Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys



    I'm sure that many OTFers are aware that 'One Step Beyond' - the first Madness album - has been re-released and remastered to mark its 30th anniversary. It's hard to believe that it was three decades ago when the lives of blokes who would normally never dance at parties were altered forever!

    The CD comes in a digipack which reproduces the original artwork and the booklet has a specially written piece by Irvine Welsh, who recalls the emergence of Madness back in 1979 amidst a very politicised era. As he says, Madness were a band who

    "realized that humour always works best when offset with the shadow of pathos and menace."

    And that's one of the interesting things about the album. Everybody knows the hit singles of the record, but some of the songs are a lot darker than is often remembered. 'In The Middle of the Night' is a typically jaunty Madness number, but is actually about a man who steals womens' underwear from washing lines and relieves himself in them; and 'Mummy's Boy' makes reference to paedophilia ('she was twelve and he was thirty').

    Others on here would be better qualified than me to comment on how the remastering has altered the sound coming through the speakers, but one thing I noticed was how the piano playing sounded so resonant and vibrant, particularly on the 'daft but great' track 'Tarzan's Nuts' (which takes one of the old Tarzan theme tunes as imagined by the boys.)

    The extras are interesting too. Disc 1 contains all five of the Promo Videos (including 'Bed and Breakfast Man', strangely never released as a single) which never fail to raise a smile; Disc 2 has four tracks from a Peel session, and an assortment of bonus tracks. Some of these are a bit unnecessary - e.g. Italian and Spanish versions of the single 'One Step Beyond' - but the 'Work, Rest and Play' E.P. is there and that's definitely worth having.

    So if you have a spare £8-99 floating around this weekend you could do worse than invest in a significant piece of British musical history.

    #2
    ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

    One of my least favourite bands ever and always came across as smug tossers. Even now, in his 'more grown up' work I think Suggs still has that air about him.

    I'll be keeping my spare £8.99 firmly in my pocket.

    Comment


      #3
      ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

      Post of the year from TJA.

      I loved The Specials and The Beat. Madness were loathsome.

      Comment


        #4
        ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

        While I've never thought of Madness as 'smug' (huh?) what has largely been forgotten in the mists of time (well, 30 years of it, anyway) is that they (and some of their Two Tone peers) were basically 'lads' bands'. It's hard to think of a modern equivalent. Not Oasis - trying too hard to be cool (and failing); not Supergrass (obviously too musically-all-encompassing). No - what it felt like was that they successfully tapped into blue-collar/working-class 'laddishness' with the themes (and transparency) of their songs, and thus instantly acquired a huge ready-made fanbase.

        This is all very well, but what this meant to a large extent was that many of their fans were pretty thuggish - at least round my way they were. Furthermore, despite Ska and Two Tone's obvious anti-racist credentials, the fact is that Madness (and most of the other bands in that 'movement') had a large skinhead following, too*. Thus, I'll always automatically associate Madness with the latent racism at the heart of British working-class ('my' class) society. It's unfortunate, since I seriously doubt that any of the band members are themselves racist - almost certainly the complete opposite. They almost certainly wouldn't have adopted the musical form they did if they were racist.

        It's similar to the problem I have with The Smiths. At their time(s) both bands were appealing to potentially reactionary sections of society (though in slightly different ways) and in doing so attracted some very 'dodgy characters' to put it politely.

        Musically speaking, I don't have a problem with Madness, but their Ska-pop never fired my imagination in any way. I can appreciate that they have talent as songsmiths, but their songs never motivated me to dance ...not even a silly, laddish dance whilst clutching a can of lager.

        Btw - was there any significance to that pose they struck on the cover of that album? Or is it just them being 'wacky' somehow.

        (* - Not that all skinheads were racist, of course. The Redskins were very active in their anti-racism, obviously.)

        Comment


          #5
          ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

          I loved Madness at the time, to the extent of being a member of the M.I.S. and collecting all the Nutty Boys comics and covering my Harrington in their badges and basing my marker-pen graffiti tag on their 'M' logo...

          ...but strangely, of all the bands I loved in my youth, Madness are the one I don't feel any fondness for now. I even wonder "what was I thinking?" (although, on an objective level, I can see why they'd capture the imagination of a 12/13-year-old).

          This is partly because I met Suggs many years later and he was a cunt. (Having said that, I used to play football with Woody and he was lovely.)

          Comment


            #6
            ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

            Spearmint Rhino wrote:
            ...and basing my marker-pen graffiti tag on their 'M' logo...
            Woahwoahwoahwoahwoah! Rewind a second, there. You had a graffiti tag? When? When you were a Madness teen or during your 'Price Cube' years?

            I'm grimly fascinated. I mean, we've seen the Numan 'Rebellious Jukebox' piece; now I think we should see this tag.

            Heh! Just trying to piece together the puzzle of your misspent youth, me-deario!

            Comment


              #7
              ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

              When I was a teen. It involved a letter 'S' with a hat and a dancing man and the year... I don't have an example to hand, but it's probably still faintly visible on wooden doors and electricity substations and alleyway walls and park benches around Porthkerry Road and Chickenwoods. I fell in with a bad crowd.

              Comment


                #8
                ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                'my girl' was my first record and literally changed everything.
                i collected all the records (7", 12", pic discs etc).
                i was a member of the MIS (all the comics are in the attic)
                i met Chrissy Boy years ago at an AOC gig and he was ace.
                i went to the original madstock (with flowered up !).
                i think the new album is one of their best ever.

                the darker side to the bands lyrics (the story of a kid dying in a fridge being one of their darkest moments amongst many) were one of the reasons i fell hard. normally i never care for lyrics, but with madness their tales of woe and misfortune were ingrained into my upbringing.

                the 'work, rest and play' ep is fantastic.
                'don't quote me on that', hits back at the racist accusations and is a lost classic, can't wait to have that on cd.

                Comment


                  #9
                  ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                  I feel I should defend Madness but I've not had breakfast yet ... I think Suggs is OK. I remember him as a baby skin, and he did hang round with a dodgy NF crew (the Sham army), but then I was in the same company sometimes, so were many people. (No-one's actually brought up his "NF connections" so I'm, er, helpfully bringing it up myself). They're not remotely racist, but yeh, they attracted some of those geezers, just as the latter day Pistols do.

                  As for smug, maybe he's just happy. I'm sure he has no illusions about how talented he is i.e. talented enough but not a Great Artist. He has managed and supported a few other bands and club nights and turned up to things he didn't have to turn up to, which is in his favour, and without playing the "star". Plus he's long term married and not a philanderer AFAIK, so points there from me.

                  They're a good pop band and there is some thought and some shade in their songs.
                  The last album (the Liberty of Norton Folgate) is worth a listen, but if you hate them you won't like it ...

                  Comment


                    #10
                    ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                    I never really liked Madness when they came out - two of my school-mates were mental about them, but they were also big "Beano" fans, so I always had a Madness/Bash Street Kids connection in my head. It wasn't until around "Tomorrows Just Another Day" came out that I started to like them.
                    The big argument on our estate was whether Madness were a Mod band, as there used to be a badge that said Modness/Madness on it.
                    Also, just noticed, theres no Chas Smash/Carl Smythe on the album cover.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                      Madness's better songs were almost always their slower, more miserable ones. Stuff like Baggy Trousers (the first single I ever bought) sounds less exciting now than when I was 10. Not in the class of The Specials or The Beat but still have their place, I reckon.

                      And a top 5
                      1 Grey Day
                      2 Bed and Breakfast Man
                      3 One Better Day
                      4 Cardiac Arrest
                      5 My Girl

                      Comment


                        #12
                        ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                        Also, just noticed, theres no Chas Smash/Carl Smythe on the album cover.

                        on the back of the album sleeve there are photographic instructions featuring chas on how to do 'the dance'.
                        not sure, but don't think he was a full member until after OSB was released.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                          In Cov circa 82 it was 10p a letter to have whatever you wanted sewn into the back of your Harrington. The 3 most popular were 'Madness', 'Rock On Tommy' ("I've paid our taxes Bobby"-"You little liar!")and obviously 'Specials'. People with 'Madness' on the back were hated by me and my sister even though we dug the odd Madness single - gratified that ever since then the evident cuntishness of Suggs (and the fact that he was Skrewdriver's roadie & pals with Stuart Donaldson for so long) have proved us (self)right(eous).

                          Comment


                            #14
                            ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                            What exactly are you right about then?

                            "and the fact that he was Skrewdriver's roadie & pals with Stuart Donaldson for so long"

                            implying what, precisely?

                            Just to clarify, early Skrewdriver were NOT a racist band; I saw them play the Vortex, my friends' bands played on the same bill as them, many people I know have their first album.

                            In 77 punks and skinheads used to hang out together and although there was some overlap between being a skinhead and being racist, it certainly wasn't a given.

                            This has been gone over so many times.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                              Well, what the fuck do you think that implies? You can say that he dropped Donaldson when he started coming out with the I-Love-Adolf stuff but the idea that Donaldson hadn't been coming out with this shit for a while before his 'outing' is ridiculous. No matter how often Suggs & Madness try and distance themselves from their bonehead fanbase I never bought it. Oh and check the parenthesis around the word 'right' in my post. Not denying Madness were a great pop band. Just suggesting that round our way they were always suspected as dodgy fuckers and I'm not shifting that opinion just cos the cunt sells a mean fishfinger.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                I've added to my post.

                                I knew many of the same crowd, I went to early Sham gigs with a friend who turned NF skinhead, and it took me a little while to drop her friendship despite the fact that I was politically aware and found those politics repulsive. We were eighteen.

                                Many, many people from the punk scene in the 70s would have been acquainted with or friendly with some "dodgy" people, do you think they're all racist?

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                  Age is NO excuse man. Exactly when after Skrewdriver first split (and then returned as fully foaming fascists) did Suggs stop living with Donaldson? And when Donaldson became head of Blackpool NF how come Suggs still asked him to work on the 'Take It Or Leave It' documentary? I don't get this - "oh it was the 70s/early-80s we were young" thang. There were plenty of young punks also taking stands against this shit - how soon after signing to Two-Tone did it become advantageous to Madness to start denying their past? I mentally taint Current 93 & Death In June from that period so why not Madness?

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                    Simon wrote:
                                    The big argument on our estate was whether Madness were a Mod band, as there used to be a badge that said Modness/Madness on it.
                                    Ah, the Madness/Modness debate...

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                      Ha, I nearly married someone who played with Death in June. But we shared a flat with Mannah, the black roadie/sometime member of The Ruts. It wasn't all so clear cut.

                                      It's perfectly possible to be friendly with racists if you grow up in the same area, listen to the same music, go to the same clubs etc.

                                      The hardening/movement to the right was partly a result of the left wing splitting away; not saying it's their/our fault, but whereas in 77 you might have a racist in your midst and he'd start spouting off and people would either yawn or challenge him, once they'd flocked together it was a different story.

                                      Hindsight 20:20 and all that, but the NF didn't seem such of a threat to teenagers in 77/78 and punks at first accepted skins as fellow rebels who liked similar types of music.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                        And I'm sorry, but we can't have a Madness debate without dredging the archive for this.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                          MsD wrote:
                                          ... the NF didn't seem such of a threat to teenagers in 77/78...
                                          Well, it probably depends which teenagers. My mate Adrian was actually quite a big Madness fan at the time, but he never went to a gig of theirs. Why not? Because he looked like Woody Allen.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                            Awesome opening post on that thread, Nish! Missed that one first time round.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                              evilC wrote:

                                              Btw - was there any significance to that pose they struck on the cover of that album? Or is it just them being 'wacky' somehow.
                                              I remember reading an interview with Suggs a few years back and he said that the pose originated from an experience that he and some of the band members had at a crowded house party. The place was so packed that they had to dodge and weave their way around people the whole evening, hence the pose.

                                              Regarding the racist element: I was too young to be aware of that at the time. I knew most of the Madness stuff from hearing it on the radio, seeing them on TV, and then eventually buying their releases. When I discovered the racist 'connection' a few years later I have to say that it had very little effect on me. I loved their music and what they were singing about, that was enough for me.

                                              Irvine Welsh refers to the right-wing connotations in the CD booklet. I'll reprint what he says and then it'll be interesting to see what others make of it:

                                              "It wasn't all plain sailing for the Nutty Boys, however; back in the late seventies, everything was politicised, especially, as wierd as this seems today, haircuts.

                                              The fact that the band were coming out of the distinctly non-racist skinhead culture that had adopted West Indian ska and reggae as its sound, seemed to be lost on some middle-class music journalists, whom, through the lens of their own prejudices, saw the number-two cuts and heard the North London accents, and ludicrously tried to make an association between Madness and far right-wing politics.

                                              To their great crdit, the band simply disdained this nonsense, while simultaneously spurning the advances of the racist skins that misguidedly tried to attach themselves to them.

                                              Given the band's youth at the time, I always felt that Madness displayed a lot of unheralded class and savvy in their handling of this potentially very tricky situation."

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                                Sealed the deal. If Madness can count on fucking pricks like Irvine Welsh to back them up then I hate 'em even fkn more: ain't it funny how whenever a popular band get slagged that ol' stereotype of 'middle-class journalist' can get wheeled out, that speccy ponce who 'never understood' (got all the same shit in response to my Stone Roses quietus piece). As if working-class music fans act en-masse - ffs I know plenny of working-class pop fans who avoid the categories the fuckwitted likes of Welsh wish to throw down around them (incl. plenty who will never forgive Madness and plenty who fkn hated the Stone Roses): Welsh's lambasting of some middle-class-consensus politically nitpicking about a working-class band is a ton of horseshit, people weren't picking on Madness because of their accents or haircuts, they were picking on Madness cos their hardest-core fans were a pack of fucking boneheads and their ol' pals were sus in extremis.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  ONE STEP BEYOND!!! 30 years of the Nutty Boys

                                                  "The fact that the band were coming out of the distinctly non-racist skinhead culture that had adopted West Indian ska and reggae as its sound, seemed to be lost on some middle-class music journalists" - errmm 'distinctly non-racist'? If you were black mebbe - if you were asian you might recall getting vicious shit from black AND white skins for a long long fucking time thru the 70s & early 80s. If those 'middle class journalists' needed to get in touch with what was going on then so does fucking Welsh - out beyond his immediate circle things were ENTIRELY different than his dipshitted analysis suggests - I suspect he's the kind of cunt who thinks Gavin Watson's 'Skins' is a style-bible and nowt more. Twat. Exactly the kind of arsehole who can denigrate all that fear and loathing down to a problem about 'haircuts' even though black bands supporting Madness had to abandon shows because of racist chanting, even though as late as 79 Chas Smash was saying shit like 'We don't care if people are in the NF as long as they're having a good time'. Yeah, it's just 'all about haircuts' y'knobber.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X