It’s a fantastic web site, and if you’ve not visited before then please do check it out.
Now, before we let you get on with the issue, we had to include this classic Sony advert from 1984, which was dug out by Jean-Pierre Boutellier of the French MIS. JP commented when he posted it on Facebook;
“In 1979 the Walkman was born… and in 1984, advertising in Smash Hits magazine for the Sony Walkman with a tape of Complete Madness in it. Happy birthday!”
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.
26th – Tunes in the Dunes, Peranporth Beach, Cornwall. (Madness appear on the Sunday.)
31st – Docklands, Limerick, Ireland
June
1st – Dun Laoghaire Harbour, Dublin, Ireland
2nd – Waterford, Day Tripper Festival, Ireland
7th – Market Rasen Racecourse, Lincolnshire
8th – Chepstow racecourse, Monmouthshire
15th – Kenwood House, Hampstead. This Massive North London home coming gig for Madness XL features a full scale orchestra with the band. ** SOLD OUT ** If you’re planning to travel from Hertfordshire check out this link for coach travel info: https://zeelo.co/interest/16097
16th – Isle of Wight Festival
21st – New Market Racecourse, Suffolk
22nd – Lingfield Park Racecourse, Surrey
28th – Franklin Gardens, Northampton (Suppt: The Lightning Seeds)
29th – Newcastle Racecourse, Newcastle
July
4th – Noches del Botanico, Madrid, Spain
5th – Port America, Galicia, Spain
6th – Vida Festival, Barcelona, Spain
12th- Vivary Park, Taunton
19th – Open Air Theatre, Scarborough (Suppt: The Pigeon Detectives)
20th – Doncaster Racecourse, Doncaster
21st – Bitts Park, Carlisle (Suppt: Bootleg Beatles & Chris Difford) Orig date 9/6/19
24th – Sanddown Park Racecourse, Esher
August
17th – Newbury Racecourse, Berkshire
18th – Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland
20th – Custom House Square, Belfast
23rd – Northern Meeting Park, Inverness
24th – East Links, Montrose
26th – Clapham Common, XL South London festival. With “Special” Guests.
30th – Wolverhampton Racecourse, Wolverhampton
31st – Winter Gardens, Margate
September
1st – The Downs, Bristol, (Suppt: David Rodigan)
November
Friday 29th – Monday 2nd December – House of Fun Weekender 2019
December
12th – AFAS Live, Amsterdam Suggs
May
5th – Love Letters to London, Horton Hall, London, FREE * new *
Before We Was We: The Making of Madness by Madness
The band’s first official book.
The story of how they became them. It’s a journey full of luck, skill and charm, as they duck and dive by day and make the name in London’s exploding music scene by night, zipping around the capital in their Morris Minor vans. Their formative years, 1970-79.
This is the riotous coming-of-age tale of seven unique individuals, whose collective graft, energy and talent took them from the sweaty depths of the Hope and Anchor basement to the Top of the Pops studio. In their own words, they each look back on their past and how during those shared adventures, they formed a bond that’s lasted forty years. Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.
You can now buy a range of classic album design T shirts.
Absolutely returns to the official T shirt store since first appearing a decade ago as merchandise. Seven now joins the albums T-shirts range, only previously a promotional shirt. For the first time Rise & Fall (Following last year’s triumphant return of this album’s title track on tour) joins official shirt range.
Best of all, 10 years on from its box set release, The Liberty of Norton Folgate is purchasable. We are having a little bit of that!
Complete Madness. Total Madness hits albums join the range.
This range is also certainly a reaction to the continuing bullshit of bootleggers targeting social media with non licensed product not endorsed by the band and illegal.
Don’t be an idiot and buy from badly photoshopped pictures of Suggs holding a shirt up etc. Those are fake. The Madstore and official band website and gigs merchandise stands are all run by the same company with the band’s legal backing. You will only find a small number of charity shirts or some One Step Beyond shirts outside of buying from the official online store. Don’t give your money to the bootleggers exploiting you.
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: 781 – Sunday 27th April to Saturday 3rd May 2014
This week The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra had been rehearsing new tunes and even working on some original songs at the rehearsals set up by Bedders. While it was too early for any new album work to be starting, the band’s festival season and beyond to the jazz cafe, could well be an interesting time, following the two new songs that appeared at Dingwalls this year.
Lee Thompson had also been busy elsewhere with one of the longest gigs we’d ever seen him play. With latest line up The Lee Thompson Band he filled a 2 hours mega set in Enfield on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Magic Brothers completed their Dublin Castle residency in triumphant packed out style the Thursday just gone and were now looking into a concert in support of “Rethink” before their headline slots at The Big One in November, and some more fun on their way, as they continued to work on the “In Your Mind” album.
Elsewhere, Suggs was selling out theatres on his Solo tour with Chelmsford being just one example of where fans demand meant many could not get tickets to see the show.
Over in “Live and Intensified” we reported on the opening of the much anticipated Nutty Bar Marbella Port.
The bar, taking up two large locals in the port was all decked out in black and white, in complete Ska style and was a welcome change from the normal bars you will find in the area.
Lee Thompson took to the stage around 11 on Saturday evening playing his legendary saxophone to some classic Ska tracks from his 2013 album ‘The Benevolence of Sister Mary Ignatius’ including the excellent “Fu Man Chu” and my favorite “Gun Fever”.
This was one packed issue with reviews of the Magic Brothers who ended their spell at the Dublin Castle, and Lee Thompson who recently performed in Enfield with a massive 25 track set!
We brought this issue to a close with the news that last week’s auction of a rare Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da double vinyl test pressing from cooking vinyl went for £228, which was great news for The Royal Marsden charity.
10 years ago…
Issue 521 – Sunday 26th April to Saturday 2nd May 2009
This post Camden Crawl edition of the MIS went out on what had been a busy few days for half of the editorial team, as they’d been out in the field, socialising and reporting on this year’s North London music festival.
However, those efforts were nothing compared to one Daniel Woodgate, who not only found time to drum with the rest of the band in Camden, but who also ran this year’s Flora London Marathon, in aid of the extremely worthy MacMillan Cancer Support Charity.
Our favourite drummer completed the race in an extremely impressive time of 3 hours, 42 minutes and 8 seconds, and came in at position 6,209 out of more than 35,000! Woody’s donation page was still open, and waiting for your pennies.
With the raised total currently standing at £3558.00 as the this issue went out, we were certain would appreciate any further charitable donations.
In this weeks’ articles we reprinted a review of the Camden Crawl which originally appeared on the tourdates.co.uk web site, featured a full transcript of Suggs’ interview with Jools Holland, which appeared on a recent episode of Later With.. (thanks to Graham Yates for that one!), and took a look at Uncut magazine’s review of the Norton Folgate album. With this years’ Camden Crawl still fresh in the minds of many, we featured a number of other articles covering the event, and brought the issue to a close with The Guardian’s review of Dust Devil, and news in from Patrick Murphy, who reported that Madness had now been booked to play a festival in Russia on the 8th of August.
15 years ago…
Issue 259 – Sunday 25th April to Saturday 1st May 2004
With the UK experiencing its first bit of decent weather that year the majority of UK-based Maddies were no doubt out and about, enjoying the unseasonally warm temperatures.
It wasn’t just on the MIS where it’d been quiet. Over on the Madness Trading Ring things had also been slow, meaning that our fellow Maddies were having to amuse themselves with discussions about Madness ringtones. Still, it wasn’t a total loss as those subscribed to the list were treated to some vintage Madness magazine articles, courtesy of list maintainer, Steve Bringe.
News reached us this week revealing that Phill Jupitus was to compere a night at Walthamstow dogs on April 29th, to raise money for cancer information and support charity CancerBACUP.
Tickets to the Ian Dury Memorial Race Night were priced at £40. This included a traditional British meal, a race card for the night, admission to the races and admission to the private Goodwood lounge where Phill Jupitus would entertain. There would also be a special auction with donations from The Blockheads.
Things were finally also starting to appear on the official Madness web site. Suggs’ page now featured a rather unusual poem on his page.
It started off on a slight variation of lyrics from `Day on The Town`, before getting fully underway. Were these lyrics from an unreleased song? Perhaps they were lyrics of something yet to come.
Mike had added to his section by putting up even more photos, annotated with some very, very strange notes.
Chris’ page was now huge, featuring even more questions (from us fans) and answers (from the man himself). Some answers were are sensible, whilst others were very much tongue in cheek or totally barmy!
Poor old Woody had yet to upload anything to the page behind his door, but this hadn’t stopped the rest of the band taking the time to put bits and pieces up there for him. Mark had decided to add a lovely photo of a shopping trolley to the top of the page, Mike had left a few filled bin liners, whilst an unknown member of the band had dumped a skip there!
As with previous updates, Chas’ door took you straight to the official Chas Smash web site at www.chassmash.com
Lee’s update was a quick one, and we’re now treated to a rooftop shot of some chimneys, and smoking session of sorts.
Finally we moved over to Bedders’ door. This week Mark took on the might of industry giants Nintendo and Ikea!
Rob Hazelby
Sign of the Times
Suggs: Love Letters to London
BBC Radio 4 comedy starring Suggs. 4 episodes (1 series) in 2019. Stars Graham McPherson.
Brand new comedy. Starts on Wednesday 15th May on Radio 4 at 11:30am.
Madness frontman Suggs shares his fondest memories of the city with his unique wit, charm and musical highlights from his career, celebrating what it means to be a true Londoner. Joining Suggs throughout the four-part series will be Paul Weller, Boy George and Jazzie B.
Paul Weller will be chatting with Suggs about their shared love of Soho, and the two will sing a song together. Boy George will be sharing stories about Hampstead whilst Jazzie B will be reminiscing about Camden.
Suggs says: “I’ve just finished rehearsing with Paul Weller and I’m so excited about recording this show for Radio 4! I’ve always loved London from its bars, to its markets, to its homes, parks and people. I’m going to be telling some stories and singing a couple of unexpected songs. Don’t miss it, I think you’ll like it.”
Recorded in Hoxton Hall, the Madness front man will take listeners on a dark comedic trip through London, showing a side of the city never heard before.
‘Love Letters to London’ is a brand new show for BBC Radio 4 where Madness front man, Suggs shares his fondest memories of the city with his unique wit, charm and musical highlights from his career, celebrating of what is means to be a true ‘Londoner’.
This is an incredibly rare opportunity to come and watch Suggs recording BBC Radio 4 new broadcast in one of the oldest Victorian music hall in the country. Expect unheard anecdotes, an exceptional music selection and some very, very special guests for a Sunday evening of pure entertainment.
About Suggs:
Graham McPherson, known by the stage name Suggs, is an English singer-songwriter, musician, radio broadcaster and actor. In a music career spanning 40 years, Suggs came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the world famous ska band Madness. Suggs began his solo career in 1995, while still a member of Madness.
Since then, he has released two studio albums and two compilation albums, while being a prolific actor, with roles in films, theatre and national television.
Please note, this event is free to all but ticket registration is required.
The Stevenage Lytton Players Perform Our House The Musical
Stevenage Lytton Players and an amateur dramatics theatre and a registered charity. They will be performing Our House, The Madness Musical at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage from the 5th to the 8th June 2019.
Tickets are prices at £19 with concessions at £17. £2 of your ticket price goes towards the Gordon Craig Restoration fee.
I’m on my way to The Silencerz & got the wrong train from London Bridge to New Eltham. Hope I won’t be late now!
I had a chat with Julian beforehand but he didn’t let much slip when asked for future plans or secrets. Nick is always a nice guy to chat to.
It was a slimmed-down Silencerz line-up today though, Six of ‘em rather than the more usual 9 or 10. So no Steve or keys.
The brass section 2 saw a sax & trombone.
I got asked to sign a poster because someone wanted the band AND friends to sign it, which was nice.
Free Time, Devil & Deep Blue Sea, Better Days. Message to you Rudy.
Skinhead girl. All come to mind from the set still despite getting there late on an empty stomach and having been bought three pints within 30 minutes.
Thommo arrived with his wife for the second set. He said if I’m lucky he might get up and play with the Silencerz during the second set tonight so I told him in that case I might get up and leave lol. No he was just taking the piss as the stage was way too small. We sat and shared some Chips and soon it’s later than you think as Enjoy yourself is the last song.
Debs kindly gives me a lift and The Thompson’s tell me they enjoy the new specials album, they were listening to it last night, and are trying to get tickets for Brixton.
You could tell the Silencerz sound was different tonight but “Enjoy Myself”… Yes I did.
Ryan West
Time
We bring this week’s edition of the MIS to a close with something that may interest all our readers who are Blockhead and/or real ale fans.
The Billericay Microbrewery have recently released a small range of Ian Dury and The Blockhead tribute ales. The ales are as follows:
Billericay Dickie – A balanced amber ale with biscuit notes. 4.2% ABV.
Rhythm Stick – Hoppy, rich ale with caramel flavours. 4.8 ABV.
Clever Trevor – Powerfully hopped extra special bitter. 5.8 ABV.
Raisins to be Cheerful – A black IPA with raisins to give a rich fruity flavour together with Cascade & Chinook hops to give a fine aroma. Brewed with beer writer & blogger Justin Mason. 7.4% ABV.
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll – A hoppy IPA with 3 American hops added 3 times during the brewing process. 5.0% ABV.
My Old Man – This traditional amber bitter has a great balance of malt & bitter. 3.9% ABV.
If you were lucky enough to attend tonight’s Love Letters to London performance at the Horton Hall, featuring Suggs, then please email in and let the rest of us know what the evening was like. We’d love to hear how it went.
If you’re thinking of attending the event on performance on the 5th May then get applying for your tickets pronto. They’re bound to get snapped up quickly especially as they’re free!
