Episode 15: Madness - "Complete Madness" (1982)

This week we look at Ska Pop phenomenon Madness’s, 1982 (and first) Best of Album – Complete Madness – as well as their contribution to social and actual geological earthquakes across 47 years of music. Enjoy the podcast!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Welcome back to the NBA podcast, where we explore the side streets and rabbit holes around movies, books, and albums. This week we look at Scar Pop Phenomenon Madness's 1982 first best of album, Complete Madness, as well as their contribution to social and actual geological earthquakes across 47 years of music. Enjoy the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Good album, Thor.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

They've got lots of best of albums. But I wanted to find their first best of album so that we could kind of imagine, so we could feel if this was 1982, this is what we'd be listening to, as opposed to some remastered 1998 version. So I thought, let me find that one. It doesn't have all my favorite songs I wanted you guys to listen to and to kind of comment on, but it's got it's got the core ones there. And yeah, no, I really enjoyed it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

It was like well, one of those bands that like mean I know so many of their songs, but I just never really kind of figured that it was madness who sang them. So I'm like, geez, I don't even think I know any of their songs. And I put the album on, I'm like, oh, I know this one, I know this one, I know this one. It was very good.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Yeah, yeah. It's like a whole, just not even a generation, but multiple generations of stuff we just know. And I think in 1992 they re-released an album, and I think that's when I remember hearing Love's Love Struck Properly. Not Love Struck, uh, what's it called? Must be Love. Must be Love Must Be Love.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

And then I remember like in second year or third year of Rs T I bought the the the heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy hits, which was their best of album that came came out then. Um and and like that was kind of my staple, but it's always kind of like you can't be happy, you can't be unhappy or sad or stressed if you're driving in the car and you've put on a madness album. Um it just it makes the day better. Um it's absolute chaos, which is a pretty cool thing to say. Yeah, no, no, it's absolute chaos. And I mean, like I was looking now just before we started. So first first singles out in 1979, that Link Dave sent is the album they've just released now in November 2025. Okay, so so this band is as old as us, you know, this band's as old as Stephen Wilson Jr. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Its first set was our year of birth.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And then maybe maybe that's why some of the songs are so familiar, because I'm sure we would have been exposed to them even like at a subconscious, like just a developmental stage. In in uter. In utero yeah. And they've done they've done thir 13 stud 13 studio albums, 19 compilation albums, four live albums, two soundtrack albums, three extended plays, four box sets, 43 singles, and 37 music videos. I mean, 43 singles. That's almost a single released for every year they've been around for 47 years. I mean, just that it's it's mad. It's properly madness. And the fact that they're still going is just absolutely bananas. Dave, I'm actually surprised. I'm surprised you aren't wearing a fez. I meant to buy myself a fez for this evening. Uh I I don't know if you'd be able to watch any of their music videos or see their see their audience.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

I've got uh yeah, the fez is at my folks' place. It's in their dress up box. I don't have one here. I'll have to get one.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

I think definitely you need a fez.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

I mean, like when you watch those music videos, it's just just complete and Devin would be uh being winched up above you know 40 feet off the ground with a saxophone.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

It did cross my mind, but I I don't have the the the science or the steady hands pull off a procedure like that.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Yeah my winch, my winch is at the at the shop. Not the winch shop, but not the winch shop.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

But um the music video for um House of Fun is just bizarre. So great. Yeah. I never realized that no, that that that song was about uh you know a 16-year-old boy going into the because it it was initially called um the the song was titled The Chemist Facade, and it's uh about for you know for for guys who don't know the song, it's it's about a guy going into a shop buying a condom, you know? Yeah because 16 was the first shop still still is is like the legal age of consent. You can buy condoms and he's in there, but he's he's using all these other names or like euphemisms for for condoms. Um it's like this is this is not a party shop, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Well, you got them there. What's the what was the one uh a box of balloons? Balloons with a feather-like touch, yeah, yeah, yeah. Party hats with coloured tips.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

Yeah, fantastic. But but like the the music for the music for that and the mus well both a standalone and together, it gives you like a bit of a Monty Python-esque feel, but also after after reading like Roll Dole's some of Rolls Dole's stuff and Roll Dole's childhood memories, especially baggy trousers, about like the the headmasters and the teachers just getting themselves as much rum as possible during lunchtime before the horrible kids come back. It's got a kind of it feels like that as well. You it's got like a real texture.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Yeah, but but they do they are the the late the three ladies that come in to the back of the chemist dancing and other degrees. I mean where it's where it's where they mention Monty Python because it's about it's like the pepper pots. Yeah, the the ladies.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Monty Python, they're called the pepper pots. Oh ladies, but so that I think that is based on Python. Okay. The three ladies that come and they've got handkerchiefs wrapped around their head and they're dancing all over the show. I think there is definitely a Python uh uh a wink to a nod to Python there. A nudge and a wink.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

A nudge and a wink.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

A nudge and a wink to Python. It's um did you read the quote, Dev, about the one of the guitarists said about it, about that song? No. He said he can't remember if it's about coming of age. Can't remember much about when it happened ago. Did you you can buy a packet of fags, a pint of beer, and a three-piece suit for half a crown, and still have enough to go and watch Rudolph Valentina.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

And then he reckons um he doesn't really get to get to see the pictures anymore these days. It's uh he he he he can't afford it, but apparently they've added sound now.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

That's magic. They sound beats.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

But they're almost like they're almost like quintessentially British, and just that kind of like just even we see their videos, just like not really giving a fuck and pulling the piss, but but kind of doing something quite phenomenal while they're not taking themselves self-serious. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

Yeah. No, incredible. Did anybody go into their background as to because I see the one guy sort of uh sags was saying they were learning it as they learning music as they went along.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

But were any of them sort of classically trained, or they all just teach themselves or from from like the documentaries I was watching, what they were saying was like we were pretty much learning the instruments as we were doing it. But the pianist sounds pretty like like he knows what he's doing. But he says, like and like part of the reason why it's got that sound is simply because we didn't have we didn't have the skill, and we were like overcompensating and and and figuring it out as we went, and and that's what made it kind of fit. And they like Suggs also said he's like, and we had this really confident attitude, and we were like really kind of forward, but that was just because we were completely overcompensating, compensating for our self-perceived lack of talent, you know. Uh where it's like carries right through to their resurgence at um at at Madstock back in 1992, just that they didn't like realize what they had, but yeah, you know, it was working completely.

SPEAKER_05 8:36

The one um the one journalist from uh N NMR that's um Rock and Roll or um Musical magazine reckons said it's it's it's fascinating how um they still sound as plinky plunky as um liberace falling falling down a million stairs with his grand piano as they did in 1982. Wow, which I thought was a little bit a little bit harsh.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

But um but the plinky plunky works. The plinky plunky works. It's like that scar pop sound. It needs to be plinky plunky. The piano's got to be cheeky, it's gotta be doing what it's doing. It's it's it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

It's brilliant. It's a lot to listen on a hangover that I must say. I put it on the I put it on this morning and I said, Jesus. It's not Steven Wilson Justin.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

It's not Stephen Wilson Jr.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

I hope you didn't watch the music videos this morning with you.

SPEAKER_05 9:37

No, no, no. I watched I watched them this afternoon once there's a few drinks in already.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

So in fact, yeah, watching Steven Wilson Jr. once hang over, that might be that might push one.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Push one completely over the edge. But but but the music, but the music's like almost carnival. Like the other song of theirs, like shut up, you know, when like like like it wasn't me, I'm just as Mate told me to stand here and watch the gate. And that but that piano sounds like a like a Ferris wheel kind of carnival. It's just going up and down, baggy trousers sounds like a carnival. And have you guys it's not on the album, but have you heard um driving? I don't what's I don't know what the name of the song is, but I like I like driving in my car. It sounds like a Looney Two. It's called Driving in My Car.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Yeah, yeah. Apparently, is is that the one that's on the album in the Aussie version of the Greatest Hits or something like that?

SPEAKER_04 10:25

It's in all I think is in all their other Greatest Hits albums. I think it came after because I think this 1982 album was their hits from the first three studio albums. So I mean you think they started in 1979.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Cheeky to have yeah, three albums in three years.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

Yeah, but but this is what they this is what Sugs but this is what Suggs was saying, which is like why they kind of unofficially split up in '86, was they would release a single like every three months and an album like every year. So they were constantly in the charts, constantly innovating. And it wasn't, yeah, it was just kind of because. So like after three years, well, we've got three albums, let's choose the best of the three albums. She has our first greatest hit. And I mean, yeah, now we now we're sitting with 19 compilation albums 47 years later, and they're all got the same songs, and like the one I almost gave you guys was I don't know what year it came from because I couldn't. I was looking for that one I had in Third Year Varsity and I couldn't find it online. But this other one has like 40 tracks on it, and it's got songs I've never read before, but all the favorites. But what's different is is the the more recent greatest hits, they start off with the hey you um that song, um these are the heavy, heavy monster sound of madness, the one step beyond and Prince. It starts with they they kind of start with those two songs and then they break into the rest of the set. Whereas this first album, those songs are kind of buried in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

In the middle, yeah. But those are the that's who they were basing it all on, wasn't it? Bus uh Prince, what was his name?

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Uh yeah Prince Buster.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Prince Buster. I listened to a little bit of his stuff uh the other day, and it was yeah, decent. Good. Yeah, it was good. I didn't listen to the whole album.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

He's credited with being the guy that started Scar as a genre. So I think so. Like I I never knew that until doing this episode. Because on on the that heavy heavy hits, the first songs are one step beyond and Buster, he stole the heat with the rock steady beat. And I never I never really enjoyed them that much because I was buying in for the popular songs. But the more I've gotten into mandness, those two songs are now becoming more and more my favorite. And I never realized that that that uh Prince Buster was it's pretty much their origin story, it's like the musicology of where they where they came from. Like an earthquake is erupting, but not an orange street.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

On Orange Street, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

And and and that's wild because uh Prince Buster was born in Orange Street in Jamaica, and he had an album called Orange Street, and he had an a hit song called Earthquake, which came off his album Orange Street, but it was also a reference to this youth movement in the in the UK where there was a earthquake erupting. So, like it's the more you dig into that song, it's just like, oh my god, this is like a Dan Brown novel, this song from 1979, it's just layers and layers and layers.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Isn't one of them a cover?

SPEAKER_04 13:18

Is that one not a cover of uh one of one step beyond one step beyond is a cover?

SPEAKER_03 13:23

There's one step beyond the cover.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

And madness, the song of the song Madness is a cover.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

Sorry, that's sorry, bigger pardon, that's the one I'm coming from.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, big pardon. Sorry, yeah, that's the cover, not this one. This is a more of a story about Buster.

SPEAKER_05 13:38

Yeah, which is very, very good. But um really enjoyed it. Must be love is also a cover, huh? Oh, yeah, it wasn't the original song.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

You it was all written for them, one or the other. Um the rest are all written by them. So I don't know if it's a covers per se, or they had outside writers. One or the other. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 14:01

Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll have to give a listen. But interesting, because I also remember that song from the Castle Log advert.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:09

Oh, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Uh it wasn't the one in the it wasn't the cricket one, was it? No.

SPEAKER_05 14:16

It could have it was either cricket or rugby. Or it was uh I'm I'm sure it's well somewhere in the breaks we'll have to quickly look it up. Yeah, yeah. I I tried to find it, but I actually couldn't find any uh information on it. But I'm dead certain it was a lag, that's okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Interesting. It can be a stretch assignment for the listeners.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Yes, yeah, get out there, kids. First one wins a lollipop, it's hidden in the in the phone booth. Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Oh get it hand delivered. So what I didn't so what I didn't realize was, you know, when I was watching the one documentary and which like unfairly to you guys, when I was deciding on the album, I put a documentary on the YouTube like a like a month ago, whatever the story was, uh, two, three weeks ago, to watch it. And they were talking about like how they were talking about the backdrop of the racial tension in the UK at the time, right? And they were talking about like there was the the e economic austerity, there was just there was just issues pre-Thatcher. Yeah, pre-Thatcher or just when Thatcher started, and there was this general disenchantment, and it was the start of kind of right right wing nationalism. And they were talking about how you know they had this um skinhead followers who enjoyed the music. And what I didn't realize when they were saying that, and I what I put to you guys on the WhatsApp group, was that Skinhead as a subculture was never racist, far right, not it grew out. It grew up. That started before. No, it started before, and it grew out of them the mod subculture, and it grew up because you had that first wave of Caribbean immigrants coming back to help support the post-war economy, and you had these working class um English natives um living in the same suburbs and neighborhoods as these working class people who'd come from the Caribbean, and the cultures merged and fused. So the entire skinhead, the origins of skinhead were multi-racialism unity built around ska and reggae music. And it was only then in the ear in the 70s where the schism started happening and some of the group became um racialized and started sehaling during which things started happening. Because there was like a group called SHOP, SHOP, S-H-A-R-P, skinheads against racism. Um when I was watching this documentary, I was like, oh, but we're talking about anti-racism, but you see all these skinheads in the crowd with all like the mods and the rude boys and rude girls. Yeah. And it's like, oh, it's gonna be trouble. But it's like, no, those are like original skinheads who are all about scar, working class culture, and and unity and multiracialism, which is wild. I never realized that.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Yeah, no, that's yeah, completely different to what I would have thought. But and where did the skinhead side of it, what what made them shave their pips just to identify each other or I'm not sure it was to identify, but I think it was more to embrace the working class culture.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

So and again, I'm not I'm no expert. This is what I've read while listening to the album, is that they they took like mod fashion and cultural culture cultural sensibility and they just made it harder and adopted like more working class elements. So that's where Doc Dr. Martin shoes became a thing for the first time. They didn't call them Doc Martins, they were called Dr. Martins, but they're they're dressed a little bit more industrially, and I think the short cropped haircut comes with a more industrial practical approach to working class life.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Yeah, because you're working in a factory, short hair and also cheaper.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

Yeah. So it speaks about how you've got the the the Caribbean rude boys and rude girl, which is like a sharp dressing, was a Jamaican-based counterculture, anti-authority, kind of a youth generation movement, mixing completely with this skinhead UK anti-society. Um and they were talking about they were also they were they were rejecting not just the economic circumstances because their music, a lot of the songs are about like social issues, um, but they were also rejecting the hippie movement. They were rejecting this uh this music that was all about love and peace and was getting too flowery, too flowery, flowery, flowery, too flowery, flowery, yeah, and yeah, and and then too bizarre. So that they were moving to this this really kind of syncopated, bass-driven Jamaican Caribbean sound. And I read an article in The Spectator, and he's like, you know, the Beatles began with I Wanna Hold Your Hand. And by the time this is all happening, the Beatles had moved to I Wanna Do Lots of Drugs, you know. And it's so and then it talks about like Tommy, and then you've got the song Tommy, which is about a deaf, dumb, and blind kid who's been um potentially physically and sexually molested by his uncle, and that's like the other hit song you've got a choice to listen to. So it's like, well, yeah, this this group was like, oh fuck that. Um do we're gonna go with this sound? Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

So it was interesting. But then, like the sorry final thing, and this was then was then like even after the schism, the guys that went right wing and racist still held on to enjoying scar and reggae music, which is a complete contradiction to their new kind of ideology, because they were like white white supremacists, there can't be any cultural artifacts of value from people who aren't white, but then they would still rock up at the concerts because they still dug the music, which is where then the shit came from.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

And was there was there major button? Was there were there major riots and things like that?

SPEAKER_04 20:05

Or yeah, I think I think there was the the Brixton riots were I don't know when those were, but I think that was based around the police were allowed to search anyone.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

I just meant with their concerts, sorry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

No, no, I I I don't know, but but I think there was I think there was an issue because there was a whole lot of stuff. There were movements like rock and roll against racism, there were bands coming together to like be about unity and against racism. And then the first that first music label they signed or had a single release to Two Tone. Um, was it was a label that was just about scar music, and Two Tone was talking about the two two colors coming together, really. Um that actually became the movement.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

So the I mean the name of the album became the movement, didn't it? Two tone. That actually called the whole genre almost.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

Yeah, this is the second wave of scar is called it's called two tone after after the record.

SPEAKER_05 21:05

Who was it other band? The specials. The specials, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

So the guy from the specials started two tone. And I I read an article and it was on the documentary where Sug says they went to go watch this gig and they were in this basement of this club, and there's this band who was like, It's like, My God, it's us. Like, who are these guys on stage? Because they are us, yeah. And like he says at like three in the morning, he was talking to the guy from the specials, I forget his name, who start who started Two Tone, and he said, Yes, yeah. And he was like, Sugs, I'm gonna start my my own like label, like an own like a British Motown just for ska music. And like Suggs was like, like, dude, you just paid played to twelve people in the basics.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

It was somebody's garden, wasn't it? Somebody's garden. Uh somebody's back garden.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

But but but then thugs also dropped like the only reason they were still there at three was because this guy from the specials had lost his teeth. And and back in those days you couldn't afford like a hotel or anything else if you'd missed the train. So you had to pull. You had to come right and put and pull a bird, and then then thugs corrects himself. I'm sorry, you can't say that you had to meet a nice young woman um to make sure you had a place to stay. So he went that's how he got stuck because he's like, it's 3 a.m. in the morning, the guy's got no front teeth, and there was no way he was gonna put no way he was gonna pull. Uh so he woke up on his mom's couch. Yeah, yeah. Suggs' mom's couch. Yes, yeah, yeah. Not much has changed.

SPEAKER_05 22:45

So some some journalist uh described uh the specials as um Madness's uh older, more responsible brother.

SPEAKER_04 23:01

Rudy. Okay. You must you must. But but it no, that's also but it's also like it's also a 1979 release, and again, it must have been something we heard when we were in the Pram because it's it's so familiar and it's so awkward as well, just watching because the way these the Scar characters dance, it's just so syncopated, and but but it's so much fun. Like you just want to watch it. You just want to you just want to, I just want to move my body the way they move their bodies because it's it's not cool, but it's it's beyond cool, it's just amazing. Is it white guys trying to dance like no this the specials were mixed race, and and what's bizarre is and this this comes back to our Frank Farrian discussion, is madness were the only band on two-tone that were all white. You know, the they were completely white English, British band, but they they became the biggest member of this movement, the one we're talking about and celebrating 47 years later. But they could still be authentic in it, which is which like speaks to Scar and speaks to what was happening in the UK at that time. They weren't necessarily appropriating the music, it was something that was happening to cultural movement and they were part of it. Yeah, there was a melting pot happening in England and it took off, which is just I find that fascinating the way these things come from little historical movement.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Incredible, hey.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Yeah, to think of North London suddenly having this Caribbean culture. Yeah, that's pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

I think very, very cool. They call it what the Wind Rush Generation, the name of the ship that brought the first Caribbean workers across. Okay. And on the first ship, apparently there were a couple musicians, uh famous Caribbean Calypso musicians, and there's a story that the news cameras were there when they got off the ship and this guy came down. His his stage name was Lord Kitchener, but he he's he's he's a Jamaican Calypso artist. Yeah, and he's and he sang a song in front of the camera like without missing a beat about how wonderful and amazing London is. So like that's kind of the start of this movement of this thing coming out.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Yeah. No, so I geeked out of it. Sorry, guys.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

No, that's very cool. No, I love it. I'm glad you got onto that. Um from my uh from my geez, from my uh recollection of writing my British citizenship test and all that. I think a lot of the Caribbean folk were brought across as the bus to drive the buses, if I remember correctly. So that was this so they brought in an India. There's a huge amount of uh Indian population encouraged to come in as well. And I I I can't remember what they were sort of pushed towards, but the Caribbean, a lot of the Caribbean men were brought across and trained as bus drivers. Okay. Something that they're just the UK was short of, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:45

Okay. Cause in Harry Potter, when they when they go in that triple decker bus when they're uh in between the the driver's Caribbean, and there's kind of uh what's it called? Yeah, it's got those uh is like that that shrunken head. Uh yes, yeah. And it's like Caribbean vibes happening with the bus driver. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Yeah, I mean it's part of the life in Britain test, is why were the Caribbean why were people from the Caribbean border cross, and part of it was to drive the buses. That's fascinating. I suppose a whole generation of men had been wiped out.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Uh there was a post-war labor shortage in the economy.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

And then they obviously didn't want to give woman the keys to the bus yet. No.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

Um but like also with the we'll also like when they sing that line and an earthquake is erupting, but not an orange street. It's like every Caribbean island has an orange street or an orange avenue. And I think a lot of them in the down in the Indonesian area, a lot of the islands, and it's all because of Dutch colonialism. So if you go to if you go to Google Maps and search Orange Street, it's gonna give you a thousand cities, and the majority of them are gonna be Caribbean islands or Indonesian Islands.

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Incredible, just because that so that's that's very interesting. Because you you know that's um that song that they're out waiting for the ghost train. Yes, yeah, yeah. That's what the dark point it's like it's it's very dark, and that's that was based on um uh well it's like social commentary for um apartheid in South Africa.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_05 27:26

And and one of the lines there is um the station master's writing with a piece of orange chalk, 100 cancellations, still no one wants to talk. Okay, and the orange chalk is in reference to the South African flag at the time. Oh wow, okay, I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

But that's interesting though, because Eddie Grant is a cont if you look at like the charts from that time. Yes, Eddie Eddie Grant is a contemporary, and he and he had all that give me hope, Joanna. Give me home, Joanna.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Yeah, and yeah, Johanna was Joanna was Johannesburg, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I I don't want to dance, it was also about what was it? That was also at a it was was a social commentary, which I've completely forgotten right now. But that was released in 1982 when they released their best of album. That was something else that was on the radio at the time. But also was come on Eileen and Ebony and Ivory, which is like also about Ebony and Ivory, which is uh a bit of a less fun way to sing about racial unity, but still there.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Okay, I'm gonna tell you a story about Orange Street quickly. It's got nothing to do with Orange Street, other than I got taken on a trip to well, not taken in a trip. Yeah, it was a trip to tell you that. Yeah. Um I got invited with some Kiwis to go to Amsterdam probably 2004, something like that, maybe two or five. And when we were on the plane, we're on a Ryanair flight across there, and Ryanair had orange headdress in that. And everyone said, Have you got anything orange? And I had no idea what they were on about. So I said, No, why? I said, No, well it's it's a national colour, and we're going there. Yeah. Have we spoken about this before?

SPEAKER_04 29:15

No, no, I'm just I'm I'm pre-cogging you. I'm thinking of you. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

How dare you pre-cog me without my permission.

SPEAKER_05 29:24

Just a little pre-cog. Give them a good cog in.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Even a post cog.

SPEAKER_05 29:30

Any any cog will do right now. Any cog will do. Sorry, Dave. You use it to conch.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Joseph and his amazing technicolor dream cog. Any cog will do. Any cog will do. There we go. We're on back. Here we go, we're back, baby. And we're back. So I wasn't quite sure what they're on about, and then we obviously got pissed that night, and I woke up in the morning, and this music was bumping. Sort of 7:30 in the morning. I thought, what the fuck's going on here? And I look out the hostel window, and there's just a sea of orange. It's the world's biggest, yeah. I'm sure you guys, it was the second biggest street party in the world.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

The whole country is celebrating the Queen seated on the throne. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:15

Everywhere is a party for the day.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

But it's it's something like a million or a million and a half people on the streets of Amsterdam, all wearing orange, barges up and down the Amstel River with massive speakers and DJs, and there's parades, and it is just it's chaos. It was uh yeah, it was an eye-opener when you look at it and you go, What are you on about? We're out street party. I've been to I've been to the Amschlange Festival. I've been to the ski boat. I've been to the ski boat thing. Yeah. I've seen street parties. What do you guys got? Oh, you got a million and a half people wearing orange.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Um it's quite impressive.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

That was my that was my orange street. That as you said, orange street, that's what it reminded me of.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

Okay, fair enough. Well, I suppose you did you don't go and name orange streets in every country in the world just for laughs. You gotta be taking it seriously. If you're not doing it at home, why are you gonna be doing it in South Africa and Jamaica and Trinidad, Tobago, and everywhere else?

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Exactly. A quick link to the Beatles.

SPEAKER_04 31:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Did you um I just saw a quick Jonathan uh had a quick speed through Jonathan Jonathan Wass's interview with Madness. Okay, and he uh and uh their their last album, which must have come out last year, the same guy that did the Sgt. Pepper album cover.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

Is that why it's so familiar, the hit parade cover?

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Well, I don't know, but the guy says he says, you know how intricate the Sgt. Pepper album cover was? He says, and then you get ours. That's just they they came up with a whole lot, and he said, if you guys don't give me some ideas or come up with a name for the album, I'm just gonna do something in crayon. So all the album cover is is um uh discarded album names, crossed out and crayon.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

It's like you get Sergeant Pepper, and then you get what he did for us, which is a whole lot of words crossed out with crayon. There's a Beatles link.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

Very, very cool. That's fantastic. Yeah, did you see where they kind of like started um like not started their their career, but where they started like really playing and getting getting a following in Camden? That's um at a place called Dublin Castle. Yeah, yeah. Um like a residency, it's like a Friday night residency gig kind of story. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, and they had a whole bunch of other people that that obviously came through that um that spot and it became quite like uh if if if you wanted to make it in London, like you basically needed to be playing at um at the Dublin Castle. Oh wow, okay, kind of like yeah, uh a rite of passage. Yes, which was some similar to um I don't know if you ever watched the movie CBGB. So it was actually with Alan Rickman, it was great. Okay, uh about a bar in New York in the Bowery um called CBGB. It was country blues, grass blues. Okay. Um same story. It was um we it was kind of like the almost like the launch of like rock and roll in the States, and like all these like uh unknown people at the time were coming coming to play there, and it became like this this place, which I imagine the Dublin Castles like where like people were like dying to get it to kind of like launch their careers there, and like they started sending like scouts over there to like to go check out the bands they were playing. Um and guys at um CBGB, it was like I think it was Blondie, Iggy Pop, uh Lou Reed, like all these guys back in the day, but before they were well known, um, all went to play through there. Okay, and I've I mean I've I think Bleur uh put played at the Dublin Castle, Amy Winehouse used to play there. Um yeah, so it looks like quite a quite a cool spot, like a around the passage if you if you're looking to make it on the scene there.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

That would be a good place to go pay homage. Yeah, yeah. Did you get did you guys see about Madstock, like their resurgence? Yes. Super interesting. We read briefly about it. So in 1986 they kind of unofficially kind of split up and took a break, and because of kind of that pace we were talking about, they were just churning out singles, churning out albums. And then I think in 1992 they released uh they released a new compilation album called Divine Madness, which is probably that's where must be love became like a chart top on the radio, and where I think I must have heard it to eventually buy the album in '98. But they then they were talking about having a a concert to to launch the album. And and there's like there's this beautiful long format documentaries and long format written articles about it. And you like you inside the heads of the band who like, we haven't played together for eight years. The one guy's like, I was just always waiting for the band to get back together, I knew it was gonna happen. The other guy's like, like, my house, my house, my house is mortgaged, the bank's about to foreclose, I just need anything that can happen. And other ones are like, Oh, you know, we we don't want to sell you the name because if we go back now, we we might just let people down. And all of them had this sense of you know, no one's really gonna be that interested. It's been eight years, and it did, it's this it would probably make a beautiful movie because it turns into this monstrous event. Because then they also interview fans who were who were around at that time, and you have all these fan stories of like, I thought I was the only madness fan, and I still had the poster from when I saw them for the last time in '86. And you know, I thought, I thought, let me like walk to the venue. And you have all these stories of people, must kind of be like a Queen's Day vibe, of heading towards the venue, and every pub, every street they walk past, there's just madness, people singing madness, just these voices coming out of buildings, and what is like 36,000 people in in madness t-shirts. So you had all these people who thought they were completely alone and and like rocking up, and there's just an army of like-minded people who've waited eight years for this moment. And there's three generations of people, there's grandparents, parents, and children. It must have been amazing.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

That must be very, very cool.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

And the band had no idea what to expect either. The band the band went to Holland to practice to keep their heads straight so they wouldn't be distracted about is there a buzz, is there no buzz?

SPEAKER_03 36:52

They went to Holland to keep their heads straight.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

Yeah. The one guy got stoned and then he couldn't take the weed out of his pocket and got stopped at the airport on the way back in.

SPEAKER_05 37:09

Yeah. Apparently, the um the crowd did it because so Morrissey played at uh Mad Stark Azwell. Um, and apparently they flipping like the the first time he played it, like they booed him off and they were throwing shit at the um bottles and stuff over the bands. Okay. Yeah, and he thinks he walked off.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

And then and then and then when madness walks on, they say they walked onto stage and then the band didn't know what to do. So like Suggs was like, Well, let's just be quiet. And they stood on the stage for I think like a few minutes, and the crowd just went insane. And then I think like you got the story of like how this is now internalizing and charging these seven men up, and it just goes wild. And you know the the that line from an an earthquake is erupting is kind of precedent. Because did you read this? The dancing of the crowd, because the crowd was all dancing, it measured 4.5 on the rechter scale. Yeah, there were people calling the police that night last time earthquake. Yeah, yes, yeah, because apparently apparently apparently there's a water table under sin at under Finsbury Park, and that one the one I don't know what song it was, but everybody was doing everybody was doing the scar dance, yeah. It's just like when an army marches on a bridge and the freak the harmonic resonance of the dance steps of 36,000 people bouncing up and down got the water table, yeah, created a wave of the water table, which then had the momentum. And and they say that the people were calling the police saying like tower blocks are wobbling and people's furniture was vibrating itself across the floors. Um can you imagine? Yeah, pictures are falling off walls and blocks of flats and windows are cracking.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

That's incredible. Yeah, that's that's and that's your comeback.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

Yeah, and and and they didn't care. And they didn't know, they had no idea. They were like, maybe this will be our official goodbye, because we never did an official goodbye. And now they've done it, I think they've done it for the last 30 years. This was 30 years ago, 33 years ago. And I think they do it every two years.

SPEAKER_03 39:13

What mad start?

SPEAKER_04 39:14

Like a or some kind of live performance, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Okay. She saw it.

SPEAKER_05 39:21

Some music that literally shook the world, huh? She was yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

I was gonna ask Dev, because obviously he knows Taylor so well. Didn't they measure her um one of her concerts on the on her recent tour? They measured the uh no, what do you call it? The earthquake thing. They they measured the the rector scale. Because it w and it set a record. Okay. It's something crazy at one of the um either one of the UK events or a big stadium or a big football stadium in the state.

SPEAKER_04 39:52

Was it from the people dancing or was it from the music? People dancing, people dancing.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Yeah, at a Tay Tay concert. I stand to be corrected. You can edit this entire story out of it. Must have been shaken off, uh must have been. Must have been.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Must be love.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Must be love.

SPEAKER_05 40:13

Oh, Tay Tay.

SPEAKER_04 40:17

This will take a moment. The one that got away. The one that got away. Okay, he here's the song, guys, in case you need to know. If you if you need to get the Finsbury water table uh creating a red harmonic wave, one step beyond. One step beyond was the song that did it. One step beyond. That was that one. And you know how they worked, they worked it out because the they had the same playlist on both nights, and they started 20 minutes earlier or later on the second day, and they could measure the rector scale again the next day, and they could see it in in timeline of the of the set list. It was like it can only be that song because that's the time that song was played. That's wild. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 41:00

That's very cool, though. That's an awesome story.

SPEAKER_04 41:02

Yeah, it's like it's like cool runnings, but even better.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

So that I mean, so if you think of they've got that little piece of music trivia history, which is awesome. Like we had created an earthquake in Finsbury Po in North London. Yeah, yeah. They played the closing ceremony of the 2012 Um Olympics, didn't they? And they played on the roof. And they played on the roof of Buckingham Palace with the Queen's Jubilation in the same year. I think I sent you that video.

SPEAKER_04 41:33

Do you know how they ended up on the roof?

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Uh yeah, I did hear the story. Tell me again. There was no state space on the stage. They said bears were on the house. Oh nice, Dave. On one's nice on one's house. The bears are on one's house.

SPEAKER_04 41:47

On one's house, on one's house. Because then Elton John and Paul McCartney Elton John and Paul McCartney were also performing. And apparently, apparently apparently the story is they didn't want to share a piano. So like Elton John's like sound team were like, this is our sound stage, our equipment. So there was like there was like big there was big issues with scheduling sound checks and setting stuff up because it put Paul McCartney. I think it was Paul McCartney, but definitely Elton John. They didn't want to share a piano. So there was no space, wiggle room on the stage to change acts because it had to be completely separate. And Sister Sosa madness got kind of shifted onto the roof, which turned out to be an utter coup. I know.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

I don't think anybody else played on the roof. I think it was just them.

SPEAKER_04 42:34

It was just them. And then there's a documentary, the documentary I watched when I was making my decision for this album. And Sug says we're up there and we're singing, and the snipers are lying with their rifles and their scopes in between our feet. Because that roof is just full of snipers and and securities. So you see, they're up there singing our house, and the snipers are lying on the floor around them. I mean, just that is wicked. It's really, really sick.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

So I mean, those are three pretty incredible. So in one year to do the Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee. Yeah, yeah. And then the earthquake. I mean and an earthquake.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

And a new album this year, and tour and touring this year. 45 years.

SPEAKER_03 43:16

It's just it's it's it's yeah, I mean, yeah, if you don't know much about three and the longevity, but also three pretty wicked things to do. You know, you can say like whatever, you name any other band, they go, Oh, well, I sold 10 million albums, like, don't care. Did you start an earthquake chap? Did you play on the Queen's roof? No. Yeah, because I can I like YouTube on the back of the bus.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

You had that music video on the on the roof that was like cool. But but but now it's completely zip off. It's like, no, sorry, it's not Buckingham Palace.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

Not Buck Palace. Yeah, it's just a random roof. And the Beatles played on the roof as well, didn't they?

SPEAKER_04 43:53

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 43:54

Uh yeah, the Beatles played on the roof as well, I think. Contra um contra

SPEAKER_04 44:00

I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Um but not on the roof of Buckingham Palace. Oh no, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

On a random roof.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

On a random office. Oh, yeah. The bing roof. Yeah.

unknown 44:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:07

So I mean, I I think I've I think I've broken Spotify, well, sorry, YouTube Music's algorithm because I listened to Stephen Wilson Jr. for two months straight. And I shipped it to some new way to madness from Stephen Wilson Jr. to only madness for the last month. Um so this is just there's a data scientist being fired at the moment somewhere in America, and the whole team being retrenched because there's an anomaly now in the matrix, and everything's broken.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

There's somebody going, people who listen to your music also listen to fuck we have nothing.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

Maybe we should have a joint concert. We need some rude boys and some skinheads and some blue-collar America. Make a whole new scar country. Country scar.

SPEAKER_05 45:00

Stephen Wilson Jr. open it up for madness. Yes, for madness. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

That's in the chat.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

Oh house full of snakes. Devils, devils, snakes.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

Do you want a feather light for that snake? Got a party hat for that snake. There we go.

SPEAKER_04 45:27

I just I just got a red big lighter in my blue jeans. I've got a red party hat.

SPEAKER_03 45:35

What do you mean you got a red big lighter?

SPEAKER_04 45:41

Oh man. That accent you put on. I'm gonna send you guys a link for a song that came up in my madness journeys. And I started watching the music video today. It's it's got a guest singer in it, but it's called Drip Fed Freddy. And it's just wow, it's just it's just this most bizarre story, like assassins, gentlemen thieves, and ladies in the crowd, and they come to pay their respect to this dead or dying gangster. And it's just awesome. It is like a guy Ritchie movie, but had a love child with a madness song. It is just something we need to sit together and drink a good whiskey over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Oh jeez. Or write the long or take from the music videos and write a feature film based on it.

SPEAKER_04 46:28

Yes, write the long format.

unknown 46:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:32

We will be for our leader, Freddy.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

That sounds like a rugby drinking song. Yeah. Like a tree standing by the water. Yeah. You shall not be moved.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Yeah, yeah. No, it's just like that.

SPEAKER_05 46:51

That's you know that that's how Suggs got his name. So I mean, he was um I think his name's Graham McPherson. Um, so he basically like took like a pin in like this list of like jazz names and like just dropped it and it landed on I can't remember the guy's surname is Suggs, some famous jazz musician.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Okay. Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_05 47:11

And and he would walk, he would he would walk around. He used to go write like on on walls and like in books and shit that um Sugs is our leader. Um and he wouldn't respond to anyone unless they call them Sugs. Um, and like people would see Suggs is our leader, Suggs is our leader.

unknown 47:32

Wicked.

SPEAKER_05 47:33

And that's how he creates it as our own persona. Oh, brilliant. That's nice. Like a poster he defaced that you shared with us. Yeah, Michael McIntyre.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

Yeah. Drawing a bus stop willy on Michael McIntyre. That's not your question.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

What do you mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

Uh the bus stop Willie. That's a good thing. Very, very good stuff. Yeah, I know. Did any anybody pick up the uh link to a previous episode? I think I even sent you the interview. Who did he share? Who did he who did they share the uh change room, the backstage dressing room with?

SPEAKER_04 48:14

Oh, Paddington Bear.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

Yes, that's the Jubilee they shared the dressing room with Paddington Bear. Amazing. I did a lot of I've done some things in my time, and I thought I'd gone back 20 years and I'd taken some pills by mistake. Am I really in a dressing room with Paddington Bear? Oh, that's very and they were trying to get a Christmas number one, and Paddington was also on the Paddington was six to one to win the Christmas number one two years ago. And badness were on the up there as well.

SPEAKER_05 48:53

Okay, can I can I tell you a story to line me up perfectly, yeah, Dave, about Christmas specials. Yeah, yeah. So in 2009, um Sicily 2009. Sicily 2009. There was this campaign. Was it this campaign basically to stop uh the dominance of X Factor winners from getting these Christmas number one specials every every year? So there was there was basically this this campaign, and then um everyone voted for Rage Against Uh Rage Against the Machine, Killing in the Name. Oh wow, that one won Song of the Year Christmas special in 2009. Then in 2010, um they tried to do the same thing to um uh I think the the X-Factor winner was Joe McEldery, and basically they wanted to make sure that he wouldn't win the Christmas uh number one special. Yeah, so they started another campaign called Cage Against the Machine, and all these all these artists got together. Um but we talking like big big names. I'm I'm trying to find out. Just give me one second. Do you remember who they were, Dave?

SPEAKER_03 50:12

No, I remember the 209 one, and I remember Simon Carl being so pissed off, he'd called it childish because he won it like six years in a row. And yeah, he was just so pissed off. So no, I remember Rage, uh Rage against the machine running it. It was epic.

SPEAKER_05 50:29

So so that was that was 2009, 2010. Pete Doughty, Billy Bragg, the Kooks, Imogen Heap, um, and Madness all gonna get get get together to record a song for the uh the Christmas special. Okay, but they were going to use John Cage's infamous 433, which is a composition of silence. Okay recorded four minutes and 33 seconds of a song and complete that they didn't play an instrument. Yes, there was nothing except but madness was part of the silence. Some ambience, yes. Madness was part of the studio being quiet, they were in the studio all together, and not saying exactly energy. You can feel the energy. Unfortunately, I think that that that they came in 15th for the year. Um, so they still missed out on the Christmas special. Okay, but this then led me on to Nick Cage against the machine because this project was called Cage Against the Machine, and then I stumbled upon Nick Cage against the machine.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 51:35

The Aussie are you familiar with Nick Cage against the machine? No, I know Nick Cage again.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

Oh, sorry, I'm I'm thinking Nick Cave. Nick Cave is the Aussie singer.

SPEAKER_05 51:46

Nick Cage. So there's a tribute band. It's a tribute band to Rage Against the Machine, and the frontman dresses up and acts like Nick Cage. It is one of the most glorious things I have ever seen in my entire life. He he he he starts his set, he he walks up in a suit, and he um and he's he's got like a telephone with him, and he's and he's it's um Neo's uh speech at the end of the Matrix when he says, I'm gonna show these people what you don't want them to see. A world without you a world without rules.

SPEAKER_04 52:18

But does he sound does he sound like Nick Cage? So does he do an impersonation?

SPEAKER_05 52:22

Okay, also and apparently he does like like in well, so I've only managed to find like these small little um like video phone clips on on YouTube, but apparently he does like like in between songs, he'll do skits from like Con Air and from Wicker Man.

SPEAKER_04 52:41

Amazing.

SPEAKER_05 52:42

I don't I I don't know what what the Matrix is doing in there, but but it works. Next thing that this oak is he's got his pants off, he's in his underwear, and he's just screaming into the mic. It is glorious. I'll send it to you. Awesome. Please do, please do. Look forward to it. That sounds really good.

SPEAKER_03 52:59

Creating his whole uh whole new genre there. Very, very cool. Oh god. Yeah, so we linked them to Paddington. We every episode we've got to link them back to something. Um yeah, that was the only link I could find, I think.

SPEAKER_04 53:20

Yeah, I didn't have time to look for sausages or giant squares.

SPEAKER_05 53:25

No I didn't get around to that. Um an interesting non non-linear link. Um, you mentioned uh that that same yeah, okay, okay, come on aline came out, um, or run around the same time. So Dexie's Midnight Runners. So the the the the producer of that album, Clive Langer, also produced um uh the Madnesses a lot of the Madness's albums. Okay, okay. Um did Morrissey.

SPEAKER_03 53:56

Okay. Weren't Dexie uh part of uh Two Tone?

SPEAKER_04 54:01

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

No.

SPEAKER_04 54:04

It was the specials and yeah, I don't think it was Dexie's Dexie's Midnight Runners.

SPEAKER_03 54:09

They mentioned oh no, he mentions sorry, Suggs mentions them in an in in an interview, and he says these guys were coming through at the time. And it's XE, Midnight Runners, and a few others.

SPEAKER_04 54:21

No, it's all good. All good. Don't stress, don't stress. But yeah, you mean it was well watch that watch that uh video from the specials that I sent you guys, Rudy. Um it's just that. There's something about it which is just it wasn't today, it was a couple of days ago, but it's just there's something about it that is just so it captures the the whole spirit. It's like not a madness song, but it just it captures that vibe for me. It's just okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

I'm looking here, it's the specials, the select of madness, the beat, body snatches, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:52

Not Deep Cup Costello though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They they were quite involved with they did one or two things with Costello, I think.

SPEAKER_04 55:04

The their second record label, Costello, was with them, so they went from two-tone to stiff records, I think. And and stiff records was is where they took off, and Aldus Costello was a part of that, and that's where they moved from. So there was a couple names we know with Stiff Records, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:20

I looked into obviously listening to all this and you hear the sax in the background. And I was just looking this afternoon about how many 80s bands had the saxophone in. Yeah. And it's I mean, it's crazy. You think about every if you let's describe it.

SPEAKER_04 55:35

Smooth operator, smooth operator is just like is just a saxophone.

SPEAKER_03 55:39

Oh man, Spring the E Street band, Springsteen, there's everybody had a flipping sax in it. Um yeah, uh the there's I I pulled up a list, but it's um it's it's it's something like 30 bands had a saxophone in. And then literally the 90s came, no more sacks.

SPEAKER_04 56:00

But but the saxophone, but but but but the saxophone in the brass section in a scar band are very different to the pop or the rhythm and blue bands. So if you think about like Springbok Nude variant, you think like Springbok nude girls where they've got their scar influenced syncopated songs like What Would You Do If I Said I Love You? Um, and you think about Boo, it's also got kind of a lot of they call themselves monkey punk, it's their own genre, but it's like Scar and Punk. And and they've got a serious brass section there as well. That it's it's got a different energy to a lot of like smooth operator saxophones, like, oh I'm a little bit sad and I'm gonna have a drink and maybe I'll cry. But to whereas like madness, um nude girls, and um boo, it's like you can't be sad or unhappy when you hear their brass section, you know, it's like just bring it. It's different.

SPEAKER_03 56:47

I'll have to I'll have to re-listen to it.

SPEAKER_04 56:50

No, this is definitely not Kenya.

SPEAKER_03 56:53

So this guy so uh one article I read uh in The Guardian blames it on Kenny G. He says the sax was so big in every rock band and every pop band, everybody had a flipping saxophoniston. Um Bowie was playing sax on his own and all that, and he said when Kenny G came along, he made it uncool. So he blames Kenny for the whole lot. But I looked, I was looking up, it reminded me of a story of Clarence Clemens who played for the E Street band for from 7072 up until he died in 2011 or something. Uh he was a six foot three big African-American guy played for Springsteen. That's a very cool story about how how Springsteen tells it how they met, and Clar Clarence tells the same story, and he reckons it's this windy night, and he he knows Springsteen is playing at his pub somewhere in I think it's in New York on Long Island or one of the two. So Clarence walks down a massive dude. They called him the big guy, or the big man. Yeah, yeah. Um, I watched his when I watched Springsteen and Joburg, his nephew was playing because Clarence had died a few years before. Now his nephew's the saxophonist for the E Street band. But Clarence, because Clarence was a football star, broke his leg or something like that at a car smash. We were talking about this the other day. And um but anyway, so he walks down the road, and it's this windy night, and he opens the door to this bar, and Springsteen is just sort of jamming, waiting for the crowd to fill in in this pub. And as he opens the door, the wind hits the door and blows it off his hinges, and the door goes flying down the street in the dust and wind, and that there's this massive six foot three dude, African American guy standing there, and he just says, I want to play in your band. And Springsteen says, Man, you can do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

Well, that's all for this week. Thanks for listening. Join us next time where hopefully we'll be discussing Doctor Strangel, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a 1964 black comedy co-written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick. Until next time.