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WHAT an appropriate name for a group who seem, to all intents and purposes, to be completely out to lunch, yet have released only three records, two singles and an album, all of which have been sizeable hits. Have you seen them on 'Top of The Pops'? They're weird ..... The story of Madness started a couple of years ago, when they were called the North London Invaders - the only reason for that seems to have been that they did indeed come from North London. The members of the group (or at least some of them) seem perfectly normal when you just read or write their names - Mike Barson on keyboards and vocals, Chris Foreman on guitar and vocals, Lee Thompson on saxophone and vocals, Mark Bedford on bass and Dan Woodgate, who's known more familiarly as Woods, on drums. But then it gets a bit stranger - the lead singer of Madness is known as Suggs, and they also have a 'compere', who's called Chas Smash - suppose he's a little like the loveable Cosmo Vinyl, who does a similar job for the Blockheads, introducing Ian Dury and his band as they come on to stage ......
The music Madness play is definitely influenced by Jamaican music, although not necessarily reggae - these boys go back to before reggae, to the music that was just one of the most popular forms during the first mod era in the '60s, ska, which is sometimes known as blue-beat. Not that Madness call it that - they say it's called 'The Nutty Sound', and if their onstage behaviour's anything to go by, that's pretty accurate. The reason for that description was thought up by Lee Thompson, who suggested that Madness played music that sounded like what you hear in a fairground - nutty music. And he's quite right, of course ......
Madness, although they've left now, were one of the three hit acts who started their career as recording artists on the Two Tone label, like the Specials and the Selecter. The first Madness single was the second Two Tone release - on one side, their first hit, a tribute to legendary ska star Prince Buster called 'The Prince', and on the other, the Prince Buster song which gave them their name, 'Madness'. It made the top twenty a few months ago, and apparently sold more than 150,000 copies, which is a very useful debut. But the group had only signed to Two Tone for the one single, and in the meantime had become friendly with those other loonies from Stiff Records, who apparently made Madness an offer they couldn't refuse after the group had provided the musical accompaniment to the wedding celebrations of Stiff boss Dave Robinson.
Their first Stiff release came in three instalments - typical! The single, which I'm sure you've all heard, is the bizarre 'One Step Beyond' - it's the one that starts with Chas Smash (we presume) shouting into an echo chamber 'Hey You! Don't watch that - watch this! This is the heavy, heavy monster sound, the nuttiest sound around. So if you're comin' up the street, and you're beginning to feel the heat, well listen, buster, you better start to move your feet to the rockingest, rock steady beat of Madness - one step beyond.' Says it all really, doesn't it? It's in the charts, of course, but what you may not know is that the seven inch version has an otherwise unavailable track on the B side called 'Mistakes', while there's a twelve inch version too, which has 'Mistakes' and another unavailable track called 'Nutty Theme'. So the twelve incher's a better bet, if you can afford it. And when the word 'unavailable' was mentioned, what that means is that neither 'Mistakes' nor 'Nutty Theme' are on the first Madness album, which is also called 'One Step Beyond', and has, among other things, versions of such well known rockers as 'Land of Hope and Glory' and 'Swan Lake' on it.
- Contributed by Brian McCloskey
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