decorator involved stolen overalls and as an apprentice gardener with nicked gloves and a wheelbarrow.
He moved seamlessly from showbiz tales to family stories; from the witty and funny to the emotional with his engaging mix of memories. There was the excellent running gag about Brian May’s hair and a melancholic section about family matters.
His words were interspersed with a few hit songs, all accompanied by his friend Deano Mumford on the piano, including My Girl, House Of Fun, Blackbird, his tribute to Amy Winehouse and Blue Day, the tune he penned for Chelsea’s 1997 FA Cup Final song.Finishing with Our House, everyone’s favourite Nutty Boy deserved his standing ovation.
Nottingham Post
Time
And finally…
Back in the 1970s and early 1980s we were big fans of the Mr Men TV series. A show which brought Roger Hargreaves’ characters to the old goggle box.
It would seem that the MIS team weren’t the only fans, as news has reached us that a Mr Men style Madness film is in the works.
Lovingly put together by Nick and Matt of Bed and Breakfast Men theme, they’ve already got as far as putting together an amazing trailer. The attention to detail is amazing. The art style is spot-on, and the voice over is slightly crackly and distorted, sounding just like a 1970s episode of The Mr Men.
Check it out here, and please leave a comment. Good or bad feedback, the boys want to know what you think of it. If the response is positive then a whole episode could be on its way.
