{"id":35240,"date":"2017-01-13T12:18:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T17:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=35240"},"modified":"2017-01-13T12:18:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T17:18:17","slug":"its-madness-suggs-is-having-a-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/its-madness-suggs-is-having-a-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s &#8230; Madness! Suggs Is Having a Birthday."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Happy 56th birthday to Graham McPherson &#8212; also known as Suggs, the lead singer of British ska\/pop group <a href=\"http:\/\/www.madness.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Madness<\/a>, famous in the 1980s for its bouncy songs and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2016\/dec\/18\/madness-review-manchester-arena\" target=\"_blank\">Nutty Boys<\/a>&#8221; persona. Madness&#8217;s hit debut album, <em>One Step Beyond &#8230;<\/em>,\u00a0 came out in 1979 when Suggs was still a teenager.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_35241\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/one-step-beyond...\/id413915128\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35241\" class=\"wp-image-35241 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Madness.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Madness.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Madness-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-35241\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to purchase on iTunes.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>MTV launched two years later in the U.S. <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/what-wendy-wore-devo-energy-dome-for-halloween\/\" target=\"_blank\">until 1981<\/a>, and the couple-years-old video for the title track of the Madness album got so much airplay that it&#8217;s been stuck in my mind ever since. Especially the intro!<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N-uyWAe0NhQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>In 1982, &#8220;Our House&#8221; was an even bigger hit in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oXA6CLTDekw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>(If the Madness sound <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/1992-07-02\/news\/vl-1830_1_orange-county\" target=\"_blank\">reminds you of No Doubt<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avclub.com\/article\/tragic-kingdom-no-doubt-gave-ska-chance-202570\" target=\"_blank\">there&#8217;s a reason for that<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Baggy Trousers&#8221; &#8212; a song co-written by Suggs about his school days &#8212; came out in between, in 1980. The video has an impressive bit with saxophone player Lee Thompson flying through the air, but I don&#8217;t recall this one from back in the day. Maybe it never really crossed over to the U.S.?<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XJOLwy7un3U\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The group first broke up in 1986. Since then, they&#8217;ve gotten back together, gone on hiatus again, returned again&#8230; and the seven guys are still hanging in there. In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=APRzMnQDO5U\" target=\"_blank\">Madness is now such a classic that they performed on the roof of Buckingham Palace<\/a> in 2012 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2012\/jun\/05\/queen-diamond-jubilee-concert-rock\" target=\"_blank\">to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II<\/a>. Their first big reunion for a live show was for &#8220;Madstock,&#8221; held in London&#8217;s Finsbury Park in 1992. Tens of thousands of fans Madness fans jumping up and down in unison at the Madstock performance on top of an underground lake in Finsbury Park <a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk\/publications\/annual_reports\/1993_4th_annual_report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">caused nearby residents to report an earthquake<\/a>. According to a number of reports, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lardbiscuit.com\/lard\/madness.html\" target=\"_blank\">the concert registered a 4.5 on the Richter scale<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Suggs gives GREAT interviews. Here are a few of my favorites:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/music\/music-news\/9617366\/Madness-Suggs-on-30-years-as-musics-most-dysfunctional-family.html\" target=\"_blank\">This Telegraph story from 2012 celebrates 30 years of Madness&#8217;s dysfunctional family-like behavior<\/a>. It also recalls how a very young Suggs once told a pop journalist that, &#8220;There is no way I will still be jumping about onstage when I\u2019m an old man of 30!&#8221; That journalist was named Neil Tennant, who gave up his writing gig to focus on his band, the Pet Shop Boys. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Super_(album)\" target=\"_blank\">The Pet Shop Boys released their 13th album last year<\/a>. Neil Tennant is now in his 60s. Never stop, y&#8217;all!<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/personalfinance\/fameandfortune\/10864701\/Madness-frontman-Suggs-Baggy-Trousers-is-my-pension.html\" target=\"_blank\">In 2014, he spoke to the Telegraph about personal finance, joking (or not!) that &#8220;Baggy Trousers&#8221; is his pension<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>In 2015, Suggs spoke to the Telegraph about his fund-raising efforts to fight cancer after his sister-in-law Alannah&#8217;s swift death from pancreatic cancer. (Suggs&#8217;s wife, the singer Bette Bright &#8212; real name Anne Martin &#8212; had already survived breast cancer.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2016\/oct\/27\/madness-suggs-album-cant-touch-us-now\" target=\"_blank\">Last year, speaking with the Guardian, Suggs and band member Thompson<\/a> remembered unintentionally attracting Nazi fans; getting banned from <em>Top of the Pops<\/em> for bad behavior; and the time they got cops&#8217; uniforms and &#8220;raided&#8221; the Clash. (The Clash didn&#8217;t speak to them for five years after that.) Why did Madness first break up? Suggs had the answer for that: &#8220;\u201cMedical reasons. We were sick of each other.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/arts-entertainment\/music\/reviews\/suggs-my-life-story-in-words-and-music-orchard-theatre-dartford-olly-murs-motorpoint-arena-cardiff-6420725.html\" target=\"_blank\">A few years ago, Suggs put on a one-man show that dealt with his dysfunctional upbringing<\/a> as the only child of a struggling, jazz-singing mother and a heroin-addict father who disappeared from his son&#8217;s life when Suggs was three years old. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/music\/music-news\/9495121\/Suggs-I-learnt-of-my-fathers-death-on-Wikipedia.html\" target=\"_blank\">The father died of drug-related complications without ever seeing his son again<\/a>.) The show was followed up by a book. And the whole project was triggered by a cat. <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=V97QBAAAQBAJ&#038;pg=PT14&#038;lpg=PT14&#038;dq=suggs+cat+mamba&#038;source=bl&#038;ots=xgtX_7KGJ6&#038;sig=vFuVXIwmpDhTcqHWy4akQhf1Ubc&#038;hl=en&#038;sa=X&#038;ved=0ahUKEwj2ke6syb_RAhXPciYKHZXFBk4Q6AEIUzAN#v=onepage&#038;q=suggs%20cat%20mamba&#038;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">Suggs had been lying in the bath, recovering from a hangover induced by his 50th birthday celebrations, when he heard a great crash and jumped up to find his cat Mamba died in a freakish accident after a glass shelf had collapsed from under him<\/a>. So, he had just turned 50, his two daughters with Anne had recently moved out of their home, and now his cat had died. Not a good day, but one that had him contemplating his mortality and then his past. And then, generously, he shared that story with everyone. I wish I could have seen the show!<\/li>\n<li>Several times, Suggs has reminisced about how Madness fans were always the lads. Madness never got the groupies. Well, the band did have hope one time. They&#8217;d gotten off a plane at Heathrow from their first American business and were excited to be greeted by hordes of screaming girls &#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/whats-on\/music\/madness-star-suggs-love-welsh-6288812\" target=\"_blank\">who then stampeded over the Nutty Boys to get to Duran Duran, who were arriving on the next flight<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Having done plenty of shrieking for Duran Duran in the 1980s, I can imagine how that last experience went. Anyway, congrats to Suggs on 56 high-achieving years &#8212; and please lock down all your pets!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy 56th birthday to Graham McPherson &#8212; also known as Suggs, the lead singer of British ska\/pop group Madness, famous in the 1980s for its bouncy songs and &#8220;Nutty Boys&#8221; persona. Madness&#8217;s hit debut album, One Step Beyond &#8230;,\u00a0 came out in 1979 when Suggs was still a teenager. MTV launched two years later in&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/its-madness-suggs-is-having-a-birthday\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[726,42],"tags":[1074,1075],"class_list":{"0":"post-35240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art-entertainment","8":"category-music","9":"tag-madness","10":"tag-suggs","11":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35246,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35240\/revisions\/35246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}