MUSE, who happen to have one of the most beautifully designed websites around, obviously have not only fine taste for things visual, but for the best bands around as well. Here is their recent Madness interview: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Looks like I'll have to get the diagram out again," says Suggs as he produces a marker board scribbled with a family tree of influences and proceeds to point out the various stages. "Ska. 2 Tone. Pop. Beatles. Specials. Madness, in the middle here. Dancing. Singing. Virgin. Motown. The Kinks..." The sight of Graham McPherson, aka Suggs, tapping away on a board like an eccentric schoolteacher isn't unlike the sort of wacko imagery found in an actual Madness video. The hapless journalist has walked into the lion's den here. Madness were his primary school band. The band that dressed him. The band that made him dance. The band that made him feel cool. The band that adorned every available inch of his bedroom wall space. The band that prompted him to walk in a funny manner. Everyone remembers the stuck-together Madness walk, right? Anyway, here he is, some ten years since singles such as "The Prince", "House Of Fun", "Baggy Trousers", "Cardiac Arrest", "Shut Up", and "Our House" had him bounding around the school disco and four-sevenths of the Magnificent Seven that ruled his world are present and correct and unruly as hell. Suggs, Lee, Chrissy Boy and Woody (Bedders, Monsieur Barso and Chas Smash are absent today) are supposedly here to shoot the breeze about the old days, talk about the reformation of the group's original seven-piece lineup and chat about their cool new album "Wonderful", the first proper Madness album in 15 years, but so far the hapless fan-cum-hack has managed about, ooh, one question, something to do with ska becoming pop... and well, naturally, Madness ensues. Woody: "I'll tell you the thing about making ska into pop. We had so many other influences like The Kinks, Ian Dury, The Beatles, blah blah blah, you name it, Roxy Music... The way that we played ska was so friggin' useless." Suggs: "Oh, don't say that Woody." Woody: "It was. I mean, it wasn't really ska." Chrissy Boy: "We just took that off-beat thing." Lee: "D'you know it's very difficult to play off-beat?" Suggs: "It was to expand the virtues of unheard music from our brothers abroad across the sea. We really liked the music of Prince Buster. When we grew up, because of the influx of people from Jamaica, you would hear the music of Desmond Dekker, you would hear the Maytals, they'd be on the pop radio. So we mixed all that music up together when we formed the band. It was literally the sort of stuff you'd be hearing in the youth club." Lee: "I used to have a paper-round way back in '67 just when Radio One started..." Chrissy Boy: "This is going to be a long one, have a lie down!" Lee: "... I remember hearing "Tears Of A Clown" by Smokey Robinson. It stuck right out with that Motown-y sound. And when reggae used to come on the radio. I could never understand the lyrics but that off-beat sound 'umm-che-umm-che' really stuck out. It really grabbed me by the earholes. And made me deliver the papers quicker!" Suggs: "Also, we really liked dancing music and we really liked pop music. We liked both." Woody: "Your question seemed as though you thought we had some great kinda plan." Suggs: "He's just asking questions, Woody." Woody: "No, no, no, it's just very funny if he thinks it was something a lot more intellectual than what we were doing at the time. We were just playing anything. It was just a case of seven individuals desperately trying to play their instruments." OK, let's take a breather. Somewhere along the line everything has spiralled out of control. Suggs, Lee Thompson, Chrissy Boy, and Woody are drunk and arguing in the hospitality suite of Virgin Records HQ in London. They have spent the whole day talking to (and taking the piss out of) Slovenian and Spanish journalists. Earlier, Suggs had to draw up a diagram because no-one knew what he was taking about. We still don't, really. Madness were the band that brought fun and games to the school-yard, captured the hearts of snail-squashing, grubby faced, corner-cum-Nutty Boys and were basically the greatest lifestyle pop band of the Eighties. They reigned supreme with a string of pop hits and killer slapstick videos that featured grown men dressed as bees and flowers, and cops and robbers, and whatever else took their fancy in the props department to put all those soft New Romantic tossers to shame. 15 years later, Madness are little more portly and a little more sardonic, but just as playfully devious. The drunker Lee Thompson gets, the naughtier his comments become, and by the time the bewildered journo presses stop on the dictophone and leaves, the boys are arguing over what their favourite Madness album is and demanding more booze from a stressed looking press officer who is following Lee's dangling cigarette with an ashtray. It's quite a sight. Maybe not the stuff of pop dreams, but refreshingly bullshit-free, genuinely comical, and always, completely and utterly mad. "Wonderful" is released on November 1st - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MUSE ONLINE http://www.muse.ie/291099/interview/madness.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Well done, MUSE. ~ jenny - ______________________________________________________________ Visit the Total Madness Mailing List website for: latest news, madmeet info, list charter, games, and more ... http://members.xoom.com/totalmadmail/ Contact the TMML Moderators at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and in the message body put: unsubscribe total-madness
