This week the band announced a full November European Tour, a new edition of their latest album on double vinyl, ticket offers for House of Common & Kent, and extensive lineup details for the House of Fun weekender with a new event poster. If that wasn’t enough, today they then headed off to talk about their latest LP in Kings Cross as part of a special Q and A event.
Meanwhile, Lee Thompson updated his One Man’s Madness Pledge Campaign, then announced The Nutty Bar was having a London event he will DJ at over the August bank holiday weekend.
Over to Suggs, and he was simultaneously shipping a new solo album, while Bedders was near jazzing away as usual and Woody popped up on a podcast.
If that wasn’t enough, Nick Woodgate mentioned a new CD coming in 2018, and Clive Langer appeared in the papers and released a new Clang Single.
All this has taken place since Monday when a new Madness history in quotations website also launched.
Not bad for a band that’s just turned 40, eh? (Based on Si Birdsall’s Party first Invaders gig being June 30th 1977).
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.
Lee Thompson DJ Set – Door 12 noon Afternoon event. – The Social. 5 little Portland street London, W1W 7JD
Lee Thompson – One Man’s Madness Film
October 1st – Matinee – Camden Dingwalls
October 1st – Evening – Camden Dingwalls
An advanced test screening version of the new Mockumentary comedy and life story film, hosted by Lee with A Q&A after the film and a special performance.
As we recently mentioned, Thommo’s film project “One Man’s Madness, A RockuMockuDocumentary”, is now live on Pledge Music
Lee Thompson’s comedy life story film, featuring multiple mad Lee performances, and starring all of Madness and many more well known voices, is nearly complete and coming out this year. All that remains to make this possible if for your to pledge and help complete the project as planned.
Over on the Mad Chat Facebook Group, member Jim Ryant reported yesterday Morrison’s are currently clearing out their presentation tins of Gladness Craft Lager, complete with pint tankard.
If you’re lucky enough to find this in your local Morrison’s it should be priced at a mere £6!
Also at Morrison’s, Andy Stav Davarias, of the Madness Facebook Group, reports that Absolutely London Pale Ale is back in stock. It’s rather nice, and well worth checking out.
11. Oranges And Lemons Again – Jools Holland & Suggs
12. No More Alcohol
13. Blue Day (feat. The Chelsea Team) [Stamford Bridge Mix] – Suggs And Co
14. I Feel Good
15. Alright
It collects all 8 of his top 40 singles, adding to that the original “Alcohol” and what was arguably the most like second single, if three pyramids had reached that stage, in “So Tired”
Adding 3 b-sides, the obscure “Same again” to two covers, “I feel good” (James Brown) and “Alright” by Supergrass, to no doubt try and encourage the casual music fan to buy this budget priced release.
Finally, it pulls the two tracks from Jools Holland and Friends albums. The near single “Oranges and Lemon’s Again” and the more forgotten bouncy “Jack of the Green.”
This new CD is out now and has started shipping to fans. The sleeve features a new cover design, based on a photo taken recently for Suggs Live show.
Fans have reported that “The Tune” is the instrumental version from the Cecillia CD Single, rather than the vocal album mix.
Jonathan Young
Cant Touch Us Now – Limited Double Vinyl Edition.
2xLP ** New **
All 16 tracks. A new half speed master in gatefold.
If you’re interested in Harry Wandsworth’s Pop up London Nutty Bar, @ The social 5 portland street this August, here’ s the man himself to tell you about it…
“ATTENTION ALL YOU FELLOW NUTTERS¡¡¡
Madness Sax Man and all round Rude Boy LEE THOMPSON shall be spinning some choice tunes in an exclusive DJ set at THE NUTTY BAR Pop Up in a West End Pub on Saturday the 26th of August
First come first served basis by debit or credit card payment through Paypal to wandsworth.harry@icloud.com £10
Live entertainment shall be provided by the equally Mad Reverend Toon from The Nutty Bar House Band, The Looney Toonz
Anyone unfamiliar with these two fully fledged bread and butters click on the links below to find out more
This week, Woody was interviewed on Frome FM’s Different Sounds Show with Ian Leak.
Being a vegetarian it must have been the DJ’s name that appealed to him!
To listen to the Interview with Woody. Click on the 17th June podcast at the above link. The 60 minute mark starts the Woody interview. He discusses Madness, Voice of the Bee Hive, going solo and Magic Brothers.
He gets into such topics as the joy of solo projects, how much he is looking forward to VOTB playing live, and he discusses his detailed approach to his solo work and over all the progression of his song writing.
The House of Fun Weekender Line Up
The line up of The 2017 House of Fun Weekender has almost been completely revealed in a new packed poster.
Madness, of course, are the two night headliners, but it seems that the main skyline stage will this year host a few more bands.
We think co-headliner Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel might be set to make you smile Saturday Night on main stage support.
Regular crowd pleasers The Inflatables, in their fifth year, will get to share a stage with Madness their heroes by starting Saturday
proceedings off in the big top with some ska, reggae and soul sounds at 4pm, followed by The Gallery’s with a fresh new sound in a MOD mode.
CENTRE STAGE
The main after 10pm and Sunday evening entertainments in the biggest side venue this year sees….
Craig Charles – A rub a dub reggae session. Which features guest’s: Tippa Irie. Dennis Alcapone. Micheal Prophet. Live with the Lockdown Band.
Northern soul sounds with Wigan Casino – Russ Winstanley. Diane Shaw. Alan King.
And a bill of Geno Washinton and the Ram Jam Band. The Aces (Desmond Dekkers’ band featuring Delroy Williams). And Dennis Bovell.
ELSEWHERE AND WHEN
Across the rest of the weekender expect, appearances from Oh My God It’s the Church returning for a third year. Reggae band Kioko, and the Riot Jazz Band too.
New London outfit The Rhythm method, are appearing. You might remember them from a recent article we featuring from ID magazine. Think somewhere between Mike Skinner or the street and Squeeze for their modern take on songs from the capital city. Another new band, The Gas Tanks make their debut in the house.
Roxy Musique bring a ferry load of electro pop sounds in tribute to the band who are about the fourth or fifth key ingredient in the better Madness pop sounds, they will be anything but Virginia plain.
DJ’s round out the selection with set’s from Darren Bennett, Gaz Mayal, King Rebska, Jerry Bless, Earl Gateshead, Don Letts, and of course Mr Happy. Some on the Silent Disco.
Gavin Martin bring Talking Musical Revolutions to the weekender, no doubt an interesting mixture of music and discourse
MIS PRESENTS 2017
We are Thrilled MIS Presents this year at The House of Fun Weekender is taking over REDS on the Sunday.
With THE SKAPONES headling our show, Paul Willo ‘s band will be bringing some Special sounds, and will be featuring King Hammond guest spot too.
Smudge aka Dave Roy Smith is back with us in a fresh new ska line up called THE LAUNCHERS if you saw them at Commoners against Cancer with us, you’ll love how they have progressed in 18 months since then into original tunes amongst the ska classics. And if you liked Home Town Hi Fi two years ago at house of fun, you’ll probably like this new band with Dave in too.
Then first up starting our show and just as much a thrill as all the rest MEZ Clough drummer/percussionist with Madness, is joinging us with his FEZZEZ.
Bringing fun rhythm and rock n roll, not to be missed. You might notice who is under a Fez or two.
Usual blagged DJ’s Mr Scurf from The Koast Train joins myself and Owen Collins as MIS DJ’s while the bands move drum kits around and the like, and i’d be surprised if sax man Phillip Toogood isnt in there somewhere filling in too.
See you all on that Sunday in reds.
COMEDY
Eddie Nestor and Robbie Gee (From TV’s The Real McCoy) host the afternoon comedy line ups.
FUN
Fancy Dress Saturday is Madheads at The Movies and scattered activities around the weekender include the return of Dance of the Dead, Musical bingo, a Kareoke Rumble
Bring and Share disco’s and the pool party return too and apparently Madheads have got talent.
Despite all this listed the poster still claims “more acts to be confirmed” on it’s edge. Though there cant be much room left in this house.
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 686 – Sunday 1st July – Saturday 7th July 2012
This issue got off to a cracking start thanks to Declan Mc Dermott, who was kind enough to give us the heads-up on a number of soundboard recordings from the band’s recent performance at the Isle of Wight Festival.
While the whole performance wasn’t online, we were treated to live recordings of Our House, House of Fun, My Girl II, It Must be Love and Baggy Trousers.
Next, and it was a review of the Westonbirt Arboretum gig, which took place on Sunday 24th June.
With Plan B playing at Westonbirt in the very heavy rain the night before, there were concerns about what Sunday’s weather would have in store for Madness. Fortunately, though dark clouds loomed ominously overhead, there was not one drop of rain.
Fans did, however, have to endure listening to Phantom Limb, the support band for the evening. Describing themselves as a country and soul band, they were a curious choice to entertain Madness fans, and the disinterest in the crowd was apparent. Phantom Limb shuffled off stage around 9pm. Fans then had to wait about 40 minutes after this for the main act. As most of the crowd suspected, Madness were backstage, busy watching the end of normal time in the England vs Italy game!
It’s fair to say that many people in the crowd were disappointed that the band came on so late, especially with the curfew of 11pm looming. However, the band more than made up for their tardiness with a rousing set list.
Moving on, and with the Our House Musical reaching Llandudno, we highlighted that tickets were still available, and were priced at a mere £11. Bargain!
Our main article in this issue was Jonathan Young’s views and opinions on the whole “Golden Circle” thing that had cropped up during a number of Madness gigs, and most recently at the Doncaster Racecourse concert. Jonathan finished off his lengthy write up with the following words; “Madness remain twinkling stars, for giving everyone a night of great music under moonlight. But for all the suffering created by Loony behaviour amongst divided fans, One’s barrier in the middle of our gig. We don’t want it there”.
We brought this issue of the MIS to a close with the news that with all the two person apartments already sold out for the forthcoming Minhead Butlins weekend in November, Butlins were now offering £75 off a 4 person apartment and a whopping £150 off a 6 person apartment.
Finally, our congratulations were out to Retro Madness which, if their Facebook account was correct, reached the ripe old age of 15 as this issue went out.
10 years ago…
Issue 426 – Sunday 1st July to Saturday 7th June 2007
We began this issue with a lengthy write-up from subscriber ‘Looby’, who had been the lucky winner of the recent Madblog competition, which was giving away tickets to see the band at Knowsley Hall Music Festival.
So grateful of winning this fantastic prize, she then treated the rest of us to a fantastic review of the event, complete with a full tracklisting.
Continuing on the subject of Knowsley Hall, the next article hopped over to YouTube, where we featured footage of people making the most of the terrible weather, and instead, enjoying the mudbath that ensued.
It was back to Glastonbury next, as we featured a link to a short clip of Suggs in the news story about the ‘Big Kiss’…
“1.30AM – Sunday, June 24th; 30 thousand Glastonbury fans were ready to pucker-up and plant a smacker on the person next to them – all in the name of spreading a little love and getting in to the Guinness Book of World Records”.
We moved off topic for the following article, as we re-printed an interview with Martin Brett from Voice of the Beehive.
Martin Brett (bassist for Voice of the Beehive) kindly agreed to answer some questions for us and members of the Madness Trading Ring.
This was a lengthy article, and took up the majority of the issue, which was great as it was an otherwise quiet news week.
We brought this issue to a close by packing the outro with stacks of Glastonbury YouTube links. Our thanks went to Jean-Pierre Boutellier for digging them out.
15 years ago…
Issue 164 – Sunday 30th June to Saturday 6th July 2002
With no Madness summer gig or tour to look forward this year, and the traditional drop in news that normally takes place around July or August this week’s MIS was looking decidedly slim.
The issue kicked off with a lowdown of forthcoming gigs for Madness tribute outfit ‘One Step Behind’, and for those of you into the wider ska scene we highlighted a number of upcoming dates for ‘The Riffs’.
Well, we all need a dose of live music if Madness weren’t planning to take to the stage. Right?
An unusual Suggs sighting was the order of the day this week when MIS subscriber Andrew Langmead reported that his wife had spotted the man himself experiencing car trouble outside her workplace. This was soon confirmed when she phoned Andrew who then swung by to take a closer look.
As we’ve seen him many times since then, it’s safe to say that he made it home without too much of a problem.
New reached us that North London based outfit had not only been mentioned on the 6music radio station, but the mention came from non other than Suggs himself, who declared that “Any band from Tottenham called MOT must be worth listening”. Half a decade on, and we think his sentiments are still valid. If you’ve not seen these guys in action, do so!
This week we finished off with news in from Graham Whitfield, who reported that Pushposter were now stocking the poster for the forthcoming Christmas tour. What was interesting is that the poster wasn’t displaying the Madness logo which made it’s first appearance during the 1999 ‘Wonderful’ period.
Rob Hazelby
That Facebook
Nick Woodgate
Drums, guitars and keys finished on a new album. Just Piano parts to do.
A Massive thank you to Tonic mental health was are helping fun my 2018 CD.
Out January.
Clang
Buy yourself a copy of the FT today and make yourself rich with Clang news. Too Clang to fail! X
Today sees the launch of our new single, ‘No Change’. Watch the ace video below, shot by Clang and Edited by our lovely man Edwin Burdis.
Buy it now at all vendors of digital music. Have a Clanging weekend all x
Time
If you’re are a pledger on Lee Thompson’s One Man Madness film funding campaign, you’ll be pleased to learn that you can now watch a short selection from the film as part of your access pass.
The section shows Lee impersonating a number of Madness commentators including Dave Robinson, and Chrissy Boy’s music hall father. The attention to mockery in the performances are some of Lee’s finest comedic works to date.
If you have yet to purchase the DVD option you should do so to help get this project nearer to completion and subsequent release. As a backed you too will get access to these video updates while you wait for the November release.
Moving on, and “The Seven Ragged Men” website has now launched.
From Iain Mason’s detailing of the first few years of Madness in well designed drop down menus and the facebook update you can tell this is a fan’s labour of love and will build into a complete from the (Johnny the) horse’s mouth version of related Madness history. Check it out now and we will bring you news of when it updates.
Next week we will bring you news from Spiritland, where we expect Mike and Suggs to have performed and to have participated in a detailed Q & A about the new Madness album.
