Madness Central Newsletter: Issue 6.
Kevin Tizzard
7th November – 13th November 2009.
Welcome to the sixth issue of the Madness Central Newsletter.
Amongst, literally, many things, in this weeks posting there's news of an additional Christmas date, 'Forever Young' being confirmed as the next single and a forthcoming appearance on BBC Children In Need.
If you've missed the previous issues you can catch up by viewing the groups archive at:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/madness-central-newsletter?hl=en
Contents:
1. Latest News And Information
2. Universal Madness 10th Anniversary Contest
3. One Step Beyond by Terry Edwards. Book Review by Christel Loar.
4. Madness Central Updates: The Nutty Caption
5. Froggy Delight: An interview with Chrissy Boy
6. Contacting Madness Central
7. Newsletter Subscription Details.
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1. Latest News And Information
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The following are the currently weekly news snippet(s) taken from the Madness Central blog at:
http://www.madness-central.com/blog
# New Christmas Tour Date: Wolverhampton, 17th December
Madness has added a new date to their much anticipated The Liberty of Norton Folgate Tour this December. Thursday the 17th of December will see the mad lads taking the stage at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall.
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=774
# Forever Young is Singled Out
After being the first contender for a single off The Liberty of Norton Folgate, the song Forever Young is finally going to get its day in the sun. Chrissy Boy confirmed that Forever Young is to be the follow-up single to Sugar and Spice.
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=773
# Terry Edwards gets the Horn for Christmas
Terry Edwards sent word to Madness Central that he will be playing in the horn section at select gigs this December.
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=772
# With Thanks To The Doctor
Madness To Appear On Children In Need - BBC1 - 20th November 2009. No news at this stage as to what format the bands performance will take on (they have in the past appeared at an outside broadcast location at one of the many regional events in support of the charity) but if we find out any more we’ll let you know.
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=769
# Pet Shop Madness
As first reported on the Madness Central Forums and Newsletter thanks to an article on the Metro newspaper website it’s been revealed the Pet Shop Boys will be releasing a cover of “My Girl” as part of an upcoming EP to be titled “Christmas”.
Read the complete blog at:
http://madness-central.com/blog/?p=763
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2. Universal Madness 10th Anniversary Contest
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In April of 1998 Madness jetted over to the colonies for the first time as a seven piece since 1983, and they were welcomed to American soil with one sold out show after another.
The biggest and brightest of these California shows was held at the Universal Amphitheater in Universal City (a suburb of Los Angeles), and it was this concert that was chosen for recording by famed gig promoters Goldenvoice. One year later the album "Universal Madness" hit the shelves, again seeing Madness in the colonies to support the album both in concert and on the nationally broadcast TV programmes the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
It's been ten years since the release of "Universal Madness", and it's also been ten years since the very earliest version of Madness Central (dubbed the Total Madness Mailing List) first took the interweb. Back in 1999 we had an exclusive partnership with Goldenvoice Records to promote the album to the interweb Madness fans, and part of that promotion included a host of contests featuring copies of the album and tons of promotional material.
Fortunately for you good lot, we have one final copy of the album available for a contest prize that somehow was overlooked a decade ago. And seeing as this is the tenth anniversary of the album, what more excuse do we need to hold yet another contest here at Madness Central?
The contest will launch on Monday 16th November and will run for one week.
Further information can be found on the Madness Central Special Feature page at:
http://www.madness-central.com/interactive/feature/feature.html
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3. One Step Beyond by Terry Edwards. Book Review by Christel Loar.
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Source: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/115272-one-step-beyond-by-terry-edwards/
The 33 1/3 series of short, pocket-sized books about specific albums has, over its nearly seven year run, put out an increasingly impressive line of titles by a variety of authors, from Exile on Main Street as told by Bill Janovitz to the Replacements’ Let it Be as experienced by the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy. Now comes Terry Edwards’ inside scoop on the story of the making of the classic Madness debut disc One Step Beyond…, and, much like the album itself, One Step Beyond—the book—is a little unusual, a bit nutty and quite brilliant.
Terry Edwards is a musician and sometime Madness collaborator who was around during the events leading up to the recording and release of One Step Beyond…, so not only is he uniquely qualified to discuss the band and the music, he’s also got a lot of amusing insider stories, as well as objective outsider context, with which to piece together various perspectives and create a more complete picture.
This is particularly helpful at points when the material has the potential to become repetitive (such as the recurrent comments about several songs lacking proper choruses). Edwards avoids monotony by inserting band anecdotes or his own witty asides at precisely the right moments to keep the narrative moving along. Like other 33 1/3 titles, One Step Beyond follows a one-chapter-per-track format. Unlike the few others I’ve read, it doesn’t keep those chapter boundaries very strictly, instead letting the tales take the lead. This allows for a much more informative and entertaining progression. It also allows the distinctive personalities of all those involved to come through, which is at least as important as what is said about the music, especially in the case of a band like Madness!
In addition to his own memories of the time, Edwards spoke to producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, Stiff Records’ Dave Robinson, John Hasler (designated “Minder” on the record sleeve) and Madness members Mike “Barso” Barson, Chrissy Boy (Chris Foreman), Thommo (Lee “Kix” Thompson), Bedders (Mark Bedford), Chas Smash (Cathal Smyth), Woody (Dan Woodgate), and Suggs (who also has another name, but no one ever uses it). Each chapter is prefaced by a lyrical excerpt (lots of Ian Dury, incidentally), or by a pertinent quote from a band member, either about the song in question or a band mate.
Each of these seems to be Edwards’ way of clueing readers to the fact that he isn’t just going to discuss musical arrangements and in-studio details (though, there is plenty of that included for the more technically obsessed, too). In fact, Chapter 8 begins with a lyric from “Sweet Gene Vincent” about being on the road and continues with several funny-but-true paragraphs about how rock music really revolves around laundry, before getting into the other laundry-related subject that is the a central theme of “In the Middle of the Night.” Edwards jumps from song to song and album to album tying together threads about this topic before bringing the whole thing full circle with a suitable quip. He does this so beautifully with the rest of the chapters/tracks, too, weaving actual incidents with insight into the song structures, confirming or refuting rumors about the meanings behind lyrics (sometimes both, depending on who he’s spoken to), commenting on the social and political subjects sometimes hidden in the songs, and providing tidbits of trivia.
One of the most interesting, if fairly obvious, aspects of this book is its exploration of the slight misnomer in calling Madness’ music ska. Despite timely association with the 2-Tone record label and its surrounding movement of England’s second wave of ska in the late 1970s, Madness was not exactly a ska band by the then-current definition. There were some ska rhythms on One Step Beyond…, but several other songs really had more in common with soul or pub rock. Even Madness’ takes on ska (like “The Prince” or the cover of “One Step Beyond”) sound entirely different from contemporaries such as the Specials and the Beat. However, the band members’ collective admiration of Prince Buster (for those who don’t know, the band took its name from one of his hits) may have been enough to file them under the term, and clearly they were smart enough to jump on the opportunities the second wave offered.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Madness, and of the release of One Step Beyond…. Along with the two-disc deluxe edition re-release, Terry Edwards’ One Step Beyond is a perfect companion piece and a great way to commemorate a brilliant album.
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4. Madness Central Updates: The Nutty Caption
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Have you ever seen a picture of Madness and, with puzzled amazement, said to yourself, "Just what the blue blazes were they thinking?" Why not put some words in the mouths of Madness and answer that question for yourself?
The chosen 'victim' this time is Bedders.
Enter you caption(s) at:
http://www.madness-central.com/interactive/caption/caption.php
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5. Froggy Delight: An interview with Chrissy Boy
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Source: http://www.froggydelight.com/article-7620-Madness
Interview by Laurent Coudol
Kindly translated by Madness Central Forum subscriber: Mad Squirrel (Claire)
It was the end of october. In the sitting room of a parisian hotel, Madness welcomed the Froggy Delight’s team. Although not all 7 members of the band had made the trip to Paris, we were nonetheless greeted by Suggs (singer), Chrissy Boy (guitar player) and Lee (sax player).
We took the opportunity to discuss with Chris « Chrissy Boy » Foreman the thirty-year-long career of a band well-known for making ska music popular. At the beginning of the eighties, Madness wrote hits we all danced to. With “Our house”, they created a music video which has set the standard high and is still appreciated today.
LC : Your recent album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate, has been launched a few months ago, and Total Madness, a greatest hits CD/DVD, has been released very recently. It’s a collection of your singles and videos. Consequently, I suggest we start the interview by talking about your career and the music videos that went along.
Chris : Right.
LC : When you were younger, you were part of gangs. How do you get from a gang to a band ?
Chris : No, in fact, we’ve never really been into a street gang. We were just friends, just guys who lived in the same neighbourhood. We felt like playing music together. Mike was the first to buy a music instrument. Then Lee got a sax. I saw a guitar in a shop. And that’s how we started to make music, just for fun. It all felt really natural. Mark joined us with his bass. Then our singer came along. I know it sounds a bit too easy that way. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what happened.
LC : When your career started, your gigs were known for being rather violent. But nowadays, there’s always a great party atmosphere…
Chris : No, it wasn’t violent. At least, not always. There’s been a bit of violence. But even in the early years, the party atmosphere was already pretty much prominent.
LC : When « Absolutely » came out in 1980, we felt there had been a change concerning your clothing style. On the cover of your first album, you all wore different clothes. But then you got rid of your Fred Perry’s polo shirts to go for dark suits, ties, bowlers hats… was it a carefully thought-out choice from your part, or just a strategy from your record company so that you’d end up with a fashion style that would set you apart from other bands ?
Chris : On the cover of One Step Beyond, we appeared wearing our everyday clothes. We didn’t have a strategy concerning the band’s looks and visual identity. There never was a record company executive to tell us : “There, from now on, I’m your stylist”. It was just our clothes… Most of the time, we’d actually buy them second-hand, from the flea market. There are lots of shops like that in Great-Britain, second-hand clothes shops run by charity organizations.
For the photograph on the cover of “Absolutely”, all of us had bought long black coats in vintage shops. Once the photo shoot was over, we sold them. Talk about recycling...
LC : Do you think that Madness’ videos have had an impact on the way the band and your music have been perceived ?
Chris : Yes, of course it has. Especially in the Baggy Trousers video, when Lee flies through the sky playing the sax. It was fun, and it earned us a reputation for being a cool and funny band.
LC : And what’s your favourite Madness video ?
Chris : It’s probably House of Fun, but I don’t know why. We used to film lots of things, and we’d almost used them all during the editing process. We achieved some good videos, but we also shot others that were not as good… still, they’re all good memories.
LC : Who directed the little skits between the videos for the Greatest Hits video collection ?
Chris : I did. Either Lee or me shot our earlier videos. Then we tried to add little skits to introduce the videos. We had great fun doing this, just like in the one at the beginning of One Step Beyond. We’re sitting in the stairs singing, just before the actual video starts. It was just a silly idea, but at the same time, we thought it was fun.
LC : At the beginning of the eighties, Madness was very popular, but The Selecters and The Specials were considered a lot more serious. Did the situation influenced your writing in any way while working on the following albums ?
Chris : Indeed, these bands had a reputation for being more serious, more politically aware, but that didn’t change our way of writing. In fact, we already tackled serious issues in our songs. Of course, in our music, we didn’t take ourselves seriously, but the themes of our lyrics were sometimes serious. Take the song “Embarrassment”, for instance, it is about Lee’s sister. She’s white, she married a black guy, and they had a mixed-race child. Some members of Lee’s family were uncomfortable with the situation. It is about racial tensions that had sprung up within the family. It’s a serious song, although listeners didn’t acknowledge it as such.
If you listen to the lyrics of “On My Radio” or “Missing Words » by The Selecters, you’ll notice they don’t deal with heavy issues. “Too much pressure” was a lot more serious, as were The Specials’ “Gangsters” or “A Message to you Rudy”. In fact, we all wrote about issues we felt concerned about, but these bands were taken seriously and we were not. The way the songs were perceived depended on the way the bands were considered. It was a controversial topic back in those days, but nowadays it doesn’t seem very interesting. In fact, our lyrics were simply about what was happening in our lives. It is also important to point out that there isn’t just one lyricist in Madness. Lee writes very well, Suggs too, not to mention Mike. The lyrics that I write are perhaps a little lighter.
LC : In your career, you’ve experienced ups and downs. In 1992, you played a come back gig at Finsbury park. It was the first concert ever to be recorded on the Richter scale. Were you expecting such an enthusiastic welcome after six long years of silence ?
Chris : We split up in 1986. A few years later, Divine Madness greatest hits album came out. We did some TV ads for it, and sales numbers were huge. So we had a feeling the audience at Finsbury Park would be rather big, but we were nevertheless astonished : we had an audience of 35 000 on the first day, and as many people came the following day.
LC : In the nineties, all members of the band collaborated with other bands or carried out personal projects. Do you think that Madness influenced the “Madchester” music scene ?
Chris: No, not at all.
LC : Still, there was a “F**k Art, Let' S Dance” spirit to those years. [note: Madness motto].
Chris: There was, indeed, but really, I do not believe that Madness influenced this movement in the least.
LC : On the other hand, were there perhaps nineties bands that influenced Madness for The Liberty of Norton Folgate ?
Chris : No, not either. We had begun to write some of the songs that appeared on this album ten years ago, songs we had started off but had never really finished. We worked together to complete them, it really was teamwork.
LC : The album is about London. Do you always feel swept up in romantic nostalgia for London ? I ask this because today’s London seems to be a city mostly filled with bankers…
Chris : Personally, I moved away three years ago to Brighton, to the seaside. It’s calmer, far away from the big city. The only members of the band remaining in London are Suggs and Mark, our bass player. Suggs has always been fascinated by the history of London, and this is where the title of our album comes from [Norton Folgate is a street located in east London. It has remained independent until 1900].
Today, I don’t think I could go back to live in London. The atmosphere I liked is gone. Many buildings have been destroyed and replaced by Starbucks coffee houses. I don’t miss London much nowadays. The things I miss most are going out and shopping.
LC : You played in Regent Street last month. As the second song on your album is entitled “We are London”, was this concert something special for you ?
Chris: It was strange because of the place, because Regent Street is a big shopping area. But we often play in London. In this respect, this gig had no special vibe for us.
LC : I read on your website that there’s a “Liberty of Norton Folgate” film project directed by Julien Temple. Can you tell us more about it ?
Chris : We worked on this project last year, but the film is now finished. Julien Temple filmed us playing in an old theatre. It was great to work with him. On the other hand, the whole production process took a very long time. The film has already been screened at a couple of festivals, and it has just been broadcast on British television. We will add it as a bonus on a next reissue of the album. We are very happy with this film.
LC : In december 2008, you played at the O2 arena in London, and the venue was full. This year, you’re preparing a tour of the UK for next December, but many dates are already sold out. Will it become a Madness Christmas tradition to overcrowd the O2 arena ?
Chris : We’ve been touring at Christmas time for a while now. We did a Christmas tour in 1992, after our comeback concert in Finsbury Park. Then the tour became something we do every year. It’s funny to see that we do fill up much larger venues nowadays than we did in the eighties.
LC : In May 2010, you’re going to play in Paris, at Le Zenith. Will there be any special surprises for the French audience ?
Chris : It is a bit early to say, we are still working on it. We don’t even know yet who the support band will be, so I can’t really answer that question.
LC : I can’t refrain from asking you how things went from your point of view at Rock-en-Seine festival. You stood in for Oasis at the last minute, and you played on the main stage. Everything happened so quickly…
Chris : We had just played on the other stage a bit earlier. Everything had gone well. We were happy to be back in France. So when the festival organisers came up to talk to us, everything happened in 45 minutes. They asked us whether we could move to the other stage to play another gig on the spot. They offered us more money. We were delighted to do it. The concert went very well.
LC : Did you take it as an eighties bands’ revenge over Brit Pop bands - eighties bands being rather influenced by The kinks, the Mods and Ray Davies, and Brit Pop bands being more into The Beatles ?
Chris : Oh no, not at all. First of all, I really like Oasis. They’ve written a huge amount of good songs. Among them stands “Importance of being idle”, which is strongly influenced by The Kinks. Plus the black and white video is really good. Secondly, it’s not really our way of thinking to be revengeful, we’re really not.
LC : In 30 years, you have witnessed many an evolution in the musical world. What are for you the main differences since you started ?
Chris : The way we process to record an album hasn’t really changed, although, technically speaking, there has been many breakthroughs. When we started, we played in very small studios, and we recorded our music on 8 tracks.
For Norton Folgate, we worked at Toe Rags Studios, where the White Stripes have recorded some of their music. Toe Rags’ music engineers are excellent. We had rather a lot of songs to record. We started using computers, which has saved us a great deal of efforts. Whenever I was looking for some particular sound on my guitar, the engineers would tell me : “Don’t worry, we’ll find it !”, and it made the recording process quicker. We recorded little bits at a time. It’s good to avoid spending months and months on just one piece. Still, it took us three years to achieve this album.
LC : Are you going to manage Madness’ next 30 years of career the way you managed the first 30 ?
Chris : I have no idea what the future will be like. Plus, since we stopped in 1986 to come back only in 1992, we can’t really say we had a 30-years career span.
LC : Which music do you listen to these days ? Have you got any advice for Froggy Delight’s readers ?
Chris : I really like Arctic monkeys. I often play their last album « Humbug ». They have really good lyrics and they have a lot of energy on stage. I also like La Roux, although the production work on her record is a bit too light to my taste. She’s young, but she writes good lyrics. Another band I currently like is Kasabian. Of course, I also listen to a lot of older bands… but in the current music production, there are lots of exciting things.
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6. Contacting Madness Central
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You can send all communications relating to Madness Central to the e-mail address:
ad...@madness-central.com
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7. Newsletter Subscription Details.
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