Camisra - Let Me Show You

 

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c32/tonyttt31/letmeshowyou.jpg

 

Date 15th Feb 1998

1 Week

Official Chart Run 5-11-17-27-35-43-58-67 (8 weeks)

*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

 

Camisra was Tall Paul (Paul Newman). Tall Paul, began his DJ’ing career in the late 80’s, playing for private parties at his family’s venue, Turnmills. At the same time Paul started working with pirate radio stations Touchdown FM and London's legndary pirate Sunrise FM. Paul also used his experience to get a one hour slot at Turnmills’ Saturday all-nighter Trade and in 1990 his talent gained him his first residency at Trade. Paul quickly became recognised for playing hard edged-house. Not long after his, Paul was offered a residency at the Zap Club in Brighton and there met up with Shelley Boswell, which lead to regular slots at the Gardening Clubs’ Club For Life.

 

In 1992 Paul put out his first record, the white label Love Rush. He then hooked up with Hooj Choons’ Red Jerry to create the dance classic Rock Da House, (later to be re-released in 1997 and hitting number 11).

 

All this lead to a series of remix projects for artists such as New Order, Stone Roses, Erasure, Human League, K-Klass, Wild Child, Energy 52, Duran Duran, Nalin & Kane, Blondie, Bizarre Inc.…basically anyone :D

 

So, in 1998 he made Let Me Show You. The main two-note motif of Let Me Show You was sampled from the Deep Dish remix of Sandy B's Make the World Go Round.

 

This was followed up by two minor hits - Feel the Beat, and Clap Your Hands .

 

Paul continues to release and remix music to this day. This is the last we'll hear from him in this rundown.

Always reminds me of the clubbing episode of Spaced. :D

 

I had never heard of Le Disc Jockey before!! A shameless Encore Une Fois remake as written but nice to hear.

 

Let Me Show You's radio edit always bothered me as they messed up that Deep Dish sample, pitch-shifting one of the notes down with a noticeable brief deterioration in sound quality every time. Not sure if it was due to copyright reasons or someone deciding the original was too repetitive...

The beat of Let Me Show You is basically the speed-up beat of the Deep Dish remix of Sandy B.'s Make The World Go Round.

 

That's something I mentioned in the write up.

Never heard of that Le Disc Jockey song - pretty desperate if there were Sash! tribute going on around that time.

 

Not a huge fan of that Camisra song but it does also remind me of Spaced any time I hear it. You pretty much expect the A Team theme to appear somewhere in it.

 

I remember the girl in the video too. She starred in the pretty awful Danny Peacock programme 'Sister Said' on Channel 5 that featured the sometimes quite surreal antics of an all-girl band. The rest of them ended up in Hollyoaks.

Cornershop - Brim Full of Asha (Normal Cook Remix)

 

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c32/tonyttt31/cnr.jpg

 

Date 22th Feb 1998

3 Weeks

Official Chart Run 1-3-6-8-15-17-18-20-25-41-58-69 (12 weeks)

*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.

 

Back at the start of this rundown, in the 4th entry we met one of the 90s most most versatile, enduring and shape-shifting figures in dance music - Norman Cook. He was the creator of the short lived Beats International at the turn of the decade and since then had continued to make music under a variety of pseudonyms and collectives.

 

We haven't seen him in this thread since but he'd been having hits - most notably as Pizzaman and Freakpower, and also as his alter ego Fat Boy Slim.

 

Cornershop were formed in 1991 by lead singer Tjinder Singh. Their early sound was somewhat ramshackle and noisey but by the time they released their debut album they moved on to indian-flavoured post-punk with a side order of social commentary on race issues in the UK.

 

David Byrne of Talking Heads signed them to his label on the strength of that album. On their 3rd album, Woman's Gotta Have It, they had become a big enough concern to support Oasis and Stereolab on some of their European dates in 1995 and this brought them press attention, at a time when anyone British with a guitar was being hyped.

 

It was in 1997 when they reached peak critical acclaim with the release of When I Was Born for the 7th Time. Such was the adulation foisted on that album, it surpassed even Radiohead's OK Computer as some publications album of the year.

That album was preceded by the single Brim Full of Asha. A summery, charming ode to Asha Bhosle - celebrated Indian singer - and the iconic 7" single. It was a beautifully textured piece, with modestly exotic instrumentation and became their first top 75 hit. At the end of 1997 the songs topped John Peel's Festive 50, voted for by the listeners to John Peel's radio show.

 

Norman Cook was also a fan and asked the band could he remix it. He sped it up and changed the key from A to B, thus injecting it with an infectiousness that was a lot less subtle than the original. Under this he added a baseline and on top he piled the big beats high, loaded it all with cartoon-ish whistles and bells and created one of the most fun songs to hit number 1 in the 90s.

 

I'm quite sure this fun irritated the purists and the people who had been fans of Cornershop since the early 90s but it opened up a whole new world to some of us.

Not sure what the band thought of this creation.

 

We wont see Cornershop again in this rundown but Norman will be back as Fatboy Slim in a while.

 

I absolutely love that song, the full version of the Norman Cook remix is great and one of my defining records of the 90s.

I must try and get it on 12".

Fatboy Slim is the king of 1998 dance music in the same way Ferry Corsten defines 1999 - everything he touched turned to gold this year. This one always reminds me of watching Sky One as they used it as their logo music for about a year!

 

I remember when both Cornershop and Fatboy Slim performed on the same day of the 2008 Wireless Festival - I did hope for some epic live collaboration, but sadly not. Cornershop played their original version and Mr Slim completely disappointed by doing an entire headline set of underwhelming electro remixes with the odd two-second sample of a song people wanted to hear.

 

I genuinely waited around for ten-twenty minutes at the end just in case he'd come back and play one of his actual hit songs, but sadly not to be.

I'm guessing Norm was DJing - to be honest, more people would have complained if he'd only cued up his own songs...and, yes, it is a little annoying when collaborations turn out not to be as collaborative as we pop fans thought they were. I doubt Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres have even met Norman Cook!

 

As one of those fans of Cornershop for many years before the Brimful remix, I wasn't annoyed by the success of the remix or the remix itself. But then I didn't go for the original mix of Brimful particularly either being a much bigger fan of earlier work like England's Dreaming, Readers Wives and Born Disco; Died Heavy Metal.

 

Cornershop are still going (fairly) strong today - they put out a lounge version of their debut album last year which was a lot of fun.

 

As for Norman - I'd say that by this time his best work was behind him. I think he genuinely started recording as Fatboy Slim in an attempt to go more underground (see Santa Cruz, Punk to Funk etc) but he couldn't help himself and reverted back to over the top samples. That said, both Praise You and Right Here Right Now have aged quite well as pop records.

Never liked Praise You. From the moment I heard it I thought it was a Primal Scream song from the early 90s.

I guess that's one of the reasons why I like it. Things like the Rockafeller Skank and Gangsta Trippin' are just too full on party party party - he's better when he's more subtle I think.

Party party party can become tedious but sometimes not. I can still listen to Rockafeller Skank.

Edited April 27, 20169 yr by Colm

As we're taking a short break now I'll highlight some of the dance hits from the 90s that got stuck at number 2 behind even bigger dance hits.

 

Brits 1990 - Various Artists

 

 

Official Chart Run 7-2-2-9-19-44-7 (7 weeks)

 

First up with have Brits 1990 from Various Artists

This was a megamix of big hits dance hits from British artists from the previous few years.

 

The tracks featured are

 

Double Trouble & Rebel MC - Street Tuff

A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray

S'Express - Theme From S'Express

Beatmasters - Hey DJ I Can't Dance

Jeff Wayne - Eve Of The War

808 State - Pacific State

D Mob - We Call It Acieed

Cookie Crew - Got To Keep On

 

Bizarrely the 12" featured Technotronic's Pump Up the Jam despite them being Belgian.

 

I'm not sure there was an official video. This was official number 2 for two weeks behind Beat's International's Dub Be Good To Me in March 1990.

 

Adventures of Stevie V - Dirty Cash (Money Talks)

 

 

Official Chart Run 28-11-5-2-3-3-4-5-11-16-22-34-49 (13 weeks)

 

 

And another one from 1990 - this was a hip-house track on the delightful topic of selling your body for sexy time. It was a one hit wonder. It got stuck behind Adamski's all conquering Killer.

 

 

Shut Up and Dance - Raving I'm Raving

 

 

Official Chart Run 2-15 (2 weeks)

 

 

Skipping on to 1992 we have the infamous Raving I'm Raving with (probably) the most bizarre chart run of all time. This got stuck behind KWS's Please Don't Go for one week.

Undercover - Baker Street

 

 

Official Chart Run 17-9-4-3-3-2-3-3-5-10-15-28-33-57

 

Also from 1992 we have the bleep-tastic cover of Baker Street from Undercover that got kept in the silver position by The Shamen's Ebeneezer Goode (which it actually outsold) - and not Snap!'s Rhythm is a Dancer, which I believed for the last 20-odd years until I checked this recently.

Edited April 28, 20169 yr by Colm

Dr Alban - It's My Life

 

 

Official Chart Run 18-8-4-2-2-2-5-7-12-21-32-57 (12 weeks)

 

Also sticking at 2 behind Ebeneezer Goode - this time for 3 weeks - is It's My Life from Dr Alban.

 

 

Mark Snow -The X-Files Theme Song

 

 

Official Chart Run 2-2-2-5-9-19-24-25-32-38-38-46-57-67-72 (15 weeks)

 

Given the discussion earlier, we should probably mention that this got held at bay for 3 weeks by Firestarter in March 1996.