Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 853 – Sunday 13th September to Saturday 19th September 2015
Evening all,
As September trundles on we’re fast approaching the end of the Grandslam tour, which bowls its last on the 26th at Chester-le-Street, Durham.
If you’re yet to see the band on this tour, won’t be seeing them on this tour, or simply wish to re-live your experience of seeing them, then you may be pleased to learn that the Blackheath gig will be broadcast live on Absolute Radio this very evening!
Tonight’s episode of The Sunday Night Music Club will be broadcast from Blackheath from 7:30pm!
Point your web browsers over to:
http://absoluteradio.co.uk/schedule/the-sunday-night-music-club-19/episodes/45771/
If you want to listen via radio, you can find out how here:
http://absoluteradio.co.uk/listen/
If you manage to get along to tonight’s gig or any of the remaining Grandslam gigs then please knock-up a review and send it in. We’d love to include it in a future issue.
Now, let’s get 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 drawing to a close, but there are still five dates left to go.
Remaining dates this September are as follows…
September
13 – London, On Blackheath
18 – Leeds, Yorkshire County Cricket Club
19 – 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….
The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra
January 15th 2016 – Jazz Cafe – Camden Town London
The Silencerz Featuring Lee Thompson
October 17th – Hemel Hempstead ** New **
Deaf School
November
27th – Preston 53 Degrees
28th – Newcastle Think Tank
29th – York Duchess
December
9th Liverpool – Kazimier
10th Liverpool – Kasimier ** SOLD OUT **
12th – London, Hoxton, Bar & Kitchen
The Clang
11th September London – St Moritz Club
Near Jazz Experience
SEPTEMBER
22 – The NJE + Simon & the Pope + DJ Wendy May @The Indo 133 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1DT – 8.30pm, free entry
OCTOBER
20 – The NJE + Support + DJ @The Indo 133 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1DT – 8.30pm, free entry
More info at: https://www.facebook.com/NearJazzExperience
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)
LIVE AND INTENSIFIED
Madness Play a Polished Set at Bristol’s County Ground
On Saturday 12th September Madness returned to the centre of Bristol for the first time since the 1980s.
Performing at Bristol’s County Cricket Ground, to an almost sell-out crowd, and some amazingly stunning weather, the band played an extremely polished, but at the same time slightly un-energetic set. I personally didn’t feel that Grandslam was a good choice for an opening track. I realise this was the Grandslam tour, but the set really needed to kick off with something to get people going from the start.
It’s possible that I’d been spoiled seeing the band perform at London’s O2 Arena the Christmas before, in which I rank as one of their best ever performances. That night we had very tight performances from all members of the band, multiple costume changes from Lee, love hearts blasted out into the crowd during It Must be Love, and massive inflatable beach balls sent forth towards the end of the set.
Last night, while we had the tight performances everything else that made the O2 gig so memorable was missing.
OK, enough of the negative, let’s move on to the positive.
Initially, the band went for a 3 x 3 formation, where Lee, Suggs and Chris were at the front, with Bedders, Woody and Mike behind. During the set Bedders moved up to the front. This arrangement worked brilliantly, and I hope the band use this in future. Sure, it leaves less room for Suggs and Lee to move around, but it’s great to see so many members of the band near the edge of the stage.
Naturally, Lee was his usual energetic self, and while the costume changes were absent he was continually larking around on stage, and moving from the far left to the far right, ensuring that as many people could see him perform as possible. He stood on speaker stacks, made funny jokes to members of the audience who were smoking some of the strongest weed I’ve ever smelled, and at one point even pretended to pee on one of the security staff. He did this by filling his mouth full of water, standing on a speaker stack above the staff member, un-zipping his trousers, and then dribbling water on the head of the head below. All this was much to the amusement of those watching on.
Suggs churned out his usual banter between songs. Some bits I’d heard before, while other snippets were new to me. One snippet I had heard before, but I felt worked really well, was at the beginning of My Girl. Mike started off with a slow, extended intro to the song while Suggs talked about the early days of the band, practicing at Mike’s mum’s house, and having to muffle the drumkit. Excellent stuff.
As the concert was at what I’d call a “non standard” Madness venue, much of the audience was made up of people who’d never seen the band live before (you can tell when even during the well known songs they don’t sing along). This was most apparent when Chris’ legendary showtime, which on this evening was Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer. Regulars took this as was meant – firmly tongue in cheek. Others looked on blankly, and some even booed! If further evidence was needed to show that this was lost on people, one or two even took to the Madness Facebook page to ask what it was all about.
There were two highlights of the evening for me. The first was the inclusion of Believe Me, a personal favourite of mine, and a track the band performed beautifully. The second was seeing Andy Thomas and son Archie dancing on stage to Night Boat to Cairo. Andy kept telling us that the whole experience was for his son, but it definitely looked like it had a much bigger thrill for him than his little lad.
Venue-wise, things were well organised, but staff completely struggled to keep up with demand of those needing food, drinks and the toilets. I should have filmed the queue for the beer tent. I kid you not when I say that the drink tent was almost at the far back of the site, and the queue went well past the halfway of the main green. It was massive. Other parts of the site selling drinks didn’t do much better, and toilets were poorly signposted.
If the venue is going to host future events of this size it really needs to expand the facilities it put on, as what was there was almost at breaking point at times.
Back to the music, and the setlist was as follows:
Grandslam
Embarrassment
The Prince
NW5
My Girl
My Girl 2
Take it or Leave it
It Mek
Sun and The Rain
Dust Devil
Los Palmas 7
Lovestruck
Herbert
Bed and Breakfast Man
Shut up
Believe Me
(Showtime – Living on a Prayer)
One Step Beyond
House of Fun
Baggy Trousers
Our House
It Must be Love
– – – – – – – – –
Madness
Night Boat to Cairo
This was the first Night Boat to Cairo I’d seen in years, where the usual crowd on stage wasn’t there. In fact, Andy Thomas and his son had the stage to themselves!
The band finished just before 10pm, and everyone left to the Madness closing favourite “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”.
While this won’t go down as one of my favourite Madness gigs, it was a very enjoyable evening. You always lose something at Madness concerts when so much of the audience aren’t what you’d describe as hard core fans, and rather than singing along and dancing, would much rather stand and watch with closed mouths.
Those of you booked up to see the band at Minehead in November, or who will be seeing them at one of the final remaining dates of Grandslam can look forward to hearing a band who are as polished and as perfectly sounding as they’ve ever been.
I’d like to finish this review by congratulating the staff at the County Ground. Everyone I met was friendly, helpful and really polite. I’ve been to numerous gigs where the security have been rude and unfriendly. It was nice to see that it wasn’t the case here.
Rob Hazelby
SIGN OF THE TIMES
News and info from online and offline media sources.
Suggs discusses Madness’ lasting appeal ahead of Bristol gig
“Those early gigs were manic,” laughs frontman Suggs. “They were a mixture of adrenalin, beer and violence!”
“In those days, on the radio you’d have all these British artists putting on an American accent, then along came Ian Dury celebrating real life in England. That was a huge inspiration,” recalls Suggs.
“He had a massive impact on me – him and Ray Davies writing about the inconsequential bits of ordinary working life, and making them poetic. The songs I wrote, such as Baggy Trousers, were very much influenced by that.”
Since reforming in 1992 after a six-year hiatus, Madness have almost exclusively played stadiums and arenas, although Suggs says they still keep in touch with their roots by playing occasional low-key gigs.
“We do still play a few under-the-radar gigs in clubs to warm up for tours. We did five nights at the Dublin Castle in Camden Town, which is our ancestral home. Because so many people were packed in, it was unbelievably hot, so I asked Henry, who’s the son of the guy who gave us our first ever gigs, if he could put the air conditioning on. He said it wasn’t on and that he’d actually turned the heating up to sell some more beer!”
“Somebody asked me if I could go back in time where would I go back to and I really couldn’t. We’ve had such a glorious career.
When we wrote those songs, we really didn’t know they would resonate and last so long, but I think we were wiser than our age because we were writing about community and family and relationships in a way that nobody else was. There was a lot of nihilism about when we started because of the New Romantics scene, but we thought we’d liven up a dull afternoon for people instead. Yes, that’s how I’d like us to be remembered – ‘they livened up dull afternoons!’.”
Win Tickets To Newcastle Grandslam
http://www.newcastlegateshead.com/blog/read/2015/09/win-tickets-to-madness-b109
Which of these is a popular Madness song.
House of Love
House of Fun
House of Cards.
Send your answer via the above link before September 22nd to be in with a chance of winning free tickets.
Suggs Donates Tickets and Meet and Greet to Charity
The Central Youth Theatre has recently been donated by Madness, 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 who is a patron of the 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”
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.
https://www.goldengiving.com/raffle/CYTMadness
Holly Parry
Assistant Director
Central Youth Theatre
Suggs’ one man Show at Nutty Bar Marbella.
http://marbellaazul.com/suggs-one-man-show-at-nutty-bar-marbella/
The Nutty Bar’s Mark (AKA Wandsworth Harry) generously offered MarbellaAzul.com and RTV Marbella’s “Marbella Now” show two VIP tickets for the one man show as a competition prize
None of us really knew what to expect. We had of course seen Suggs performing with Madness (notably here in Marbella’s bullring a few years ago), but this was something different. It was called “My story in words and music” and it was exactly that. Suggs gave us personal details of his life with his inimitable sense of humour, great timing and of course music. It was funny, entertaining and very moving. This delighted the packed Nutty Bar audience.
Madness wow the Crowds at St Lawrence Ground Canterbury
There was a whole lot of fez happening in Canterbury last night.
The road leading up to Kent’s lovely St Lawrence Ground was full of them.
Flashing pork pie hats were also in abundance –thanks to some nifty street trading – along with a sprinkling of fake sheiks.
Throw hundreds of thirsty, shaven-headed geezers into the mix and you had yourself one curious passer-by.
Full article at: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/madness-bring-our-house-down-43070/
Madness’ hit-filled Set Thrills Country Ground Crowd
Flashing trilbies, red fezzes and inflatable saxophones are not a common sight at the County Ground but the home of Gloucestershire Cricket Club was transformed into a veritable fun park for a few hours as it welcomed veteran ska band Madness.
This was the first major concert at the ground since Elton John played to 10,000 fans in 2009 and it was a reminder of just how serviceable the venue is for such events.
A pitch-side carvery and beer tent added to the festival atmosphere, as did the merchandise stall selling everything from Madness-branded beach balls to beer towels.
Full article at: http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Review-Madness-hit-filled-set-thrills-County/story-27788823-detail/story.html#comments
GIBRALTAR AND THE NUTTY BAR
We had a brief word with The Nutty Bar’s Harry this week about Suggs out in Spain doing his One Man Show at The Nutty Bar.
“Absolutely brilliantly Crowd loved it, Suggs enjoyed himself and was on top form. Also I was onstage watching them at Gibraltar with me missus on Sunday. Again all the lads on top form. They opened with Embarrassment. Did Las Palmas too and Suggs dedicated Bed and Breakfast Man to me. “
The set list for Madness in Gibraltar was as follows…
Embarrassment
The Prince
NW5
My Girl …
My Girl2
Sun & The Rain
Dust Devil
Los Palmas 7
Bed and Breakfast Man
Shut Up
(Show Time – Bon Jovi Living on a Prayer)
One Step Beyond
House of Fun
Wings of A Dove
Baggy Trousers
Our House
It Must Be Love
——
Madness
Night Boat
….
Gibraltar vids…
(One step beyond/House of Fun/ Shut up/ Baggy Trousers/ Our House / Madness / Nigh boat Clips montage)
https://youtu.be/j6vfdwLxaW8 – It Must Be Love
https://youtu.be/WLDmitNVq5A – Madness (Nice Balloon kick Thommo)
https://youtu.be/hy5fsteZW1U – Night Boat
Wandsworth Harry
MIS FEATURE – IT MUST BE WET
What is reported to be The Guitar from the It Must Be Love video has gone on sale on ebay.
The slighty battered guitar with chipping paint is said be playable despite it’s underwater miming sequences on screen in the famous vid. While we don’t 100% know for sure it was the genuine deal, the seller has near 500 positive feeback since 2004 for his ebay sales. And they presented the following story as to how it was obtained from Stiff Record press agent Nigel Dick…
….
Here’s a question for you. If you were a young Press Agent, working with the likes of Madness at Stiff Records 30 odd years ago, who then went on to become a famous video director and you saw a guitar lying around the office, what would you do? I’ll tell you because after I bought this guitar, I contacted a fella called Nigel Dick, by email, who has since had a rather marvellous career directing the original Band Aid video, Guns and Roses, Oasis, etc, etc. check out his Wikipedia entry, it’s pretty impressive. Here’s what he replied to me, (copy of email will be included in the sale).
“The Strat was used in the Madness video. I was working at Stiff at the time and when it came back from the shoot (it was played under water in a swimming pool) there was still water inside the guitar. Consequently the rental house refused to take the guitar back and the label was forced to buy the guitar.
At that point the guitar lingered in a cupboard for months if not years. I eventually plucked up the courage to ask if I could use it and was told I could keep it.
The email goes on to explain how the wood was cracking and being a Rory Gallagher fan he decided to whack it with a hammer to try and get a Rory effect!
So there you have it and amazingly the guitar still plays really well!
It’s got fantastic provenance so I’m guessing it should be a pretty good investment.
Chris Foreman says:
“It could be real but I don’t know where all the damage came from. During the video the guitar kept pulling me up (as it’s wooden), so I put two lead weights from the diving kit in my back pockets. These however, nearly dragged me under. I wasn’t going to go in the pool but we thought it would look good. Dave Robinson and I tried to dry it with a hair dryer. The neck was really bent and Stiff had to buy it. The guitar subsequently appeared in a lot of Stiff videos with other acts and also on Top of The Pops.”
Finally, after much bidding, the guitar sold this afternoon for a whopping £1,120!
Jon Young
BOZ BOORER & THE BAND WHORE
The wonderful inimitable enigma that is Lee Jay Thompson strikes yet again. With a Madness tour & new album back in full progressive flow, a ska album to ready for release, a brilliant Crunchy rock group to resurrect soon, a local blossoming band at his beck and call, and even a fresh pressed guest spot with gun slingers just out of the gate as a tune, where exactly would you expect to find him now? That’s right. Playing away with Boz Boorer. 
Clips from a guest spot at The Dublin Castle during The Camden Parkway Festival on September 5th have emerged online.
Bloody good show it looks too. This rocking version of Get It On, a T-Rex cover he often revisits and indeed once recorded a version of, is barking mad and worthy of a good watch back. Mobile phone screen lyric asides, isn’t it always better when Thommo makes up his own words or noises anyway. He’s putting on an accent too, he’s always approached the song from a more country sounding location, when rocking this number out.
Get it on – https://youtu.be/wNQ_qG4mTWI
The pole cat trio as they were billed appeared amongst a large line up of short DJ slots and band music performances put together by Boz, and work from Jennie Bellstar too. Boz is currently residing in the record store next door the DC downstairs, this short festival showcased some local Camden mates and muso’s and highlight a lot of music the stores have on sale. Taking the 1pm to 6pm Saturday Slot increasing the DC’s afternoon entertainment lineups for the fun and the music.
Where’s the band whore next? Keeps all eyes out, he could pop up anywhere. But check out the Silencerz in October though in Hemel Hempstead he’s just announced that one on the bands facebook page and it’s advance tickets only.
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 593 – Sunday 23rd September – Saturday 18th September 2010
This issue got off the starting blocks with an update from the one and only Paul Rodgers, who had this to report;
“Wonderful has just entered the independent albums chart at number 16, which suggests a placing somewhere between 175 and 200 in the main albums chart (I get to see the top 200 on Wednesday evenings). Another good showing for a reissued album, especially one that has cult appeal having obviously not been released in the 80s.
Here’s hoping Mad Not Mad follows in its wake in a few weeks (although it appears to have been put back a week in the schedules for a 4 October release date)”.
No doubt Paul would have further chart and/or Mad Not Mad release date news for us over the coming weeks.
Our articles got underway thanks to subscriber Christian Munk, who was here to give his thoughts and opinions on the recent swathe of Madness re-issues. While he was happy that these albums were being re-released, the one thing he wasn’t happy were some of the “re-mastered” tracks;
“I order all of the CD’s – not for the albums, as previous re-issues already sound perfectly good, but for the 12″ mixes, direct from tape.
Alas, I am in for a big surprise: A number of the 12-inches are vinyls transferred and “digitally remastered”, as it says on the CDs. Some of these are Tomorrow’s Just Another Day (the worst-sounding), Wings Of A Dove, and Michael Caine.
On these tracks, vinyl artifacts such as vinyl rumble, high-frequency distortion and even a few crackles are clearly audible. I “re-mastered” these tracks from vinyl years ago, manually removing rumble and crackles to a higher degree than what has been released now, but the distortion was unavoidable, and so my wish for true tape-to-CD re-releases remained”
Next we moved on to something that would no doubt interest the collectors out there, as we published the latest offer from those nice people over at Retro Madness. Deleted for the past five years, RM had a small batch of “The Business”, which they were selling for £29.99 including UK p+p. With Ebay and Amazon listing the album for as much as £60 the RM asking price was nothing short of a bargain.
Moving on, and it was on to Ian Dury news as the cast had finally been revealed for Reasons to be Cheerful, the London production of the Dury themed stage show.
The show was due to feature Nadia Albina, Stephen Collins, Stephen Lloyd, Daniel McGowan, Garry Robson and Karen Spicer, who would be backed by a six-piece band.
Further on it was over to Jonathan Young who gave those of you who’d recently purchased the recent Wonderful re-issue access to an audio Easter egg. All you had to do was go to a particular page in the album’s booklet, find a certain word and then use that word as part of an MP3 URL.
Cancellation news next, as the band announced that they would not be appearing in Scarborough on the 18th September as advertised. This was, apparently, down to a number of issues with the promoter, which made it impossible for the show to go ahead.
The band had spoken directly with the venue, and anyone who had bought a ticket was advised to contact the point of purchase for a full refund.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that Jean Pierre Boutellier of the French MIS had uploaded an in-depth review and selection of photos from Madness’ performance at the 2010 Festival of Humanity.
10 years ago…
Issue 332 – Sunday 11th September to Saturday 17th September 2005
We started off this week’s issue by reminding readers that this would be the last MIS before the US tour got into full swing on Sunday the 17th of September, at the Inland Invasion.
We were sure that reports of the gigs would be landing on the various Madness related news lists and web sites as soon as the fans returned to their homes – tired, weary and the music still buzzing in their ears.
We would of course be printing a selection of the best reviews in subsequent issues of the MIS, and many of these would also be appearing in Jermaine’s excellent Tour Madness publication.
In last week’s edition of the MIS the lack of Chas Smash at one or two of the recent gigs was given a brief mention by a couple of our subscribers. Keen to keep us all informed as to exactly why Mr. Smyth had been absent during these shows, subscriber Pauline Maddocks contacted us with an explanation.
It turned out that back in August Carl unfortunately took a turn for the worst, and it was discovered that he’d suffered a ruptured appendix. Since then he’d received surgery over in the USA, and at present remained there while he recovered.
It was unknown at this point if he’d be able to perform with the rest of the band whilst they undertook their Stateside tour, but we would of course keep you posted.
On to this week’s collection of articles, and we started these off by passing the reigns over to one Paul Muscat, who revealed that ‘The Dangermen Sessions Volume One’ had been a complete hit with the customers frequenting his coffee house.
“These two sisters (Alice 75 and Joan 73) were there sipping their large lattes with whipped cream (steamed to 200 degrees F!) when ‘You keep Me Hanging On’ comes on, and Alice leans over to Joan and goes ‘Wasn’t this used to be done by Diana Ross?’ hahahahahah Cool ladies indeed!”
Next-up was Birchy, who had managed to get his hands on scans of the forthcoming Dangermen picture disc, which you could now view in full on his web site. Birchy had been hard at work securing copies of this limited edition LP for fans, and would be sending them out in the coming weeks.
With those nights drawing in, and no doubt many of you already finding yourselves stuck with something to do on an evening, we decided to give you the full lowdown of Madness tribute band ‘One Step Behind’ had lined-up from between now and Christmas. As always, we asked that if you did manage to get along, to knock-up a review and send it in.
Moving on, and we (courtesy of North London based ‘Jag’) gave MIS readers the chance to win one of 10 free tickets to their next gig.
All you had to do was be amongst the first 10 to drop the band an email.
Next, we reported that further European tour dates were now planned, and the dates made public. The band would be performing The Dangermen Sessions at The Circus Royal, Brussels, Belgium on the 16th of October, The Olympia Hall, Paris on the 17th, and at the Heineken Music Hall, Holland on the 18th.
We finished off this week’s issue by explaining to our readers that over on The Madness Trading Ring mailing list, the latest ‘Mad Chart’ was in full swing, and nominations for your favourite Madness tracks were now being taken.
The submissions and chart creation was being organised by MTR subscriber Paul Muscat, who had the mind-numbing task of collating all these results, and trying to make sense of them.
This week we were contacted by Paul, who asked if MIS Online subscribers would also like to take part. Well, it’d be rude not to, right?
15 years ago…
Issue number 70 – Sunday 10th September to Saturday 16th September 2000
You may recall a few months back Madness Unsugged editor, Vince Carden set-up a competition to name the new album by Cathal Smyth’s new band `Velvet Ghost`. Well, Vince had since been in touch to tell us that the winner(s) should be announced soon, but he was just waiting for the all-clear from Cathal. As soon as anything was revealed, it would printed in the subsequent edition of the MIS.
Did you fancy getting together with a few like-minded people for some food, drink and a variety of good music? If so, we suggested you get yourself along to The TMML’s September Mini Madmeet. The plan was to meet up in Camden Town on Saturday 30th September from 1pm onwards.
If rumours and emails we’d been ready were correct, then Wednesday 27th of September could finally be the day we’d all been waiting a long time for, as the Madness edition of `Young Guns` finally aired on BBC2. Time to get those blank tapes at the ready!
Onto some `zine related news, and `Madness Unsugged` fanzine editor, Vincent Carden reported that he’d soon be doing an interview with a Blockhead and wanted you to ask some of the questions being fired at him. If you had a burning question, query or general poser, we suggested you sent Vince an email.
`Madness Unsugged` issue 5 would be out at the end of September.
Issues were usually 32 pages long, but this one would be a one-off 48 page special with a large dollop of Upminster in it to commemorate the recent passing of a certain Blockhead.
It’d been a few months since the Ian Dury Tribute concert which was held in London’s Brixton Academy, but TMML subscriber, Simsey had finally got round to developing the film, scanning in the pics, and making them available for online viewing;
“They’re not brilliant because the camera was held above my head in a dark, sweaty, smoky auditorium. But, you can make out Suggs, Kathy Burke, Wreckless Eric, Humphrey Ocean (the Kilburner who drew the picture on the cover of Baggy Trousers), Kix, Gilad Atzmon and Saffron”.
We were told to keep your eyes on Simsey’s site, because if went according to plan, there would be a selection of shots taken from the Crunch gig on 17th July available shortly.
We brought this issue to a close with an article from Lois Wilson of Mojo Magazine, where he went back to September 1st 1979 – the date when the 2 Tone craze swept Britain.
Rob Hazelby
TWEETS OF A DOVE
Various snippets from the Twittersphere…
Mike Barson @Mikey108
“Leaving Gibraltar head in the clouds”
Woody Woodgate @woodymadness
“We had a great gig, so it won’t be hard to say yes if we’re asked back. It’s a no brainer”
TIME…
We’re almost done for this week, but we have just one more thing to pass in your general direction.
Long term readers to the MIS may recall our video compilation of wildlife presenter Chris Packham, who, during a recent series of Winterwatch managed to sneak the names of a whopping 22 Madness singles into his script:
We’d like our readers to sign this petition backing him up and showing support, at a time when another organisation is campaigning to the BBC to have him removed.
Please show the BBC that the public want him to remain on our screens. You’ll find all the details at the following link as to what this story is about as it’s not relevant to repeat all of it here, but we support Chris and animal lovers and will dedicate Tomorrow’s Dream to him and hope for the best.
And with that, we’re done!
Until next week, take care,
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Dicka & Wandsworth Harry)
The Author
