Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 922 – Sunday 8th January to Saturday 14th January 2017
Hello, and welcome to this, the latest issue of the MIS Online newsletter.
This week we learned that Madness had added yet another date to their ever growing 2017 touring schedule with the news that the band would be headlining the Saturday night of Bestival, on the 29th July.
We’re only a week or so into the new year, and already the scheduling is starting to look impressive. All being well, further dates in the Southern Hemisphere and possibly Japan will revealed soon. Keep those fingers crossed!
This week we feature part two (of three) of our annual look back at the year gone by. A heck of a lot went on, and it was certainly a challenge deciding what to cover and what to leave out. We do hope you feel we’ve done a half-decent job of this.
We also point you in the direction of a radio programme featuring non other than John Foreman – Chrissy Boy’s Dad, and in the second of our four Sliencerz features we cover more of their songs.
If that wasn’t enough we welcome back Paul Rodgers for more of his Madness Stats, Facts and Figures.
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
April 2017 – The Overseas Leg
Thursday 6th – Hong Kong, China, Rugby Seven’s Opening Concert.
Sunday 16th – Byron Bay, Australia http://www.bluesfest.com.au/schedule/detail.aspx?ArtistID=873
Further Southern Hemisphere dates including Japan should be announced soon!
May 2017 – Back in the UK
Friday 19th – Wirral Live, Tranmere Rovers stadium, Birkenhead
Sunday 28th – Bearded Theory Spring Gathering, (Pallet stage headline), Derbyshire
http://www.beardedtheory.co.uk/
June 2017 – The Cornish Leg
Friday 16th – Eden Sessions, Eden Project, st Austell, Cornwall ** SOLD OUT **
http://www.edensessions.com/lineup/madness/
July 2017
Saturday 29th July, Camp Bestival – Headliners ** NEW **
August 2017
Thursday 3rd – Scarborough Open Air Theatre
http://www.scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/
Saturday 5th – Lytham Festival, Lancashire
https://www.lythamfestival.com/events/madness/
Friday 25th – Portsmouth – Victorious Festival Opening Party
https://www.victoriousfestival.co.uk/buy-tickets/
Monday 28th – House of Common, Clapham ** Not on Sale Yet ** Announced in the current tour programme booklet as happening again
November 2017
17th – 20th November – The House of Fun Weekender – Minehead
Near Jazz Experience
Tuesday, 10th January – Indo, 133 White Chapel Rd, London ** NEW **
The Clang Band
Thursday 19th January, The Islington, Islington ** NEW **
BUY IT
Madness – New Album – You Can’t Touch Us Now
** OUT NOW! **
16 Track CD, 12 Track Vinyl
30 Track Box Set Edition (with demos) ** SOLD OUT **
One Step Beyond Cherry Red Vinyl ** OUT NOW **
At the moment, a limited number are available to pre-order through Pledge Music (http://www.pledgemusic.com/artists/madness). You can also purchase it from branches of Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
If you order through Pledge you’ll be in with a chance of winning some test pressings!
The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra – Bite The Bullet ** OUT NOW **
Vinyl £13.55 (Includes free mp3 version)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01FEA9NYE
CD £11.37 (includes free mp3 version)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01FEA9NTY
Mp3 album also available on its own for £7.99
HEAR TRACKS IN PREVIEW
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01GM41SM6/ref=dm_ws_ap_tlw_alb7
Rhoda Dakar – The LoTek Four Volume 1. ** OUT NOW **
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/rhodadakar
- Fill The Emptiness (Lovers)
- Tears You Can’t Hide
- You Talking To Me?
- Dolphins
- Fill The Emptiness (Reefa)
SIGN OF THE TIMES
A selection of Madness and Madness related articles that have appeared in the press over the past couple of weeks…
Divine Madness
From m-magazine.co.uk
Posted 2nd January 2017
Madness may have grown up but, on the evidence of latest record Can’t Touch Us Now, they still pack a seriously silly and popular musical punch.
Jim Ottewill gets gregarious songwriter and frontman Suggs on the blower to learn how, after almost 40 years in the game, the gang are still residents in the house of fun…
‘I’ve certainly seen enough of my contemporaries wilt and fade. But there’s a real genuine energy to what we do,’ rasps Madness frontman, lover and liver of life Graham ‘Suggs’ McPherson. He’s reflecting on the best part of four decades as frontman of one of Britain’s most iconic bands.
Full article at:
http://www.m-magazine.co.uk/features/interviews/divine-madness/
Madness Revealed as Headliners for Camp Bestival’s 10th Anniversary
From: doresetecho.co.uk
CAMP BESTIVAL: Madness have been announced as the Saturday night headliners for the family friendly festival
IT MUST be love – Camp Bestival love – as Madness are revealed as the Saturday night headliner at this year’s event.
One of the most iconic British bands of the 80s, the ‘Nutty Boys’ will be performing their hits on the main Castle Stage at Lulworth’s Camp Bestival.
Full article: http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/15006436.Madness_revealed_as_headliners_for_Camp_Bestival__39_s_10th_anniversary/
Madness “Can’t Touch us Now” Review from Terazrock.pl
From: terazrock.pl
Sent in and translated for the MIS by Jacek Gajewski
Does the today’s youth recognise Madness? I, while being a teenager in the 90s, mixed with them via MTV. Although they had their biggest hits in the 70s and 80s, songs like ‘Our House’, ‘House of Fun’ or immortal ‘It Must Be Love’ were regular numbers of the MTV’s playlist for long time.
In my opinion, Madness offers today its songs to mature listeners rather, including those ones who used to follow their career from a very beginning. “Can’t Touch Us Now” is an album that could be released either in the 90s or 80s. Soft sound of brass section, recognisable piano, the retro-like violins, unchanged rowdy voice of Suggs (Graham McPherson)… Even if there is an experiment with electronic drums (in ‘Catch You Crying’), it sounds like in the 80s.
The band offers variety of pop, reggae and ska songs, and does not avoid soft love songs (‘You Are My Everything) and the Beatles-like songs (‘Mr Apples’ or ‘Another Version of Me’ sang with typical ‘uuu, la, lala’). And such songs like title one or really rude ‘Grandslam’ could be liked with any doubt. But the longer the album is, it becomes the less interesting. In the second half of this one-hour album, it started to seem that even the band is bored with themselves. And even the “circus-like” arrangement of final song ‘Whistle In The Dark’ does not help – musicians and listeners already sleep.
“Can’t Touch Us Now” is a quite correct album, that could be listened to in fragments, and even as a whole at a pinch. But it is very hard to expect any stronger emotions from it.
2.5 out of 5
SIGN OF THE OLD TIME MUSIC HALL – IT’S CHRISSY BOY’S DAD’S SHOWTIME
Here’s something you may find interesting, a BBC Radio documentary relating to a certain John Foreman. A music hall star, under appreciated folk legend and father of one Chrissy Boy.
The programme was originally broadcast back in July, but is still available for those of you who may wish to listen again or who missed it first time around.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07kpy3v
Born near Euston Station in 1931, John Foreman is a singer of Music Hall songs, folk songs and more. He has been singing at clubs across Britain since the great folk revival of the 1950s.
Recovering well from a recent stroke, John has decided to clear out his North London home. We join him as he picks through a lifetime of memorabilia and his own beautiful self-printed songsheets, hearing him burst into song.
The golden era of the Music Hall had long gone by the time John was born, but he learned a vast number of songs from his parents, from neighbours and from friends. He went on to sing at folk clubs throughout the country and became one of the founding members of the British Music Hall Society.
John’s forebears include clowns, circus ringmasters and dancers. After a childhood in the blitz, he worked as a teacher, busker and Punch and Judy man. As The Broadsheet King, he has printed and bound countless pamphlets, songsheets and books. We eavesdrop as John looks back on his life and the songs that he has loved.
Producer: Tom Woolfenden
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Our thanks go to Owen Collins for sending this in.
MIS FEATURE – THE SONGS OF THE SILENCERZ – PART TWO
We continue our new series of four features about the songs of The Silencerz. We spoke to guitarist Nick from the band, who penned the four original songs that have so far made it into the set live by the band, all of which Lee was a part of at The New Year gig at the Dublin Castle which went fantastically well for a start to this year.
Having looked at the lyrics of Callie Road last week We get to look again at what Inspired Nick to write each tune and a look into the lyric’s recounted in full in this new series of features, continuing now with the i tunes single track “Havin a laugh” which is available now. Here’s Nick…
…
Honestly for about 20 years I have wanted to write a song about the seaside with a deckchair in it. In fact, checking dates for this article I rediscovered the sketch of this song I put together for the band, I originally called it Deckchair.
My family had a caravan on a site opposite Osea Island near Maldon, Essex on the River Blackwater and I was fascinated with deckchairs since I had spent an entire morning trying to put one up. I was 35.
Musically the starting point was playing around the main chords from Cally Road, but shifting one chord to a major, after that the brass riff came. I generally sing those till it feels like it works.
First verse is kind of a lot about when my kids were younger and getting ready for a day out – something about that organisation is quite alien to me; my kids still tease me about dragging them down to Devon with a tent, sleeping bags and nothing else. We had to take turns eating cereal out of one Tupperware box. They were 7 and 9 years old but already knew they’d been short-changed in the parent department. I begged them not to phone Social Services.
Later, the lyrics borrow imagery from the film Big (“when Zoltan speaks…”) and reflects me dealing with my Mum getting more frail. It can probably be summed up by the Buddhist phrase ‘there is nothing permanent but change’ Blimey this is getting a bit deep. Not that I’m a Buddhist, it’s just something that a lot of people find: Change is difficult. I really struggle with change. I made myself the same lunch for about 6 years. True.
Having a Laugh – Nick Godwin 2014
Verse 1
We got the towels and swimming shorts.
A toilet roll if we get caught
Hats for sun, hats for rain.
Cos we know nothing stays the same
Chorus
Oh No, don’t ask me to explain
When I want the sun I get the rain.
Verse 2
Kiss me quick, feel me slow.
Where are we going I don’t know
To a pier on the beach.
And a time that’s out of reach
M8
You only called me up to let me down,
I’m in a deckchair falling to the ground,
You put an ice-cream in my hand
and covered it with sand.
You must be having a laugh.
Verse 3
When Zoltan speaks we don’t hear,
We get bigger every year
We are squashed by gravity,
and then we lose our sanity
Nick Godwin
A LOOKBACK AT 2016 – PART 2
Following on from last week’s look at the first four months of 2016, we take a look at May to August, detailing some of the high and low points of the mid-chunk of the year.
May 2016
The first issue of the month got underway with the news that Suggs had posted a short teaser video to his Facebook page to promote the One Man Show Tour he was currently appearing in.
In the video our favourite frontman spoke of his school days and Baggy Trousers.
The other big news was that on the 1st of May tickets for the Clapham Common gig – House of Common – went up in price. The new price tier was a completely odd £47.81. Who comes up with these prices?!
We did also notice that in the promoter’s terms and conditions, that all acts, including headliners, could be changed or cancelled without notice, and if Madness did have to cancel their slot you wouldn’t be entitled to a refund! That seemed very unfair to us.
On to Madness off-shoot news, and it was this month that we finally managed to get our hands on the new Silencerz single “Having a Laugh”. Of the single, Jonathan commented at the time;
“It’s a catchy brass lilting, slow but determined tune. Lee appears for a showman flourish solo but it’s son Daley that carries the song beautifully with a bang on understated and believable performance”
Now, it may have been months away, but this month we were given the full line-up to the November House of Fun Weekender. Three days of nuttiness, live bands, DJs, comedy and more were promised.
We hadn’t got the month out of the way and we were already suggesting that a full-on Christmas tour was in the making. Why? Well, a newly shot photo of the band in front and behind bars was starting to do the rounds. Our prediction turned out to be spot-on as by the end of the month the band were announcing that they’d be touring the UK in December, and they’d be armed with a new album!
Those of you who wished to pre-order the album could do so online, and be gifted the title of Untouchable Madhead, a title that came with the promise of many exclusive treats.
May was also the month that the band performed on the recently renovated Hastings Pier. Of the gig, Chris Carter-Pegg commented;
“What a superb gig in Hastings last night. All Madness gigs are great but this one just felt like it was in a league of its own – brilliant location, great mix of fans, perhaps the best artwork for a Madness gig ever, fantastic set list starting with Embarrassment, closing with Night Boat, the return of TJAD and one new track. Just a shame the pier capacity was 2,500 and not 25,000.”
June 2016
With a new month came rumours of the name for the forthcoming 11th studio album. Various media appearances and press articles which were starting to surface all referred to it being named “Can’t Touch us Now”.
We felt the name was a fitting one for a band ahead of their peers, what with them being 11 albums into their career and still going from strength to strength. All the information we had so far was pointing to a release containing between 11 and 13 new tracks.
In gig news, and while we had no doubt that Dutch fans enjoyed the bands’s performance at the Dauwpop Festival, they were likely wondering what had happened to a certain Mr. Thompson. Well, it turned out he’d missed the plane!
June was also the month where the band announced a whopping 13 dates for a forthcoming Christmas tour. The name of the tour? Can’t Touch us Now, of course!
No doubt in practice for the busy summer and winter months, the band played a low-key and unadvertised gig at Indigo 2, a small venue which is part of London’s O2. Asked about the new album, Bedders was tight-lipped, but did say that it looked like Rag and Bone Man may not be on the new release.
Continuing the trend of low key gigs, June was also the month the band performed an intimate set at London’s 100 Club. The band performed 15 tracks, starting with Embarrassment and finishing off with crowd pleaser Night Boat to Cairo.
Towards the end of the month the band appeared on the Pyramid Stage as part of the Glastonbury Music Festival line-up. This was their fourth appearance at the event, an the band were due to be on stage at 16:30. Fans would be pleased to hear the first TV broadcast of Mr. Apples, but those who didn’t follow the band too closely didn’t know what to make of Chris’ ACDC Showtime session.
As the month drew to a close we managed to get our hands on the new Specialized album, Bite the Bullet, which was due for official release on the 26th August.
July 2016
We began the month with a call to arms. Why? Well, we’d learned that learned that sales of Nick Woodgate’s latest album hadn’t been particularly strong, and that was putting it lightly.
Here’s what Nick had to say at the time;
“I released ‘Walk With Me’ album on May 6th this year I have just found out that it sold one copy.”
He then followed up by saying;
“I just realised that I bought a copy, so the number of albums sold is… zero.”
Feedback from fans was swift, with people saying they didn’t know it was available, or that at the present time it could only be purchased through iTunes, so they weren’t able to buy it.
If you didn’t know Nick had a new album out, you now had no excuses.
On to tour news, and this month the band had two dates, with appearances at Kendal Calling on Saturday 30th and the Y Not Festival on the 31st. This was a fairly quiet month for the band, as August onwards were absolutely stuffed with dates.
July was also the month we discovered that Suggs and his wife had lived in the same house for 35 years.
“I’ve never lived lavishly but I’ve lived comfortably,” said the singer. “I’m happy with the simple things in life. We weren’t elevated to the status of real rock stars, mollycoddled by management, mansions and swimming pools. I’ve been in situations where people treated us like that and found it very claustrophobic.”
They say that “All good things come to an end”, and around mid month Suggs declared that his solo Shepard’s Bush Empire show in London would be the last performance of his “My Life In Words” tour.
Suggs appeared in an amusing Camden Town video promo for the event, which featured numerous locations of the much-loved North London borough.
We’d already had the Brighton gig in December sell out already, and now it was the turn of the Groningen gig in the Netherlands to declare they were all out of tickets. We were still basking in the sunnier climes of July, so it really was amazing to see gigs at the back end of the year start to get booked-up.
If you’d been watching TV channel ITV this month you may have noticed Lee Thompson and his Ska Orchestra crop up in a string of Boots TV commercials. Boots were highlighting the need for and benefits of decent hearing aids for those of us later in life, and a certain Mr. Thompson could be seen being fitted for a piece of kit. It was really well done, and hopefully encouraged others to get their hearing checked.
With the month drawing to a close we discovered the band have slipped a few special “winning” pint glasses into a number of London pubs. If you were lucky enough to find yourself with one of these you’d be able to grab special VIP tickets to the forthcoming House of Common event in August.
August 2016
Our first issue of the month saw us notch-up a not too shabby 900 issues. Yes, for 900 weeks (give or take a few when we’ve messed-up the numbering!) an issue of the MIS has been produced and sent out across the internet. Not bad considering that when the newsletter was started we thought we’d have to go to a monthly publication due to lack of news. That has never happened.
Also this month the band revealed that the first single from their next album would be the one and only Mr. Apples. We understood that Charlie Andrew, producer of many tracks on the last Madness album, had prepared a single mix, from the band’s work in Toe Rag studios for the new album.
We felt it was a great song and a great choice. Madness had actually been playing it in the encore at recent gigs, so it would start to become familiar to those attending the live shows.
Talking of single releases, August was when we reviewed the 4th single from the Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra. Entitled “Feel The Little Belter”, this LTSO single mix was due for release on the 2nd of September.
With the release of the next Madness album getting ever closer Amazon were starting to promote a release date of the 28th October. Not only that, but they’d managed to get hold of the cover artwork and were displaying it proudly on their site.
There was certainly a lot to look at on the cover, and we’d spotted that a dog on it was non other than Pickles. The Football world cup, Jules Rimet Trophy was stolen in early 1966 in England during an exhibition where it was on display. A ransom was demanded by the culprits.
7 days later, and following an arrest, Pickles the dog (Owned by Thames Lighterman David Corbett) discovery the trophy wrapped in paper and hidden at the bottom of a suburban garden hedgerow in South London.
When England won the trophy, as a reward, Pickles was invited to the celebration banquet and was allowed to lick his owner’s bowl.
Pickles went on to be named “Dog of the Year”. A true Madhead among pups we thought.
Also the month it was revealed that the band had been shooting a video for their next single. Of the session, Thommo commented;
“Just completed filming of Mr Apples video. What a most enjoyable experience. Fantastic crew & director,Chris gave him a few tips!”
Thommo had certainly been busy over the previous couple of weeks, but managed to find time in his busy schedule to be interviewed by Record Collector magazine ahead of the release of the LTSO Bite The Bullet album.
We brought this month to a close with our very own interview with Lee Thompson as we celebrated the forthcoming launch of Bite The Bullet
Rob Hazelby
PAUL RODGERS’ MADNESS STATS, FACTS AND FIGURES
This week sees Can’t Touch Us Now tumble to its lowest chart position so far. More on that later. First a brief recap on last week’s charts including some massive news!
Last week Can’t Touch Us Now fell from 33 to 49. Despite this drop it still sold somewhere in the region of 5,500 copies in the last chart based solely on sales in 2016. There was some brilliant news, however, as those sales took the total over 71k and were enough to land the album at 99 on the top 100 best sellers chart for 2016. Looking back, the last Madness albums on the year end best seller chart were Total Madness (147) and The Liberty Of Norton Folgate (163) both in 2009. Oui, Oui did not feature in the year end top 200 for either 2012 or 2013, presumably splitting the bulk of its sales between those years. This should further illustrate the relative success of this latest Madness album. In the same chart Total Madness plummeted from 134 to 175, but would have still sold roughly 1,000 copies to edge it ever nearer to platinum status.
Now onto this week’s chart, where news of another new lowest position for the album is tempered by my statistical comparison with Madness albums past. The new position is number 60, which is caused by a big drop in sales to a new low of around 2,600. This figure is based on figures given by Music Week for sales of the albums at number 51 and 66 and making an educated guess based on the average gap between their sales. TV appearances had a big influence on the album chart this week. All three of Adele’s albums benefitted from a Channel 5 documentary being shown, whilst appearances on The Graham Norton Show or Jools Holland’s Hootenanny benefitted Pete Tong, Chaleur Humaine and Caravan Palace (who I think were on Later the same week as Madness back in September). As I have stated in these columns and on Facebook, getting the right TV appearances may give the album the regular boosts it needs.
The album position this week and last was hampered by the untimely death of George Michael. Never a fan of his music, the news filtering through of his many private acts of charity, benevolence and support render me unwilling and unable to begrudge the man knocking Madness down a few spots in the chart. Andrew Ridgely, on the other hand, has really annoyed me having the last Wham! album in the top 40. It was the final straw. I’ll never forgive him.
This is CTUN’s 10th straight week on the top 60 (and by default in the top 75). The last Madness studio album to manage that many successive weeks in the top 60 was Keep Moving back in 1984. In its 10th week it was number 55, the following week it was outside the top 75 and after 12 straight weeks it left the top 100. It did however return to the top 75 for another 5 weeks in total.
Prior to Keep Moving, Rise And Fall managed 12 successive weeks in the top 60. After one more week in the top 75 it departed. Like Keep Moving it managed to add another five weeks in the top 75 after its initial run, but it didn’t drop out of the top 100 before doing so.
Many chart watchers may remember the days when year end and decade end and all time charts were collated for Record Mirror and the Guinness Book of Hit Singles (and albums sometimes). This was done by awarding points for positions in the chart each week and adding them together. I’ve been doing this for Madness for a few years now, although the results have been skewed by there being a top 200 these days, when there was only a top 75 or 100 back in the 80s. Basically if a record is at number 1 it gets 200 points, if it is at number 200 it gets 1 point. Week by week the points awarded give an indication of how strongly albums have performed against each other. To remove the skewing problem I have recompiled my points awarded using the top 100 (thus a week at number one album will score 100 points, whereas a week at 100 will score one). All versions of any album are added together for this purpose so I do not distinguish between the Stiff, Virgin or Union Square versions of Complete Madness for example.
Twenty two Madness titles have reached the official top 100 albums chart in the UK. CTUN is the 10th most successful with 656 points (which broadly means an average chart position of number 35 over its 10 weeks). Divine, Complete, One Step Beyond… Absolutely and 7 lead this chart by a country mile, but Rise And Fall, Keep Moving, Total and Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da are all catchable by CTUN. Hopefully you’ll have noticed that it is already Madness’ 7th most successful studio album using this scoring system. A longer chart run will surely see it rise further as, I feel, it deserves to do.
Until next time pop pickers.
Paul Rodgers
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 661 – Sunday 8th January – Saturday 14th January 2012
After some really packed issues of late, it may have come as a surprise to many readers that this was a much leaner affair.
This week we had news regarding a second leg of Suggs’ 2012 One Man Tour, which added a number of dates to those already announced for February. If you had yet to catch our favourite frontman or were keen for more, then we were sure this issue would be of interest.
Elsewhere, we featured part two of our lookback at 2011, where we charted the highs and lows of the previous six months, and for those of you who liked to go back a bit further we went back to January 2007 and January 2002 in our regular “That Was The Week That Was” article.
If all that wasn’t enough, we had news of Suggs’s appearance on BBC TV Show ‘Something For The Weekend’, and showed how you could catch this either on the BBC iPlayer or YouTube.
10 years ago…
Issue number 401 – Sunday 7th Jan to Saturday 13th Jan 2007
We began with a reminder to those in the ITV London area to set their set top boxes to record, as on Tuesday 9th, the first episode of series two of Disappearing London, hosted by Suggs, would be aired.
This episode would take Suggs on a visit to the bunker of non other than Winston Churchill.
A few weeks ago we reported that Lee Thompson would be performing at a small low-key venue. We also said that tickets would be severely limited.
Thankfully, subscriber Bex managed to get along to the gig, and was kind enough to give us a brief lowdown on the event;
“Just thought I’d let ya know how the gig went on NY eve.
Basically there were only 100-150 tickets available, and they had been snapped up within 2 days. Lee had told us about it at the Bournemouth gig (it had only just been confirmed) so we were lucky to get tickets.
The first set opened with “Cool for Cats” with Lee reading lyrics from a piece of paper. They then rattled through their versions of “Town Called malice”, “Ironshirt”, “Get it On”, “No No No (you don’t love me)” and various others. All nicely done, though hilarious when Lee had to get his crib sheet of lyrics out for a couple of tunes. They were on for about 45-50 mins and then the buffet opened…which was an excuse for everyone to pace themselves as drinks were incredibly cheap for a change!
The second set featured a great version of “walking on the moon” and then it basically turned into a Madness fest with “The Prince”, “One Step Beyond”, “Embarrassment”, “My Girl”, “IMBL”, “Lovestruck” and finishing with “Night Boat…” which was in danger of causing the Landlord huge bills due to the amount of crazed dancing that was going on”
Next, it was on to our second and final part of our lookback at 2006, as we rattled through July to December, and charted the highs and lows in the world of Madness over the past 12 months.
It was over to Bedders for the next article, as we spoke exclusively with the one and only Mark Bedford, who talked about The Christmas Tour, NW5, 2007 and ‘that’ moustache!
We moved on to MySpace for our next article, as we reported that Mike’s son, Timothy, had got himself a corner of the internet, and had uploaded three of his own compositions, plus one by his dad.
In his first blog Tim explained that;
“I just started playing and writing. Not really writing, just making it up whilst I play”.
The tracks available online were ‘Michael’, ‘Submerged’, ‘In The Sun’s Shadow’, and ‘Short Track by Mike’.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that Crunch bassist Tadman, would be performing in his other band, Dubweiser, at the East Oxford Community Centre on the 13th of January.
If you were in the locality we urged you to get along.
15 years ago…
Issue 139 – Sunday 6th Jan to Saturday 12th Jan 2002
Kicking off this issue was the news that a new re-release of the long deleted Crunch album would feature a Magic Carpet remix previously only found on the 12 inch version of the single.
As with nearly all Crunch related news, this tidbit came in from the one and only Lee Swandale.
Elsewhere, and having now fully recovered, Jonathan Young was here with his review of the recent `Like Father Like Son` gig which was held at The Torrington Arms in North Finchley. We had an in-depth write-up of the event, plus a track by track listing.
If you were lucky enough to get some money off Granny over the Christmas holiday, and were struggling to find something to spend it on, the news that Madness fan Chris Carter-Pegg was having a massive clear out of surplus stock should have interested you. In this issue we had details of just some of the items currently up for auction, but you could contact Chris directly for details of other items he was willing to part with.
To round off all that, the MIS Online website had received it’s first update of the year in the form of a downloads section. So, if you were after a Madness related midi file or screen saver, this should have been one of the places worth visiting on your file-collecting travels.
Rob Hazelby
TIME…
That’s just about it from us for this week.
We leave you with the latest cover from The Bed & Breakfast Men; their cover of Suggs’ solo classic “Camden Town”.
Take it away boys…
Have a good week!
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Owen Collins, Jacek Gajewski,
Paul Rodgers and Nick Godwin)
The Author
