You’re just a week away from Summer Madness (no, not The Fresh Prince) as the sold out Hastings gig kicks off the band’s appearances for the year around the country and the world, from next Saturday.
Remember, you can join the fan beach party during the day, and even if you don’t have a ticket you can hear the fun on the beach and join the nutty mile event here;
https://www.facebook.com/events/986915621344062/
Good luck to all and have fun everyone!
October sees the band extend their touring beyond the announced UK, Ireland and Swedish gigs into appearing in Germany and Norway, also. When we say also we mean Oslo! The Norwegian date was sold out in just 6 hours though, so it’s more a case of Osold now, sorry. The band is more popular for Norway than the 1,300 capacity venue it seems.
Meanwhile, in Germany, star of The Wixxer, Chief Inspector Even Longer, movie star Olli Kalkofe was delighted at the Berlin news. He’ll once again be able to catch the band in his country. So pleased was he that it brought out a triple Ya Ya Ya!
With all the summer dates, from Hastings, through Glastonbury, to the August outdoor South London House of Common already announced, heads up then for any end of year Winter Tour announcement to complete the picture of a packed year.
A prison picture, newly shot of the band, arrived online Friday depicting the 6-man crew; 5 behind bars with our front man out front having already escaped and up for escapades. We expect a December hit on the 02 for a North London mob job a Saturday in the middle of the month, and visits to other cities also around this time.
Keep an eye out, especially at known meeting holes for rogues like Newcastle and beyond. But criminals have records as well don’t they? Check out progress on the new one from their Toe Rag hideout in our feature article below.
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
May
Saturday 21st – Hastings, The Pier * Sold Out *
Saturday 28th – Dauwpop Festival, Netherlands (headliners) * Sold Out *
More info at: http://www.dauwpop.nl
June
Weds 8th – 100 Club, Oxford St
Saturday 25th – Glastonbury Festival, Main Stage
July
Saturday 30th – Kendal Calling, Penrith http://www.kendalcalling.co.uk/information/ticket-info/
Sunday 31st – Y Not Festival, Matlock

Home

August
Thursday 4th – Edinburgh Corn Exchange * Sold Out *
More info at: http://m.whatsoninedinburgh.co.uk/event/028964-madness/
Friday 5th – Edinburgh Corn Exchange
More info at: http://m.whatsoninedinburgh.co.uk/event/028964-madness/
Saturday 6th –Tartan Heart Festival, Inverness, Scotland (headliners)
More info at www.tartanheartfestival.co.uk
Thursday 11th – Cropredy Festival, Oxfordshire. First day headliner
Saturday 13th – Boom Town Fair – Winchester
Friday 19th – Cyfartha Castle, Merthyr Tydfil
http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/37005067CAE570E4?tpab=-1
Saturday 20th – Titanic Belfast, Belsonic
http://www.ticketmaster.ie/Titanic-Belfast-tickets-Belfast/venue/461375
Monday 29th – House of Common, Clapham Common
More info at: http://www.madness.co.uk/houseofcommon/
September
Sunday 4th September -Jersey Live Festival, Jersey
Friday 30th September – Sweden, Grona Lund Amusement Park
October
Saturday 1st – Norway – Rockefeller Music Hall * New *
Monday 3rd – Germany – Berlin – Tempodrom * New *
Tuesday 4th – Germany – Bochum – Ruhrcongress * New *
November
Friday 18th – Monday 21st – Madness Weekender 6, Minehead

Suggs
July
16th – Henham park Suffolk * New *
Latitude Festival – Late night at sunrise (DJ set alongside Mike Skinner Tonga)
https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/suggs-1

The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra
July
Friday 22nd, Hampton Pool Picnic, Supporting The Selecter * Sold Out *
August
Thursday 18th, Newham Free Festival
November
House of Fun Weekender

Rhoda Dakar
June
Saturday 18th – 100 Club London
(Also appearing at The London International Ska festival, Glastonbury, & European festivals this year)

The Silencerz
June
Friday 10th Bull Theatre, Barnet (note, this does not list Lee Thompson as appearing)
The band have also recently set up their own Twitter account. Follow @The_Silencerz

BUY IT
Deluxe edition of The Lone Ranger.
https://www.discogs.com/Suggs-The-Lone-Ranger/release/8172245
A Deluxe Edition release of Suggs’ first solo album “The Lone Ranger”.
Originally released in 1995 this much requested reissue is the most comprehensive collection available of the original album and all the related bonus material.
Other bonus material includes the b/sides – ‘Bedazzled’, ‘Animal’, ‘When You Came’ and ‘I Feel Good’. The CD booklet features the original artwork, a UK Discography, lyrics of the original album tracks all in a 16 page colour booklet.
Out now!
http://www.recordstore.co.uk/recordstore/recordstore/The-Lone-Ranger-Deluxe-Edition/54070000000?utm_campaign=suggs-lone-ranger&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter
Buy it if you don’t have the original classic album or want those original collected B-sides together or if you want Suggs to consider another solo album in future support this release, but if you want it for all the remixes please stop taking E and consult a doctor. Some were as dreadful as the Macarena.

Dance Crazy – The Best of Specialized Ska Live
A little nod and appreciation as we at Specialized celebrate the 35th birthday in 2016 of the 2Tone movie & soundtrack “Dance Craze”
This album Features original acts & covers bands paying respects to the Dance Craze phenomenon.
All recorded live.
The same song as Dance Craze by new bands 35 years on. (Including live covers of Madness) pre order now £10 (£2.50 p&p)
http://www.specializedproject.co.uk/shop/

SIGN OF THE TIMES
Suggs on The One Show
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b079rpp2/the-one-show-11052016
Click on the above link to see Suggs appear as the bar man on the One show. During the segment he talks about London pubs, the earlier days, this year’s festivals and new album plans.

Shut Up on the TV Set!
This week the BBC4 re-runs of Top of the Pops reached September 81, and an airing of the band’s video for Shut Up was shown as a new entry at 22.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07bfnxc/top-of-the-pops-24091981
Other performances this episode included Slade, Depeche Mode, Imagination, Alvin Stardust, Linx and Adam & the Ants.
BBC / Paul Rodgers

LIVE INTENSIFIED
Suggs @ Brixton Jamm DJ Set
“I’ve ended up at some weird ‘gig’ in Brixton where Suggs is DJing and just played a dance version of Karma Police”
Gimpo – Twitter
Well, that will be this dub reggae cover of Radiohead by Easy Stars All Stars, then.

MIS FEATURE – MADNESS BACK AT TOE RAG STUDIOS
This week, with live Periscope app broadcasts by Chrissy Boy and pictorial tweets from Bedders and Woody, we have Toe Rag Studios confirmed as the current work place for the band embarking on the forthcoming 11th Madness studio album.
Liam Watson’s traditional archive of 70s tech is a shrine to old school recording sounds and is known to Madness fans for its use during The Norton Folagate album. For both polished band demos and some album work came from sessions in those very studios, with its analogue recording setup.
Social media posts and the broadcasts confirmed the presence of Mr. Clive Langer in helping to shape sounds for the band’s latest outing, as well as percussion work, be that guides or other embellishments, being performed in sessions by Spider or Mez.
We were treated to a peek at mixes of Mumbo Jumbo in playback with Lee vocals, and then a loud guitar solo. This track is now sounding much more Madnessy than before, and not as sample heavy and Dance Brigade-ish as it sounded on the Grandslam tour.
With Chris being present to do guitar work, which is mid stage in the recording process, we got to hear an instrumental version of Don’t Leave the Past Behind You. With the guitar loud and clear at the current playback setting levels, “I rock” reported Chris to camera. Hearing it we agree. Barson key work sounded really great too.
We had already heard of Lee claims from earlier work this year that Mr. Apples was sounding good, though we don’t know if more than one studio has been used, sessions have clearly been multiple times this year thus far.
Check out some of this preview sound shortly in our Missie website player. It’s got us excited for buying the album.
Though a release date is not yet announced, public statements of intention of it being this year, feel more likely now, with a September window being the last gap in an otherwise busy year.
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 627 – Sunday 15th May – Saturday 21st May 2011
It looked like the band were continuing to keep themselves busy, as the Kronenbourg teaser trailer for their latest campaign was now online and available to view.
We’re told that more was coming soon – including a competition, further videos (including a documentary), with the full track (a slowed-down version of Baggy Trousers), being made available in early June.
On to our articles, and our lead section kicked off with the news that the BBC had uploaded and made free to download over 500 episodes of the seminal radio show Desert Island Discs. This is the long-running show where guests choose the records they would take if they were castaway on a desert island. The Suggs episode was from 2002 and we originally featured it in issue 158.
We continued on a Suggs related note for our next article when we reported that the recent Radio 4 play didn’t feature quite as much of our favourite frontman as we were originally expecting. It turned out that Mr. McPherson’s appearances were more fleeting, unfortunately.
Yet more Suggs news followed. For those of you who’d missed Suggs’ recent Radio 2 appearance where he was interviewed by Chris Tarrant, help was at hand as our very own Jonathan Young had only gone and transcribed the lot!
This issue came to a close with news in from Chris Carter-Pegg, who announced that Suggs’ Disappearing London series had been released on DVD on Monday. Not only that, but it was priced at a mere £8.99. Bargain!
10 years ago…
Issue 367 – Sunday 14th May to Saturday 20th May 2006
We got this week’s issue off to a flying start by taking a look at a number of Madness related Ebay auctions that were currently running. The first was for a Madness fruit machine, which was in excellent condition. Having such a limited run, this was sure to become a collectors’ item in years to come.
However, it wasn’t all good, as we did have to laugh at a seller who was trying to flog Madness themed bank notes. However, it turned out to be even worse than that, because if you won the auction you’d get a template emailed over to you so you could do the printing yourself!
News in from the MTR was that tracks from the legendary Crunch! were now available to purchase from Apple’s iTunes store. With the album priced at a very reasonable £7.99, you now had no excuse to not have this in your collection.
It was on to news of the legendary Keith Richards next, who was out of hospital and on the mend, following a recent operation. What did this have to do with Madness. Well, one Mark Bedford was kind enough to print an ‘Ode to Keef’ on his web page, and we were certain that Mark’s kind words had done the trick.
Next, and following his music film work on the 1998 band movie Still Crazy, about a 70’s rock group’s comeback, Clive Langer had once again composed music for a new film, this time about a 1970’s punk band “The Bang Bangs”.
From a Brian Aldiss Novel and directed by Filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe this new movie, that had been showing at world film festivals since last year, was called “Brothers of the Head”
It was a mock-documentary about Siamese twin brothers, Tom & Barry Howe, who become punk rock stars in 1970s England.
The film opened in the US on July 28.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that on Saturday the 8th of July Cheryl and Chris were organising a Madness get-together in Camden’s Dublin Castle. These two were responsible for the Blackpool (2001) and Great Yarmouth (2003) Madness weekends. So, you knew that you’d be in good hands.
To make the day even better, the legendary MOT had managed to bag a headline slot that night in the back room of the DC. What more could you have asked for?
15 years ago…
Issue 105 – Sunday 13th May to Saturday 19th May 2001.
It seemed as if the whole of the UK was currently basking in some fantastic weather, and judging by the lack of news that had landed in our mailbox over the past week, we could only assume that the majority of the MIS readership were out there making the most of it.
Would this mean that we were at the start of the usual Summer lull, which would see months of little Madness news ahead. We had to hope not.
A few subscribers on the Total Madness Mailing List had attempted to keep things ticking along with a number of interesting polls.
Subscriber Joost Eijkholt bravely took the reigns and set up a `Name Your Three Worst Madness Tracks` poll, which we were pleasantly surprised got a good response, and everyone who took part seemed to give their reasons why the three songs they had chosen were their least favourite. We weren’t sure if Joost was planning to release a final top ten of the worst Madness tracks, but we thought the clear winner was the `Hi-De-Hi` induced `Solid Gone`, from the Absolutely album.
Later in the week, Philip Pugh decided to get another poll up and running. This time he was asking people to imagine they work for Virgin Records or you are Clive Langer. How would you have arranged the new songs from 99/2000? What songs would be your album tracks, which would be your singles and which would be your B-sides. As with the previous poll, some really interesting responses came out. Most seemed to agree that `Wonderful` needed to be on the album.
Meanwhile, Tour Madness editor, Jermaine had been in touch and had sent in a small sample from his forthcoming update of what must surely be the bible of Madness tours. A quick apology was in order In the past we’d referred to Jermaine as a `she`. Well, he assured us that he was most definitely the male of the species!
With news being thin on the ground, we kicked-off the articles with a listing of forthcoming gigs for Madness tribute outfits One Step Behind and Los Palmas 6, before diving in with a transcript of a section from the latest update of Jermaine’s Tour Madness publication. This transcript featured a look back at June 25th 1985, when Lee and Chris stood in for Capital Radio DJ Gary Crowley (who had championed Madness since their early shows).
We brought this issue to a close with a highlight of some of the more interesting Madness items up for sale on Ebay, and printed news of forthcoming record fairs organised by VIP Events.
Rob Hazelby

MIS FEATURE – WIN TICKETS TO MADNESS AT THE 100 CLUB!
You have one more week to enter ….
We’re sending musical ripples throughout the UK on Wednesday 8 June 2016 with gigs great and small taking place across the UK for Get Loud.
Enter the Get Loud Sessions ticket draw, by donating £3 to Nordoff Robins to enter. Winners receive 2 tickets.
http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/232089
You’ll need to get a ticket web account.
POST: You can enter for free by sending a postcard to the Nordoff Robbins free post address below. Don’t forget to tell us which gig you are interested in and to include your email address so we can contact you if you win! 
Freepost RRLS-BGRS-GKSL, Get Loud, Nordoff Robbins Fundraising, 20-21 Spectrum House, 32-34 Gordon House Road, London NW5 1LP
Closing date is Thursday 26th May 5pm. winners will be notified the next day and must claim tickets by the 30th. Photo ID is required on the day.

TWEETS OF A DOVE
Mark Bedford ‏@I_be_MarkB
“Day Two: Supplies of tea have been shipped in”
(pictures of cups in toe rag studios)

Woody Woodgate ‏@woodymadness
“I haven’t tweeted for a while, but I’m still alive. Just enjoying everyone else’s tweets. Hello world!”

TIME…
That’ it for MIS 888 (With Subtitles for the hard of thinking. )

Check out the competition for video props, meet and greet, and VIP upgrade over at the House of common page.

https://www.facebook.com/HouseOfCommonFestival/

Lastly check some 1979 photos of The Madness 6 here
http://www.kerstinrodgers.com/index.php?/photography/music/

Until next week, take care,

Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Paul Rodgers and Jacco van’t Riet)