Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 810 – Sunday 16th November to Saturday 22nd November 2014
Hello Madheads
Have you got your madhead fancy dress ready? Do you look like an historic iconic madhead, or have you gone for dress as you think madheads like us should madly dress? Whatever your interpretation, in your own madhead, there are prizes to be won and fun to be had for the 4th House of Fun Weekender is nearly here. It’s this coming Friday!
We’ll possibly have a little bit of info at the end of the next issue detailing how brilliantly the Dangermen and Invaders set (which is happening this Friday night) went. Bedders has already tweeted the chords to Mistakes, and fans have worked out Stepping Into Line is at rehearsal stages too! We won’t be featuring much news next week. Just a footnote on it, as MIS 811 is already written, and it’s a special issue. It’s the 2014 Mad Chart results. In Full.
This cart is the Top 100 Madness songs ranked as you, the fans, voted them in our year long polling. The 6th Madchart even polled in full online. Find out which song is top and we profile it. There’s some bonus charts also this time, and the other 100 songs that fell by the wayside and didn’t chart are roughly grouped into 4 batches of highest to lowest votes, with a lone song sitting ignored at the bottom.
Which is the best single and the worst? How have the last two Madness album’s fared with their new songs? All of the songs have been cross referenced with the last Madchart from 2008 so you can see climbers, fallers and new entries, and look at how opinions have changed for the massive shifts, or stayed steady for the little movement songs. The last Madchart was split across a couple of MIS issues, with lots of fun waffle, but this one is fully displayed simply and plainly listed all together in one issue, (though we may do some future MIS features for the top 100 songs to the detail level the 2008 chart did).
The mad chart issue will go out around evening time after the live MIS Sunday DJ show reveals the Top 40 in Jaks bar from 5pm on the weekender itself. Come along and join us if you are attending. We’ve a few Mad Head things, some great songs, and plenty of Madness tunes in a Top of the Pops like run down of the top 40. Come and take your pictures with Ron: The Drum Machine from Madness 1986! who will be with us for the first time in 28 years. We’ve vocal appearances from Darren Jones of the Iconics, Pop Parodies from Get Giro Spend Giro Sleep, The Nutty Bar’s Reverend Toon will be performing something unique and definitive article, and Harry Wandsworth will be joining us. Owen Collins and Mr Scurf will be on hand with short DJ sets of Specialized: Mad not cancer album’s finest up beat skankers and rocking tunes.
Noy only that, but we’ve three amazing live bands. Darren Fordham front’s Reece, the band is back after 15years, to Rock the Jaks-bar, Ray Gudge brings the Swagga for rude boy hip hop and witty rap, and The Inflatables return for Two Tone dance party, all set to be a party to end Sunday night, after Madness themselves have amazed and entertained the entire holiday park two nights in a row with two alter-egos alongside for the price of just them, and left us all very happy.
We’ll see you there in just one week’s time!
Jonathan 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
November 2014
November 21st – 24th 2014 – Minehead – Last places on sale (4 person plus) http://www.bigweekends.com/splash-pages/madness2014.aspx
December 2014
All for the M.A.D.H.E.A.D Tour
*NEW* SUPPORT BAND. Madness have announced “Scouting For Girls” as the support band for all tour dates. (Except Ireland. No support Brighton Matinee, and see separate poster for all the acts at The House Of Fun. Scouting for Girls are not at the weekender.)
Thursday 4th, Capital FM Arena, Nottingham
Friday 5th, Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff
Saturday 6th, Brighton Centre, Brighton, Matinee
Saturday 6th, Brighton Centre, Brighton * SOLD OUT *
Monday 8th, Plymouth Pavillions, Plymouth
Tuesday 9th, Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth
Thursday 11th, First Direct Arena, Leeds
Friday 12th, Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle
Saturday 13th, LG Arena, The NEC, Birmingham
Monday 15th, Odyssey Arena, Belfast
Tuesday 16th, The O2 Dublin, Dublin
Thursday 18th, The SSE Hydro, Glasgow
Friday 19th, Phones 4u Arena, Manchester
Saturday 20th, The O2 Arena, London
Links to purchase tickets for the above tour can be found at: http://madness.seetickets.com/tour/madness/?pre=premad&src=madnesspre
For tickets also see links via: www.madness.co.uk
2015
The 2015 House Of Fun Weekender has now been announced as prize worthy. (Venue location confirmation and dates to follow)
Suggs
March 2015
12th March – An Evening With Suggs and Friends, in aid of Pancreatic Cancer UK. Held at The Emirates Stadium. At £160 a ticket we’re not sure if many MIS readers will be attending! http://www.thegigcompany.org/events/pcuk2015/
Deaf School
November
Thursday 20 November, The Borderline, London
Friday 21 November, Academy, Manchester
Saturday 22 November, Trades, Hebden Bridge
Sunday 23 November, Floral Pavilion Theatre, New Brighton
BUY IT
If money’s currently burning a hole in your pocket then perhaps we can help with your dilemma.
Madness – One Step Beyond 35th Anniversary edition CD.
You can now order the new edition of One Step Beyond 35th Anniversary, from Salvo Sound & Vision:
This Anniversary edition has been digitally re-mastered from the original 1⁄4 inch tapes by Tim Turan, and comes with recently unearthed rehearsal recordings from 1979, including two songs that have never appeared anywhere before. “Lost my head” and “Sunshine Voice”. It’s also very interesting to see Absolutely album track “You Said” on the rehearsal tape and Grey Day B-side “Memories” as well as hearing versions of tracks that made the album some 5 months before the debut LP was recorded.
Hear previews of these tracks, and help yourself to a free download. You can even re-name the album, creating pictures you can share with people. Visit the mini site to do all this: http://www.madness.co.uk/one-step-beyond-35/
There is a DVD of videos and Top of the Pops/Old Grey Whistle Test appearances, that includes the Young Guns documentary, and a 24 page booklet that speaks to Clive, Alan and Chris about the album.
FAB TOONES EXTRA APRIL 1979 Rehearsal DOWNLOADS
iTunes Exclusive Tracks. – There’s Always Something There to Remind Me. Shop Around.
Amazon.co.uk Exclusive Tracks. – Swan Lake. Rockin in Ab.
Madness.co.uk Exclusive Free Downloads. Madness. My Mates.
The M.A.D.H.E.A.D Tour T-shirt – Get it now.
What does any self respecting Madhead wear? The only true fan clothing of choice right now is surely the brand new Madhead T-shirt. Available now at least five months ahead of the tour, this T-shirt is so NOW! You can look stylish in it in a range of sizes, you can promote this summer, the forthcoming tour and help your heroes and of course in this day and age by buying the bands official clothing you are putting your money into the future new album project pot etc of the band who exist these days on their own self produced record label.
Available here… Via See Tickets and Madness.co.uk
Cathal Smyth – A Comfortable Man – Limited Vinyl
Numbered 1 to 1000, this is a limited edition vinyl of “A Comfortable Man”, with a download code for the mp3 album. Available end of September from Cathal’s website. The album will also be available from Amazon and iTunes soon.
SPECIALIZED: Mad Not Cancer. 4CD covers album for Teenage Cancer Trust
Over 70 tracks. 4 CDs. Cover versions of Madness by not just Ska bands but lots of young up and coming acts of many genres including a few famous pop stars and Bedders on one track, too. All for Teenage Cancer.
http://www.specialized-project.co.uk/#!shop/c1atu (remove hyphen from URL)
BE STIFF. The Stiff Records Story. Richard Balls.
Product ID: ISBN_978-0957570061
£16.99 New
STOP PRESS
Two Spaces Available For House of Fun Weekender
At short notice (due to illness affecting my original travelling companion) I have two spaces for Minehead available.
Accommodation is one twin room (for TWO people). It is room only, although food court can be added one arrival at Butlin’s.
Due to the extreme short notice please contact me by phone on 01634 578308 (if I don’t answer please leave a message) or by email vizcomiccollector@blueyonder.co.uk
The cost is a maximum of £148 per person.
Paul Rodgers
SIGN OF THE TIMES
Madhead Tattoos and Madhead Tour Programme Writing
Got a Madness related Tattoo?
We want to feature some in the Madhead Tour programme.
Email a picture of it along with the story behind it to: info@madness.co.uk
The Madhead tour programme, is also looking for text now from you madheads. So please have a go at answering one or all of these questions below on the bands Facebook page, they will include as much as they can in the programme…
Who would you nominate as a Madhead and why?
Could be yourself, a friend or anyone – famous or obscure, rich or poor.
If you were asked to create a Drink/Beer/Cocktail or Wine based on a Madness song or album what would it be and what would it consist of?
And as we are celebrating the 35th anniversary, tell us about the time you went One Step Beyond and what were the consequences?
The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show
Madness were in town this morning to chat with Ian about their gig in Dublin on Dec 16th. Topics include: Dinosaur Rock, their first gig & dodgy airline croque-monsieurs. Podcast here.
“Suggs claims to have a 40 minute song called Jazz Oddessy! (might be joking you think 
) but confirms some new song or songs for the tour.”
When asked about the Madhead name on the poster Mike replies “It’s Chas’ concept and he’s not here with us to answer that, today”
Suggs claims to be working on a hologram to send out on tour, so he can dance in his underpants and his gold suit is then superimposed over him and shown on stage.
The End – 1979 Madness
Peter Hooton of The Farm, and once managed by Suggs, also ran a Liverpool fanzine called THE END.
Here, on the blog, are some Liverpool 1979 stories of the band’s first gig outside London, told by a fan who was there and who was lucky enough to meet them…
http://the-end-fanzine.blogspot.it/2012/11/more-madness-memories-end-fanzine-co.html
Madness at Erics- supporting the Specials in 1979 (part 1)
I first heard of Madness during my post punk and pre-skinhead phase. I dressed like a f*ckin welsh miner on acid…hair (yes, I had hair once!) spiked upwards, donkey jacket covered in punk badges, military shirt, drainpipe kecks and Beatle boots. What a f*ckin knob I was!…
Anyway…I read a few minor reviews about chaotic gigs in the east end of London and of the impending release of their debut single …a tribute to Jamaican Ska legend Prince Buster, The Prince (b- side, a cover of prince Busters old Jamaican classic, “Madness”. It was to be released on the, then relatively unknown, Two Tone label. They hadn’t gone national yet and I had to order it (without ever having heard it) from Probe, where I was surprised that, the fountain of knowledge, Jeff, hadn’t even heard of them.
About 10 days later I popped into probe like the excited teenager that I actually was, to pick up my potential sh*t or brilliant 7” piece of vinyl. As luck would have it…my faithful shop servant in probe that day was Pete Burns. (He of “Dead of Alive” and Celebratory resurrect my career please, Brother). I asked the charming assistant with the 3ft high lacquered black hair, 5” long chin and microscopically thin lips if my order had arrived and his response was something along the lines of, “ee yar,… it’s f*ckin sh*t”….
He was wrong of course, it was f*ckin brilliant…it was far removed from the original Jamaican ska I’d gotten into as a skinhead…but I loved it! It was more vibrant, had a real DIY feel to it to give it a current (a, la ‘79) UK feel….I played it incessantly, got all me mates into it (it only took one listen).
Within a few weeks I found out they were playing Eric’s…So, as per the norm in those days, me and my old St. Nicholas RC school mate, Mick Hanwratty went down to Mathew street on the Saturday afternoon in question, to hang around outside the Eric’s stage door on the off chance we could help whatever band was playing carry their gear in and to try and blag our way on the guest list.
Madness were supporting The Specials. The Specials were becoming big news….they were right on the cusp of breaking through to the big time. Although they hadn’t released an album at that point…they’d had some chart success with brilliant single, “Gangsters”.
We didn’t have to wait long before a, rag arsed, minivan pulled up and one of its young motley crew asked, “this Eric’s mate”? …..”Yeah mate….are youse “Madness”??? We enquired……….. “F*ck off yer cheeky c*nts!..we’re The Specials!
To read the rest of the story check out THE END Blog at the above link.
MIS FEATURE – ALL TOGETHER NOW
#ALLTOGETHERNOW
Text Get Peace to 84222
Single will be released December 15th. Supporting the Red Cross.
Produced by Suggs, The Farm featuring guests The Peace Collective.
Launch – http://youtu.be/4Tub-bhiHDM
Peter Hooton wrote the lyrics in his early 20’s after reading about the extraordinary events on the Western Front during Christmas 1914 – it is fundamentally a song about peace and reconciliation.
No Man’s Land (6 verses) was recorded for a John Peel session in the 1980s but in 1990 Peter wrote the chorus after Steve Grimes suggested putting lyrics of No Man’s Land to the music of Pachelbel’s Canon. To shorten the song for radio Suggs (original producer in 1990) decided to lose the last 3 verses. It has been used by numerous football teams since.
Hooton has quoted “The unauthorised spontaneous truce 100 years ago was a unique act of humanity amidst the horrors of trench warfare. A triumph of humanity over conflict. There are numerous accounts of British and German troops greeting each other, conversing, swapping presents and even playing football in No Man’s Land on Christmas Day 1914. On some parts of the front the ‘truce’ lasted several days and in some instances well into January as soldiers on both sides were reluctant to resume the fighting.”
Peter Hooton explained “there is a lot of debate about the causes of the First World War, who was to blame and emphasis on the horrors and futility of the tactics employed but we would like people to concentrate on this incredible moment when ordinary soldiers came together. This event should be cherished and publicised as an incredibly unique moment in the history of conflict throughout the ages.”
Public Image Ltd’s Jah Wobble appears on the single along with Alexandra Burke, Guy Chambers, Gorgon City, Gabrielle, The Proclaimers, Engelbert Humperdinck, Holly Johnson, John Power, Jane McDonald, I Am Kloot, Shara Nelson, Amelle Berrabah, Jermain Jackson and The Farm. A schoolboy choir also appear with Premier League and German Bundesliga footballers.
The Farm’s Peter Hooton reports: “It was a spontaneous act of humanity that transcended the horrors and barbarity of World War One and is a story which still resonates 100 years on.
It’s a story of hope and peace which should be told over and over again. I’m so very proud that so many artists from all styles of music and football authorities have come together to promote peace and reconciliation this Christmas.”
I REMEMBER WAY BACK WHEN – PART 1
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 550 – Sunday 15th November – Saturday 21st November 2009
It seemed as if the popularity of our favourite band knew no bounds. As dates in the forthcoming Christmas tour continued to sell out further dates continued to be added.
The latest addition to the line-up was Wolverhampton Civic Hall, on Thursday 17th of December.
We’d been saying it, and we’d continue to do so – if you wanted to see the band live this Christmas and had yet to get tickets you needed to get your skates on.
This week we also learned that the band were in the early planning stages of putting together a coffee table type book, which would hopefully feature input from each member of the group. We’re not too sure what happened to this one.
Next, and wanting to know if the recent Madness single release of Sugar and Spice was the start of a trend of digital only singles for the band, fan Mark (surname not given) decided to get the lowdown from Mr. Foreman himself…
“Hi Chris,
Hope you and the lads are keeping well. Will there be any more singles released for the upcoming tour and christmas market? I heard a rumour the band wanted to make a xmas song to try and knock the crap X Factor garbage from getting the top spot.
Many regards, Mark”.
“It’s Forever Young in a real physical format – no ‘downloads only’…This is it, a hit I think.
CB”
In magazine news we reported that the current issue of The Word featured the triumphant returns of The Specials and Madness. Subscriber Owen Collins told us that Madness and The Specials each got four pages of magazine devoted to them, along with a selection of brand new photos. He also added that the font was small, so there was a lot of reading for you.
Moving on to re-release news, and Chris Carter-Pegg stepped in with details on how to identify the new release of The Liberty of Norton Folgate album, and highlighted some of the cheapest places to get hold of a copy. Paul Rodgers was also on hand to provide information on the differences between this and the original release.
Continuing with Paul, and this issue played host to another one of his Madness facts, figures and stats. The big news was that the new silver edition of Norton Folgate had massively boosted sales of the album, but not enough to get it back into the top 75.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that the forthcoming Children in Need would take place on Friday 20th November, and would see various musical acts, including Madness, take to the stage.
10 years ago…
Issue number 288 – Sunday 14th November to Saturday 20th November 2004
This time last week it was looking like Suggs’ appearance on the next series of “I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here”, was looking to be very likely indeed. However, it came down to one Graham Whitfield to get to the bottom of the mystery and let us know what was going on.
Here’s what he had to say at the time;
“From reading this morning’s Sun, (13th Nov) I gather that Suggs is no longer in consideration for ‘I’m a celebrity……’
The paper printed what it claimed to be a ‘final line-up’ of the celebrity contestants, but there was no mention of Suggs, even though they were still speculating on Thursday that he would join the show.
Apparently, now in the frame is Andrew Ridgeley, so it looks like they’ve lowered their sights somewhat”.
MIS Online, in search of further information stumbled upon the unofficial `Get me Out of Here` web site, and went straight to the message boards.
Although filled with topic after topic of rumours, and idle chit-chat, the forum maintainer had thankfully made the latest IAC news a pinned item at the top of the page. The announcement merely detailed what had been printed in The Sun, meaning that Suggs was not listed.
A couple of weeks ago one Mark Bedford got the Madness fanbase into a frenzy of digital editing as those with the time and skills busied themselves adding various funky hair-dos to Bedders’ balding bonce.
After sifting through a mass of entries, two winners were eventually selected in the form of Elizabeth Quinby and Andrew Stone. The two winners were offered prizes of hair care products or a hat. What did they go for? We have no idea!
With news being a tad thin on the ground this week we decided to run another one of our mimics of Madness articles, where we looked at forthcoming gigs for numerous Madness tribute bands. Bands covered in this article were One Step Behind, Badness, Los Palmas 6 and One Step Below.
We finished off this issue with news on the next gig for North London band MOT, and we reported that Simon Roberts had been brought in to the MIS fold as web designer and maintainer. Simon had been busy behind the scenes for a number of weeks and was close to making an early version of the site available for viewing.
15 years ago…
Issue number 26 – Sunday 14th November – Saturday 20th November 1999
It was now mid November. Christmas was fast approaching, and it was only 4 weeks until the Madness Christmas tour would kick off. Our advice was that you should really think about buying a ticket within the next week or so if you were planning to go along to one of the shows. Billed as `The Maddest Show on Earth`, the dates and venues were:
13 December (Mon) – The Point, Dublin
15 December (Wed) – International Arena, Cardiff
16 December (Thu) – Brighton Centre, Brighton
17 December (Fri) – International Centre, Bournemouth
18 December (Sat) – Evening News Arena, Manchester
19 December (Sun) – Birmingham
20 December (Mon) – Telewest Arena, Newcastle
22 December (Wed) – Wembley Arena, London
23 December (Thu) – Wembley Arena, London
This week we discovered that most of us were missing something from inside our “Wonderful” CD cases. What? A small card giving you the opportunity to fill in your details and sign-up to the official Madness postal list. You had no need to panic, though, as we were able to pass on the POBOX address so you could get signed-up, and ensure you were kept up to date on the very irregular postings from the band.
One week after the UK launch of Wonderful, we discovered that the album had also been released to the Argentinean public. Musimundo, (apparently the biggest record shop in Buenos Aires), displayed Wonderful CDs in their news section.
Here, artists who had new releases that week shared the same shelves. Madness however, had an entire shelf devoted to Wonderful. Perhaps there were one or two Maddies amongst the store staff. Also, instead of importing the album from the UK, it was actually made in Argentina. Another item for the collectors, do doubt.
If the rumours were true, next Monday would see the third Madness box set, `The Lot` hit the UK music stores. Like the new album and second single, this new collection had witnessed a number of release date changes and there were whisperings that the release has been put back yet another week to Monday 29th November. The majority of music stores were advertising the release date as 22nd November, so we advised readers to start their box-set hunting then. Not only had the release dates been ever-changing, but the prices seemed to have been completely random depending on where you looked. However, news just in was that HMV and MVC were charging 23.99 (UK pounds) and were advertising the 22nd as the day of release.
Those who’d already got hold of the UK version of `Wonderful` and fancied something a little different we recommended that they try and hunt down the recently released Japanese version of the album. Maddies amazed at the absence of `You’re Wonderful` from the UK album would hopefully be happy to see the aforementioned track appear on the foreign edition along with the recent b-side, `Round and Round`.
The full track listing was as follows;
01. Lovestruck
02. Johnny the horse
03. The communicator
04. 4am
05. The wizard
06. Drip fed fred
07. Going to the top
08. Elysium
09. Saturday night Sunday morning
10. If I didn’t care
11. You’re wonderful
12. No money
13. Round and round
If you knew your SNES from your Megadrive and your Saturn from your Playstation, that chances were that you knew Sega recently released its 128-bit marvel, Dreamcast, onto a game-hungry world. Not only could this machine play games, but it was the first console to come with built-in internet access. Obviously we had to force ourselves to buy one of these new machines, and after the initial few days which saw 50’000 UK DC owners attempt to log-on in one hour, thus frying the server, we eventually logged on. The machine came with it’s own built-in browser as part of the Dream Key software, and although some pages did appear a tad strangely, we were amazed to see that the official Madness site looked fantastic on a large screen TV. If you had one of these new machines we recommended that you took a look at the official site using it. It really looked like it was specially designed for the new machine.
We finished off this week’s issue with a massive review of The Lot, and interview with Suggs, all kindly typed-up by subscriber Stephie Figgis.
Rob Hazelby
I REMEMBER WAY BACK WHEN – PART 2
As next week’s issue of the MIS is a dedicated Madchart special we’re featuring part 2 of our “I Remember Way Back When” articles. Here you can find out what happened 5, 10 and 15 years ago next week in the world of Madness.
Normal service will be resumed after next week’s issue.
5 years ago…
Issue number 551 – Sunday 22nd November – Saturday 28th November 2009
Just missing out on last week’s MIS was the news that promo copies of Forever Young were starting to do the rounds. Probably of more interest to most of you was that the promos were sporting a sticker detailing a release date of the 11th of January.
We recommend you don’t get too excited, though. Release dates for the band’s albums and singles had been known to slip many times in the past, so until we got the date from an official email, web site or see the physical product on the shelves of a music shop we wouldn’t be getting too excited.
Madness had appeared on the BBC’s Children in Need show a number of times since it first hit our screens way back in 1980, so it came as no surprise when a few weeks back we learned that they’d be making an appearance this year.
Many, including ourselves, were expecting the band to be performing over the top of a pre-recorded track, so it was a pleasant surprise when the band (minus Bedders) came on stage and performed It Must be Love, live.
Once finished, Suggs remained on stage for another couple of minutes to natter with various Children in Need presenters.
Next it was on to interviews as Zani web site editor Matteo Sadazzari kindly gave us permission to re-print their interview with Carl Smyth. The interview was a lengthy one and took up the majority of the issue.
We brought this issue to a close with Paul Rodgers and another one of his weekly Madness Chart Musings. After a run of 8 weeks Total Madness had finally departed from the top 75, while the re-release of Norton Folgate had propelled the album to 112 in the album chart. This related to approximately 2000 sales in the previous week. Not bad at all.
10 years ago…
Issue number 289 – Sunday 21st November to Saturday 27th November 2004
We started off this week’s issue with a brief mention of Suggs’ appearance at this year’s Children in Need TV show, which saw our favourite frontman take part in a re-make of the Our House video.
This video featuredTV makeover stars such as Linda Barker, “Handy” Andy, Graham Wynne etc. It started (and finished) with the original opening zoom-in shot of a terraced house, and the bit in between was for charity.
The set was a recreation of the Our House house, containing various cloth-capped D.I.Y celebrities gurning and winking to a play-back of the original song, with good old Suggs his usual self. Quite amusing, although the sight of Suggs pretending to play sax was somewhat disconcerting to many a Madness fan.
On to this week’s MIS, and as readers at the time could no doubt see from the contents, we’d stumbled into a rather quiet week, meaning that unfortunately there was little for is to report on. Our advice was that you read through this very slowly indeed.
This issue featured only two proper articles – the first was a heads up to readers based in the Newcastle Upon Tyne area, to let them know that local band Shut Up would be next taking to the stage on Sunday 28th of November. With top Beat tracks like “Mirror in the Bathroom”, “Tears of a Clown” and “Ranking Full Stop” likely to be aired, it was looking like a top night out.
The other article was an update from Jermaine from Tour Madness, who wrote in to tell us that the latest release of his Madness tour bible was now available.
We brought this issue to a close with news in from Graham Whitfield, who reported that this coming Tuesday the Biography Channel would be showing a programme focusing on Madness. Information was non existent on this production, so we’d have to wait and see what exactly it covered.
15 years ago…
Issue number 27 – Sunday 21st November to Saturday 27th November 1999
With the tour mere weeks away we hoped that the majority of you had purchased or were awaiting delivery of your Madness tickets. If you were still deciding to buy, then time wasn’t on your side. In the last issue we reported how you should start thinking of getting your tickets if you were planning to come along to one of the shows, and this week Simon Roberts told us that www.aloud.com were already out of tickets for Brighton, Bournemouth and Wembley with Cardiff and Manchester also set to sell out within the next couple of days. Our advice – get that credit card out and get on the phone!
This week we had good news for all you fanzine collectors out there.
We’d just received a brief bulletin from Juliet Carter who told us that issue 7 of the excellent `Ska-Mad` was now doing the rounds.
Congratulations went to Juliet from all at MIS, as Juliet finally got herself hitched on the 9th of October.
Moving on, and we had a small snippet in from the TMML’s very own Wozza, who gave us a heads up to inform us that on Saturday 20th of November, BBC’s Radio 2 played the excellent Wonderful album track, `Drip Fed Fred`. Could this mean that Radio 2 know something we didn’t?
Perhaps it was lined-up to be the next single. Only time would tell.
After waiting and waiting, it looked like the long-awaited Madness box-set, `The Lot` would be released tomorrow (22nd Nov), in the UK at least. The set featured all the studio albums from `One Step Beyond` to `Mad Not Mad`, and as usual, the almighty Vince Foley wandered down to his HMV in Cork where as luck would have it, they had it on sale early! What did the near Vince think of the new box-set? All would be revealed elsewhere in the issue where he gave us an in-depth review, starting from the cover and going right through the booklet, the videos and more!
This issue featured some fantastic chart news, where we revealed that in the Amazon UK album charts at least, the Wonderful album had entered the charts at an extremely respectable 5!
News in from NuttyBoys.com revealed that the Sonic Sessions Volume 3 was about to see the light of day. Why would this be of interest to Madness fans? Well, the album featured ‘Our House’, from the session recorded at the Y100 Sonic Session on May 2nd 1999. The CD would be sold in all local Philadelphia outlets of Tower Records, Sam Doody, The Wall and HMV.
Madness weren’t the only band who were about to have a busy time ahead of themselves, as this issue we listed all the forthcoming gigs for One Step Behind which were due to take place between December and February. With 11 gigs lined-up, most only Friday’s and Saturday’s, the band would have some packed weekends ahead of them!
We finished off this week’s issue with news, courtesy of The Maddest Show on Earth web site, who told us that the band had recently been recording their own version of the Abba classic “Money, Money, Money”. What was more exciting was that this track would be appearing in a forthcoming Abba tribute album, entitled Abbamania.
Rob Hazelby
SPECIALIZED
PAUL Williams, the leading authority on all things Ska and 2Tone, has compiled a third album of specially recorded cover versions to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
“We started with the Specialized album of Specials covers, which went superbly, and a year later the theme was The Beat,” says the York ska historian, biographer, concert promoter, website administrator and lead singer of the ska revue band The Skapones to boot.
“In the first two years, we’ve raised over £50,000 so far, and this year is our biggest project yet. For Specialized III, we’re covering Madness and we’ve compiled a huge four-CD box set. It’s gone even better than the other two and really caught the imagination“ Indeed so; Specialized III – Mad Not Cancer assembles 74 new cover versions from the canon of Camden’s vaudevillian Nutty Boys.
“It was two-fold thing starting up these fund-raising records,” says Paul. “When The Specials re-formed, I was administrating their website and got to see their seceret comeback show at Bestival, when they raised £9,000 for charity just through guest-list tickets paying £5 for a ticket, and I thought, ‘how do we keep this fundraising in the public eye?’.
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“Then I saw a programme on the Teenage Cancer Trust, which made me think how teenage years should be the best time of your life but not in those circumstances. I know a few bands and so I came up with the idea of doing a record and it grew from there.”
Rather than merely gathering ska versions, Paul decided to broaden the musical horizons. ”We thought, wouldn’t it be it be interesting to stretch it beyond ska to folk, punk, electro (my brother, John Williams, is the hardcore trance DJ, DJ Onex),” saysPaul.
The project has grown and grown through the power of Facebook and social media. “On this new record we have bands from Australia, America, the Philippines, France and Germany, and Japanese musicians have been in touch about contributing to the next one,” says Paul.
“With it being Madness this time, it ended up being four CDs, because Madness fans are across the board, with a lot of female fans and a pop following, whereas Specials fans are more specialised with the Rude Boys culture.”
Paul has dedicated a year to each album, culminating in a three-day festival at Sandford Holiday Park in Poole, and come January he starts all over again, setting bands a recording deadline of April.
New addition Mad Not Cancer has the backing of Madness frontman Suggs, who has “done a little publicity video for us”, while band member Lee Thompson is a “big supporter of Specialized”, recording an acoustic, stripped-back version of Madness for the project.
Comedian Phill Jupitus is among the contributors. “Porky Poet; that’s Phill Jupitus, doing the words of Keep Moving with searing guitar by Terry Edwards,” says Paul.
“We also have Neil Innes, Madness bassist Mark Bedford, Dennis Bovell, Dexys’ Big Jim Paterson, Desmond Dekker’s band members and The Specials’ Horace Panter doing recordings for us. It’s been fantastic.”
Specialized III – Mad Not Cancer can be ordered from Specials2 Records at specializedproject.co.uk
The Press, York.
MIS Editors note: Well done for helping MIS this year Paul. And have a great Big One 3, we will see you there.
TWEETS OF A DOVE & THAT FACEBOOK
“So… the preparation begins aka ‘if I had a penny for every song I had to learn” (Picture of the chords to Mistakes)
TIME…
Craig Charles has been given Madhead status on the announcement of his not appearing at this year at the House of Fun Weekender. Why? Well, he’s due to appear on TV show “I’m a Celebrity Get me out of Here”.
Next, and if you’d like to win tickets to see Madness at the Odyssey Arena you may want to check out this link:
http://www.downtown.co.uk/win/win-tickets-to-see-madness/
(Closing date for the above competition is 6th December)
Finally, for all those of you going to the Madness Weekender, have fun at the house of fun. Please send us in your reviews and thoughts on the weekender. We may use them in MIS 812 which will be our post house of fun issue
Next week it’s our special Mad Chart issue. So, until next week, take care,
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Shannan McBride)
The Author
