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Between April 1998 and November 2004 eight versions of the Tour Madness fanzine were sent to a growing number of fans in an extensive (but over demanded) 139 page printed masterwork. It was the dedicated effort of Jermaine a dutch fan who took such a detailed interest in the bands history of appearances that he spawned a treasured encyclopedia that delighted fans.
Here's Jermaine's introduction to this brand new online edition.
It was late 1980/early 1981 that I was first exposed to Madness: Baggy Trousers and Embarrassment were top 10 in the Dutch charts and became their biggest hits over here. Unaware of phrases like ska and nutty, and the world behind Madness, it was later that I realised that they were part of the soundtrack of my schooldays; and I'm sure others felt the same way too.
In 1993 I came across the Madness-history as written in the Keep Moving-songbook. It triggered off a period of collecting printed articles and audio, video tapes as background information for what would eventually become Tour Madness; the Madness-history in live-concerts and radio/television appearances in and outside the band. Between April 1998 and September 2000 seven versions were sent to a growing number of fans, most of whom were running sites and zines devoted to Madness and/or ska-bands in general.
Then I embarked on the difficult task of giving Tour Madness a complete make-over; difficult because new entries and facts kept coming in and I didn't want to rush it off. Eventually it took four years to make, a third of what Guns n Roses were spending on their Chinese Democracy-album. The 139-page version of Tour Madness saw the light of day in November 2004
After Tour Madness I began writing for a Dutch-language ska-site (among other things), but the idea of bringing the latest Madness-news MIS-style and webtesting new entries was lost on many so I quit after two years. In the meantime I also lost my PC (and a relative) and with it the whole of Tour Madness. Despite continuing on MIS I realised that I couldn't commit myself for another four years and considered an Apprentice-style search for someone to take over. Without doing so the apprentice is found; it's called Madness Central and I'm convinced that it'll do a fine job in chronicling the Madness-history the same way that Tour Madness did.
Jermaine, Amsterdam, Holland
It's exciting to be bringing Jermaine's work to the web as part of the Madness Central team and we are updating his original idea, so that it can finallly reach the worldwide fan audience it always deserved and become the most useful reference guide. Using both the 2004 latest edition and the 2005 preview entries he wrote, we have backed this up with similar edited factual gig reports from the MIS-Online email Newsletters. I wrote a lot of those gig reviews for MIS as did a lot of other fans, and along with many many sources including Chris Foreman's Timeline, George Marshall's Total Madness book, and multiple continuing web sources we are bringing the story up to date. Tour Madness continues in its new online home at Madness Central.
Jonathan Young.
Tour Madness is dedicated to Pimm-Jal De La Parra and Dave Baker.
Tour Madness as you read it now owes its existence to 52 Live (A Concert Documentary'). This bookworm is written by Pimm-Jal De la Parra, an experienced concert-goer since 1982 and the driving force behind Dutch U2-fanzine Collectormania with its extensive gig-by-gig coverage of the Irish Fab Four's legendary world-tours. I met PJ at several record-fairs in Holland between 1998 and 2001 and told him about Tour Madness which even owes its title to U2 Live. Early 2003 I learnt that he died the previous year (April 9, 2002) at the age of 35. His cause of death remains undisclosed. A group of befriended fans stepped in his shoes to continue the work he left behind and even managed to update U2 Live with entries that took place after the author's passing.
Dave Baker, a fan of Madness and The Specials, is widely known for his collection of audio- and video concert-tapes. Every collecting fan owns at least one of his, and so do i At the time of writing it's nearly five years ago that we started swapping information and live-recordings. Apart from that he received the previous two versions of Tour Madness. The last time we were in touch was early 2004. Dave passed away on September 6, aged 36. This sad news was confirmed two months later in the 'MIS Online'-newsbulletin.
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