With the remaining Madness gigs for 2020 looking uncertain, you may be wondering how you’re going to get a fix of live mad music this year.
While they’re not the real thing, Madness tribute outfit “Complete Madness” will be appearing live at a festival on Monday 6th July. How? The event will be a drive-in festival, which you watch/ listen to from the comfort of your car.
Taking place in Newark, the band will be on stage from 8:30pm, and performing for a good couple of hours.
Moving on to the real Madness now, and first-up we have further gig cancellation news. The band were due to perform on the 20th August at Penthalaz, Switzerland. Our thanks go to subscriber Lisa Search for the heads-up on this. Checking the official Madness web site, and the date has indeed been removed from the remaining 2020 line-up.
On to more positive news, and yesterday saw the second Zoom question and answer session with Chrissy Boy. This follow-up to the previous Saturday’s online event featured a very special guest. If you were unable to attend you can read all about it elsewhere in this issue along with a link to the recording.
Finally, this week’s MIS Feature looks at the latest auction item from Dublin Castle Landlord Henry Conlon. Henry has put this one-of-a-kind item forward in an effort to raise much needed funds to keep the DC running during the Covid-19 lockdown. Check it out and get bidding. It’s for a great cause.
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.
In Before We Was We Madness tell us how they became them. A story of seven originals, whose collective graft, energy and talent took them from the sweaty depths of the Hope and Anchor’s basement to the Top of the Pops studio.
In their own words they each look back on shared adventures. Playing music together, riding freight trains, spraying graffiti and stealing records. Walking in one another’s footsteps by day and rising up through the city’s exploding pub music scene by night.
Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.
Record Store Day – Work Rest and Play ** confirmed release date **
Release date: 29th August
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 ** confirmed release 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.
Tracklisting:
Concrete Jungle
Mirror in the Bathroom
Lip up Fatty
Razor Blade Alley
Three Minute Hero
Easy Life
Big Shot
One Step Beyond
Ranking Fullstop
Man at C&A
Missing Words
Inner London Violence
Night Boat to Cairo
Too Much Pressure
Nite Klub
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, 10, 15 and 20 years ago this week.
5 years ago…
Issue Number 840 – Sunday 14th June to Saturday 20th June 2015
We began this week’s issue with the news that a certain Mr. Woodgate had released his first single.
Entitled “In Your Mind”, you can check it out in full on YouTube by going to the following link:
We felt the song felt like a combination of The Lightning Seeds and the Electronic Light Orchestra. The song was now available to purchase and download from both Amazon Music and iTunes.
Woody’s debut album was due to see a release in around three weeks’ time on 6th July.
With the Grandslam Tour well underway, we kicked off our regular “Sign of the Times” section detailing five ways you could win meet and greet opportunities. This section also featured links to separate interviews with Suggs, Woody and Carl, which came from The Daily Echo, Express FM and Channel Four, respectively.
Our “MIS Feature” this week reported on the brand new Lee Thompson Ska Orhestra web site. The site, although only just launched, was packed full of content including a music player, a photo archive a guide to past and present band line-up and much, much more. The site itself was build by the MIS’ very own Simon Roberts.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 580 – Sunday 13th June – Saturday 19th June 2010
With the UK enjoying some unusually warm weather news was a tad thin on the ground. Thankfully, what we weren’t able to provide in quantity we were certainly able to provide in quantity.
The issue kicked off with a Rise and Fall, Keep Moving and Ultimate Madness giveaway. Those lovely people at Union Square had given us one copy of each to dish out as a prize. All you had to do was email in with your contact details. Three winners would be chosen at random and a random one of the three albums would be sent out.
We moved on to Camden news next, as we learned that the fantastic work of the borough’s foster carers had been regognised at a special, star studded awards ceremony. The event, which was attended by acting legend Sir Derek Jacobi and our very own Suggs, saw Camden’s foster carers rewarded for long service of five, ten and twenty years.
Suggs commented: “My mum was a foster carer and I saw how hard she worked to welcome youngsters into her home and make them feel safe and wanted. I have been extremely lucky to have a mother like her and understand better than most the difference that having a secure home can make. All of the foster carers honoured tonight deserve our praise and our admiration and I am proud to be here to celebrate them.”
Next, it was over to Paul Rodgers, who this week gave us an in-depth look at the first week chart stats for the latest Madness compilation “Ultimate Madness”.
So, how did it do? Well, the album was a new entry at number 5 in the indie album chart, number 48 in the official album chart and number 65 in the combined album chart. This made Ultimate Madness by far the highest charting album of 2010 for Madness. Previously we had Absolutely Deluxe and 7 Deluxe chart at 87 and 107 respectively in the chart dated 24 April 1010.
Paul also brought this week’s issue of the MIS to a close with his research into the budget re-release of One Step Beyond.
“The One Step Beyond… budget release will be of interest to completists as it is a different release to the Deluxe one, comes in a jewel case, has a new catalogue number (SALVOVCD02) and is purely an audio CD. There is no DVD or enhanced video element.
Despite this being a budget release USM/Salvo have clearly listened to requests from fans, in that there don’t appear to be any of those annoying little spelling mistakes in titles that have crept into previous Madness reissues.
That’s another double thumbs up from me at least.”
15 years ago…
Issue Number 318 – Sunday 12th June to Saturday 18th June 2005
We started off this issue by giving a big warm welcome to the new subscribers who had joined us following the Thetford gig and our card-handing-out exercise.
As readers would have been able to see from the contents listing, this week’s edition of the MIS was a behemoth of nutty news. So much had happened over the past seven days that we were sure we’d missed one or two bits. It really had all kicked off!
With most of the Madness fan base stuck at work, it came down to Jon Young and Emma Southerby to get along to the filming of the “Shame and Scandal” video, in an effort to let the rest of us know what went on during the day long session.
Jonathan commented at the time;
“It’s a slow process filming a pop video, I learnt that much. The final product is the entertainment. The full days shooting can be exciting in bursts with lots of hard work for the crew and plenty of quiet moments and weird moments of set up that only make sense when edited, just like the old days of headcounts on Top of The Pops, with the band being in the bar! I saw the management walking around and saying ‘where are they, they are needed on stage!’.”
Moving on, and with release dates of the album and single seeming to change on an almost daily basis we’ve trawled through the numerous emails in an effort to put together the current set of release dates for France, the US, and the UK, as well as vague info for Japan.
The dates we’d managed to come up with were:
France:
– Single (Shame and Scandal) – Monday 27th June
– Album – Monday 27th June
North America:
– Album – Tuesday 19th July
United Kingdom:
– Single (Shame and Scandal) – Monday 25th July
– Album – Monday 1st August
Japan:
– Single (Shame and Scandal) – End of July, with 2 bonus tracks.
We were still a little unsure as to why the UK are getting the album and single last out of the three territories, but if this was the case it was safe to assume that a large number of the dedicated Madness fan base would be ordering the album on import instead. In fact, with links already being posted on the MTR for Amazon France, it was safe to say that a fair proportion of people would be doing this.
Next-up we went over to Chris Carter-Pegg, who was excited to receive news that the Shame and single would be released not only on CD, but also a limited edition 7″ vinyl. He was no urging us all to ensure that we not only bought both versions of the single for ourselves, but bought extra copies for friends and family, in a bid to get the single the chart placing it deserved.
Further into this issue we reported that the band would be making a bit of a weekend of it down in the South West, as they would now be performing at Weston Super Mare, the day after their Westonbirt Arboretum gig, which was part of the Forest Tour.
On the subject of The Forest Tour, thanks to the typing prowess of one Jonathan Young and Corinne Hill, we had an in-depth review of the Thetford gig, complete with a full set list and encore.
Jonathan’s generosity shone through in the next article, where he was offering two free tickets to the forthcoming Westonbirt Arboretum gig. All you had to do was come up with some Dangermen related tree puns. The winning entries would bag the tickets. Simple, eh?!
We finished off this week’s issue by thanking Dan Burdett for the heads-up on the Shame and Scandal video shoot, as if it wasn’t for him the Madness fanbase probably wouldn’t know it was happening. Our thanks also went to V2 and the video company for allowing spectators on the day of the filming when they didn’t really need to.
20 years ago…
Issue Number 56 – Sunday 11th June to Saturday 17th June 2000
In Issue 56 we started off by apologising that this MIS was a little shorter than the one before it. The reason being was that the main hard disk containing all the MIS back issues as well as the current issue in progress decided to go belly-up, meaning this issue had to be put together in record time.
With regards to the back issues. Well, issues 1 – 40 could be found over on the MIS web site, but it was looking like issues 41 to present would be lost forever. Thankfully, Total Madness Mailing List subscribers Simsey and Brio got in touch, and offered to send over the required issues. What legends!
Onto the issue itself, and we had Vincent Carden giving us his views on Virgin Records, the numerous mistakes they’d made, and how they just didn’t seem to be able to get the whole Madness promotional machine to work properly.
With a number of you lucky enough to get along to the first public performance of `The Velvet Ghost`, the rest of you would probably have wanted to find out more. With that in mind, the MIS team popped along to the recently uploaded www.velvetghost.com to give you all the lowdown and to tell you that you needed to visit this site now and keep a watchful eye on it over the coming weeks and months.
Many of you would have probably noticed that the MIS Online website was rather out of date and ill-updated. With this in mind, we put out a rather special request.
Further in this issue, Barzo (no, not THE Barso) and Simon Roberts gave us all the lowdown of Saturday’s Velvet Ghost appearance with song recommendations, track listings and a general review of the day. If you couldn’t get down to North London on the Saturday, you needed to read this just to see what you missed. It was enough to make you sick!
And if all that wasn’t enough, we had news that Simon Roberts’ excellent `Not the Madness Mailing List` website had changed ownership, but would still continue to provide the best collection of Madness material for the Madness die-hard.
Rob Hazelby
Chris’ Saturday Cupboard Part 2
Chris Returns for a Further 2 Hours of Banter Alongside a Special Guest
Yesterday, Chris Foreman returned to the bits and bytes of the Zoom conferencing platform for another two hours of chat, banter and questions posed by those members of the Madness fanbase who’d logged in to listen.
The session, once again organised and run by Iain Mason and Owen Collins played host to further demonstrations of Chris’ legendary loft ladder, tales from years gone by and this time a special guest.
Yes, in this second Zoom chat Chris was not alone, and instead was accompanied by our favourite bass player Mark Bedford! Mark was able to provide further insight into the inner workings of Madness before the two of them gave us a track-by-track commentary of Absolutely album.
As with the first session the two hours flew by. If you missed it or would like to listen / watch again then point your browser over to https://bit.ly/2Y1YYJd
Our thanks go to Chris and Mark for taking part and to Iain and Owen for running things.
A very treasured number 1 bottle of MADNESS beer. It’s the one that was presented to Suggs and later to MADNESS HQ.
This is the one and only prototype.
You’ll notice that there is a different bottle cap upon the bottle because it didn’t matter at the time of presentation. YOU CAN’T DRINK THE BEER INSIDE IT EITHER BECAUSE IT WAS TAKEN FROM ANOTHER BOTTLE JUST FOR PRESENTATION EFFECT.
Please read the story below, which will be printed and presented along with the bottle to the winning bidder of this auction.
Not many people know what I am about to inform you.
On 17th March 2012 (St Patrick’s day), I met Suggs, by arrangement, in the Dublin Castle.
I’d had an idea and after telling my mate about it we ‘mocked up’ a bottle for a presentation.
Whilst we were supping on our pints of Guinness I spoke to Suggs about how much the band had achieved over the decades.
We mentioned the residency in the back room, ‘The Prince’ single, ‘One Step Beyond’ the album, ‘My Girl’ filmed in the pub, The Tours, ‘TAKE IT OR LEAVE’ IT the Movie and so on.
It was at that moment……. I then presented to Suggs the idea…… “MADNESS the Beer”.
Crikey, Suggs was euphoric…..He gulped his pint down and went straight outside fumbling with his phone onto the other Band members and onto MADNESS management. Henry’s got it!…… MADNESS THE BEER!
Suggs was pacing up and down outside the Dublin Castle ringing Chas Smash and blabbing away excitedly. No other band were doing a beer at the time.
We had lots of ideas. There was going to be a selection of Ales & Beers. There were so many names to choose from:-
DRIVING IN MY CAR…….The non-alcohol one.
MICHAEL CAINE…… The low alcohol brew……”It’s not supposed to blow your bloody doors off!”
SHUT UP……..Just to annoy bar staff when ordering.
The possibilities were endless.
It was then agreed that my mate and I would go down to Fulham and present at MADNESS HQ. There was no easy task ahead.
First of all we had to get a brewer to make the beer. Then there was bottling, labelling, then distribution, promotion, etc.
Can you imagine how proud I felt to eventually see the beers on the shelf at ASDA and at TESCO.
Henry Conlon
Landlord of The Dublin Castle
Please only bid in multiples of £1.00 not pence.
Full postage must be paid by bidders outside of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales & N. Ireland).
Kindly donated by Henry Conlon
All proceeds to go towards helping to save The Dublin Castle, who need to have some major work done before they can reopen their doors
This auction will run for a Week and end on the 18th June, at 8pm on www.MadChat.co.uk
The current bid price stands at a whopping £425!
Thanks
Kieron Murphy
Time
We’re almost done for this week, but before we go you may be interested to learn that Dublin’s Radio Nova played an hour of Madstock 1992 to mark Madness playing DunLaoire last year.
The Madstock snippet appeared on the Phil Cawley show, just after 2pm on Saturday 13th June.
