The bids came thick and fast over the past two weeks, but with the deadline now passed we can reveal the winning bidder for the signed Lee Thompson “Benny Bullfrog” canvas was MIS subscriber Gary Brownjohn.
Gary won with a very generous bid of £213. 100% of this this money will ploughed back into the running costs of the MIS and official Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra web sites.
Our thanks go to Gary for placing his winning bid and also to Lee for making the auction possible in the first place.
On to this week, and with the latest album from Nick Woodgate’s JoJo Man Band due for release on the 16th October, our “MIS Feature” takes a quick look at this new compilation and points you in the direction of a few of the tracks so you can stream before you decide whether to part with your cash.
We’re certainly enjoying the new album here at the MIS, and from reading several comments from our friends on Facebook, it would seem we’re not the only ones who like Nick’s latest release.
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.
This album was previously available as a pop-up 4 disc gatefold LP priced at around £50. The 4-disc release is now sold out on vinyl.
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 856 – Sunday 4th October to Saturday 10th October 2015
This MIS got underway, as eagle-eyed MIS readers had noticed that something had gone slightly wrong and for two weeks running the issues were numbered 853. We assured you that normal service had now resumed. Whoops!
On to Live and Intensified, and we featured a nice transcription of an article that had originally appeared on the Chronicle Live web site. The report covered the last night of the Grandslam tour which ended up at Durham Cricket Club. The reporter rounded off their lowdown by commenting; “With performances like this, expect the glorious nonsense to carry on for a few years yet”.
Moving on, and it was over to MIS regular Paul Rodgers, who gave a detailed review of the recent Madstock CD and DVD re-issue. Paul declared that the release was long overdue, but he was loving it. The package weighed in with the original sleeve notes, a PAL DVD running in 4:3 format with running time of 105 minutes. Meanwhile, the CD running time was 77 minutes. If you still want to track this pack down, the catalogue number is SALVOSVX027.
We continued on a Madstock DVD/CD package related note as we headed into our MIS Competition. Thanks to Holly Barringer and the rest of the team at BMG we had two copies of the forthcoming Madstock CD/DVD pack to give away.
To be in with a chance of bagging one of these beauties you just needed to complete the following:
My favourite Madness song live is…
Easy!
We brought this issue to a close by reporting that comedian Dave Gorman had given Suggs a mention in his recent “Modern Life is Goodish” show as a beekeeper who doesn’t keen bees. We wondered if Woody also counted as an ex-beehive man, too.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 596 – Sunday 3rd October – Saturday 9th October 2010
We kicked this week’s issue of the MIS with an apology, as two copies of the previous issue ended up landing in subscriber mailboxes. How? Well, we sent the first email out and after an hour or so nothing had appeared. Concerned that our readers would be without their weekly update of Madness news we re-sent it. Shortly after two issues arrived.
On to the articles, and we kicked things off with a heads-up from Paul Rodgers, who reported that Tesco were currently selling their “Ultimate Madness” CD for a mere £3 via their web site. Curiously, it was more expensive to purchase the download than the physical version.
Paul also reported that Steve Bunyan was talking about Madness in this week’s Music Week;
[Steve]Bunyan believes a significant part of the reissues business involves coming up with attractive packaging and materials to remind buyers about the quality of the music.
“As a catalogue marketing company we have to be inventive,” states Bunyan. “For instance, we have to figure out how to re-promote Madness. We’ve got three Madness best-ofs in the market and if we do a proper job on those campaigns, they’ll sell tens of thousands of copies this autumn. Thankfully we’re being helped by the fact that the band is going out on its biggest tour in 20 years.”
Elsewhere, and we continued our teaser coverage of the forthcoming House of Fun: The Story of Madness book, by John Reed. Mojo magazine gave the book a very favourable 4 out of 5, and finished the review by saying;
“Now, finally, the band […] have got the book they deserve[…]”
Moving on, and it was over to the Madness Central Blog, as they gave us a lowdown of the forthcoming dates for Terry Edwards and Mark Bedford. With two dates in October and one in November, you had no excuse for not catching them.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that on Friday 2nd October the 2 Tone museum, café and venue “2-Tone Central” finally opened its doors to the public, with Neville Staple of The Specials, Ranking Roger and Pauline Black as special guests.
The next 2-Tone Central gig was due to take place on Saturday 30th of October.
And finally, news in from the French MIS team was that a new DVD box set featuring Madness was now available to buy. Entitled “Chorus 1979 /1981”, this 3 DVD compilation featured masses of clips from the famous French music show. With footage of many classic bands, the inclusion of Madness may have been the icing on the cake.
15 years ago…
Issue 336 – Sunday 2nd October to Saturday 8th October 2005
It never ceased to amaze us just how badly Madness songs have been crucified over the years when sung by various third parties.
The latest addition to this ever growing list of Madness musical massacres came to us thanks to those masters of the balls `Gala Bingo`, who were currently using a re-worded (and REALLY badly sung) version of `House of Fun` as part of their advertising campaign. It was worth a watch to see and hear just how bad it was!
Although it wasn’t directly Madness, we kicked off this week’s collection of articles, by passing things over to Ed Stebbing-Allen for his review of a recent Bad Manners gig, in the coastal town of Newquay.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go according to plan. Despite the venue being pretty much full, and the band having travelled all the way to Cornwall, the gig was cancelled, to the most venomous chants of “You fat b*stard” you’ve ever heard.
Why? Well, an hour and a half after the band were due to go on stage, the promotor for the event got up on stage and explained that the band were refusing to play, as they’d been promised £3000, but the event had only raised £2000.
Ed finished by commenting;
“So all in all, it was a bit of a bummer, as I imagine they’ll have p*ssed off a lot of their fan base down here, which might affect them getting booked again”.
Next-up was Paul Muscat, with the next part of his famous MadChart countdown. This week we went from 100 down to 31, in a mass of chart stats, facts, figures and trivia, in a lengthy article that clearly must have taken Paul many, many hours to put together.
All being well, next week’s issue of the MIS would bring the latest Madchart to a close. With the closure we’d have a new number one and at the same time poor old Paul Muscat would finally be able to take a well deserved rest.
Moving on, and it was the turn of MIS subscriber Emma, to get us excited, when she explained that she’d managed to find the artwork to the forthcoming single ‘Girl, Why Don’t You’ over on the 101cd.com web site.
The tracklisting for this release would be as follows:
1 – Girl Why Don’t You
2 – I Chase The Devil AKA Ironshirt (BBC Radio 2 Session)
3 – Girl Why Don’t You? (Dub)
We’d mentioned it briefly in a few recent editions of the MIS, but it was now all-systems-go for the Paris Madmeet on 17th October, which coincided with the Madness concert on the same day.
French Madness fan Mr. B had put his knowledge of the area to very good use, by securing not only a venue close by, but very reasonable drinks prices, and the possibility of food if the interest was there.
All you had to do was let him know if you were coming.
We finished off this issue with the latest news from Warrior Clothing, news from Paul Muscat of a US Brit-influenced band that had recently performed in his coffee house, and reminder that Jon Young would soon be re-joining the ranks of the MIS.
20 years ago…
Issue number 74 – Sunday 1st October to Saturday 7th October 2000
A number of you pointed out the old Suggsmeister was up to his old tricks of doing anything for a bit of cash (and lets face it, who could blame him?) as he, or rather his voice, had been appearing in the current run of Fairy Liquid adverts.
We suggested that the commercial was well worth looking out for as the voice of Suggs advertising washing-up liquid would almost certainly bring a smile to even the most hardened of Madness fans.
Meanwhile the TMML’s Boonster reported that Suggs had been spotted presenting `The Real Car Show` with (and we quote) “some really dishy bird as co-host”.
On to this week’s articles, and we started off with Vince Foley, who was NOT impressed with the official Madness site one bit. In fact, he described it as “sh*te”.
Why all the anger? Well, he was annoyed that the site had barely been updated for the past year, and that the last news item referred to the release of Drip Fed Fred for the 28th of February.
As Vince said at the time; “…If you’re gonna do a job, do it right, or else don’t do it at all”
Moving on, and thanks to the ever helpful Claire Keegan, we had details of all Complete Madness gigs for the next month. With a whopping 17 dates, the group would be in for one very busy October.
It’d been a fair old while since we’d last announced the appearance of a new Madness web site, so it was with great pleasure that Chris Byrne asked us if we’d be so kind as to plug his new creation.
Appropriately titled ‘Madnet’, Chris’ creation featured news, gig information, the highs and lows (by year) for the band, and much more. With regular updates promised, this was one web site that we were advised to keep an eye on.
Elsewhere, we took a look at issue 7 of Ian Taylor’s Mad Not Mad fanzine, which was so packed, Ian had to leave some of the material until the following one.
We finished off this issue by reporting that Dr Martens had cut back high street production of their boots from their Northampton factory.
Looking on the bright side though, the boots would continue to be produced, but in smaller quantities and more of a designer type line.
Rob Hazelby
MIS Feature
The Best of the JoJo Man Band
Out on the 16th October is the new album “The best if the JoJo Man Band”. Priced at a very reasonable £7.00 plus postage and packing, the CD weighs in at 12 tracks, with a running time of 33 minutes.
The tracklisting is as follows:
All in
Dr No
Ghost Faced Killer
Evil
Plastic
Indie Love
Life
Jojo Man
Make her Happy
Cash in Hand
Home
It’s not me
All songs written, mixed and mastered by Nick Woodgate
If you’d like to listen to a few tracks before you decide to part with your money, simply point your browser over to: https://thejojomanband.com/listen
Here, you can listen to the following:
Cash in Hand
Indie Love
Plastic
Ghost Faced Killer
All in
Dr No
The web site tells us that “The recordings you hear are taken from original wax cylinders, reportedly stolen by Pickles the dog in 1966. Only recently digitally restored by the Granddaughter of Margret Rutherford, Ethel Percy Mayhem. His influences are: Enid Sludge, Little Boy Compo, The Twizzly Sisters, The Stomach Complaints and Go To Bed With An Empty Hamster”.
Quite!
Please do have a listen, and if you like what your hear show your support and order yourself a copy of Nick’s latest CD.
Rob Hazelby
Time
That’s almost it for this week.
Before we go you may be interested to learn that last week Lee recorded an interview for Absolute Radio. We know little more than this at the moment, other than we can confirm it was for a 2-Tone documentary.
Naturally, as soon as we hear anything further we’ll be sure to let you know.
