Hey Now! Its time again for yet another review��.this of course is on the latest and greatest copy of Madness Unsugged, courtesy of Mr. Wonderful Vince Carden. Those Vince fellas a great people I hear :o). Okay from the outset, presentation-wise this is not as fancy as the groundbreaking and wallet breaking issue #3. Issue #4 still maintains the colour cover, but the inside pages return to black and white format. However let that not throw you off, as the content is the best I have ever seen in any Madness fanzine, EVER! Its simply jammed-packed with useful, relevant information and dashed with a touch of Carden cynicism throughout, as illustrated on the front cover, with a picture of the band, with Smash open-handed showing off ten fingers, the caption underneath reads; �So Carl, how many more rip-off compilations do Virgin have planned?� The 32 page magazine begins with wise words from Mr. Speaker, who post-mortemises the Drip Fed Fred campaign and the debacle the followed and also draws on the events of the Maddest Show on Earth Xmas Tour 1999. An interesting snippet comes from two former support bands to the Maddies from yesteryear, Chris Bostock of the great Jo Boxers (who supported on the �Greatest Show on Earth Tour 1983) and Adele Winter of the Friday Club (who supported on the Mad not Mad tour 1985). An interesting insight into the bands antics both on and off stage. Lee Swandale comes to the rescue with Crunch items for sale, very rare stuff indeed, now so hard to find, sad to see that the original album is no deleted too by the way. Carden gives his own views then into the mindset of the B-sides in a piece entitled � The flipside of Carl Smyth�, this basically chronicles the �Wonderful� B-sides from �You�re Wonderful� down to �Light of the Way�. I think the best thing here is the fact that he takes on board the views of veteran madness fans too and their quotes do give an overall balanced account of the songs themselves. The infamous Scatty (he of TMML fame) turns up also to give a very personal and exciting account of the now legendary Drip Fed Fred video shoot that took place last February. Its yet another great look at how down to earth the band are when you read of tales of the day, from Barson�s orders, to sitting in the church next to idols to the festive bag of chips they gave out to the loyal volunteers that day. I only wish I was there that day! The Fanzine also gives details throughout of various Madness memorabilia for sale from both reputable and irreputable dealers, speaking from personal experience, Vince favourably warns people on who to buy and more importantly who NOT to but from in the Madness merchandise world. See the articles titled �Wonder in Winterland�, �Vinyl Vision�, �Bootlegs for Sale� for more. The bootleg �First Step Beyond� also comes up for discussion and a new lyric sheet to add to the collection comes in the form of �Do Nothing Donald�, a classic early Smyth composition. I should also mention the scathing attack on the fat cats of Virgin head office Vince makes on his cleverly titled composition �Faceless Men�. An old piece turns up in the transcript of a 1995 Suggs radio interview he made on the release of the Lone Ranger. Its goes through the album tracks, and the man himself reviews his own tracks. Poll results are also returned on the Wonderful material and makes for interesting and debatable discussion. The Internet and all that�s Madness related to it crops up. Written by one Vince Foley (no relation ;O) he (or should I say I ) go through the best and the rest of the Madsites out there. Please bear in mind this was written a while back so no doubt I have left out a few new sites. Somethings don�t change in it though, www.madness.co.uk is still a disgraceful site! Tim Pusey also adds his contribution with a review of Wembley on December 22nd, and article on Irish Madness also is worth looking out for and of course the facts machine. The final attack on the fat cats is seen in an article called �Facing the Music�. To be honest though one criticism about this is that we know this and unfortunately nothing is been done about it. Right, that�s it folks. There are many out there a while back who availed of a complimentary copy of issue #3. I know for a fact that the editor himself makes no money out of this labour of love. Its obvious to see he cares about what he does, and that is seen with a simply enjoyable and lengthy read. If you are thinking about subscribing, then think no more, if you have already, then the best is yet to come. If not, then seek help immediately. In the words of stiff records �BUY�- issue #4 All the best Vince! ===== "If it ain't Vince, it ain't worth a F*CK!" ICQ 46099201 NEVER SAY NO TO A MAD IDEA! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints! http://photos.yahoo.com - ______________________________________________________________ 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
