We begin this week’s issue of the MIS with the most exciting news about the forthcoming Lee Thompson “One Man’s Madness” soundtrack double CD.
Due for release on the 1st of June, we gave learned that it will contain a previously unreleased Lee Thompson cover of Prince Buster’s Sit and Wonder. This track comes from the “Sister Mary Ignatius” studio sessions made down at the Ironworks in Brighton,. The track has been mixed by Prince Fatty and the features the Ska Orchestra.
A selection of Madness’ singles, album tracks and a scattering of Crunch! appear on this compilation alongside dialogue and opera inserts that you’ll be familiar with once you’ve seen the tie in movie.
You can find the full CD tracklisting in our feature section, and news of May screening dates of the film in our showtimes section (only one of which feature Lee and Jeff doing a QnA). The DVD’s of the film will hopefully be shipping in May, which will the outstanding Pledge music backlog of waiting fans.
Check out Sit and Wonder here if you’ve never seen Lee and Jeff’s video for it.
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.
Director Julien Temple (The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners) takes a stage show, adds some drama, archive, animation and music, then shakes it all up for MY LIFE STORY where Suggs, takes a hilarious, yet moving, look back at his life in a musical form.
Is it a drama? Is it a comedy? Or a music hall dream? Whatever it is hold on to your seats as Suggs goes on to stumble and plummet through the trap door of failure; then trampoline back up to catch the passing trapeze of show business success.
£9.95. Limited to 250 copies. A5 paperback photo-zine. 36 pages.
Hanging Around Books’ tenth release (HA010), “Kimono Our House: Madness In Japan 1982” features rare and previously unseen photographs of the Nutty Boys taken by Andre Csillag at various locations during the band’s 1982 tour of Japan.
As Andre writes:
“In May 1982 I was asked by the manager of Madness, the late and sadly missed Matthew Sztumpf, to accompany the band on their first Japanese tour. These shots were taken over a period of a week in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya and on bullet trains inbetween.”
“It was an intense week of gigging, travelling, promotional work and making history. While in Japan, the band had their first number one on the UK singles chart and were filmed live via satellite from Tokyo introducing the video for that week’s chart topper, “House Of Fun” — a first for the BBC and Top of The Pops.”
“Thanks to Graham “Suggs” McPherson, Cathal Smyth, Lee Thompson, Chris Foreman, Mike Barson, Mark Bedford and Dan “Woody” Woodgate for their time and the enjoyable madness.”
Andre Csillag, February 2018.
MIS Feature
One Man’s Madness Tracklisting
It takes something to be the unpredictable one in a group called Madness!” – Phill Jupitus, April 2018.
As the saxophone player and a founding member of Madness, Lee Thompson’s life has been as exciting, zany and just plain crackers as his new film, One Man’s Madness. OMM is a “mocku-rocku-documentary” about Lee’s time before and during the band’s career, which is still going strong after nearly 40 years. The film features cameos by his bandmates and some very special appearances by their mothers and fathers, and even Lee’s sister and his wife. These are talking heads with a difference though; nobody is spared the Lee Thompson treatment as he assumes the identities of characters from the Madness story, including Dave Robinson (founder of Stiff Records) alongside the band’s manager, accountant and lawyer. One Man’s Madness is by turns funny, outrageous and poignant, but most of all it exposes Lee as the beating heart of Madness – an unpredictable genius, fantastic performer and inspirational songwriter.
This accompanying 2CD soundtrack album features music from the film, including hits by Madness, as it charts the band’s journey. Also included is Ian Dury’s ‘England’s Glory’, tracks from Lee’s side projects Crunch! (with Madness guitarist, Chrissy Boy) and The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra, alongside Lee’s previously unreleased version of Prince Buster’s ‘Sit Down And Wonder’. The album is also peppered with dialogue quotes and operatic intros to some of the most famous Madness songs.
26. Bite The Bullet – The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra
27. Wicker Man – The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra
28. Birthday Girl – Crunch!
Out June 1st. .
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 728 – Sunday 21st April – Saturday 27th April 2013
This issue kicked off with the news that this would be the last issue of the MIS in its current format. It wouldn’t be coming to an end, but instead would be changing format.
Up until this point, the MIS was limited to 70-columns wide text, and featured entire articles that had been cut and paste from their original source. From the following issue the 70-column text width would be gone and we would minimise the number of articles we reproduced in full, and instead opted to include the first paragraph or two followed by a link to the original source.
The thinking behind the new format was to reduce the amount of work that went into producing each issue, and to reduce us crossing legal boundaries by including articles in full.
Back to the articles, and we gave you a heads-up on a selection of Ska Orchestra video interviews that were now available for your viewing pleasure.
Moving on, and it was over to Suggs, who was interviewed by the Yorkshire Post following the band’s recent Buckingham Palace performance. Asked “Could Madness continue like the Rolling Stones, rocking into their 70s?”, Suggs responded by saying “I don’t know about like the Stones – I’m unlikely to ever put leather trousers on, but in terms of age, possibly.”.
We continued on a Suggs related note by reporting that BBC Radio 4 were lining up 75 leading public figures to reveal their most treasured cultural influences. 30 names had already been confirmed including our one and only Suggs.
It was over to the Near Jazz Experience next, as the band revealed that they were releasing a 7” as part of the forthcoming Record Store Day. The single launch was due to take place at the Indo on April 23rd.
With the special edition of Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da now reaching many, many more happy postboxes across the country, we brought more fan first impressions and reviews as its happiness found yet more time to sink in across the madworld.
We brought this issue to a close with another one of Paul Rodgers’ Madness Stats, Facts and Figures articles where he reported that Oui, Oui had dropped from 60 to 62 in the album charts. Meanwhile, Complete rose to 42 and Total dropped to 45 in the indie charts.
10 years ago…
Issue number 468 – Sunday 20th April 2008 – Saturday 26th April 2008
We kicked off this issue with the news that the band had added yet another gig to their ever growing line-up for 2008, with the news that they’d be performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival, in Switzerland.
Whilst this was exciting news, this wasn’t the biggest news item of the week by a long shot. Oh no. News had reached us via Lee Buckley and Trish Morgan revealing a new supergroup consisting of Lee Thompson and a number of other musical legends had been formed. The name of this group? The Dance Brigade!
Elsewhere we had detailed information on the Montreux Jazz Festival gig, an interview with Chris and Suggs backstage at the recent Snowbombing Festival, and news that the MadnessTradingRing.com web site was now online and open for business.
If that wasn’t enough, Paul Muscat had news of the Fifth Annual Madchart, the lowdown of forthcoming MOT gigs, and YouTube links to fan shot footage of Mike playing on The Royal Albert Hall’s famous organ.
15 years ago…
Issue number 206 – Sunday 20th April 2003 – Saturday 26th April 2003
With Easter falling somewhat later than it did this year, issue 206 landed right on chocolate egg nibbling day.
One Maddie who was clearly taking time out of a busy chocolate chomping session was Graeme Sharp, who gave us the heads-up on a whole host of appearances that Suggs would be making over the next couple of weeks. These appearances included an interview on Radio 5 with Simon Mayo, and numerous newspaper articles.
Suggs started his flood of media appearances when he joined Gary Crowley on BBC London 94.9 FM for a one hour special. As well as linking to the audio stream so those who missed it could get a chance to hear it for themselves, esteemed co-editor, Jonathan Young took a great deal of time to painstakingly transcribe huge chunks of the programme, for fellow Maddies to read through.
With Suggs now underway with his stint at appearing in the Our House musical, one Steve Chapman decided to not only get himself along and see how Mr. McPherson was doing, but to kindly knock up a review, so the rest of us could have some idea of how well the show was going with him in it.
Steve gave a glowing review, and also mentioned that Suggs’ run had been increased, and was now meant to last a total of 10 weeks, which by his maths meant he’d be winding up on the 14th of June.
Always one to sniff out a story, one Chris Carter-Pegg was once again trying to dig out the truth from the rumours. With no official news on that 3rd Madness gig for 2003, members of the Madness Trading Ring had been putting 2 and 2 together, to get 7, and a cast of plenty.
After much thought, guesswork and just downright speculation, Chris came to the conclusion that it ‘could’ be an appearance at Party in The Park. He was however, keen to point out that he was only speculating.
We rounded this issue off with Jonathan’s review of the final episode of “I Think I’ve Got a Problem” series 2, whilst that long lost Madness fan, Ed Stebbing-Allen, regaled us with a well written and extremely amusing review of a Madness tribute band he’d seen, but was unable to find out who they were.
Rob Hazelby
Time
We’re almost done for this week’s issue of the MIS, but before we go we do have a final exciting snippet to close on.
Tomorrow, the band will be revealing details of the 2018 Christmas Tour. If you’re already signed up to their email newsletters, you should find that details land in your mailbox at some point tomorrow (Monday). If you’re not signed up, head over to http://madness.co.uk/the-sound-of-madness/ and enter your email address.
Also tomorrow, Suggs will be appearing on BBC Radio 2 at around 5:00pm, where he’ll have more information. Although the show has yet to be broadcast, should you wish to listen again you can do via this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zgdjh
We will, if course, have full details of the tour in next week’s issue of the MIS.
