1 – THIS IS WHERE THE MADNESS BEGINS – The obligatory intro.

2 – THE MADNESS OUI, OUI TOUR 2013 – We may have only just past the
middle of January, but Madness are already starting to get
booked-up for the coming year. So far June and July are looking
rather packed, and with dates in September and November, it’s
looking like the latter half of the year will provide you with
many opportunities for you to catch your favourite band.

3 – THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS – This week MIS co-editor, Rob Hazelby
goes back 5 years to issue number 455, and the week of Sunday 20th
January to Saturday 26th January 2008, and then back 10 years
to issue number 193 and the week of Sunday 19th January to
Saturday 25th January December 2003.

4 – WILKO JOHNSON TO PERFORM FOUR FINAL SHOWS FOLLOWING CANCER
DIAGNOSIS – Wilko-Johnson, the influential guitarist of Dr
Feelgood and Ian Dury and the Blockheads fame, has announced that
he will perform four final farewell concerts later on this year
following his diagnosis with terminal cancer. From Contact Music.
Article date: 18 January 2013.

5 – MADNESS AS GUESTS ON THE JONATHAN ROSS SHOW – Yesterday evening
(Saturday 19th), Madness appeared as guests on The Jonathan Ross
Show. The band performed One Step Beyond and Never Knew Your Name,
with Suggs and Carl taking time out from singing duties to be
interviewed on the red sofa by Jonathan.

6 – PAUL RODGER’S CHART STATS – If it’s Madness album and single chart
stats you’re after then this section should be right up your
street. Here’s Paul with the latest roundup of stats, facts and
figures.

7 – WE ARE LEE-ZARDS. THOMMO DJ SET AT PIP BOOK CLUB – Lee Thompson
was in touch this week to tell us he’ll be DJing in Shoreditch
next month, joining the 2nd birthday bash of Scroobius Pip’s club
night “We are lizzards”, at the Book Club.

8 – PACKHAM’S MAC – 22 HITS MENTIONED IN WINTERWATCH ON BBC1 –
Winterwatch presenter Chris Packham slips 22 song titles by
Madness into hit BBC nature show. MIS makes a compilation video
of the biggest set of unexpected Madness moments to ever grace
one prime time TV show.

9 – NORDOFF ROBBINS RUGBY SIX NATIONS DINNER – Madness appeared for
the music therapy charity event, celebrating the world of Rugby
this week, at a London Hotel, alongside The Stereophonics and an
xfactor singer. A picture in the Daily Star showed Suggs and
Thommo in a moment of closeness onstage. Here’s a review of the
event from a rugby related blog…

10 – THAT’S YER LOT – A few last minute words before we finish for the
week.

[1] – THIS IS WHERE THE MADNESS BEGINS

Evening all,

“The original line up”, proclaimed Jonathan Ross as Madness appeared on his TV show, with the original seven line-up, on Saturday night ITV, for a great version of the new current single, alongside a sofa chat with Suggs and Carl.

Indeed, many of the facebook fan pages this week had been discussing Bedders, from scrutinisable rumours circulating ahead of the TV recording.

We think it’s more notable to know that Thursday marked the first full gig for the original line up since 2009, as the band performed for the Nordoff Robbins Music Charity, at the Six Nations Rugby awards dinner in London. See articles on both in tonights’ issue.

“Chuffed. Certainly completes the sound”, said El Thommo of playing alongside his fellow bandmate again. Whether we can look forward to many more appearances with the full line up remains to be seen, as the bass position is under review for the year, and Mark hasn’t yet considered later Madness engagements in this years’ calendar. As The great man himself said on Twitter recently, “I’ve had more comebacks
than Frank Sinatra, so you’re bound to see ma at some point…”

Now, on with the issue,

Jonathan Young, Liz Maher, Simon Roberts, Rob Hazelby
Email us at: jonathan, liz, simon, robert @mis-online.net

[2] – THE MADNESS OUI, OUI TOUR 2013

We may have only just past the middle of January, but Madness are already starting to get booked-up for the coming year.

So far June and July are looking rather packed, and with dates in September and November, it’s looking like the latter half of the year will provide you with many opportunities for you to catch your favourite band.

Dates confirmed so far are as follows…

JUNE
– Fri 14th, Chepstow, Chepstow Racecourse
– Sat 15th, Newark, Riverside Park
– Fri 28th, Newcastle, Newcastle Racecourse

JULY
– Sat 6th, Carlisle, Carlisle Racecourse
– Wed 17th, Sandown Park Racecourse
– Fri 19th, Newmarket, Newmarket Racecourse
– Sat 20th, Haydock Park Racecourse

SEPT
– Sun 22nd, Northampton, Northants County Cricket Ground

NOV
– Fri 22nd – Mon 25th, Minehead, Butlins – House of Fun Weekender

Links to purchase tickets for any of the above concerts can be found
at: http://blog.madness.co.uk/madness-tour-2013/

Rob Hazelby (With info courtesy of the official Madness Blog)

[3] – THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

This week MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby, goes back 5 years to issue number 455, and the week of Sunday 20th January to Saturday 26th January 2008, and then back 10 years to issue number 193 and the week of Sunday 19th January to Saturday 25th January December 2003.

5 years ago…

Issue number 455 – Sunday 20th Jan to Saturday 26th Jan 2008

With the release of NW5 in the UK, the news had been literally flooding into our mailboxes, and as such we had an absolutely massive issue for you this week.

We kicked things off with a bit of an update. In the previous issue we’d mentioned that we’d heard that Lee Thompson had been caught for speeding on his way to the band’s recent Bridgewater gig. Well, we’d since learnt that this was not the case. Lee was not stopped by the police, so we were still non the wiser as to why he’d not turned up.

News in from the one and only Iain Mason revealed that despite being a week late The News of The World had made NW5 their single of the week for the coming week. With a readership of 10 million, it would provide some great publicity, and would hopefully give the single a nice second week sales boost.

Here’s what the paper had to say;

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
MADNESS – NW5
After 30 years, Suggs and co are more like Nutty
Grandads than Nutty Boys, but they can still bash
out a brilliant pop song. Named after their local
North London postcode, it’s a tune the whole of
Britain can sing along to. As catchy as their old
hit Our House, so it’s bound to be great.
***** (five stars)

On to this week’s collection of articles, and we began with a news article from the Camden Gazette. The report announced that numerous
NW5 posters had started popping up around the area. When interviewed, Katie Ellis, of the band’s record label, Lucky 7, commented that they were nothing to do with them. Meanwhile, Lee responded by saying he believed the campaign had been organised by the fans.

Next, and following on directly from his award winning Disappearing London Show, we brought news of Suggs’ next TV show. Going under the title “Suggs’ Survivors”, the programme followed much the same format, only this time the search for old and interesting buildings would go nationwide.

We reviewed the second episode of the show, where Suggs visited a velodrome, a cycle track once used in the 1940’s Olympics, a visit to a lighthouse, where we learn that the great man isn’t too fond of heights, and off to a railway where he gets a chance to drive a steam train.

To top that lot off he winds up at the original Twinning’s Coffee house in London, where where heard about the history of tea and how it became the national drink.

Following this it was over to Lee Swandale, who was pleased to announce that Crunch would be performing at Camden’s Koko Club on March 12th.

Tad from the band also took time out to answer a few questions, and sadly confirmed that their planned Swindon gig was now off.

Further on, we took a look at some of the comments NW5 had received over on Apples iTunes store. At the time of typing the song had received 15 reviews, and had managed to attain a 5 out of 5 rating.
It was undoubtedly a very impressive score, and the glowing comments accompanying this only helped to confirm that this was a much loved release.

Steve Bringe took the reigns for the next article, where he kindly reviewed Sony’s latest Singstar release, which included “Our House”
among its track roster;

“Something very disturbing was learned while
singing along to “Our House.” For the past
25 years, I’ve been totally off-key singing
the “our” part of the chorus. I got “house”
down just fine. But “our”… totally off”

It was over to Lee Buckley next, who had kindly transcribed a Radio
4 interview with Paul Moorley and Suggs, when they were discussing Lola as being the perfectly formed pop song, as part of the series “Pop! What is it good for”.

We moved on to the press next, as we covered a few reviews of NW5 that had appeared over the past few weeks. Reviews were taken from Adatez.inc, IndieLondon Music.com and The Daily Star. All three of the write-ups were extremely praising of the new release, which was nice!

We should have known how vocal the fans would be when the Madness Trading Ring asked them what they thought of the packaging for the
NW5 7″, CD and DVD releases. The general opinion seemed to be that the artwork was very poor, and because they all looked like 7″
singles, that they’d end up in the 7″ section of record stores.

What we at the MIS felt was a novel way of promoting the single may have backfired somewhat.

We brought this issue to a close with the news that North London band MOT, had been booked to perform their biggest gig yet, The Dry Bar, Barbican, and that according to Jean-Pierre Boutellier, NW5 landed at number 24 in the UK music charts.

10 years ago…

Issue number 193 – Sunday 19th Jan to Saturday 25th Jan 2003

We started off this week’s issue with exciting news that the Our House musical had been nominated as the best musical in the 2003 Laurence Olivier Awards. The awards are the highlight of the theatrical year and the most prestigious prizes in London theatre. Our House was up against Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Boy George’s Taboo and Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams. The awards ceremony was penned to take place on February 14th. This was really excellent news for Our House and greatly deserved.

Next up was one for those who like to add live recordings to their collection. We leant from members of the online Madness community that there were a number of recordings of the recent Docklands gig from the 21st of December doing the rounds. A certain Andy Thomas managed to get hold of one of these which was taken from the crowd, and whilst he admitted the quality wasn’t brilliant, he did say;

“The quality is NOT excellent”, however he
goes on to say “For gods sake, it’s a bootleg
whadda ya expect. And that said it is
BRILLIANT!! The thumping bass, atmosphere etc
are all captured”.

We also learnt that a version from the soundboard was also doing the rounds, which, as we didn’t have access to it, could only assume would offer far superior sound quality.

Finding himself with a bit of spare time to trawl the web, MTR subscriber Birchy, discovered that the video section of the Top of The Pops web site had been updated, and now contained video clips from a whole host of Madness TOTP appearances. Although each clip was only a small snippet of the full performance, we were all urged to pay the site a visit if we had a spare 5 minutes to kill.

One very nice article we featured this week originally came from the seventh and final issue of the wonderful “Madness Unsugged” fanzine.
The article in question covered the legendary Liquidator Studios.
Located on London’s Caledonian Road, we learnt that the building has remained in Madness’ ownership since 1986, and had been used by a number of bands including The Nutty Boys/Crunch and Butterfield 8.
Rumour has it that the basement still held a load of old fan merchandise, presentation discs and video props. Even now the article is a fascinating read.

Moving on, and Jonathan Young covered the rerelease of Butterfield 8’s 1988 album, which had been reissued on the Satorial label, with CD and 12″ vinyl versions were now available. Mark Bedford kindly took time out of his busy schedule to talk to MIS readers about his memories of being part of Butterfield 8, declaring it a labour of love.

Rob Hazelby

[4] – WILKO JOHNSON TO PERFORM FOUR FINAL SHOWS FOLLOWING CANCER
DIAGNOSIS

From: http://www.contactmusic.com/
Date: 18 January 2013

Wilko-Johnson, the influential guitarist of Dr Feelgood and Ian Dury and the Blockheads fame, has announced that he will perform four final farewell concerts later on this year following his diagnosis with terminal cancer.

Johnson will embark on a mini tour of the country, performing at London, Bilston, Holmfirth and Glasgow at the start of March. Earlier this month (Jan 9) Wilko’s manager took to his official Facebook page to announce the news that the guitar legend had contracted pancreatic cancer and decided against seeking treatment for his ailing condition so that he could continue to perform live for as long as possible.

Earlier today, his manager again took to the Facebook page to announce that Wilko has planned his farewell concert run in the lead up to his untimely passing. His manager, Robert Hoy, said, “The four UK dates represent an opportunity for Wilko to express his sincere thanks to his fans for all the support he has had over his long career.”

Johnson has spent his career in music, performing in the The Wilko Johnson Band as well as the aforementioned two groups, and recently made the move into acting when he took up a role on the hit HBO series Game Of Thrones.

Wilko Johnson will play:

London, Koko (March 6th)
Bilston Robin 2 (7th)
Holmfirth Picturedrome (8th)
Glasgow O2 ABC (9th)

Article courtesy of Contact Music

[5] – MADNESS AS GUESTS ON THE JONATHAN ROSS SHOW

Yesterday evening (Saturday 19th), Madness appeared as guests on The Jonathan Ross Show. The band performed One Step Beyond and Never Knew Your Name, with Suggs and Carl taking time out from singing duties to be interviewed on the red sofa by Jonathan.

One exciting aspect of this appearance was seeing Bedders returning to the fold, although we suspect that this was a one-off rather than a permanent return.

For those of you who missed the programme, the one and only Dicka has not only uploaded the footage, but he’s also kindly edited out all the non Madness bits, too.

Point your web browsers over to http://youtu.be/upZAqGsVg0o and enjoy!

Rob Hazelby

[6] – PAUL RODGER’S CHART STATS

Firstly, last week Complete Madness (USM) reached 88 weeks on the top
200 chart, which is the same number of weeks Complete Madness (Stiff
Records) was around on the top 100 (as was) chart. I think that’s a nice quirky stat to start with.

Let’s update Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da now.

It’s chart performance went a bit mad. It went like this: 10, 40, 59, 75, 85, 87, 91, 93, 166, nowhere, 186.

On the indie chart: 2, 7, 9, 12, 11, 10, 9, 11, 18, 31, 21

The tour sales, I think, must have counted – the massive drop there was just after the tour finished and before the single Never Knew Your Name, started to take an airplay effect and bring the album back into the top 200.

The single continues to climb the radio airplay charts in the UK. On the rolling 7 day chart to 17 Jan it climbs from 34 to 30. On the same chart’s year to date chart it is up to number 45. This data is compiled by www.radiomonitor.com.

It should be Madness’ most successful single of the jet age, especially if it sells a couple of thousand immediately after the appearance on Jonathan Ross on Saturday.

Immediately following the Jonathan Ross appearance:

Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da is now up to 23 on iTunes chart, Complete only up to 112, Total re-enters at 172

Now for the single.. up to 85 at iTunes

We will be back, after this new pulp song break…
http://www.theawl.com/2013/01/pulp-after-you

The single has also risen slightly on the French airplay charts from
138 to 130. That’s its 13th week out there.

Hopefully Midem will have some effect in France in the weeks to come…

This week..

Album Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da is 76.
On the indie albums chart Oui Oui is up to
8 from 21, and Complete is up to 11 from 14.
The single is number 14 on the indie chart, up from number 30.
Last week’s number 14 was about number 195 on the main singles chart.

Onto playlist stats.

It has been A at Radio 2 and B at Absolute. But as Absolute have played it 3 times today I think it might now be on their A list. That is just a guess. It is still A at Radio 2, whose brand new playlist started yesterday.

So next Sunday’s sales figures will be based on A list at Radio and the TV appearance on Jonathan Ross. I expect everything to climb in next week’s chart…

Paul Rodgers

[7] – WE ARE LEE-ZARDS. THOMMO DJ SET AT PIP BOOK CLUB

Lee Thompson was in touch this week to tell us he’ll be DJing in Shoreditch next month, joining the 2nd birthday bash of Scroobius Pip’s club night “We are lizzards”, at the Book Club.

Here is the event page for the night, on Friday 8th of February;

http://www.facebook.com/events/345318335576237/

It’s free before 9pm. £5 after.

And Lee told us he will be DJing from 11 till midnight.

Full DJ line up is…

Lee Thompson (Madness DJ set), Destruction, Scroobius Pip, Redshift Rebels, Push Music

Music Policy: Hip hop, breaks, funk, soul, electro, disco

The bearded poet celebrates two years of Book Club parties with an insanely special treat for you- a very rare ska, two tone and reggae DJ set from the legendary Madness!

Add to that the DMC scratch legend DJ Destruction and Pip’s all-star resident DJs and you can be safe in the knowledge you’re going get the best Friday night East London has to offer.

The Book Club, 100 – 106 Leonard Street, Hoxton and Shoreditch, London, EC2A 4RH, United Kingdom

8pm till 2am.

MIS/Scroobius Pip

[8] – PACKHAM’S MAC – 22 HITS MENTIONED IN WINTERWATCH ON BBC1

Winterwatch presenter Chris Packham slips 22 song titles by Madness into hit BBC nature show. MIS makes a compilation video of the biggest set of unexpected Madness moments to ever grace one prime time TV show.

Here is the evidence we have compiled for you.

We sent this to the band. Mike Barson responded, laughing “that’s brilliant, highly amusing”. We can only hope they return the favour and slip a Chris Packham reference into a future gig!

Here is what the Daily Mail wrote about the TV game playing…

BBC2 Winterwatch presenter Chris Packham squeezed in a total of 22 songs – but missed out Madness’s only UK number one. He mentioned obscure Madness single released only in the Netherlands.

Fans took to Twitter to show their appreciation.

Wildlife expert Chris Packham has gone ‘One Step Beyond’ other TV presenters by sneaking in 22 Madness song titles into his BBC show Winterwatch.

Chris, 51, secretly slipped the legendary 80s pop band’s hit singles into the programme – even making up fictitious relatives on live television as part of the ruse.

He surreptitiously mentioned a total of 22 songs by the group on the four-part nightly BBC2 series this week.

Packham gave his first hint what he was up to with his introduction to Monday’s opening show when he announced he was wearing “Baggy Trousers”, one of Madness’s most successful records.

Discussing the best places to spot rare breeds of bird on Wednesday he said: “My Uncle Sam, he lives in NW5,” name-checking two lesser-known singles – Uncle Sam and NW5 – in one sentence.

And in the same episode, sly Chris managed to mention “Tarzan’s Nuts”, the band’s most obscure number, which was released only in the Netherlands, by saying: “These squirrels out there swinging in the trees like little Tarzans. Nuts is what they’re after.”

The song’s Chris mentioned were…

1. Baggy Trousers
2. Embarrassment
3. Johnny The Horse
4. Yesterdays Men
5. Grey Day
6. Our House
7. Sugar And Spice
8. Wings of a dove
9. Driving in my car
10. One step beyond
11. Uncle Sam
12. NW5
13. Tarzan’s Nuts
14. Lovestruck
15. Cardiac Arrest
16. Night Boat to Cairo
17. Shame and Scandal
18. My Girl
19. Michael Caine
20. Tomorrow’s (Just Another Day)
21. Dust Devil
22. It Must Be Love

www.dailymail.co.uk

Jonathan Young. With thanks to Fiona Linnel

He technically said Africa as well!
But he was talking about bird migration!

[9] – NORDOFF ROBBINS RUGBY SIX NATIONS DINNER

Madness appeared for the music therapy charity event, celebrating the world of Rugby this week, at a London Hotel, alongside The Stereophonics and an xfactor singer. A picture in the Daily Star showed Suggs and Thommo in a moment of closeness onstage. Here’s a review of the event from a rugby related blog…

Once again, VU are basking in the afterglow of the Nordoff Robbins Six Nations Rugby Dinner that took place last night at the stunning Grosvenor House Hotel. An evening of sparkling glitz and glamour, we had to supersize it this year in anticipation of higher attendance, and that’s exactly what happened.

Over 80 rugby stars and 1000 guests filled the Great Room and were treated to an absolutely superb evening of rugby banter and top notch entertainment.

Celebrating the outstanding careers of Andy Gomarsall and Mark Cueto, the boys were mercilessly roasted. Encouraged by the rugby and entertainment loving audience, Gommers and Tinds almost launched into a mini competition about who had the best anecdotes about the royal family, although we could have guessed who would win that in the end…

The raucous evening was expertly compered by ‘Hagrid’s bum-double’, Martin Bayfield – a great story teller with lots of ammunition on the boys, and most importantly, a very good auctioneer who helped our fantastic guests dig deep and raise in excess of £300,000 for Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy. This fantastic charity is very close to our hearts at VU and we love coordinating this event with them
– certainly one of the highlights of our events calendar.

And then on to the music….wow! X-Factor finalist Amelia Lily bravely took first turn and warmed up the crowd with a Rihanna classic and her new song. Then, a huge surprise for Welsh rock fans as super stars Stereophonics took the stage and performed a collection of new and old stompers that really got things moving. Closing with a beautiful toned down rendition of ‘Dakota’, the ‘Phonics left the party in full swing. So how could you top that?

Well, leave it to VU and Nordoff Robbins to go one step beyond and deliver the rockinest, rock-steady beat of MADNESS!! Fresh from climbing out of Tindle’s bedroom window to rock the palace roof on Jubilee weekend, Madness brought the house down. Girls danced on shoulders, middle age men formed a Mod pit and the crowd went wild!!
Perfectly suited to close the evening, Madness performed their hits way over the allotted time and probably got us in a bit of trouble, but it was amazing! And then on to the after-party at the super hip Soho Hotel, Sanctum, but that’s where this blog ends. After all, what happens on the roof stays on the roof…

www.vultd.co.uk

[10] – THAT’S YER LOT

As another issue of the MIS draws to a close we have a few last minute bits to pass in your general direction before we finish for the week.

First-up, and you may be interested to learn that Suggs will be presenting an award at the Jazz FM Music Awards on Thursday 31st January. This is all the information we have on this, but should we hear anything further we’ll be sure to let you know.

Next, and judging by this photo of Chris, the big man’s Showtime could be heading for a prime time TV slot on ITV.

Take a look for yourselves: http://tinyurl.com/abxqxkg

Moving on, and this coming Wednesday Suggs and Woody are guests on Simon Mayo’s BBC Radio 2 show. More info can be found at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz18f

Over to YouTube now, and we’ve spotted a new version of the Oui Oui album TV advert which now uses the current single, Never Knew Your Name, for the soundtrack. You can find it here:

And finally, it’s goodnight from us, and it seems goodbye and thanks from him. So let’s end on a black and white bow.

“Cus it’s time to go…”

Have a good week!

Jonathan, Liz, Simon, Rob
(With thanks to Fiona Linnell and Paul Rodgers)