Doctors of Madness are “the missing link between David Bowie and The Sex Pistols” – (The Guardian May 2017).
Exploding onto the music scene in 1975 with their theatrical, William Burroughs-inspired Sci-fi nightmare, they were misunderstood by many, but those who knew understood the importance of the band’s dangerous, uncompromising approach to lyrics, to music and to performance.
Among the many fans of the band were acts as diverse as The Damned, Vic Reeves, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, Spiritualized, Julian Cope, The Adverts, The Skids, Howard Marks, Harlan Ellison and Simple Minds. The Sex Pistols supported them, so did The Jam. Oh, and Joy Division. They were the first British band to combine the avant-garde approach of The Velvet Underground with a distinctly European aesthetic. The blue hair, exotic stage-names, the lyrical themes of urban decay, political propaganda, mind control and madness were all taken up by the punk bands who followed in their wake.
Doctors of Madness were trailblazers, pioneers, adventurers…pushing the boundaries of rock music and theatre to see how far it would go before it bust. What happened after them was due, in no small part, to what they achieved in three short years.
Now, forty-five years after they imploded, they are back, with a UK tour announced for April 2024, which will feature material from all four of their albums, including their latest release- Dark Times, an album seething with lyrical anger and passion. Dark Times is the most potent and incisive musical dissection of modern life and contemporary politics released in the last decade. With tracks titles like “So Many Ways To Hurt You”, “Sour Hour”, “Make It Stop!”, “Dumb” and the ground-breaking sonic assault of the title track “Dark Times”, Richard “Kid” Strange proves once again that he has his finger firmly on the pulse of our times, just as he had when he founded the band in 1974.
Produced by John Leckie (Radiohead, Stone Roses, Pink Floyd, XTC, Simple Minds etc), the latest album, Dark Times, features contributions from Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Sarah Jane Morris (Communards), Terry Edwards (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Tindersticks etc.), Steve ‘Boltz’ Bolton (The Who, Scott Walker, Atomic Rooster, Paul Young Band etc) and the young protest singer Lily Bud.
With him on stage for this tour will be the thunderous rhythm section who helped him make this record – Japanese musicians Susumu Ukei (bass) and Mackii Ukei (drums).
Julian Cope, of The Teardrop Explodes, another rock star who, like Strange, found the confines of music to tight for his ambition, his energy and his imagination, was blown away when he first heard the songs, declaring, “These Dark Times are enormously informing: the RULES OF THE FUTURE are indeed being forged right now” The first single, Make It Stop!, was an impassioned howl against the global drift to right wing extremism and persecution of minorities, and is already a live showstopper for the band. It features an earworm guitar riff and the thrilling cross-generational combination of Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and the young LilyBud on backing vocals. Prepare to feel the hair on your neck stand on end!
Richard “Kid” Strange
In the period since the last Doctors of Madness gig in 1978, Richard has written a memoir, collaborated on a cantata with internationally celebrated composer Gavin Bryars, worked as an actor on films with Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Harmony Korine and Jack Nicholson, toured the world in a Russian version of Hamlet with James Nesbitt as his grave-digging co-star, played Glastonbury, sung baritone in the British premiere of Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels at the Royal Festival Hall, executed John Cleese in nine different ways for a Norwegian chocolate commercial, directed a multi-media evening celebrating the life and work of William Burroughs, won Best Art Film Prize at the Portobello Film Festival last year, had his own live talk show, opened a Cabaret club, played a butler on a long running German TV show, worked with Tom Waits and Marianne Faithfull on the William Burroughs/Robert Wilson stage play The Black Rider, curated events for the Tate Gallery, and sung Walt Disney songs with Jarvis Cocker. His debut play, When You Awake You Will Remember Nothing, which he co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in, opened to critical acclaim in London in 2022. Oh, and he still finds time to teach contemporary music to degree students from Finland, Sweden, Japan, Portugal and the USA.