Same here - great memories and great times. Madness were always 'my' band whilst I grew up listening to my older brother (by 6/7 years) play Slade, Sparks, T-Rex etc and then later The Stranglers, Joy Division etc. My father would sometimes play his Jean Michel Jarre (probably bought that because of our French friends!) and Abba albums so I think there was a great influence of different music types at an early age.
I saw Madness for the first time last year - awesome, one of the best times I've had.... Aswad were the support group if you can call them that. Very uplifting - I bought their new album which is ok as well. Night boat to Cairo is one of my favouites - a unique song and I also love Bed and Breakfast Man which is one of their early songs, but can't remember it being a single (and I did buy everything they did back then!) although it had a video.... strange.
From:
Geat song - sounds like you had a top night just like I did..... those blokes were not skinheads then
Just a thought, but I wonder if DrBubb went to any of the clubs in Detriot back in the day where techno was evolving