Madness Central Newsletter: Issue 22
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Kevin Tizzard
Mar 12, 2010, 6:16:17 PM3/12/10
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Madness
Central Newsletter: Issue 22
7th March-12th March 2010
Welcome to the 22nd edition of the Madness Central Weekly Newsletter.
If you've missed any previous issues you can catch up by viewing the groups archive at:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/madness-central-newsletter?hl=en
Madness Central: Quote Us On That ...
Madness Central Forum
A free, fun and informative way to communicate on-line with other Madness fans around the globe.
Register for the discussion boards here:
http://www.madness-central.com/forum
The Madness Central Blog
First for all the breaking news. Subscribe to the blog, via RSS feed or e-mail delivery, and get the latest news as and when it happens. View the Madness Central Blog at:
http://www.madness-central.com/blog
Newsletter Contents
1. Latest News And Information
2. Madness Central Exclusive: Q&A with John Reed, Author of the Forthcoming Unofficial Madness Book "The Nutty Sound"
3. www.retro-madness.co.uk - This week's Special Offer
4. Reviews: Songs in the Key of London
5. Contacting Madness Central
6. Madness Central Newsletter Subscription Details
Update: Chas Smashes On Facebook ...
For those of you with an account on Facebook, you can now add, message and generally browse the new fan-friendly Facebook profile of Chas at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=sgm&id=100000843604793
1. Latest News And Information
The following news items are taken from the Madness Central Blog at:
http://www.madness-central.com/blog
You can also subscribe to the blogs feed, either via email or RSS at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/madnesscentralblog
Madness’ 2009 Marketing Campaign Nominated In Music Week Awards
Anglo Hannah Management & Union Square Music Jointly Nominated. News out today that the 2009 marketing campaign in support of the band has been nominated for the newly created “Independent Artist Marketing” category as part of the Music Week Awards, which are due to take place at the London Hilton on Park Lane on Thursday 15th April 2010...
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=78
Madness to perform at Festival Papillons de Nuit in May
The Official Madness website has announced yet another gig for this summer concert season. 28th May, 2010, will see Madness returning to France to play the Festival Papillons de Nuit (Moths Festival) in St-Laurent de Cuves, Normandy...
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=83
2. Madness Central Exclusive: Q&A with John Reed, Author of the Forthcoming Unofficial Madness Book "The Nutty Sound"
Q: John, we hear you're writing a biography of Madness entitled The Nutty Sound. Are you a journalist by trade, then?
A: Well, I joined a magazine called Record Collector straight from university at the end of the 80s. Hopefully, most Madness fans are aware of it. I was there until 1998 as Research Editor.
Q: Is this your first book, then?
A: No, while I was at Record Collector, I wrote a biography of Paul Weller called My Ever Changing Moods, which was published by Omnibus Press in 1996. Thoroughly unofficial! But it did OK on the back of Weller's huge success with Stanley Road. Then I kind of left writing behind.
Q: How so?
A: Well, then I went to work in a record company, Castle Music, running a back catalogue label called Sequel - we did loads of old soul and funk, sixties, etc. Great labels like Curtom (Curtis Mayfield), Invictus (Holland-Dozier-Holland), etc. Castle was then bought by Sanctuary, who then bought Trojan and I then ran the whole back catalogue division for a few years, until they threw me out in 2006! A year later, Sanctuary was bought by Universal...
Q: What have you done since then?
A: Basically divided my time between CD work, latterly for Cherry Red Records, and freelance writing, not least for Record Collector - including the Madness article last year. And the new book, of course!
Q: So how did the Madness tome happen?
A: I wanted to get my teeth into another book project but it took a while to think of a suitable project. When Madness occurred to me, I couldn't believe that there had never been a detailed biography of the band. Then I heard all about the many attempts which had been made to do an official account - and how, every time, someone within the band had put the kybosh on it.
Q: So The Nutty Sound is unofficial, then?
A: Yes, but I wonder if that's the only route, really. An ex-manager commented that they could never do an official book with any level of detail because, with seven strong-minded membesr, they'd end up bickering. In fact, I think someone even said they'd spoken with a band member who was afraid such a project would open old wounds.
Q: Were you a Madness fan back in the day?
A: Yes, I bought all the records. I was the right age (13 in 1979) but was more into the Mod thing than the Rude Boy/2 Tone scene. By the same token, Mods were heavily into 2 Tone - just wary of the skinheads!!
Q: What's it been like going back to those old records?
A: Well, unlike pretty much everyone who visits Madness Central, I'd rarely gone back to their albums - except maybe the debut and Mad Not Mad. So it was fascinating to sit down with a cuppa and properly listen to those records again.
Q: When's the book coming out?
A: Hopefully, in the autumn. It's painfully overdue but hopefully worth the wait.
Q: What's the format?
A: Well, it'll be a posh hardback, probably around 150,000 words. So a hefty beast of a thing! In many ways, it follows the same format as the Paul Weller book, which is to say, a chronological biography mixing up factual information with critique and interview quotes.
Q: Have you managed to speak with any Madness-related folk, then?
A: Yes, a surprising number, to be honest. Lots of record company execs, ex-managers, bands who've played with them, the odd ex-girlfriend, photographers, etc.
Q: Are there any real characters with whom you've spoken for the book?
A: Dave Robinson continues to be a force of nature - and nothing has convinced me to change my initial view that he was such a vital ingredient in the Madness mix back in the day. Mike Barson's ex-girlfriend Kerstin Rodgers is as bold as brass, too. And Rob Dickins has been wonderfully enthusiastic with a memory like an elephant - which, bearing in mind he was Head Of Warner Publishing by 1979, is very impressive.
Q: What would you say were the differences between working on this and, say, the Paul Weller book?
A: The main contrast is the mass of information at your fingertips on the 'net. Not only facts and diaries and suchlike but articles and contact details, of course, via Facebook or people's websites.
3. www.retro-madness.co.uk - This week's Special Offer
As all our previous weekly deals have generally been for bargain basement items, this week’s is for a rarer collector’s item. We have reduced the price of the early MIS Fan Club only cassette ‘The Radio Players present 30 Minutes of Culture’ to £29.99 including UK postage. This very rare recording has never been released on any other format and this fact, combined with its completely unique artwork which was drawn by Suggs, as well as its rarity, has made it one of the most sought after Madness cassettes in existence.
Click the link below and scroll nearly 1/2 way down the page to find it:
http://retro-madness.co.uk/
As a further reminder from last week's offer we still have a few copies left of the pre-publication "Paperback" edition of the book "Suggs and the City", which we have reduced to just £11.99 including UK postage. You will find it on the same page as the link above.
Happy browsing
Chris & Emma
4. Reviews: Songs in the Key of London
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/live-music-reviews/7415531/Songs-in-the-Key-of-London-at-the-Barbican-review.html
By Thomas H Green
Published: 5:20PM GMT 10 Mar 2010
The Barbican has developed a likeable sideline in one-off themed evenings, concerts with varied artists performing songs by a particular individual or based round a central concept. Songs in the Key of London was one such, put together by Chris Difford of Squeeze to celebrate the nation's capital.
It was a nice idea charmingly executed by the contents of his address book, but unlike, say, the Barbican's evening in honour of Syd Barrett, it was not entirely successful.
Things got off to an uninspiring start when host Phil Daniels, perched stageside in an armchair, read his band introductions woodenly off a piece of paper with minimum verve (although he did later redeem himself with an energetic take on Blur's Park Life).
Fortunately the opening numbers, including a spartan A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, were sung by Kathryn Williams with clarity and sweet folky melancholy. Chaz Jankel and Derek Hussey of the Blockheads paid tribute to Ian Dury but Hussey, Dury's old minder and the Blockheads' current vocalist, seemed to have microphone or mumbling issues, so words were often lost. In fact, thoughout the evening microphones went on and off at random moments.
Some numbers were delivered in alternative versions that did them no justice - notably young band Peggy Sue's version of the Clash's Guns of Brixton, which turned post-punk gold into a Jefferson Airplane B-side.
And the London being celebrated throughout was not so much a living city as one trapped in amber. Rich nostalgia bled from songs such as Robyn Hitchcock's Trams of London and a rousing take on the Small Faces' Itchycoo Park.
Even the snappy We Are London, sung by Chaz Smash and Suggs of Madness, fell into this category. The exception was a group of teenagers from a local school, representing real contemporary London and featuring the evening's only rapping.
There were other highlights - Jools Holland added much-needed showbiz sparkle, alongside a boogie-woogie take on London Bridge Is Falling Down, Difford and his Squeeze partner Glen Tilbrook performed their deathless bedsit classic Up The Junction, rising reggae singer Natty attacked his own Cold T own with gusto, and surprise guest Elvis Costello emanated easy-going charisma, dipping deep into his back catalogue for a pithy take on Hoover Factory.
After him all the performers gathered for a closing take on the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset that was ramshackle fun but, like the rest of the evening, not quite as engaging as it could have been.
Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0d850e54-2d2f-11df-9c5b-00144feabdc0.html
By David Honigmann
Published: March 11 2010 22:10 | Last updated: March 11 2010 22:10
Admit it: there is something suspiciously second-rate about cities that feel the need to celebrate themselves in song. Nonetheless, the Squeeze songwriter Chris Difford assembled a first-rate cast of local singers, plus the odd ringer, for his not-too-triumphalist musical tour of the capital.
But what capital was this? Backdrop photographs scrolled from black-and-white pea-soupers to Mods to Piccadilly Circus, from market stalls
to handfuls of uppers to Carnaby Street. The songs traversed similar territory, beginning with Kathryn Williams swinging gently through foggy
days and nightingales in Berkeley Square. Robyn Hitchcock hymned the trams of London Town, accompanied by a musical saw that was half ghost, half metal wheel scraping on rail. The three-piece Peggy Sue showed how badly “Guns Of Brixton” fares when stripped of Paul Simonon’s truculent bassline.
Tutelary genius to the evening was the spirit of Ian Dury. His old minder Derek “The Draw” Hussey sang “Billericay Dickie”, with its bodywork of pure innuendo built on a chassis of oompah.
The second half had London’s best songs. Difford teamed up with his bandmate Glenn Tilbrook for a swaggering “Up The Junction”, and their former confrère Jools Holland vamped through a boogie-woogie “London Bridge Is Falling Down”. Suggs and Chas Smash sang Madness old (“Our House”) and new (“We Are London”). The compere, Phil Daniels, sprang up from his armchair at the side of the stage, to swap the lines of Blur’s “Parklife” with the young singer Natty as if they were bantering on a park bench. Elvis Costello made an unannounced appearance. And it all ended with a mass singalong on that perfect metropolitan miniature, “Waterloo Sunset”.
On its own terms, the high points were memorable enough. But there was little sense that this is a city where half the citizens, from the mayor on down, were born abroad. Natty, coincidentally, narrowly escaped both the 7/7 bombings and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, but that threatening, contested city was not the heritage London on display here, its brand of multiculturalism 30 years out of date.
The Times
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article7057118.ece
David Sinclair
It was a great idea for a show: a celebration of the songs and singers of London. And it was thoughtfully assembled by Chris Difford, who organised an efficient house band and pulled in several heavy hitters including his former bandmates from Squeeze, Jools Holland and Glenn Tilbrook. The actor Phil Daniels hosted the event, introducing the various performers in a voice that was Cockney charm personified. He also performed Blur’s hit Parklife with the North London singer and songwriter Natty, a rare moment in the programme when a sense of the rude vitality and bustling energy that is part and parcel of London’s musical heritage was successfully evoked.
However, for long stretches of a long evening the show suffered from an underpowered line-up and a rather stilted air of formality. Kathryn
Williams, the singer-songwriter from Liverpool, set the scene with the Gershwin standard, A Foggy Day in London Town, a song she seemed
ill-equipped to interpret. The memory of Ian Dury was evoked by Derek Hussey, Dury’s now permanently installed understudy in the Blockheads, who turned in Xeroxed performances of Billericay Dickie and What a Waste.
Pictures of London and Londoners drifted across a screen at the back as the two female singers of Peggy Sue, a group from Brighton, sang a strangely glazed version of the Clash’s Guns of Brixton. Tilbrook led a spirited romp through the Small Faces hit Itchycoo Park, followed by a reliable rendering of the Squeeze evergreen Up the Junction.
But it wasn’t until the nutty boys Suggs and Chas Smash arrived that the show picked up much-needed momentum. The pair performed the Madness songs We are London and Our House with confidence and swagger . Arriving like the cavalry for the encores, Elvis Costello raised the bar several notches as he performed Hoover Factory and London’s Brilliant Parade. A disorganised finale of Ray Davies’s Waterloo Sunset brought the curtain down on an evening that had promised more than it delivered.
5. Contacting Madness Central
You can send all communications relating to Madness Central to the e-mail address:
ad...@madness-central.com
6. Madness Central Newsletter Subscription Details.
Subscribing to the Newsletter:
If you are reading this newsletter via Google, Facebook and/or RSS feed, you can have this newsletter delivered weekly directly to your e-mail inbox.
To subscribe, visit the Madness Central website at:
http://www.madness-central.com
and use the relevant subscription box displayed on the homepage.
Alternatively, you can send a blank e-mail to:
madness-central-ne...@googlegroups.com
Note: You will need to reply to a confirmation e-mail prior to your subscription being processed. With some ISP’s this email may be filtered directly into your spam/junk folder.
How to Unsubscribe:
If you no longer wish to receive the Madness Central Newsletter, send an e-mail to:
madness-central-new...@googlegroups.com
7th March-12th March 2010
Welcome to the 22nd edition of the Madness Central Weekly Newsletter.
If you've missed any previous issues you can catch up by viewing the groups archive at:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/madness-central-newsletter?hl=en
Madness Central: Quote Us On That ...
Madness Central Forum
A free, fun and informative way to communicate on-line with other Madness fans around the globe.
Register for the discussion boards here:
http://www.madness-central.com/forum
The Madness Central Blog
First for all the breaking news. Subscribe to the blog, via RSS feed or e-mail delivery, and get the latest news as and when it happens. View the Madness Central Blog at:
http://www.madness-central.com/blog
Newsletter Contents
1. Latest News And Information
2. Madness Central Exclusive: Q&A with John Reed, Author of the Forthcoming Unofficial Madness Book "The Nutty Sound"
3. www.retro-madness.co.uk - This week's Special Offer
4. Reviews: Songs in the Key of London
5. Contacting Madness Central
6. Madness Central Newsletter Subscription Details
Update: Chas Smashes On Facebook ...
For those of you with an account on Facebook, you can now add, message and generally browse the new fan-friendly Facebook profile of Chas at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=sgm&id=100000843604793
1. Latest News And Information
The following news items are taken from the Madness Central Blog at:
http://www.madness-central.com/blog
You can also subscribe to the blogs feed, either via email or RSS at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/madnesscentralblog
Madness’ 2009 Marketing Campaign Nominated In Music Week Awards
Anglo Hannah Management & Union Square Music Jointly Nominated. News out today that the 2009 marketing campaign in support of the band has been nominated for the newly created “Independent Artist Marketing” category as part of the Music Week Awards, which are due to take place at the London Hilton on Park Lane on Thursday 15th April 2010...
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=78
Madness to perform at Festival Papillons de Nuit in May
The Official Madness website has announced yet another gig for this summer concert season. 28th May, 2010, will see Madness returning to France to play the Festival Papillons de Nuit (Moths Festival) in St-Laurent de Cuves, Normandy...
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=83
2. Madness Central Exclusive: Q&A with John Reed, Author of the Forthcoming Unofficial Madness Book "The Nutty Sound"
Q: John, we hear you're writing a biography of Madness entitled The Nutty Sound. Are you a journalist by trade, then?
A: Well, I joined a magazine called Record Collector straight from university at the end of the 80s. Hopefully, most Madness fans are aware of it. I was there until 1998 as Research Editor.
Q: Is this your first book, then?
A: No, while I was at Record Collector, I wrote a biography of Paul Weller called My Ever Changing Moods, which was published by Omnibus Press in 1996. Thoroughly unofficial! But it did OK on the back of Weller's huge success with Stanley Road. Then I kind of left writing behind.
Q: How so?
A: Well, then I went to work in a record company, Castle Music, running a back catalogue label called Sequel - we did loads of old soul and funk, sixties, etc. Great labels like Curtom (Curtis Mayfield), Invictus (Holland-Dozier-Holland), etc. Castle was then bought by Sanctuary, who then bought Trojan and I then ran the whole back catalogue division for a few years, until they threw me out in 2006! A year later, Sanctuary was bought by Universal...
Q: What have you done since then?
A: Basically divided my time between CD work, latterly for Cherry Red Records, and freelance writing, not least for Record Collector - including the Madness article last year. And the new book, of course!
Q: So how did the Madness tome happen?
A: I wanted to get my teeth into another book project but it took a while to think of a suitable project. When Madness occurred to me, I couldn't believe that there had never been a detailed biography of the band. Then I heard all about the many attempts which had been made to do an official account - and how, every time, someone within the band had put the kybosh on it.
Q: So The Nutty Sound is unofficial, then?
A: Yes, but I wonder if that's the only route, really. An ex-manager commented that they could never do an official book with any level of detail because, with seven strong-minded membesr, they'd end up bickering. In fact, I think someone even said they'd spoken with a band member who was afraid such a project would open old wounds.
Q: Were you a Madness fan back in the day?
A: Yes, I bought all the records. I was the right age (13 in 1979) but was more into the Mod thing than the Rude Boy/2 Tone scene. By the same token, Mods were heavily into 2 Tone - just wary of the skinheads!!
Q: What's it been like going back to those old records?
A: Well, unlike pretty much everyone who visits Madness Central, I'd rarely gone back to their albums - except maybe the debut and Mad Not Mad. So it was fascinating to sit down with a cuppa and properly listen to those records again.
Q: When's the book coming out?
A: Hopefully, in the autumn. It's painfully overdue but hopefully worth the wait.
Q: What's the format?
A: Well, it'll be a posh hardback, probably around 150,000 words. So a hefty beast of a thing! In many ways, it follows the same format as the Paul Weller book, which is to say, a chronological biography mixing up factual information with critique and interview quotes.
Q: Have you managed to speak with any Madness-related folk, then?
A: Yes, a surprising number, to be honest. Lots of record company execs, ex-managers, bands who've played with them, the odd ex-girlfriend, photographers, etc.
Q: Are there any real characters with whom you've spoken for the book?
A: Dave Robinson continues to be a force of nature - and nothing has convinced me to change my initial view that he was such a vital ingredient in the Madness mix back in the day. Mike Barson's ex-girlfriend Kerstin Rodgers is as bold as brass, too. And Rob Dickins has been wonderfully enthusiastic with a memory like an elephant - which, bearing in mind he was Head Of Warner Publishing by 1979, is very impressive.
Q: What would you say were the differences between working on this and, say, the Paul Weller book?
A: The main contrast is the mass of information at your fingertips on the 'net. Not only facts and diaries and suchlike but articles and contact details, of course, via Facebook or people's websites.
3. www.retro-madness.co.uk - This week's Special Offer
As all our previous weekly deals have generally been for bargain basement items, this week’s is for a rarer collector’s item. We have reduced the price of the early MIS Fan Club only cassette ‘The Radio Players present 30 Minutes of Culture’ to £29.99 including UK postage. This very rare recording has never been released on any other format and this fact, combined with its completely unique artwork which was drawn by Suggs, as well as its rarity, has made it one of the most sought after Madness cassettes in existence.
Click the link below and scroll nearly 1/2 way down the page to find it:
http://retro-madness.co.uk/
As a further reminder from last week's offer we still have a few copies left of the pre-publication "Paperback" edition of the book "Suggs and the City", which we have reduced to just £11.99 including UK postage. You will find it on the same page as the link above.
Happy browsing
Chris & Emma
4. Reviews: Songs in the Key of London
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/live-music-reviews/7415531/Songs-in-the-Key-of-London-at-the-Barbican-review.html
By Thomas H Green
Published: 5:20PM GMT 10 Mar 2010
The Barbican has developed a likeable sideline in one-off themed evenings, concerts with varied artists performing songs by a particular individual or based round a central concept. Songs in the Key of London was one such, put together by Chris Difford of Squeeze to celebrate the nation's capital.
It was a nice idea charmingly executed by the contents of his address book, but unlike, say, the Barbican's evening in honour of Syd Barrett, it was not entirely successful.
Things got off to an uninspiring start when host Phil Daniels, perched stageside in an armchair, read his band introductions woodenly off a piece of paper with minimum verve (although he did later redeem himself with an energetic take on Blur's Park Life).
Fortunately the opening numbers, including a spartan A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, were sung by Kathryn Williams with clarity and sweet folky melancholy. Chaz Jankel and Derek Hussey of the Blockheads paid tribute to Ian Dury but Hussey, Dury's old minder and the Blockheads' current vocalist, seemed to have microphone or mumbling issues, so words were often lost. In fact, thoughout the evening microphones went on and off at random moments.
Some numbers were delivered in alternative versions that did them no justice - notably young band Peggy Sue's version of the Clash's Guns of Brixton, which turned post-punk gold into a Jefferson Airplane B-side.
And the London being celebrated throughout was not so much a living city as one trapped in amber. Rich nostalgia bled from songs such as Robyn Hitchcock's Trams of London and a rousing take on the Small Faces' Itchycoo Park.
Even the snappy We Are London, sung by Chaz Smash and Suggs of Madness, fell into this category. The exception was a group of teenagers from a local school, representing real contemporary London and featuring the evening's only rapping.
There were other highlights - Jools Holland added much-needed showbiz sparkle, alongside a boogie-woogie take on London Bridge Is Falling Down, Difford and his Squeeze partner Glen Tilbrook performed their deathless bedsit classic Up The Junction, rising reggae singer Natty attacked his own Cold T own with gusto, and surprise guest Elvis Costello emanated easy-going charisma, dipping deep into his back catalogue for a pithy take on Hoover Factory.
After him all the performers gathered for a closing take on the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset that was ramshackle fun but, like the rest of the evening, not quite as engaging as it could have been.
Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0d850e54-2d2f-11df-9c5b-00144feabdc0.html
By David Honigmann
Published: March 11 2010 22:10 | Last updated: March 11 2010 22:10
Admit it: there is something suspiciously second-rate about cities that feel the need to celebrate themselves in song. Nonetheless, the Squeeze songwriter Chris Difford assembled a first-rate cast of local singers, plus the odd ringer, for his not-too-triumphalist musical tour of the capital.
But what capital was this? Backdrop photographs scrolled from black-and-white pea-soupers to Mods to Piccadilly Circus, from market stalls
to handfuls of uppers to Carnaby Street. The songs traversed similar territory, beginning with Kathryn Williams swinging gently through foggy
days and nightingales in Berkeley Square. Robyn Hitchcock hymned the trams of London Town, accompanied by a musical saw that was half ghost, half metal wheel scraping on rail. The three-piece Peggy Sue showed how badly “Guns Of Brixton” fares when stripped of Paul Simonon’s truculent bassline.
Tutelary genius to the evening was the spirit of Ian Dury. His old minder Derek “The Draw” Hussey sang “Billericay Dickie”, with its bodywork of pure innuendo built on a chassis of oompah.
The second half had London’s best songs. Difford teamed up with his bandmate Glenn Tilbrook for a swaggering “Up The Junction”, and their former confrère Jools Holland vamped through a boogie-woogie “London Bridge Is Falling Down”. Suggs and Chas Smash sang Madness old (“Our House”) and new (“We Are London”). The compere, Phil Daniels, sprang up from his armchair at the side of the stage, to swap the lines of Blur’s “Parklife” with the young singer Natty as if they were bantering on a park bench. Elvis Costello made an unannounced appearance. And it all ended with a mass singalong on that perfect metropolitan miniature, “Waterloo Sunset”.
On its own terms, the high points were memorable enough. But there was little sense that this is a city where half the citizens, from the mayor on down, were born abroad. Natty, coincidentally, narrowly escaped both the 7/7 bombings and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, but that threatening, contested city was not the heritage London on display here, its brand of multiculturalism 30 years out of date.
The Times
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article7057118.ece
David Sinclair
It was a great idea for a show: a celebration of the songs and singers of London. And it was thoughtfully assembled by Chris Difford, who organised an efficient house band and pulled in several heavy hitters including his former bandmates from Squeeze, Jools Holland and Glenn Tilbrook. The actor Phil Daniels hosted the event, introducing the various performers in a voice that was Cockney charm personified. He also performed Blur’s hit Parklife with the North London singer and songwriter Natty, a rare moment in the programme when a sense of the rude vitality and bustling energy that is part and parcel of London’s musical heritage was successfully evoked.
However, for long stretches of a long evening the show suffered from an underpowered line-up and a rather stilted air of formality. Kathryn
Williams, the singer-songwriter from Liverpool, set the scene with the Gershwin standard, A Foggy Day in London Town, a song she seemed
ill-equipped to interpret. The memory of Ian Dury was evoked by Derek Hussey, Dury’s now permanently installed understudy in the Blockheads, who turned in Xeroxed performances of Billericay Dickie and What a Waste.
Pictures of London and Londoners drifted across a screen at the back as the two female singers of Peggy Sue, a group from Brighton, sang a strangely glazed version of the Clash’s Guns of Brixton. Tilbrook led a spirited romp through the Small Faces hit Itchycoo Park, followed by a reliable rendering of the Squeeze evergreen Up the Junction.
But it wasn’t until the nutty boys Suggs and Chas Smash arrived that the show picked up much-needed momentum. The pair performed the Madness songs We are London and Our House with confidence and swagger . Arriving like the cavalry for the encores, Elvis Costello raised the bar several notches as he performed Hoover Factory and London’s Brilliant Parade. A disorganised finale of Ray Davies’s Waterloo Sunset brought the curtain down on an evening that had promised more than it delivered.
5. Contacting Madness Central
You can send all communications relating to Madness Central to the e-mail address:
ad...@madness-central.com
6. Madness Central Newsletter Subscription Details.
Subscribing to the Newsletter:
If you are reading this newsletter via Google, Facebook and/or RSS feed, you can have this newsletter delivered weekly directly to your e-mail inbox.
To subscribe, visit the Madness Central website at:
http://www.madness-central.com
and use the relevant subscription box displayed on the homepage.
Alternatively, you can send a blank e-mail to:
madness-central-ne...@googlegroups.com
Note: You will need to reply to a confirmation e-mail prior to your subscription being processed. With some ISP’s this email may be filtered directly into your spam/junk folder.
How to Unsubscribe:
If you no longer wish to receive the Madness Central Newsletter, send an e-mail to:
madness-central-new...@googlegroups.com
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