It’s been a fairly quiet week for Madness news and that’s reflected in the limited amount of fresh content in this weeks’ issue of the MIS. That said, the band’s Facebook feed did awake from its slumber and find time to send out a couple of interesting updates.
To save you having to dig around Facebook for this content you can find it further down in our regular Sign of the Times section. Please check it out.
Before we get on with the issue you may recall that several weeks back we mentioned we’d be running an auction where you could win Lee Thompson signed Benny Bullfrog lyrics. We’re almost ready to get this up and running. Please be patient just a little longer.
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.
Description: TWO TONE RECORDS was created in 1979 by The Specials founder Jerry Dammers. The label spawned a youth movement and a number of well-known artists and singles throughout its tenure including the aforementioned Specials.
This 40th Anniversary 8-CD Collection contains the first 8 albums released on the label, with offerings by The Specials, The Selecter and Rico, along with the sought-after live concert album ‘Dance Craze’ and the ‘This Are Two Tone’ which includes a host of non-album releases.
Record Store Day – Dance Craze 40th Anniversary Edition
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 852 – Sunday 6th September to Saturday 12th September 2015
This issue began with some sad news, as on Friday 4th September legendary trombonist Rico Rodriguez passed away at the age of 80.
Born in Havana, Cuba, on the 17th October 1934, Rico would probably be best known amongst Madness fans due to his collaborations with The Specials. Rodriguez also worked closely with Jools Holland, as part of the Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, and released his own material in the 1970s. Recognised for his hard work and talent, in 2007 his was awarded an MBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music.
Online condolences came in thick and fast, with Mike Barson commenting “Rest in peace Mr. Rodriguez. Hope all is you wherever you find yourself”. Mark Bedford adding.. “Very Sad, The master has left us, an honour to have shared a stage with him.” and Chris Foreman posting a picture of the 2tone bands with Rico standing over them in a happy moment from the distant past.
Moving on to jollier news, and web site the resident.co.uk had included a selection of Suggs quotes as the band geared up for their Blackheath performance. The quotes weren’t your run of the mill comments heard time and time again, and as such we felt them worthy of inclusion in this very issue.
Meanwhile, with the Bristol County Ground gig fast approaching we included all the park and ride information you could need if you were planning to drive to the concert. With no parking on site the park and ride option was definitely the best way to travel. The band had several gigs running into late September, and these were as follows:
11 – Canterbury, Kent County Cricket Club
12 – Bristol, Gloucester County Cricket Club
13 – London, On Blackheath
18 – Leeds, Yorkshire County Cricket Club
19 – Newbury Racecourse.
25 – Wolverhampton
26 – Chester-le-Street, Durham County Cricket Club
While September is traditionally a dry month it would certainly play host to some chilly evenings what with the dates being so late in the year.
Back to the sad passing of trombonist Rico Rodriguez, and we had a very special MIS Feature commemorating the life of the great musician. Titled “Rico Rodriguez the authentic pioneer of Jamaican Music”, this was an excellent read and came courtesy of Paul Willo and the Specialized Project.
We brought this issue to a close reminding readers that on the night this MIS was going out the band would be performing in Gibraltar. Following this they’d be back to the UK for the final stint of their Grandslam tour with the run of September dates detailed above.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 592 – Sunday 5th September – Saturday 11th September 2010
We had an absolutely packed one for you this week. As well as our regular ‘That Was the Week That Was’ segment we had news explaining how you could purchase karaoke versions of various Madness tracks. Quite who would want these in their collection we weren’t sure.
Further on we welcomed the return of author John Reed who was here with a second extract of his forthcoming Madness Book ‘House of Fun – The Story of Madness’. Alongside this we had an in-depth review of the ‘Wonderful’ 2-disc re-issue, courtesy of Paul Rodgers. Such was the detail of Paul’s review that it easily took up the majority of the issue!
So, did Paul think we should add it to our collections?
“I’d urge anyone who missed out first time round to add this to their Madness album collection. The albums may come incredibly slowly these days, but Wonderful provides a brilliant bridge from Madness mk1, picking up the baton from Keep Moving and eventually passing it on to their career opus The Liberty Of Norton Folgate which followed almost a decade later.
Five stars out of five”
Further on, and Jonathan Young had uncovered some juicy tidbits relating to an old track by The Madness, entitled “Another World”. This had failed to make The Madness’ only album.
We brought this issue to a close with news in from Warren Moyle, who reported that an unknown Madness album titled “On Board The Nutty Express – Live at The Astoria” was listed on Amazon as being released on 6th September.
15 years ago…
Issue 331 – Sunday 4th September to Saturday 10th September 2005
We were sure you all knew people who had decided to play out their own sporting ambitions on their children, by making them take up a place in the school football, cricket or rugby team, but had you ever wondered what would happen if a die-hard Madness fan managed to get their child in the line-up of Madness?
Well, you could stop guessing, and instead head over to the MIS forums, where a number of visitors had decided to upload snaps of their little ones dressed in their nutty gear.
Moving on, and we announced that due to lack of use the MIDI section of the MIS site would be removed. Well, no sooner did we do it we started to receive emails from visitors asking where it’d gone. Well, due to popular demand, the section was re-instated.
On to the articles, and probably the main news this week was that during the past few days the band made a number of appearances over in Germany, in an effort to promote the new album. We had reviews from three members of the online Madness community covering the performances, giving those of us who were unable to get along to the shows an opportunity to find out just what went on.
Also, this week we had news of a possible new Madness rarity that was now doing the rounds, (this turned out to be a small quantity of the ‘Forget Myself’ 7″ mistakenly having “Shame and Scandal” on the B-side) rumours of forthcoming Stateside radio appearances, and confirmation that North London band MOT would soon be making their way up to Manchester in a battle of the bands style event.
20 years ago…
Issue number 69 – Sunday 3rd September to Saturday 9th September 2000
We started off this week’s issue with news that Simon Roberts had kindly taken a few snaps of the recently refurbished Dublin Castle pub, for your viewing pleasure. The picture showed a shot of the bar with the usual Madness and Suggs framed posters above the bar.
You may recall a few weeks back that the campaign to have a revamped Upminster pub named after Ian Dury sadly failed. Well, news in from TMML subscriber Simsey was that not all was lost.
“There is a lasting tribute to good ol’ Uncle Ian in the pub. Hanging in the pub is a good sized photo of Upminster’s favourite son (although he was born in Harrow!) and the LP cover to the ‘self-titled’ (tee-hee) album ‘Lord Upminster'”.
Did you fancy hearing some of those classic Madness tunes of yesteryear re-vamped with a completely different sound? Well, you’d soon have the opportunity as Jean-Pierre Boutellier told us that;
“A Madness tribute sampler will be out before the end of the year in Mexico with a Mexican band who cover Madness songs”
Interestingly, ten years later JP would be one of those behind the hours and hours of work that went into the two disc Madness tribute album. Perhaps this is where the idea was born from?
On to the articles, and we got this week’s selection underway with a massive XFM interview with Suggs, that had been copied and pasted from his homepage, courtesy of TMML subscriber Fiona Linnell. In it Suggs explained what he was doing before his stint at XFM, why he chose to join the station, and what he wanted listeners to get from his show.
Next-up was subscriber Ashley Martin, who revealed that Channel 5 would soon be filming the next series of karaoke show “Night Fever”, and that you could be in the audience. Tickets were completely FREE, and we assured readers that those ‘randomly’ pulled out of the audience are picked beforehand, so there was no need to panic.
Moving away from Madness, and TMML subscriber Pete Gardner passed on the news that there was a recently released Specials album now doing the round;
“It’s a triple CD set called “Stereo-typical: A’s, B’s & Rarities” and features every track they ever had on a 7″ or 12″ single, plus a few extras (but only from the 2 Tone days, not including “Hypocrite” or “Pressure Drop”). It is sheer class with a class sleeve and notes. There are a couple of dodgy remixes/re-recordings of Nelson Mandela and Ghost Town (Ghost Dub ’91) though!”
Further on in was a welcome return of Scatty, who was dismayed that Madness weren’t a feature in London’s “Rock Circus”, and that petitions should be set-up nationwide in an effort to show the owners of the attraction that our favourite band should appear there. (As far as we know, this failed to get off the ground).
We finished off this week’s issue with a short review of Suggs’ XFM Radio show, kindly typed-up by Fiona Linnell. In it, the man himself revealed that his current top 10 tracks were:
1. Yellow, Coldplay
2. Another Pearl, Badly Drawn Boy
3. Catch The Sun, Doves
4. In The Name Of The Father, Blackgrape
5. In Amber, Lowgold
6. That’s When I Reach For My Revolver, Graham Coxon
7. Barabajagal, Dope Smugglaz Allstars With Sahun Ryder and Howard Marks
8. Ghost Town, The Specials
9. Theme From Gutbuster, Bentley Rhythm Ace
10.Sweet Pea, My Sweet Pea, Paul Weller
Rob Hazelby
Sign of the Times
Baggy Trousers Remastered Video
Originally posted on the Madness Facebook feed.
40 years on we thought it only right to spruce up the Baggy Trousers video a with an HD remastering! Watch on Youtube: https://bit.ly/3lR4hVz
Lyrics:
Naughty boys in nasty schools
Headmasters breaking all the rules
Having fun and playing fools
Smashing up the woodwork tools
All the teachers in the pub
Passing ’round the ready-rub
Trying not to think of when
The lunch-time bell will ring again.
Oh what fun we had
But, did it really turn out bad
All I learnt at school
Was how to bend not break the rules
Oh what fun we had
But at the time it seemed so bad
Trying different ways
To make a difference to…
The headmaster’s had enough to-day
All the kids have gone away
Gone to fight with next-door’s school
Every term, that is the rule
Sits alone and bends his cane
Same old backsides again
All the small ones tell tall tales
Walking home and squashing snails.
Oh what fun we had
But, did it really turn out bad
All I learnt at school
Was how to bend not break the rules
Oh what fun we had
But at the time it seemed so bad
Trying different ways
To make a difference to the days.
Lots of girls and lots of boys
Lots of smells and lots of noise
Playing football in the park
Kicking Pushbikes after dark
Baggy trousers, dirty shirt
Pulling hair and eating dirt
Teacher comes to break it up
Back of the ‘ead with a plastic cup.
Oh what fun we had
But, did it really turn out bad
All I learnt at school
Was how to bend not break the rules
Oh what fun we had
But at the time it seemed so bad
Trying different ways
To make a difference to the days.
Baggy trousers, baggy trousers, baggy trousers
Baggy trousers, baggy trousers, baggy trousers
#Madness #BaggyTrousers #40thAnniversary
Introducing the Baggy Trousers 2020 Back-To-School Lip-Sync Video Challenge!
Originally posted on the Madness Facebook feed.
Getting the kids ready to go back to school this year is probably daunting for some of you.
Here’s a way to get them in their uniforms and have some fun at the same time…
Here’s what to do:
1. Get your child dressed up in their school uniform and show them the Baggy Trousers lyric video https://bit.ly/3bzE09x
2. Film them singing or lip-syncing to their favourite part(s) of the song (keep clips under 30 seconds, do more than one if you like). Get close so they are framed a bit like a passport photo (If you have 2 phones, film on 1 phone while holding up the lyrics video on the other phone).
3. Post your video on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter using the Tag #BaggySchoolTrousers in the comment (so we can find it)
We will edit them together to make a brand new version of the video on our Youtube channel.
Entry closes on Wednesday 9th September.
If you want to be credited on the final Youtube version, please include your credit info in your submission.
Please no filming in or around schools!
Good luck have fun!
(Please note, if your Instagram/Facebook account is set to private, we will not be able to see your entry. Please use twitter to submit your video instead).
Time
And finally…
Eagle eyed Madness fans may recall that the paperback version of “Before we was we” saw a release earlier this year. The paperback features a new added foreword from Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh.
This foreword is a nicely penned summary of what the book is, and what Madness mean with class lines of British history. Irvine briefly tells of his path crossing with the band, from pre fame early Camden gigs up to the modern era failure to buy the band a full dinner. It’s written with a touching heart of their legacy.
