Hey Now! �Gentlemen and assassins�, is the opening schpeel from Madness Unsugged editor/Guru and all round top bloke Vince Carden�s editorial. Welcome all to the third instalment of Madness Unsugged. This one is a dead posh affair, A4 size, full glossy cover from pages 1 to 32 and all in colour. That goes against the concept of fanzine doesn�t it? Normally a black and white affair, copybook size etc. well fanziners out there take note, this breaks the mould. Whether this is cost efficiency or not, we won�t grumble as it immediately strikes you as something definitely worth looking at. There is a lot of stuff jam packed into this issue. The first piece �oh am I mumbling on� gives us a general gist of what�s hot and not in the land of Madness and an insight into Carden's brain as well as what to expect in issue 4. I won�t spoil it for you. The first real read though is that of �Heaven in deepest Dublin�. It tells of Vince�s tipping off that the Maddies were on a fleeting visit to the studios of RTE last November. He goes on to say how he and a few more went along and funnily enough spend an hour in the presence of Madness for the night. Lucky bastards I hear you say. Indeed so as he describes his various conversations with the seven ragged men while they performed JTH that evening. It�s a nice personal account yet does also give a few nice bytes on the band, their hopes and plans and most importantly their kindness in giving Carden and co. a very memorable night for all. Lord Upminster himself, Uncle Ian Dury�s excellent documentary makes an appearance too as the V-man gives an account of what the hour-long programme entailed as well as his and Madness� appearance at the recent Q Awards last October. The next section is jam-packed with news for the dedicated Madness fan all over. It is just a quick news and views digest with some stuff perhaps out of date for us up-to-the-minute Internet freaks. That I suppose is inevitable, as all published articles will be a little dated on release. It spans topics from �Young Guns documentary� to Madness royalties to Suggs� view on Sweetest Girl. The obvious review of Wonderful is up next. Can we really stick another one I hear you cry, well just one more then. I suppose it is good to get a real fans view on the album and Vince does this track by track. Again I am looking at it from an Anorak/Internet user, so to the passive or �offline� fan this will be a much-welcomed article. JTH is referred to as �One Better Day� in its subject matter but �in a much less romantic and far more blunt manner�. 4am is rightly complimented whereas �The wizard� is �ruined by the Chas �n� Dave brass arrangements��.a tad unfair I would say, but hey that is his opinion. DFF of course gets a fair and complimentary thumbs up as do the latter half of the album, with on SNSM coming in for more Carden criticism. In all though this is a brave, well thought out and fair treatment of the record(almost) and a good insight into the fan�s opinion on the most eagerly awaited piece of plastic in the past 14 years. The excellent MIS Online too gets a mention and should hopefully get a few more on board. Mr Carden will scratch your back if you scratch his. It is great to see to mediums of Madness (that of script and internet) join forces for the common cause of Madness and something that should be done more often. The two avenues have a common goal and Vince respects this with a good PR for MIS! The next interesting read in this pamphlet is that of �NME Exposed� which tells of Vince�s response to the critical review of Madstock 4 in June 1998. He tells how his words were taken out of context and conveniently mish-mashed about by the scumbags at the NME. I think himself and Mr. Smash should get together and write the follow-up to Don�t Quote me on That���that�s not what I meant to say�. This element of journalistic cock-ups is further taken up by the editor with other, more recent incidents of various magazines� mistakes on recent Madness activity. Other sections include �On my Radio�, �Don�t quote me on that�, �It has come to our attention� to �Please release me�. Here Vince is looking for any information people may have on unreleased Crunch material. If you know, let him know! An offer of Madness TV appearances in 1999 too is discussed. Yep folks they are all here and well worth checking out if you missed out one or two or indeed all the memorable performances in the year that was. �Johnny the Mistake� again illustrates the fanzine�s non-fear of criticising where necessary the Madness machine. I do respect this, as it would be boring just to give constant biased support without questioning a few elements of Madness from time to time. Here the last single JTH comes in for analysis. There are points here that I totally agree with, yet there are few more that I don�t. He tries to give an insight into the reason why the single bombed and the post-mortem does provide good food for thought. The latter part of the Fanzine has a 2 page feature on what Lee and Chris say�various tit-bits on this and that from the strings and sax section of Madness. Lee on getting back together, the cabaret act, Clive Langer and the future while Chris comments on America, a second album and socialising. Short but sweet. Seamus Flynn�s Two Tone news gives an account of the various happenings in the sounds of Skadom these days with stories on the Selector, CDs and future material to be released. Again this will appeal to the general Ska fan and that�s exactly what it attempts to do. The fanzine finishes with news of recent Madness TV performances from Later to Abbamania and finally the �classifieds� section will let you but and sell any of those ultra rare Madness items you have been looking for for so long. So this Madness Unsugged, is it any good? Well with the greatest of respect to Stuart Wright�s Nut Inc fanzine I think its time to have a think of changing a few bits here and there. For one the colour format is a most welcomed and pleasant affair. It is about time and this alone justifies the price of subscription. Never judge a book by its cover, yeah sure, but the material and content will compliment the appearance. There is a wide range of goodies in here that will have you returning to it for many a time to come. I do honestly believe it sets a new standard in Madness fanzine. I really hope that the band themselves see this product and note that there is a very loyal support base out there promoting the cause. Issue 4 looks promising, oh yeah the �other Vince� will be doing his bit for that too. The forth instalment should be out by April and I look forward to it. I hope Mr. C you are happy with this review as I think it covers most areas�..better be friendly to this guy as no doubt he�ll onto me as soon as he reads it. Seriously though folks, if you are not subscribed do it now. Email Vince at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and he�ll sort you out. Yes sit the boy, he done good. Well done Vince C! All the best Vince F!�.confused yet�.you will be! ===== "If it ain't Vince, it ain't worth a F*CK!" ICQ 46099201 NEVER SAY NO TO A MAD IDEA! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! 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