Night Boat To Cairo – Madness (1982)

Description

Additional information about this, Madness vinyl art.

Madness – The Artist

Madness are an English ska band from Camden Town, north London, who formed in 1976. One of the most prominent bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s two-tone ska revival, they continue to perform with six of the seven members of their original line-up. The most successful period for the band was from 1980–1986 when Madness spent 214 weeks on the UK singles charts.  The core of the band formed as the North London Invaders in 1976, and included Mike Barson (Monsieur Barso) on keyboards and vocals, Chris Foreman (Chrissy Boy) on guitar and Lee Thompson (Kix) on saxophone and vocals. They later recruited John Hasler on drums and Cathal Smyth (better known as Chas Smash) on bass guitar. Later in the year, they were joined by lead vocalist Dikron Tulane. This six-piece line-up lasted until part-way through 1977, when Graham McPherson (better known as Suggs) took over the lead vocals after seeing the band perform in a friend’s garden. Madness have had 15 singles reach the UK top ten, which include “One Step Beyond”, “Baggy Trousers”, “Wings of a Dove”, “Our House”, “House of Fun” and “It Must Be Love”.  In 2000 the band received the Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors for Outstanding Song Collection.

Night Boat To Cairo – The Song

‘Night Boat To Cairo’ is a song by British ska/pop band Madness from their debut 1979 album One Step Beyond…. It was written by Mike Barson and Suggs and was also included on the Work Rest and Play EP, which peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart and reached the top 30 in Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands. The song is often used by Madness to close live concerts, and “Night Boat” has passed into cockney rhyming slang as a term for a giro, or unemployment benefit cheque. The video featured the band dressed in stereotypical British colonial attire, including short trousers and “Zulu” style pith helmets, in front of a blatantly chroma keyed backdrop of an Egyptian pyramid; the lyrics appearing on screen in “bouncing ball” style as Suggs sang them. Despite – or perhaps because of – the poor effects and editing, and all-round unprofessional feel, it became very popular with fans

The Pith Helmet – The Shape

This record has been modelled into a Pith helmet. The pith helmet, also known as the safari helmet, sun helmet, topee, sola topee or topi, is a lightweight cloth-covered helmet made of sholapith. Pith helmets were often worn by European travellers and explorers, in the varying climates found in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the tropics, but have also been used in many other contexts. They were routinely issued to European military personnel serving overseas “in hot climates” from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.

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