There was a festival in Denmark Street this avo and after a curry with Offsprog Two in Charlotte Street, I headed on down to Regent Sounds to hear Sean interviewing Terry about his 33 1/3 book on Madness' One Step Beyond album. They went through it song by song, and it became apparent that Dave Robinson of Stiff Records had overruled the band on several occasions- possibly because they were so young. I think Terry said that Mark Bedford was only seventeen. All of the band were songwriters- all seven of them- something that I didn't know.
Something I did know (and it's hearsay, so may not be true) was that the young band used to go to see Brighton's Piranhas play in London a lot. By then, the Piranhas had developed beyond punk and were incorporating a lot of reggae rhythms and humour into their songs. The budding Madness used to beg the Piranhas' manager for a support gig, but he always refused. Eventually, they developed just that raw, humorous and fast-paced punky reggae into a winning formula- and they lived in The Smoke so they were able to build an audience quite quickly. This could be an apocryphal tale, but it's interesting anyway.
There was something quite New York about being in a guitar shop and listening to a musician being interviewed by another musician. Out in the street, musicians dawdled and posed, and other music shops were rammed with bands and audiences.
I wanted a cardamom bun from Buns At Home, but they must have been Instagrammed. The queue snaked down the street.
Bah!
I came home and had tomato soup instead.
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