If you were hoping your weekly dose of Madness and Madness related news would be free from Coronavirus updates we’re going to disappoint.
On Friday the organisers of Record Store Day announced that;
“Record Store Day 2020 postponed to June 20th. This decision comes at a time of unprecedented uncertainty and the health and safety of the general public must come first”.
You can read the full press release in this issue’s “Sign of the Times”.
Checking our gig diaries, we’ve noticed that this date now clashes with the Thetford Forest gig.
On a more positive note, this issue sees several new gigs added to the “Showtimes” section. As long as the Coronavirus doesn’t impact dates further into the year, new performances are as follows:
May 2020
24th – The Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, USA
July 2020
3rd – Festival Beauregard, Herouvile-Saint-Clair, France
10th – Sjock Festival, Antwerp, Belgium
22nd – Cabaret Festival, Ardennes, France
And it’s not just Madness announcing new gigs. On 30th May The Silencerz are booked to play at The Bull and Gate, Barnet.
As you can seem there’s lots to look forward to over the coming months.
In the meantime, sit back and had a read through this week’s issue.
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.
20th – 23rd – The 10th House of Fun Weekender. The Final Curtain. More info at www.bigweekends.com Tickets on sale now
Lee Thompson
March
29th – A Voyage Round Lee Thompson. The Last Q&A for One Man’s Madness. Held at The Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High Street, London, E8 2PB, 020 7241 9415 www.riocinema.org.uk
16th – The Courtyard, Herefordshire’s Centre for the Arts
17th – Bristol, Royal Redgrave Theatre
19th – Exeter, Corn Exchange
20th – Westlands, Yeovil
21st – Aldershot, Princes Hall
22nd – Hertford Theatre
23rd – Forum Theatre (Malvern Theatres)
24th – Warrington, Pyramind and Parr Hall
25th – Lythan St. Annes, Lowther Pavilion
27th – Hexham, Queens Hall Arts Centre
28th – Dundee Rep Theatrre
29th – Aberdeen Music Hall
30th – Edinburgh, The Queen’s Hall
The Sliencerz
May
30th – Bull and Gate, Barnet ** new **
Buy It
Record Store Day – Work Rest and Play ** revised date **
Release date: Moved to 20th June (was 18th April)
Format: Double 7″ single
Cat No. BMGCAT430DSV
Overview:
Fortieth anniversary re-issue of Madness’ “Work Rest & Play EP” – the follow-up to their debut album, 1979’s “One Step Beyond…”
Limited edition Record Store Day 2020 release on double 7” format with a triple gatefold sleeve including photos from the time of the original release.
Track listing:
Side One
Night Boat To Cairo
Side Two
Deceives The Eye
Side Three
The Young And The Old
Side Four
Don’t Quote Me On That
Record Store Day – Dance Craze 40th Anniversary Edition ** revised date **
This is a new half-speed master exclusively for RSD and part of the Two Tone Records 40th Anniversary celebrations. This is a soundtrack to the live movie of the same name featuring exclusive live recordings by The Specials, Madness, The Selecter, The Beat, Bad Manners and The Bodysnatchers. This is also first vinyl repress since its original release in 1981.
This week, MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby goes back in time to report on what was going on in the world of Madness 5, 10, 15 and 20 years ago this week.
5 years ago…
Issue Number 827 – Sunday 15th March to Saturday 21st March 2015
This issue got underway with the news that the next Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra gig had been booked and would be taking place at The Garage, Highbury on Saturday 1st of August. Tickets were already on sale as we expected them to sell out quickly.
Things got even better as Thommo told us:
“Latest from the news desk is The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra recording session. It will commence at end of April in London, 15 tracks. 1st rehearsal is this weekend.”
We were hopeful that the August gig would feature tasters of these future Ska Orchestra tunes.
Over in our regular “But it” section we were pleased to reveal that a new CD edition of Cathal Smyth’s solo album “A Comfortable Man” was incoming and would be available on May 4th.
Next, and in “Sign of the Times” we featured a fascinating interview with Suggs which originally appeared in the Telegraph. The article was entitled “I want to find a cure for cancer, says Madness singer Suggs”, and it revealed that the band had already raised around £200,000 so far in fundraising.
Further on, and our “MIS Feature” looked at Norton Folgate, and the campaign to save the famous area in London’s Spitalfields. British Land’s slogan was ‘Creating Places People Prefer’ yet they wanted to destroy Norton Folgate in Spitalfields – demolishing more than seventy per cent of the buildings on a site which sat entirely within a Conservation Area.
Following this it was our semi-regular “Live and Intensified” section where we reported on the recent “An Evening With Suggs and Friends” event held at the Arsenal Football Stadium.
The aim of the evening was about raising money for better diagnosis of a form of cancer that is still claiming more victims than most types of the disease; Pancreatic Cancer.
This issue came to a close with the sad news that Jenny Payne who used to frequent both the Madness Mailing List and Total Madness Mailing List was tragically killed in a car accident.
We dedicated the issue to Jenny and mourned the loss of a fellow Madness fan.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 567 – Sunday 14th March – Saturday 20th March 2010
We started off this week’s issue of the MIS with news that the one and only Chas Smash had set up an account on social networking web site Facebook, for fans to join.
Currently boasting 273 ‘friends’, Carl’s fan account kicked off with the following message to all;
“Hello to all…this is a new experiment in communication ….be gentle and polite and measured and we shall all get on famously. This is the word of Smash..”
The page seemed to be a bustling place for both Carl and the fans to mingle, share links and simply chat. We suggested that if you had a Facebook account you searched for “Chas Smash” and sent a friend request.
The 9th of March saw a number of music legends take part in an evening of music at London’s Barbicanm and with the recent event already a fading memory for many, co-editor Jon Young did his best to fill in the blanks with a detailed review of what went on. It proved to be a detailed write-up, so readers could only assume that he’d not polished off too many ales during the event.
Next, we went over to Retro Madness, who this week were promoting some of their rarer and harder to find Madness items.
The main item on offer was the MIS Fan Club only cassette “The Radio Players Present 30 Minutes of Culture”, which had been reduced to £29.99 included P&P. This very rare recording had never been released on any other format, and this fact, combined with its completely unique artwork drawn by Suggs, as well as it’s rarity, had made it one of the most sought after Madness cassettes in existence.
For those with lower budgets, Retro Madness still had a few copies left of the pre-production paperback of “Suggs in The City”, which could be yours for £11.99 including postage and packing.
We moved on to Blockheads news next, as we gave you the heads-up on a forthcoming session which would see the band appear on 6 Music’s Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show, live in Maida Vale. The session would be broadcast on Saturday 27th March, the tenth anniversary of the death of former band leader, Ian Dury.
Next, it was back to the recent Barbican gig, as we gave you a lowdown on some of the best YouTube videos showing performances shot during the evening. For those who were unable to attend, this was a great opportunity to at least see what the event and performances were like.
We brought this issue to an end with an appeal from Simsey, who was asking us all to download a copy of Ian Dury’s Spasticus Autisticus. This was a campaign primarily via Facebook to try and get the song, which the BBC originally banned, to number 1 or at least as high as possible, and at the same time commemorate the 10th anniversary of the passing of Ian Dury.
15 years ago…
Issue number 305 – Sunday 13th March to Saturday 19th March 2005
We started off this issue with some bad news for those of who were planning to go to the Thetford leg of the forthcoming Forest tour but had yet to buy a ticket. Well, such was the demand for this venue that the 6,000 tickets available had already sold out.
Naturally, we promised to give our readers the heads-up as soon as any further venues sold out, but advised those planning on seeing the band live during this year’s Forest Tour, to get their tickets as soon as posible.
As well as spending time researching and digging out articles for the MIS, the editorial team also receive numerous questions on a weekly basis from fans asking for certain snippets of information.
One email that came in this week was from a fan trying to track down the Suggs `Blue Day` single. A single we thought would only fetch a couple of quid at most. How wrong we were. Looking on Ebay there was one that started off at £1.50, and with 4 days to go was now at £16.00!
It was (and still is!) amazing what some people will pay to ensure a certain item is finally added to their collection.
Moving on, and with the news last week that Madness would be playing a number of gigs in Forest areas this June, and because at least one third of the MIS editorial team had too much time on their hands, coupled with an appalling sense of humour, we now presented the “Bad Madness Forest Puns Competition”, where we invited you to come up with the worst wood related Madness puns, with a mystery prize on offer.
Some of the worst puns we’d received so far included:
1 . Elmbarrassment
2 . Johnny The Horsechestnut
3 . I Pronounce Yew
4 . On The Beat Peat
5 . Return of the Los Palm Trees 7
In last week’s MIS Simon Walshe reported that on the next airing of BBC Radio 6’s Andrew Collins Show (currently hosted by Dave Gorman) the `Fight Club` segment would see The Specials up against Madness. Here the famous names come on to support each of the bands in turn, and it’s up to the public to vote the winner.
After fierce competition The Specials won the “fight” with a very respectable 69% of the votes.
Elsewhere in this issue we’d been contacted by Dan Burdett, informing us that the Like Father, Like Son offshoot, JAG, had recently got their web site up and running. There wasn’t too much to look at at the time of typing, but it looked incredibly stylish, and with a number of tracks available for download, it was certainly worth a visit.
Moving on, and it women’s weekly magazines the topic of conversation.
What did this have to do with Madness? Well, with German publisher Hubert Burda Media announcing the launch of a new woman’s weekly magazine, entitled ‘Full House’ the advertising agency had decided to rope Suggs into singing a re-worded version of ‘Our House’. Yes, it as terrible.
We finished this issue off with news that Chris’, Woody’s and Lee’s sections of the official Madness web site had finally received updates. Oh, and who could forget Bedders’ section with the so bad it’s good humour?
20 years ago…
Issue 43 – Sunday 12th March to Saturday 18th March 2000
During the recent fan-led advertising campaign for `Drip Fed Fred`, even the Ministry of Defence building in London’s Whitehall had failed to avoid the bill posters of DFF. Thankfully, it looked like the whole escapade was taken in good spirit as no arrests were made and the person in question would not be spending the rest of his days in Colchester Military Prison!
Some exciting news in from the Total Madness Mailing List’s Wee Stoo was that last Sunday night a certain Mr. Smash played 5 songs solo during an acoustic session in a club. Apparently Carl, nervous though he was, thought it went down well. Could this be a sign that he will be following Suggs and taking a stab as a solo artist?
Meanwhile, Rob W had been rummaging through the music press and had stumbled across a review of `Drip Fed Fred` in the current issue of `The Melody Maker`. The music paper gave DFF 3 out of 5 and described the excellent `Elysium` as `a masterpiece`.
Following the news from Adele Hargreaves last week that `the prospect of Madstock 5 was gleaming`, rumours were now circulating that a pencilled-in date of Sunday 11th June would be the day that Finsbury Park erupted once more into a day full of Madness. The internet Madness fan-base were already (and rightly so) getting excited and some were putting together basic plans!
Around this time last month, Madness took the unusual step of jetting over to Spain to record a session for future airing on national Spanish television. Well, a few days back the show was finally aired.
The majority of the tracks played were the well-known classics like `Baggy Trousers`, `It Must be Love`, whilst the only new tracks to be aired were `Johnny The Horse`, `Lovestruck` and the excellent `Communicator`.
Remember the Madness competition set many moons ago on the official site where the band were offering us the opportunity of winning some personal goodies from each member by answering a few measly questions? As Simon Roberts pointed out in a recent E-mail to `The Total Madness Mailing List`, “Surely someone on the list has won at least one of the seven items on the list”. Well, he had a point!
As far as we knew, nothing had been announced and no winners had yet been notified.
Do you recall the famous `We want Lee for our Leader` banner that was painstakingly put together by MIS Online subscriber Jerney and subsequently used by Mr. Thompson in one of the shows? Well, the near legendary Jerney and banner could now be viewed in one of the clips currently available for download on the official Madness site which Lee filmed towards the end of last year.
Onto this week’s edition of the MIS now, and as usual, there was a really varied selection of articles to rummage though. Steve Saunders had painstakingly typed-up a retro Madness interview from 1985, Complete and Utter Madness had got another one of their massive Madness sales on the go. We had Simon Roberts with details of how you could finally get your chance to obtain the `Lovestruck` and `Drip Fed Fred` videos, and if that wasn’t enough, we had some exciting news on a new tribute band who were currently doing the rounds.
This decision comes at a time of unprecedented uncertainty and the health and safety of the general public must come first.
3.3.20, 1pm: Record Store Day is a worldwide event involving thousands of people and small businesses—In our discussions over the last few weeks, as information came and changed daily, and then hourly, we’ve taken all of them into consideration as we go over various options: Stay the course. Move the date. Change the structure of the event. No one knows what things will look like in any given place in the next five weeks, and decisions for that time period need to be made now, using current facts.
There is no perfect solution. There is no easy answer. We’ve decided that the best of all possible moves is to change the date of Record Store Day this year to Saturday, June 20.
We think this gives stores around the world the best chance to have a profitable, successful Record Store Day, while taking into consideration the recommendations of doctors, scientists, the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, and the need to be good citizens of both local and worldwide communities.
We’re working with all of our partners and our stores to make this change as smooth as possible for everyone who participates in Record Store Day: customers, record stores, artists, labels and more. Record Store Day is everywhere and we want to hold our party when everyone can gather around safely to celebrate life, art, music and the culture of the indie record store.
(And hey! Anything with the April 18, 2020 on it just became that much more special!)
More than 2,000 children and young people from all Camden’s primary, secondary and special schools took part in a spectacular concert at the Royal Albert Hall last night (Tuesday, 10 March), which celebrated Camden’s musical legacy.
Organised by the Council’s music service, the 12th Camden Music Festival truly captured the energy, creativity and inclusive nature of our borough, featuring premieres of original works, classical, world music, jazz, pop and rap, as well as a finale of It Must Be Love by Madness, who began their musical career in Camden Town.
Held biennially, the festival is the pinnacle of the exceptional music education delivered by Camden Music Service, with the support of the Camden Music Trust, the Council and Camden Learning, as well as other sponsors.
The event brings together parents and children, teachers and music tutors, professional composers and musicians, councillors – including the Mayor and Leader of the Council – celebrities and invited guests – including Suggs from Madness this year – from across Camden’s community and beyond.
That’s just about it for this week’s issue of the MIS.
We’ll be back next week for the latest roundup of Madness and Madness related news. If you have anything you feel would be of interest to other readers please send it in and we’ll make sure it appears in a subsequent issue.
