Friday, June 27, 2008

Madness: Take It Or Leave It - A Ska Hard Day's Night



Most 2-Tone fans have seen "Dance Craze" the great 1980 concert film by Joe Massot chronicling the ska explosion in Britain. It features live footage of Bad Manners, The Beat, The Bodysnatchers, Madness, The Specials and The Selecter. How many of you have seen "Take It Or Leave It?"

I think its fair to call it the ska version of "A Hard Day's Night" starring the seven members of Madness as themselves and directed by Stiff Records boss Dave Robinson. The 1981 film traces the roots of the group, beginning in 1976 or thereabouts. Very amateurish in places, and also very funny in others, the film follows the ups & downs of individual members of the group, and features all of their early hits including "The Prince", "One Step Beyond", "Baggy Trousers" and "Night Boat to Cairo." Although lead singer Suggs went on to do some acting in films, drummer Daniel Woodgate said of `Take It Or Leave It', "it was the beginning and end of my acting career."

Here are two clips from the movie:





You can purchase copies on Amazon.com UK or on Ebay or if you have the time, patience and hard drive space you can download the film in 8 separate parts here:

Take It Or Leave It Part 1
Take It Or Leave It Part 2
Take It Or Leave It Part 3
Take It Or Leave It Part 4
Take It Or Leave It Part 5
Take It Or Leave It Part 6
Take It Or Leave It Part 7
Take It Or Leave It Part 8

7 comments:

. said...

Oi Oi Marco basemeister,

I Think it is awesome that you uploaded "take it or leave it" to rapidshare, but the links don't work?

Marco On The Bass said...

Cheers for the comment, I've fixed the links so it should work now.

Anonymous said...

Nice, but first link is dead.

Marco On The Bass said...

OK. I'll take a look and try to fix it.

Marco On The Bass said...

Links are fixed.

Anonymous said...

Oi Oi Marco the Basemeister,

Downloaded it,
Unpacked it,
Watched and listened to it,
Loved it.

Thanks again for uploading it to Rapidshare.

Cheers!

René
A huge Madness fan from day one from the The Netherlands

Anonymous said...

the 2nd link is dead.