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Madness strikes town tonight, but there is no need to keep the less stable members of the family under lock and key.
Madness is the somewhat - unusual name six young Britons have chosen for their band, a group that is taking the pop music world by storm with a sound that has been dormant for a decade.
Touring in support of One Step Beyond, their debut album which jumped to the top of the charts in England and is just beginning to ascend in North America, Madness will be playing a one-nighter tonight at Broadway Live, another stop on the odyssey that is bringing the sound of ska to major cities in the US and Canada.
Most North Americans got their first exposure to Jamaican music when Bob Marley and the Wailers hit big with Rastafarian reggae Ska - also known as bluebeat, skank and rock steady - is the rhythm & blues-infected precursor to contemporary reggae.
The sound features punchy keyboards, screaming saxophone passages and rollicking vocals. Madness' brand of Ska is like nothing you've ever heard. It's a good-time music that even Madness members have trouble describing specifically.
"It's like rock 'n' roll but with more of a brass section," says saxophonist Lee "Kix" Thompson, interviewed yesterday by phone from New York, where the band was concluding a two-night engagement.
"A lot of it is instrumental, with only a bit of vocals," adds Thompson, who is not a fan of contemporary reggae.
"Reggae music of today is music to get stoned to," he complains. "I myself don't like that. I like to move and bounce about. The only music I feel I can dance to is reggae of the 1960s, especially bluebeat."
The genesis of Madness occurred two years ago, when Thompson hooked up with a pair of North London chums, guitarist Chris Foreman and keyboards player Mike Barson. The current line-up was completed a year ago with the addition of bassist Mark Bedford, drummer Dan Woodgate and vocalist Suggs, ne Graham McPherson. A late addition was Chas Smash, described on the album jacket as contributing "various shouts and fancy footwork."
"We were playing a gig in North London and he (Smash) kept gettin' on stage and bouncin'," Thompson remembers. "The stage was about as big as a bleedin' matchbox. We couldn't get rid of Chas so we phoned him up eventually and now he dances and does some vocals."
Smash's moment in the spotlight occurs during the band's Ska rendition of Swan Lake, during which he and a roadie engage in a head-banging contest.
"Chas is easing up a bit on that," laughs Thompson, "'cause we're doing so many gigs they're knocking each other's brains out. If you're doing that two shows a night, you're going to get brain damage, but I think he's already got it."
Madness' primitive reggae beat and bizarre, energetic stage show quickly gained the attention of British talent scouts, always on the lookout for something new and different.
"Everything happened so fast we weren't even thinking of record companies," says Thompson. "We started constantly gigging in February last year. Gigged a couple of months and we had people approaching us - Island Records, Warner Bros, Virgin, takin' us out to lunch and making all kinds of offers."
Madness was set to sign with Virgin when they played a wedding reception and were spotted by Dave Robinson, an executive with Stiff Records.
"His offer was the best we had," Thompson recalls. "And he done it so fast. We did it over a pint."
Two weeks in the Stiff Studios and Madness had Beyond recorded. The LP contains 15 weird, universally danceable songs.
Madness' live renditions of the music on the album were first performed in North America during a five-city tour last December. The current jaunt will include stops in Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Seattle, Vancouver and San Francisco before concluding with three nights at Los Angeles' Whisky A Go-Go in late March.
- Contributed by Lee 'Loobyloo' Buckley
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