Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 939 – Sunday 7th May to Saturday 13th May 2017
The first of this year’s UK gigs for the band begin in just a couple of weeks with the Wirral Live concert taking place on Friday 19th May. This week, Tranmere Rovers Football Club have been announcing on Twitter that you can get in for free! What’s the catch? Well, you do have to buy the current home strip football shirt of the club. Given the price of football shirts and the end of the football season looming, this is probably a deal only of interest to the hardiest of locals.
More foreign Madness gig news is still coming in for the year though, as this week subscriber Arnold Strap gave us the heads-up on a new date for Belgium. The event is The Lokerse Festival which takes place this August. Madness are set to appear on Monday 7th.
Looking back to the UK, and to the end of this year now, The House of Fun weekender has announced its first selection of artists joining Madness this year. None other than Cockney Rebel have been announced. Steve Harley’s band are likely to bring a smile around these parts, and are given a headline level billing, while Craig Charles is a welcome return this time curating a centre stage show that sees the lockdown band bringing not just funk and soul sounds, but a rub-a-dub reggae selection. We are to be treated to vocal appearances by Dennis Alcapone, Tippa Irie and Micheal Prophet during Craig’s evening.
Other acts announced include Geno Washington and the Ram Jam band returning, Dangermen producer Dennis Bovell performing his own music, and The Aces, too (The late Desomond Dekker’s band featuring Del Roy Williams). Don Letts and Earl Gateshead DJ. And it’s a nice touch to see the addition of a tribute band to a group that themselves are hard to get hold of these days in any form. Roxy Music have often been inspiring to Madness in the past, and Roxy Musique, representing their sounds, will be bringing that neat electro pop sound that is more than Virginia Plain.
More acts will be announced later in the year, and we’lll update you when they are announced. As mentioned in last week’s issue, the fancy dress theme is Madheads go to the movies. So, get your thinking caps on for nutty dress influenced by the madder films you’ve born witness to over a box of popcorn.
Now, sit back and enjoy the read!
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
SHOWTIMES
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.
Madness
May 2017
Friday 19th – Wirral Live, Tranmere Rovers stadium, Birkenhead
Sunday 28th – Bearded Theory Spring Gathering, (Pallet stage headline), Derbyshire
http://www.beardedtheory.co.uk/
June 2017 – The Cornish Leg
Friday 16th – Eden Sessions, Eden Project, St. Austell, Cornwall ** SOLD OUT **
http://www.edensessions.com/lineup/madness/
July 2017
Sunday 2nd July – Spiritland Talks – Madness Q & A ** SOLD OUT **
Sunday 9th July – Bospop, Weert, Netherlands
Saturday 29th July, Camp Bestival – Headliners
August 2017
Thursday 3rd – Scarborough Open Air Theatre
http://www.scarboroughopenairtheatre.com/
Friday 4th – Falkirk Football Stadium
http://www.falkirkfc.co.uk/madness-in-falkirk/
Saturday 5th – Lytham Festival, Lancashire
https://www.lythamfestival.com/events/madness/
Monday 7th – Lokerse Festern, Belgium
http://www.lokersefeesten.be/artiest/madness/ ** New **
Saturday 12th – Kent County Showground
https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Maidstone/The-Kent-County-Showground/Madness-in-Kent/12902396/
Friday 18th – Hardwick Hall
http://www.hardwicklive.co.uk/madness-live/
Saturday 19th – V Festival, Hylands Park
Sunday 20th – V Festival, Weston Park
Friday 25th – Portsmouth – Victorious Festival Opening Party
https://www.victoriousfestival.co.uk/buy-tickets/
Sunday 27th – The Big Feastival, Alex James’ Farm – Headliners. More info at:
http://uk.thebigfeastival.com
Monday 28th – House of Common, Clapham ** Tickets now on sale! ** More info here: http://www.madness.co.uk/houseofcommon/
September 2017
1st-3rd Electric Picnic, Ireland ** Sold out Festival**
November 2017
17th – 20th November – The House of Fun Weekender – Minehead
The Silencerz
Friday 23rd June – Mill Hill Festival
Saturday 22nd July – The 100 Club. Featuring Lee Thompson with support from The Skapones and MIS DJs
Near Jazz Experience
June 8th – Kino Teatr, St Leonard’s, East Sussex. Supporting Blurt.
** Rescheduled **
Voice of the Beehive
Saturday October 7th, Indie Daze. All Dayer from 1pm. Kentish Town Forum. NW5 London
http://louderthanwar.com/shop/tickets-2/indie-daze-4-festival/
BUY IT
Madness – New Album – You Can’t Touch Us Now
** Out Now! **
16 Track CD, 12 Track Vinyl
Don’t Let Them Catch You Crying – Remixes
Three new dub remixes of the track “Don’t Let Them Catch You Crying”, from the current album, are now available.
Leo Zero, the London based remixer and producer, has created the new mixes. You can buy them from Madness artist pages on iTunes and Amazon, and many other music sites. They can also be streamed through Spotify.
The mixes are the “Leo Zero remix” and his “Tufnel Parkas” mix, available both as a dub and full instrumental versions.
The former samples “Rocksteady beat” from the start of The Prince before riffing on the title song. The latter mixes make atmospheric use of the backing vocal stems and there is much looping of the guitar stabs on the tracks.
It’s perhaps fitting that Leo Zero has previously worked with Bryan Ferry, as this particular Madness track from the Can’t Touch us now LP is the most dance music based track from the latest batch of Madness and so suited to elongated 12″ length instrumental musings. Certainly more so than some others. Even if these remixes won’t dazzle the general fan, they are a nice experiment that highlight in stripped down parts, some of the elements that go towards the finished Madness song on the album.
We feel a dubplate coming on.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XPQSD2K/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
Jonathan Young. Our thanks also go to Mark Doherty for a heads-up.
SIGN OF THE TIMES
Madness on Benidorm – ITV
SUGGS AT THE SOLANA Benidorm finale ends with a bang as Madness perform but their ‘swinging’ connection with Jacqueline will have fans in hysterics
In the hilarious scenes due to air on Wednesday, fans of the show will see her pursue drummer Dan ‘Woody’ Woodgate.
Watch Again….
ON ITV
https://www.itv.com/hub/benidorm/1a9152a0044
The Swinging Character of Jacqueline hints on early on in the episode to having met a band at the Jubilee concert at Buckingham Palace.
If you don’t want to have to sit through the whole show, or are out of ITV regions or the UK, Thanks to Adam Nichols, you can watch the last 10 minutes of the show on youtube here.
Worth a watch for Woody’s famous thumbs up being used on the most inappropriate of propositions!
PAUL RODGERS’ MADNESS STATS, FACTS AND FIGURES
Drip Fed Fred Benefits From Recordstore Day
Drip Fed Fred, released on Record Store Day, is up 10 in the physical chart and at number 9 in the vinyl chart.
Time to start properly releasing Madness singles again, with B sides and that.
And following the stunning performance on the stupefying sh*t-com Benidorm, Total Madness has surged back into the indie album chart at number 34.
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 678 – Sunday 6th May – Saturday 12th May 2012
We began with the news that the Lee Thompson’s Ska Orchestra had returned to the Ironworks studios to finish two more tracks for their debut covers album, and then played a sold out gig, returning to The Prince Albert in Brighton.
The write-up, courtesy of one Jonathan Young, covers both the studio session and the aforementioned gig, which was also a mini Madmeet.
“This gig has warmed the band up from the winter, nicely readying for the main event in Islington next month. Be there”.
Next, it was over to the news of the House of Fun Weekender, as the band were had posted up the following update;
“We know lots of you have already booked your tickets for this year’s House Of Fun Weekender but we haven’t told you an awful lot about it yet… soon we will be able to reveal the band line-ups but meanwhile we can confirm that much of the planned frivolity for the Nutty Weekend is already in place.
Many of the most popular dishes from last year’s banquet of fun will be back this year… Rockeoke, Silent Disco, Darts, Live Comedy along with new additions like Tape The Top 40, Musical Bingo, Guilty Pleasures and more will ensure endless extra curricular merriment…”
Moving on, and we reported on Olympic rumours as over the past week or so London Live had revealed further details surrounding the opening Olympics ceremony concert in Hyde park.
This opening event was due to feature four big acts – Duran Duran, Snow patrol, Stereophonics, and Palo Nutinni.
This brought into question – just who the fourth act might be at the sold out closing ceremony gig which was currently playing host to Blur, The Specials, and New order. Some advertisements had “special guests” detailed, and even BBC6 listed Madness as playing the Olympics a few weeks back.
We’d have to wait and see what would get announced.
Our issue drew to a close with the news that although it had been years since the last issue saw the light of day Ian Taylor was busy working on the 10th anniversary edition of his wonderful “Mad Not Mad” fanzine.
At present, we knew of little else surrounding the release, but we did hint that there would possibly be an appearing from one or two member of the MIS team.
10 years ago…
Issue number 418 – Sunday 6th May – Saturday 12th May 2007
We began this issue on a non Madness related note, as we revealed that top Ska band (and friends of the MIS) Orange Street, had been booked to perform at this year’s Guilfest.
Weekend tickets were normally £100 plus booking fee. However, those nice Orange Street boys were allowing you to purchase the tickets through them at a very generous £90. The only catch were that the band had to pay for the tickets up-front, so if you wanted your discount you needed to purchase them through the band directly.
Next, and with the announcement that Madness were set to headline at Guilfest in July, Mike Barson took time out of the band’s hectic rehearsing schedule to talk about the past, present and future of Madness with reporter Kerry Ruse.
Here Mike explained what he felt why band’s music was so inspiring to others, the band’s winning formula and more.
Moving on, and we reported that “This Was England” would be exhibiting at the British Film Institute on Southbank until the end of May, in association with Trojan Records.
Containing the unique collection of Photos from Gavin Watson from the book Skins, this exhibition offered a unique insight into the lives of young members of this subculture in this turbulent era.
Featured photographers included: Gavin Watson, John G Byrne, Jannette Beckman, Toni Tye, Peter Anderson, Ted Polhemus, Richard Braine & Paul Hartnett.
Next we reported on the recently released film “This is England”, Shane Meadows’ film, which was now playing in UK cinemas up and down the country. As well as a brief review of the movie, we pointed you in the direction of an interview about the film, conducted by journalist Mark Kermode.
MIS subscriber Cheryl was a big fan of Meadows work and had this to say about the film:
“I have known about the film for over a year. I’m a big fan of his work and have all of his films. I went to see the film at the weekend and am very, very disappointed.
It’s not his normal standard of work. It doesn’t have much of a story, and parts of it are not plausible or are over compensated. It’s still worth going to watch, but Shane’s other films are much better. After waiting over a year for it’s release, the build up has been great, but the film just wasn’t.
There is only one reference to Madness, and that is some graffiti written on a wall.”
It was back to Madness for our next article, as we featured an interview with Chas, conducted by the Ents24 web site and their reporter Alex Lloyd. The majority of questions were related to the band’s forthcoming appearance at Guilfest, so it may for an interesting and refreshing read.
We brought this issue to a close with an article relating to tribute outfit Los Palmas 6, and how their drummer had keyed in his gig destination only to end up in a different town with the same name.
It looked like all had been lost, but luckily a drummer from punk band The Fish Brothers stepped in at short notice and saved the day.
15 years ago…
Issue number 157 – Sunday 5th May – Saturday 11th May 2002
We started off by reporting on Suggs being a guest on the BBC1 show “There’s Only One FA Cup”, which aired the Wednesday before. In the build up to the game at the weekend, this nostalgic documentary covered the story of the most exciting and memorable cup finals going back as far as the 70’s.
Following last week’s video shoot for Carl’s “We’re Coming Over” footie song, Adele Hargreaves returned to the MIS to thank those fans who turned up at the weekend to appear in the video. As well as a ‘thank you’, Adele was kind enough to give those of us who weren’t able to get along there, a lowdown of the day’s events. Jonathan Young also put together his own review of the day, which once again, was lapped up by those unable to get there.
Moving on, and Jonathan Young, freshly returned from being ‘out in the field’, with a review of the recent ‘Like Father, Like Son’ gig which took place at The Hope and Anchor on the 27th of April.
Jonathan described the performance as;
“We’ve reviewed LFLS a few times, I’ve seen them five times now, and tonight’s show was their tightest, punchiest blast sounding best yet. Having experimented and expanded to 4 singers in the band at recent shows, tonight they are back to pure Thommo and backed up excellently by Danny singing 2 tracks accompanied by Lee’s Sax. Playing a cracking 15 song set of the best tunes they have aired to date”.
One of the most amusing items this week surfaced when an article landed in our mailbox relating to Suggs’s insurance problems. It turned out that Suggs had recently passed his motorbike test. However, insurance companies were so worried that he’d be giving showbiz friends a lift on the back that no one would touch him, fearing a hefty bill if anyone got injured.
We finished the issue by celebrating the bank holiday weekend with a trip to our local. Well, you may as well make the most of it. Right?
Rob Hazelby
TIME…
We’re almost at the end of this week’s issue of the MIS, but before we go…
This week we spotted a selection of stunning photos of The Silencerz’ Daley Thompson sky diving in Australia. He’s clearly the son of Thommo, and very much like his dad who did something similar in the video for Waiting for the ghost train!
And finally…
We leave you with this video that the band shot promoting House of Common. It’s the new “have you seen our house?”
https://www.facebook.com/madnessofficial/videos/10158770557205624
Until next week, take care!
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Paul Rodgers, Adam Nichols and Arnold Strap)
The Author
