Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 851 – Sunday 30th August to Saturday 5th September 2015
Hello, and a very warm welcome to this latest issue.
We begin with a big shout out as the Specialized 4 Combat Cancer album is out/shipping tomorrow.
This covers album of The Clash tunes by a variety of bands, in aid of Teenage Cancer features a ton of great new versions and tunes, with sleeve notes by charity patron Lee Thompson.
“Combat Cancer is the accumulation of the work of over 400 musicians, engineers and producers. It contains tracks from ten countries and includes guest performances from Mick Jones (The Clash) Horace Panter, Lynval Golding (The Specials) Susan Cadogan, Dreadzone, Dennis Bovell and Black Slate.
As with all of our compilations Combat Cancer is an insight to current ska scene and champions some of the best new talent in the UK.” Specialized Projects.
Closer to home it features “Crooked Beat” from Home Town Hi Fi who are in this year’s “MIS Presents” show at The House of Fun Weekender.
For more information on Specialized’s Combat Cancer albums check out the following address:
http://www.specializedproject.co.uk/collaborative/combat-cancer-album/
Now, on with the issue!
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
2015
GRANDSLAM
“Sporting theatres jumping with joy is the goal. Grandslam Madness – the greatest open air tour in the history of Rock & Roll…”
The Grandslam is now parked-up and enjoying a well-earned Summer break. The tour resumes on the 11th, but prior to that the band appear at the Gibraltar Festival on the 6th.
The full gig line-up for Madness this September is as follows…
September
6 – Gibraltar Festival
11 – Canterbury, Kent County Cricket Club
12 – Bristol, Gloucester County Cricket Club
13 – London, On Blackheath
18 – Leeds, Yorkshire County Cricket Club
19th Newbury Racecourse.
25 – Wolverhampton
26 – Chester-le-Street, Durham County Cricket Club
November 2015
November 20th – 23rd 2014 – Minehead – The House Of Fun Weekender Five
The Weekender also features sets by Woody Woodgate, Crunch!, Clang and much, much more….
Suggs At The Nutty Bar
September The 8th – Marbella Spain.
The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra
January 15th 2016 – Jazz Cafe – Camden Town London
Deaf School
September
5th – Bingley Music Festival (Headlining Stage 2)
6th – Norwich – Waterfront
December
9th Liverpool – Kazimier
10th Liverpool – Kasimier ** SOLD OUT **
The Clang
11th September London – St Moritz Club
BUY IT
Madstock – CD / DVD Edition
Out on October the 9th. Just over 23 years after the famous comeback gigs, and just a month before the live album’s 23rd anniversary of release, Madstock is back.
Last available on DVD in the guided tour boxset only, and last on CD via a crappy on demand print service option many years ago. For around £12 you can now get both together.
The CD contains Razor Blade Alley as a bonus track for the first time on CD from the weekend’s concerts, and collects tracks previously only available from the concerts upon the CD single of The Harder They Come. These 4 bonus tracks have been included at the end of the album, Chrissy Boy has pointed out they aren’t part of the Live Album’s original mixing by Clive Langer being sourced elsewhere and masters are impossible to find nearly 25 years on, so appear as the final bonus tracks on the album.
The album features a new montage of photographs from the weekend as it’s cover, much like the recent CD/DVD edition of Take It Or Leave it.
Punch and Judy Madness Toy Theatre
A pop-up miniature theatre, in card form, featuring Punch & Judy. The collage by artist Peter Quinnell was commissioned by British band ‘Madness’ to celebrate their single ‘Lovestruck’ – it features characters from Music Hall, Punch & Judy and Madness videos. Folds down neatly to the size of a 7 inch single, it can be sent as a card. £8.95
http://www.pollocks-coventgarden.co.uk/index.php/toy-theatres/punch-judy-lovestruck-diorama.html
Jennie & The Slingers
New album from Jennie Bellstar, this time with rockabilly band “The Slingers”. Featuring on one track are non other than Chrissy Boy and Thommo.
(see today’s Feature article)
SIGN OF THE TIMES
News and info from online and offline media sources.
Win A Meet And Greet With Madness At Wolverhampton In £5 Raffle
Central Youth Theatre was recently donated, by Suggs, 2 pairs of tickets to the Madness concert at Wolverhampton Racecourse on 25th September. The tickets also include the one off opportunity to a meet and greet with the band.
Suggs from Madness who is a patron of Central Youth Theatre comments ” I’m proud to be a patron of Central Youth Theatre and now we’re playing in Wolverhampton we’re delighted to offer support to this great cause” Suggs
Central Youth Theatre are holding a raffle in which two lucky winners will have the chance to win a pair of tickets. Tickets can be purchased through our golden giving webpage, with all funds raised going towards the CYT Heart Fund – which will secure our future at a new building in the centre of Wolverhampton. Tickets are just £5 for the chance to win this prize.
https://www.goldengiving.com/raffle/CYTMadness
Holly Parry
Still Time To Win A Meet And Greet At Heddingly Cricket Ground
http://yorkshireccc.com/news/view/3514/win-meet-madness-before-their-headingley-show
Just answer the question at the above link and enter your email address. Winners will be notified in September.
Concert Live Brixton 2006
https://concertlive.com/album/to-the-edge-of-the-universe-and-beyond-tour-2
Still available is this live album from 2006. The CD is currently priced at $4, with the MP3 album a mere £2.50.
Brixton was the opening gig that saw the return of Chrissy Boy to the band. The set uniquely includes Rise and Fall and Sorry.
The Groovy Train Celebrates 25th
In a post celebrating Groovy Train’s 25th birthday, Hooton said: “I think it’s fair to say without a shadow of a doubt Groovy Train captured the mood of the summer of 1990 or the summer of 1991 if you lived in the USA.
It was the start of a journey that is still continuing to this day – we are still on that ‘train’ playing live and the group remain good friends which is an achievement in itself in the topsy turvy world of the music business.”
The track contains Keith Mullen’s distinctively hypnotic guitar intro and was produced by Graham ‘Suggs’ McPherson of Madness and Terry Farley.
MIS FEATURE – JENNIE & THE SLINGERS – UNEXPECTED GUESTS
“If you want to purchase one of the catchiest melodic albums ever, featuring guest artists Chris Foreman, Lee Thompson, Martin Stewart & Boz Boorer and fronted by Jennie Bellestar then this is your chance to do so, all tracks are different and can be heard on the following link before purchasing: One CD is cheaper and lasts longer in memory than a round of drinks, think about it, Xmas is coming and good music is needed: You can get your copy from…
https://diablorecordsuk.bandcamp.com/album/jennie-the-slingers-tales-of-the-unexpected
THANK YOU to all that have ordered so far; PLEASE send us feedback, we love a bit of that…”
Jennie Bellestar.
If you’ve come across the sound and voice of Jennie before, in The early Bellestars, In The recent One Stop Band, or you caught her previous collaboration with Madness men, in the form of The Dance Brigade, you’ll know the great voice, and possibly the enthusiasm and character the lady exudes.
Now that force for good is matched up with a rockabilly band, The Slingers, for a new album Tales of The unexpected.
Which as Jennie says above in her recent facebook plug, you can check it out and hear all the tracks online at the above link to Diablo record website where you can purchase the now available CD.
- Last Gang in Camden Town
- Pink Cadillac
- Money Cat
- Nobodys Fool
- City Nights
- Heart Strings
- Better Of Dead
- Better Guy
- Gambling Man
- Snake Eyes
- Lady Sings The Blues
- I Don’t Want
- King Kong
The CD is £8 and that includes unlimited streaming, and MP3 flac downloads of the tracks.
Track 7 is the one us Madness fans will first gravitate to, as it’s the one featuring Chris and Lee. Better of Dead. It’s an upbeat track.
It’s a tale of being stuck in a rat race so long you’ve forgotten your youthful vigour now buried in an alienated drunken alcoholic half life. There are some sharp keys solo and a killer sax solo.
“Both Lee and Chris are awesome on the track” – Jennie.
The rest of the album is a great match to the quality of track 7 too. There’s some great vocal warbling on Pink Cadillac & Snake eyes along with haunting guitar licks.
Tracks verge from sounding like that early rock and roll swing fun time hop tunes, to more haunting twang slightly darker sounding grooves. Jennie is dual vocal tracked to great effect on moments in a couple of the tunes.
City Nights has an almost ska bop to it, while being a atmospheric on the organ backing.
King Kong is a fun shouty instrumental at high speed.
Snake eyes is close to being a bond theme if they ever title a bond movie that.
It’s a very good album, where the band clearly sound like they fit together and know their instruments and Jennie fits in perfectly just a side step one from the kind of songs and sounds she’s more familiar for delivering in the past.
The slingers are slick and Jennie adds a focussed front power to their sound. It’s bang on.
A very limited number of signed CD’s have been produced. (100) and if any are currently left when you read this they are available from the online shop. But the signed ones may have all gone as the album is proving popular.
Free band Android phone app.
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 591 – Sunday 29th August – Saturday 4th September 2010
With the August Bank Holiday firmly upon us the Madness scene seemed to have experienced yet another quiet week.
Still, there was no reason to fret, as we still had stacks of snippets to pass your way.
The previous week we’d asked you to tell us what year was ‘Wonderful’ was originally released in the UK. The answer was, of course, 1999, and we had a total of 37 correct entries to our competition in which you had a chance to win the remastered reissue of ‘Wonderful’, due for release on 6th September.
This week we could reveal that our lucky winner, picked at random from the 37 correct answers, was non other than Ian Taylor.
This week we had news in from subscriber Dermot, who revealed that EMI would be releasing the revamped version of Mad Not Mad on the 27th September. This would be a dual CD and single DVD release.
With John Reed’s forthcoming Madness book “House of Fun – The Story of Madness” due for release on the 31st of October, we were pleased to include an excerpt from the publication in this very issue. What a shame the book would fail to surface.
We brought this issue of the MIS to a close with the band’s recent appearance at the V Festival attaining some very favourable write-ups, and with Madness’ forthcoming gig at the Scarborough Extreme Sports Festival fast approaching it looked like the PR bandwagon was in full swing.
10 years ago…
Issue 330 – Sunday 28th August to Saturday 3rd September 2005
We started off this week’s issue of the MIS, still baffled that while the recent Madness single, ‘Shame and Scandal’, had made a minimal impact on the UK music charts, it continued to do well over in France.
The single had now been in the French charts a whopping eight weeks, and had actually climbed back up this week to number 13, from its previous 14th spot.
The ‘Dangermen Sessions’ album also continued to do well across the channel, with it currently holding a number 14 spot in the album charts. Also, the compilation album ‘Hits and Co Volume 3’, which featured ‘Shame and Scandal’, entered the French album charts at number 5.
If only the band could have this sort of success over in the UK.
Starting off this week’s collections of articles was The Madness Trading Ring’s Steve Bringe, who voiced his complaints over V2’s web pages for Madness. Looking at the web pages for other V2 artists, the homepage for our favourite band was distinctly lacking.
Steve (like the rest of us) was disappointed that yet again Madness weren’t getting the support from their record company, and that he had to pester V2 US for upcoming US gig information. Even though the label were getting free promotion from the MTR, they still didn’t provide details until a few days before the tickets went on sale, and even then they didn’t provide details on ever show.
Steve finished by saying “V2 could be doing much more for our lads.
The leaving-much-to-be-desired web pages are indicative of their malaise”.
On the subject of the US tour, the next article in this week’s issue gave readers details on just that. We had dates, venues and web site links, all courtesy of Steve and Kev over on the MTR.
Next-up, and news in from MIS subscriber Robert Greenwood was that recently Mike and Woody were guests of Radio One DJ Mike Davis. The interview included talk about their times in Madness as well as the musical influences in the band.
There were 4 Madness songs used during the set (3 of which were taken from The Dangermen Sessions), as well as a sprinkling of tracks from Bob Marley, Rudy Mills, Prince Buster’s 2 songs, Kinks, Junior Murvin, Althea And Donna and Max Romeo.
Moving on, and with issue 1 of the bi-monthly `Jag` magazine recently landing on the doormat of the MIS offices we decided it was time to take a look at what was inside.
Coming from veteran fanzine author Stuart Wright (he of Nut Inc fame) you knew you’d be in for a treat before you open even the first page, and in fact a treat you did indeed receive, as issue 1 came with a cover mounted badge!
Unlike Madness however, there was less Stuart could write about Jag, and this was reflected in the size of the `zine which spanned a mere ten pages. Now, before you started moaning that this was a pathetic amount, when you considered that it cost a mere 50 pence then it actually seemed like bloody good value to us.
We thought the first issue had got off to a cracking start, and had no doubt that the bi-monthly publication would go from strength to strength.
It was last orders at the bar for our next article, as we issued a final reminder to those of you who’d not yet put your order in for the limited edition (to 1000) picture disc of the new Dangermen Sessions album. It was Birchy who’d managed to get this up and running, and once all the orders had been placed, he had many hours of packing and posting ahead of him!
We finished off this week’s issue with a request for you to send your nominations for your favourite 20 Madness tracks. Paul had already received 28 submissions, encompassing around 120 tracks, but wanted more. The results, stats, facts and figures would be announced soon.
15 years ago…
Issue number 68 – Sunday 27th August to Saturday 2nd September 2000
With news seemingly rather thin on the ground this week, it looked as if everyone was out making the most of what remained of the British summer.
Still, it wasn’t all doom and gloom, as we still had a packed issue for you.
First-up was Jean Pierre-Boutellier, who got in touch to let us know that you could now view a number of Chris Foreman interviews taken in February and November 1994, on his web site. The interviews were in both English and French, ensuring that the majority of fans could read these without any problems.
Many of you would probably be aware that Radio Two DJ, Jonathan Ross is a big Madness fan, who regularly aired classic Madness tracks during his Saturday morning music/chat show. Yesterday’s (26th) show had amongst it’s guest line-up, comedian Phil Jupitus who among other things plugged his appearance at the Reading Festival. Jonathan asked him about his role, supporting Madness during last years Christmas tour. Phil replied by saying that he went on stage every evening and got shouted at for 10 minutes before the band came on. Both Phil and Jonathan had nothing but praise for Madness, saying that they were one of Britains greatest pop-groups. Phil Jupitus would be staging a short 3-day stint in London’s West End this coming week.
Next, we passed things over to the one and only Steve Turner, who reported that the new Los Palmas 6 web site was now up and running, and that any feedback would be gratefully received.
Steve also listed a mass of forthcoming gigs, but explained that there were no performances planned for September, as he was getting married, and was planning a long honeymoon. We wished Steve and his wife to be all the very best.
Moving on, we had Jonathan Young, who announced the arrival of his Fink Brothers web site, which, although has now moved, can still be found here: http://2000mad.blogspot.com/
With things a little quiet at the moment we went back to our collection of Nut Inc fanzines, and pulled out the “Driving in My Car/ Animal Farm” entry from their “Madness Record Library”. Here we looked at this release from July 1982, and (courtesy of Nut Inc) revealed everything there was to know about the single.
Rob Hazelby
THAT FACEBOOK
Stephen Boult in The All Things Madness Facebook group writes.
“Got this on ebay, never seen it before… (Pictured is the paul gotel remix cd of night boat to cairo)”
Chrissy Boy reply : “I wouldn’t advise listening to it.”
TIME…
That’s just about it for this week.
If you’re looking for tickets to see Madness at Leeds you may want to check out the competition on the official Madness Facebook group where 2 pairs are currently up for grabs:
https://www.facebook.com/madnessofficial?fref=ts
And finally, we finish on a non Madness note that will not doubt be of interest to all you Ian Dury fans out there.
Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0684whj where you can listen to a celebration of Ian Dury as Sir Peter Blake looks back over over his life and career.
Until next week, have a good one!
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Jennie Bellestar, Holly Parry)
The Author
