Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 833 – Sunday 26th April to Saturday 2nd May 2015
Evening all,
The TV adverts for the return of Sunday Night At The Palladium are now airing, so we begin this issue we your reminder that the recorded performance featuring Madness is scheduled to air in one week. The date is this coming Sunday night, May 3rd on ITV1.
If you can’t wait for more Madness on TV, BBC4’s reruns of Top of the Pops this week reached the first performance of Night Boat To Cairo.
The blurb from the BBC web site reads; “David ‘Kid’ Jensen presents chart hits of the week, with performances from Madness, Barbara Dickson, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, the Pretenders, BA Robertson, the Lambrettas, Prima Donna and the Jam, and a dance sequence by Legs & Co.”
You can check it out at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05s4pk9/top-of-the-pops-03041980
Now, on with the issue,
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
2015
March 12th – The Emirates Stadium – This week “The Gig Company” has announced Madness appearing at Suggs & Friends charity event in the line up (see below).
GRANDSLAM
“Sporting theatres jumping with joy is the goal. Grandslam Madness – the greatest open air tour in the history of Rock & Roll…”
May
29 – Lincoln City Football Club
30 – Gloucester Rugby Club
June
3 Chelmsford City Racecourse
6 – Portsmouth, Fratton Park *** General tickets sold out ***
26 – Newmarket Racecourses
27 – Doncaster Racecourse
28 – Hove, Sussex County Cricket Club
July
2 – Silverstone Circuit
3 – St Helens, Haydock Park Racecourse
4 – Carlisle Racecourse
5 – Montrose, East Links, Scotland
9 – Epsom Downs Racecourse
10 – Chepstow Racecourse
11 – Rhyll Outdoor Events Arena
September
11 – Canterbury, Kent County Cricket Club
12 – Bristol, Gloucester County Cricket Club
13 – London, On Blackheath
18 – Leeds, Yorkshire County Cricket Club
25 – Wolverhampton
26 – Chester-le-Street, Durham County Cricket Club
November 2015
November 20th – 23rd 2014 – Minehead – The House Of Fun Weekender Five
Early bird tickets on sale now
Near Jazz Experience
May
19th – NEAR JAZZ EXPERIENCE + Support + DJ
Indo 133 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1DT *Free*
Visit: https://www.facebook.com/NearJazzExperience
The Silencerz ft. Lee Thompson
May
9th The Junction, Cambridge, Support Terry Hall (DJ set)
The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra
July
24th Llangollen Town Hall, Denbrighshire, Wales (Fringe Festival Event)
August
1st The Garage Highbury, London
Cathal Smyth
May
13th Boogaloo Soho – TALK EVENT NOT A CONCERT. *** New ***
14th Shepard’s Bush Hall London. W12.
Clang Group
Thursday 23 April – Surya, Kings Cross, London
Deaf School
June
5th – The Garage, Highbury, London
BUY IT
The Grandslam Tour T-Shirt
It’s 5 weeks until the Grandslam begins. You can get the latest official Madness T-shirt here…
http://madness.sandbaghq.com/home/charcoal-grandslam-t-shirt-online-exclusive.html
The charcoal grey T-shirt (available in small or large sizes) costs £20 and is exclusive to the Madshop. It’s also available in advance of the tour, which is nice
New Accessories
Brand new Madness vinyl stickers.
Cover your pencil case, fridge, exercise book, vinyl boxes, hamster cage, wallet, picture frame, tooth brush holder, local lamppost, envelopes, passing double decker busses, birthday cards, mobile phone case or other, with new Madness stickers. In 6 piece sets of classic M’s or a union jack worded M.
Also now available – Madness Brewing Company. Bottle Opener.
http://madness.sandbaghq.com/left-menu-madness/accessories.html/
A Comfortable Man – Cathal Smyth solo album. Signed Packages Now Available.
Remaining limited LP’s, CD and download. Album available May 11th.
Signed Super Deluxe Bundles are now available, containing the Limited LP, CD and download editions. The preview track and single download instantly, and you also get a pack of 10 art postcards. The album is available in a Digipack CD with 8 page booklet.
More info at: http://cathalsmyth.tmstor.es/ Price – £28.99
If you attended the Wilton’s music hall gig and already have the LP, or if you are only interested in certain items there are a range of other buy options available. Signed CD’s separately. Etc.
In Your Mind – Woody Woodgate solo album.
Pre-Order Now on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00TZEMCMQ
OR IF YOU WOULD LIKE A SIGNED ALBUM INSTEAD http://www.propermusic.com/product-details/Woody-Woodgate-In-Your-Mind-Ltd-Autographed-Edition-188454
Album released June 1st. 13 tracks with new band line up and vocalist Dan Shears.
SIGN OF THE TIMES
Woody on Radio Essex
https://soundcloud.com/radioessex/woody-from-madness-chats-to-tracie-young#t=6:59
Woody chats to Tracie Young on Radio Essex. Hear the interview above on soundcloud.
Woody talks about Madness and the Grandslam coming to Chelmsford soon. Also discussing his forthcoming solo album, In Your Mind.
Cathal Smyth On Loose ends
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qvn6j
Cathal Smyth appeared as a guest on BBC radio 4’s Loose Ends, talking with guests actor Christopher Eccleston, and Mary Wilson from The Supremes. Carl enthused about the talent on the show, and talked about the open process of writing his latest album.
Are The Children Happy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pl3vb
Talking Musical Revolutions Talks to Carl
http://www.talkingmusicalrevolutions.com/#!Mr-SmashSenor-Smyth/cyho/553039430cf2251855a11c6f
Cathal Smyth aka Chas Smash of Madness will be the guest at the next Talking Musical Revolutions at The Boogaloo in North London on May 13.
After over 35 years in one of the most loved and consistently brilliant bands of their generation Cathal has just completed A Comfortable Man his first solo album.
The road to A Comfortable Man has been long and eventful involving a relationship break up, a spell in rehab, exile in Ibiza and it has resulted in a set of songs ripe with poignant melodies and perfectly formed expressions of loss, love, life and recovery.
Cathal will be in conversation with Gavin Martin and tickets can be purchased in advance from ticketweb (£8 plus booking fee, £10 on the door on the night). But we are also giving away 2 free tickets visit the above link to see details.
MIS FEATURE – THE SKA ORCHESTRA RECORD AND PLAY ALBUM TWO
Last Sunday afternoon at The Dublin Castle, the Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra took to the stage, just about all fitting on.
The gig had been advertised only on Facebook to the fans group, assuring a small audience of dedicated fans turning up for the Sunday afternoon, along with a few band guests.
The purpose of the gig was to air the new second album live as a try out. Made up of songs written by the band and new selected covers, a mixture of instrumentals and vocal tracks all in the ska mode, the familiar sound of the band now with extra guitars.
For a tenner entry, a packed out Dublin Castle backroom received plenty of cheers and a great atmosphere for the new tracks and gave the band more confidence in the material. All of which worked pretty well in live mode. New soundtrack like tune “Wild Western Standard Time” penned by Bob the Bone, received the biggest reaction lifting the roof off with it’s classic feel like a ska version of a sergio leone soundtrack.
Bedders: “You know, they made all of those spaghetti westerns in Spain….’cos it was cheaper”
Kev Burdett: “Wouldn’t that have made them paella westerns?”
There was a raffle too and some lucky winners got some bargains free from the merchandise stall, which also had a couple of signed CD’s and albums. By the end of the 13 song set, the band played on throwing Soon you’ll be gone, Broadway Jungle, and Ali Babba on top for the crowd for good measure.
Jeff Baynes veteran Madness video cameraman man filmed the concert from in the crowd on a steady cam. A big thank you to all who attended for not filming on camera phones, as requested. This will the band to consider what best to do with this footage. Future video promotion for the forthcoming album or a release of some kind? And it help keeps the album under wraps still to all ears that couldn’t attend last Sunday.
Following the triumphant gig of new material the band headed into London Studios this week and laid down the tracks over three days of sessions, before Thompson headed to Brighton to get the results so far mixed.
Mark Bedford @I_be_MarkB
“Working on the new Ska Orchestra LP. The shades? Old Jamaican proverb, ‘play it like you can’t see it’”
“Rhythm section are in full swing. This is happening. (of Thommo’s vocal recording) The main man. He IS King.” Darren Fordham.
Fordie was seen pictured laying down vocals for “Cry to Me” a track he takes lead upon. Whereas Mez posted photographs of his new logoed Kick drum, a song written in a prince buster style “Step It up sister” even references it!
“New The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra album over by the shouting. Well the vocals, overdubs, percussion and mixing to be precise. What an amazing, knackering but productive three days. All tracks recorded!!!! As for the sound? Well I’m biased but how does F<€KIN’ TOP DRAWER grab ya.” Andy Neal
A photograph emerged from the studio recordings, of a naked except for socks Kix, sprawled on a sofa under an acoustic modesty guitar! and two nipple placed doughnuts, looking like a slightly uncomfortable calendar girl! With a possible working title for the project given…
Doughnut Disturbed.
Well if mission two is the Doughnutty sound. Either way we can’t wait to own the record with the hole in the middle, and give it a big spin. It’s the cream of a great band!
Jonathan Young
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 573 – Sunday 25th April – Saturday 1st May 2010
Who would have thought that a major clothing manufacturer would have decided to base an entire product range on our favourite band?
Well, that’s just what the team at Ben Sherman had done, and later in the year the company were due to release a range of products based around the imagery and style of our favourite band.
The Ben Sherman brand had always had a distinctly British feel, and we felt that this teaming up with Madness would not only continue that trend, but give us fans some fantastic items of clothing to add to our wardrobes.
Those worried about the cost could stop panicking. With the clothing due to see the light of day until late July, you had time to start saving.
On to our articles, and we got things off the starting blocks with the news that a group of individuals were looking to create a 2-Tone museum, a café and a live venue in the city of Coventry. Entitled “2-Tone Central”, the organisers were looking for sponsors and donations to help get the project off the ground. In return you would be rewarded on the 2-Tone Central wall of honour.
Elsewhere, and although the 2010 event had been and gone, for those of you who had yet to donate Woody was still accepting donations for his recent London marathon attempt.
Moving on, and Madness Central’s “In Print” section was the largest and most complete collection of magazine and press articles relating to the band, spanning a whopping thirty plus years.
In an effort to promote this ever growing archive, a Facebook group had recently been set up to spread the word of this historical collection of Madness news articles and interviews, and we urged you to sign up and help out.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that The New York Observer were less than impressed with latest Ian Dury biopic, as the review of theirs we linked to recommended you “Avoid at all costs”. Harsh!
10 years ago…
Issue number 311 – Sunday 24th April to Saturday 30th April 2005
After the mammoth issue we had last week, this MIS was back down to a more regular size, as things had been on the sedate side somewhat.
News in from Richard over at RememberTheEighties.com was that THE SPECIALS’ former frontman TERRY HALL had been added to the bill for the forthcoming ‘Bestival’ on the Isle Of Wight. Hall would play a DJ set as part of the event which was due to take place from September 9th to 11th.
North London based outfit MOT had two forthcoming dates. First up was Saturday 28th May where the band were booked to play a 50 minute set at the legendary Hope and Anchor, Upper Street, London, N1.
Tickets cost a mere £4, and the band would be on stage from 9pm.
The band were also booked for one of their longest slots to date, at The Tenth South Cotswold Beer Festival, on Saturday 9th July, where they were due to be on stage for approximately 2 hours.
On to film news now, and it seemed that the forthcoming soundtrack album to `The Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy` movie featured a Dury inspired track. Voiced by Stephen Fry, and entitled “Reasons to be Miserable (Marvin is his name)”, we were sure there was some connection.
On to this week’s collections of articles, and we started off with a lengthy and detailed review of a recent Los Palmas 6 gig at Corringham, Essex. Written by Cheryl, she gave the band a rave review, and finished by saying that “If you get the chance to see LP7 play, then please do. You won’t be disappointed!”
Following the news last week that Mike Edwards of Orange St made it all the way home in the London Marathon, he had been in touch with a short message. We had asked him “Are you home safe with sore feet?” and he replied, telling us that he was fine, but had sore knees.
Would he do it again? “If I can get a place and get in the 12-14 weeks training required, I only managed to get in 6 weeks for this one”.
With the chance of seeing the band perform live on their Forest Tour still some way off, we decided to see what a number of well known Madness tributes had planned for the next month or so, and so we listed forthcoming gigs for One Step Behind, Ultimate Madness, One Step Below and Badness.
15 years ago…
Issue number 49 – Sunday 23rd April to Saturday 29th April 2000
It was yet another quiet week in the Madness community and again, news was a little on the thin side. Where were you all? Wake up!!
Still, the Madness scene hadn’t totally died as we managed to round-up the majority of the week’s gossip for you all to digest.
Following last week’s release of the excellent Madness fanzine, `Nut Inc`, Stuart Wright, the editor reported that all those people still waiting for their copy can stop panicking. The issues were dispatched in batches and the final batch was due to be sent out this coming week.
Other Nut Inc news was that Stuart has been attempting to get up to speed on this whole PC malarky by borrowing his 12 year-old nephew’s computer a couple of nights a week. Stuart was using this time to type up masses of material for the next edition of the fanzine. We recently spoke to Stuart who told us that `The next edition of Nut Inc was almost ready to go to the printers. It would be an Ian Dury tribute edition and should be released in the next 3 – 4 weeks”.
Obviously, as soon as Nut Inc 16 is released, we’d be reviewing it here.
Birthday news now, and on Thursday a certain Michael Barson celebrated his 42nd birthday.
For most of us, the long Easter weekend was the first break we’d had since Christmas, and some people were determined to make the most of it. This weekend saw the second Mc Madmeet, a two day affair, starting on Good Friday and going on till the Saturday. We thought the Sunday was being used for recovery purposes!
Moving on to the articles in this week’s edition of the MIS now and as usual, we had another issue packed to the brim with the latest Madness news and information.
We had the latest promotional news for the forthcoming Madness book by Adrian Thrills, entitled `Don’t Watch That, Watch This!”. Not due out until November, we gave you the opportunity to see just what the book would contain as well as a transcription of the blurb from the book sleeve!
Further on and Steve Turner from the Madness tribute band was here with the latest band happenings and telling us that they may have to change their name to `Los Palmas 7`. If you were after a live slice of Madness, then this was for you!
Elsewhere, and we had some brief news of an Ian Dury gig to be held in New York City in May. Obviously this was exciting news for our Stateside Madness and Ian Dury fans.
With the release of Nut Inc 15 last week, editor in-chief, Stuart Wright had kindly given permission for us to transcribe one of the many excellent articles for your reading-pleasure. Here you could find out just what happened to the legendary Madness TV show.
A great deal of you were probably glued to the last show in the series of `This is Your Life` earlier in the week with the famous Suggs getting his grips on that red book. For those of you who missed the show, you could still get a taste of what went on by visiting Simon Roberts’ website and downloading the first 4 minutes of the show or by rummaging through the many pictures he’d grabbed from the 30 minute programme.
If that wasn’t enough, Jenny Payne and Peter Gardner brought us news that Mark Bedford was busy putting together the cover for the new Dr. Martens album featuring amongst many artists – Madness!
And finally, Nahuel Foppoli returned with a review of a new Madness bootleg video that contained over 3 hours worth of footage!
Rob Hazelby
TWEETS OF A DOVE / THAT FACEBOOK
Woody – Facebook
(In Response to a question about a lavish drum kit with many overhead cymbals, would it be something he likes?)
“In fact this form of undulance is my idea of hell. You don’t need a kit like this to play prog rock.”
Cathal Smyth – Facebook
“I’ve been finishing the lyrics to three new songs which I’ll be performing at Bush Hall on the 14th of May which amongst other things is keeping me busy. The last nine months have been a roller coaster of change and challenging. Stepping out of Madness after so long has at times felt scary yet following my heart and my muse has given me strength. If you don’t go within you then you go without, a friend said recently. A lot of deep breaths when the fear comes on but when I look to my heart I know I am doing the right thing. Life is too short to not take a leap of faith and I put my trust in the universe. I know my intent is good and I am so pleased with the reactions I am getting to the songs that I am encouraged. Have a lovely weekend all and spread the Love xxx”
“Thank you for all the kind words and support, it means a lot to me at this time in my life.
Many of you have expressed the desire for my return to Madness. I suppose the Magnificent 7 has a better ring to it than The Magnificent 6. I’m very proud of what we all achieved with the band and I am grateful for what it has brought to my days. I’m proud that I reformed the band in 1992. It was a personal triumph seeing all the happy faces leaving after Madstock in Finsbury Park. I sat outside the gates to the park after the shows and watched everyone and the feeling was something else.
I love the live performance and have always felt the connection at the live shows and more than anything that brought me the most joy and satisfaction. We are seven unique individuals and together I think we create something really magical. I know we hold a special place in many people’s hearts and minds and I treasure, along with the others that amazing commitment and relationship.
Who knows what the future will bring in this life? For the moment I needed a break and the band thought so too and that’s cool.
My dream is I do return and we make the best album we have ever made. Give time, time is a saying I hold to and if its meant to be then it shall be so.
I feel Madness has so much to offer and in the big scheme of things I believe in the power of song for music is the food of love.
Have a great weekend and be well. X
Cathal”
TIME…
And finally…
We hope you all enjoyed Record Store Day last Saturday, and the wonderful 7 inch Lovestruck single. We’ll have more on that in next week’s edition as we’ve a couple of competition exclusives to announce around that record.
For those of you who didn’t manage to get a copy there are a few on Amazon and Ebay etc. Neither site were swamped with copies despite people moaning. In fact less than 4% seem to be heading to resale, but it seems you can still get hold of one for under £30 if you’re hunting to get one online off a resale seller.
All in all this release did its bit for real record stores, which was the purpose of the record. We really loved the care and attention put into the design.
Finally, this very morning you could have watched.. Sunday Brunch.
Episode 11 – Alexandra Burke, Stefanie Powers, Suggs, Shaun Escoffery
Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer with guests Alexandra Burke, Stefanie Powers, Suggs, Shaun Escoffery, and music from Echosmith performing Come Together
Watch again via on demand online…
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sunday-brunch
Enjoy!
Until next week, take care,
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
The Author
