Lookback Over the Past 12 Months on the Mailing List
Hiya all, and welcome to the yearly lookback on the mailing list.
For all you newbies it’s a chance to see what has been going on here on the Mailing list. For the rest of you it’s a chance to site back, and think back to those days gone by…
For the first 3 months the mailing list monthly posting was in the same form as it had been for the year before – 2 text files that seemed to get larger and larger every month. OK, it may have been full of information but it got blummin tedious to read through every month.
I was getting bored of the old “Madpost” format and decided that the whole thing needed a complete revamp. So, the “Monthly Madpost” that you get today was formed. The idea of the new Madpost was to review the month gone by on the list, and include any information relating to TV appearances, concerts etc by Madness or Suggs.
Topics that month included:-
rumours of a “Madstock 3”, and people on the list saying that it would be a perfect opportunity for people on the list to meet up,
mailing list traffic dropping during the Easter vacation, Inbar planning to come over to the UK from Israel just to see the “Madstock 3” concert,
The mailing list passing the 50 mark with subscribers,
An article about Madness cover bands in the UK and OZ,
A possible Madness quiz that would be posted to the list. So far I haven’t got round to doing one! Perhaps one day soon eh?!
The “Madstock 3” concert is confirmed. Dubbed “The on going saga”, it would be held on June 22nd in Finsbury Park. No guests were announced,
Suggs Television appearances on “The National Lottery” and “Surprise Surprise” which were used by Suggs to promote his new single – “Cecilia”,
News of Cecilia entering the top 10.
The “Chart Show” printing rumours of NEW MADNESS MATERIAL to be released which still hasn’t appeared.
Cecilia reaching the number 4 spot in the UK charts and selling over 250’000 copies,
News of Squeeze to support Madness at “Madstock 3”. For people like Bex and myself it’s a real value for money show.
Bedders refusing to play at the new Madstock saying that he’s had enough,
A rendezvous for the mailing list meet at Madstock 3 needs to be arranged. In the end we decided the best place was just inside the main gates at 2pm. Due to a crap coach driver the normal 2 hours it would take for me to get from Bristol to London takes 6 and we only just make it in time. Later, Richard and I were to be refunded 10 pounds each to apologise for the delay.
An attempt to get the mailing list details and Inbar’s web site into the Madstock 3 concert booklet was set into action. After phoning around I managed to get in touch with the person who arranged all the booklet details. He informed me that if I sent the details to him he’d put my information in the booklet. Did it appear?! Did it hell!
New Musical Express printing that this will be Madness’ last concert,
Madstock 3 ticket details,
And an overview of Madness web sites.
Mark Bryant spots a little snippet from Suggs in the Daily Mirror and lovingly types it in for the rest of us to read. The interview says that Suggs is enjoying his new solo career but Madness ARE to reform and produce new material. At the time of writing (December 1996), nothing more has been heard!
A review of the Mailing List meet at Madstock 3, what happened, and who was there!
Madness air new material at Madstock 3! Yes, 3 new tracks were aired for the first time that evening. The first track sounded like something off the “Mad Not Mad” album, the second was a more get-up and-go, and sounded like the new Suggs style, whilst the third, and by far the best song was called “Wonderful” and saw Carl take the front position as singer and acoustic guitar player!
The New Musical Express review Madstock 3, gave it great reviews, but finished with “Stop the Madness NOW!”.
Madness support Simply Red at the Euro ’96 concert. A small section of Madness is aired on BBC1. The new song, “Wonderful” is one of the songs played.
A small round of of Madness URL’s with Mailing List meet information is posted to the group.
Due to the summer vacation the mailing list traffic drops again. This month’s Madpost has a roundup of August related Madness releases over the years. These include: The Prince, Wings of a Dove, Yesterday’s Men, and re-releases of One Step Beyond, Absolutley, and Madness 7.
Details of where to get back issues of the Madness comic are also posted.
The mailing list celebrates it’s first birthday, and the history of the mailing list is the main article of this month’s Madpost.
Jordan Leigh spots some info about NEW MADNESS MATERIAL on ITV’s Chart Show. Suggs told the show that “When we reunited last time we just didn’t come up with the songs that we thought would stand against our old stuff.”
Thanks to Mark Bryant he actually manages to get Mark (Bedders) Bedford to answer questions from the mailing list! He says that if Madness go back in the studio to produce some more material then he’ll probably be there, but as for appearing at Madstocks – probably not.
The great “Video Duplicating Saga” starts up with Matt Hoerman in the USA offering to duplicate NTSC versions of my bootlegs for the US bunch. Little did anyone know that this was to take about 3 months to get completed. This was all down to me so it was my fault!
The mailing list prepares itself for the anticipated deluge of new subscribers appearing as a new uni year starts thus giving more newbies access to the net.
Simon Roberts hears rumours of Madness entering the “John Henry Studios” in London. This is the location of their get togethers before concerts, so could a Christmas tour be on its way?
Suggs releases “No More Alcohol” which is a 2 part CD set, and yes, features those appauling girls – Louchie and Michie!! General view on the list are that this is a crap single. Instead of releasing the excellent album version Suggs releases a re-mix.
Suggs appears on “This Morning” with Richard and Judy for an interview and a live airing of his new single. Suggs looked a bit the worse for wear after a heavy night out.
The mailing list starts to throw a wobbly and every seems to be getting their e-mails bounced back to them. Luckily this problem seems to sort itself out and everything returns to normal.
Diane Cooke starts the “Madness VH1 Campaign”, wherby she attempts to get enough people to persuade VH1 USA to air some Madness material such as “Madstock” or “Take it or Leave it”. The campaign is still underway, so e-mail Diane at: apkat@erols.com for more info.
Adrian Burns returns to the list with his new Demon account and 5 megs of web space to produce some great Madness material! You can see how he’s getting on at: http://www.madstock.demon.co.uk/madness/
Inbar sets up the “Mailing List Archives” which can be obtained at: http://www.rudy.org.il/users/~inbar/maillist/
Jacco sets up the first “Suggs Homepage”. Contents include album track listing for “The Lone Ranger” and samples of some of the tunes. All this can be seen at: http://www.euronet.nl/users/sjaak/Madness/Suggs/Suggshome.html
Rumours of “Song of The Week” returning. Well, if Richard gets his arse in gear 
After the previous month’s fiasco wherby everyone received around 3 copies of the Madpost, I promise that this month each subscriber should only get the one (fingers crossed!).
Darren Bowen’s website URL is posted to the Madpost only to find that the site close down and move.
Simon Roberts tapes Madstock 3 on VH1 and lovingly types out an interview with Lee’s wife, Debbie. She says that Lee is a miserable git at home, and the reason that they got back together was because they were all skint!
Confirmation of a Madstock 4 in 1998 and a “20 Years of Madness” in July 1999, and that’s it.
Adrian Burns posts a request for more hits to his site. I decide to help him out and include his request and site details in the Madpost.
Simon Roberts starts getting worried as time for a Madness Christmas tour is running out fast. He bets that there is going to be a tour. Wish I placed some money on there not being one now
Richard Pounteny eventually puts in the effort, and “Song of the week” returns.
Tom Lawton sets up the Madness Internet Relay Chat channel on Dalnet for all us Maddies to use. It’s getting some use but could do with more people on there. A review of the first IRC session is included in the Madpost.
Yvonne hears rumours of a Suggs tour and finds them to be fact when I find an advert for it in the Daily Mirror that week.
Jordan Leigh sets up a new Madness web site. I won’t risk typing the URL here as it seems to change every 5 minutes
Christopher Byrne painstakingly types in a Suggs interview he’d heard on London’s Capital FM. Suggs says that he’s nervous, but looking forward to the tour.
Karen Lee posts up a couple of Madness merchandise addresses that may or may not still be valid.
Paul Macintosh manages to get hold of a copy of the latest Radio Times before anyone else and reveals that Suggs will be a contestant on “Nevermind the Buzzcocks” on BBC2.
The Madness IRC review pages are set up at: http://www.jabba.demon.co.uk/madness/irc.html
Karen Lee posts up another address for Maddie merchandise. This time it’s a URL for pin badges, and the address is: http://home.dti.net/joly/pins/madness.html
As I write, it’s early December, the mailing list started it’s year struggling to get 50 people subscribed, now that number has just topped the 150 mark!
A number of new web sites have sprung up over the year, and talk of a mailing list meet in April 1997 has been discussed. A number of Stateside Maddies have expressed some interest in this. If anything is deciced you’ll hear about it on the list.
I’m being held personally responsible for a Suggs concert not going ahead. Nuttyboy and Nuttygirl (Lizzy) have come up with their highly realistic (rubs chin) story that one of the Suggs concerts will only go ahead if one more ticket is sold – that ticket being mine! Hmmm. They’re trying all sorts of ways to get me to go but it’s not going to work!
I have a feeling that 1997 is going to be just as action packed as ’96 was, and with more and more people subscribing all the time I think the topics could prove to be quite interesting!
Keep em coming!
The Author
