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[[pt:Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers]] |
[[pt:Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers]] |
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[[pl:Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers]] |
[[pl:Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers]] |
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—<ref>!980's /1990's private tape collection</ref> |
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It is certain that the original tapes for the Jive Bunny concept came from a 16-20 year old boy in Marlow-On-Thames (Steve), between 1981-1985. Using just a Nakamichi cassette recorder, a video player and a TEAC 4-track reel-reel 4-track recorder, around 20 cassettes were made for personal use and local parties. |
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It took a whole morning just to piece together short excerpts of around 2-minutes of non-stop floor filler music using just the pause button on the cassette recorder, adjusting the record position on the cassette to allow for the gap between pause and record. Probably 12 times each snippet had to be recorded and re-recorded until the right note and beat was recorded at the right time so that the track was constant. The style was a move away from 'mixed' tracks where gimmickery and technology was used to join different tracks such as in predecessors, which in any case Steve did not have access to. Tried in local discos, as soon as the music came on, people danced to music which they had often forgotten about or not heard before - and with the upbeat nature of the music, the floor filled with dancers very quickly. |
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The subject tracks were carefully chosen by Steve for their similar beat pace and mixed by him listening for the drum beat and natural vocal pauses and suitable dialogue gaps. Often unknown music was incorporated along with film and tv dialogue clips. |
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In the first tapes, rock and roll was used as the genre had a pretty similar tempo accross different bands and artists and it was quite easy to select different tracks with the same drum-beat from compilation vinyl records (yes vinyl was used as the recording source). Steve got more creative by inserting different beats to vary the tempo yet continue the dancability of a track. The best tape ended up around 20 minutes and included the cult Blues Brothers and some dialogue. Starting with the classic, 'Were One Hundred and Six miles from Chicago....', going into the sound of '....Lets Hit It' with the machine gun fire and the 'Dont Turn Me Loose' intro, then using 'We're On A Mission From God' as a divider between tracks - this technique no doubt inspired Les Hemstock's producers' who later used Jiiiiivvvve Bunny as their track divider. |
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Due to popular demand a number of local djs and friends requested copies for their parties and no doubt other copies were made. In fact Steve recalls a special request for a Christmas version which he produced in around 1983. |
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Steve experimented with well-known tv tracks and found that Hawaii 5-0 offered a perfect partner to The Beach Boys and other classic rock n roll tracks. This track featured a lot on the original mixes and was the first time the eighties generation had danced to a theme tune in this way! |
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A Glen Miller mix was a brave thing to introduce to a teenage market, but quite simply this collection came from Steve's dad's vast record collection. Also using Royal Marines drumming beats and adding in rock n roll, a continous dancable track was created from music not usually listened to by kids. Steve recalls stopping in Marlow High Street as a number of people spontaneously danced to the tracks played loud from his VW outside a pub. |
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So, the brilliant commercial success that was to become Jive Bunny actually had a very humble beginning it seems. Although Steve was never paid or recognised, it is sure that his friends in Spain or London (who he regularily gave copies of the tapes to) passed them on one way or another to the eventual producers. Good luck to Les Hemstock for getting the number ones and creating the Jive Bunny brand - but the fist four records sound exactly like Steve's popular original tapes, in style as well as content. |
Revision as of 10:09, 17 January 2011
Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers | |
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Past members | Jive Bunny Les Hemstock John Pickles Andrew Pickles Ian Morgan |
Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers were a 1980s and early 1990s novelty pop music act from Rotherham, Yorkshire, UK. The face of the group was Jive Bunny himself, a cartoon rabbit who appeared in the videos, and also (as a human being in a costume) did promotional appearances for them. Doncaster DJ and producer Les Hemstock created and mixed the J.Bunny concept for father and son team John and Andrew Pickles. Ian Morgan a fellow DJ and producer also engineered and mixed the first albums. Ian was replaced in the early 90's with DJ & Producer Mark "The Hitman" Smith.
They are the third artist ever to have their first three releases go to number one on the UK Singles Chart, a feat they achieved between July and December 1989. The previous bands to do so were Gerry & the Pacemakers and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. They also went to number one in several other countries around the world.
Jive Bunny's three number ones were "Swing the Mood", "That's What I Like" and "Let's Party". All three songs used sampling and synthesisers to combine pop music from the early rock and roll era together into a medley. The results were somewhat like Jaap Eggermont's Stars on 45, although he had hired "sound-alike" singers and musicians to recreate the music from scratch.
Each song used a sampled instrumental theme to join the old songs together, in much the same way as dance music megamixes. "Swing the Mood" began with Glenn Miller's famous "In the Mood" (a recording dating back to 1939), followed immediately by rhythmic re-editing of Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock", Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" and the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up, Little Susie". "Swing the Mood" was #1 for five weeks on the UK singles chart in 1989, and quickly caught on in the United States, where it reached #11 on the Billboard Charts.
"That's What I Like" featured the theme music from the television police drama Hawaii Five-O, with overlaid excerpts from rock hits like Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and Ernie Maresca's "Shout, Shout (Knock Yourself Out)". "Let's Party" (released originally in the U.S. as "March of the Mods") used "March of the Mods" (also known as the Finnjenka Dance), interpolating Del Shannon's "Runaway" and The Wrens' "Come Back My Love" among others.
The original European medleys featured the original recordings by the original artists. Legalities prevented certain of the original recordings to be reused in America, so the American Jive Bunny releases substituted later re-recordings of the same tunes by Bill Haley, Del Shannon and others.
The original idea for the project came from Les Hemstock on the DJ-only Mastermix DJ service. John Pickles (Father of Andy) was strictly speaking never in the band, but the owner of the label and effectively the manager.
Les Hemstock later became a trance DJ working with the likes of Paul Van Dyk. Andy Pickles went on to found hard house record label Tidy Trax with fellow DJ Amadeus Mozart. Ian Morgan became a successful club DJ & Mark "The Hitman" Smith later worked in the industry as a label manager and producer.
External links
- Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers discography
- The Official Jive Bunny Website
- The Official Mastermix site
—[1]
It is certain that the original tapes for the Jive Bunny concept came from a 16-20 year old boy in Marlow-On-Thames (Steve), between 1981-1985. Using just a Nakamichi cassette recorder, a video player and a TEAC 4-track reel-reel 4-track recorder, around 20 cassettes were made for personal use and local parties.
It took a whole morning just to piece together short excerpts of around 2-minutes of non-stop floor filler music using just the pause button on the cassette recorder, adjusting the record position on the cassette to allow for the gap between pause and record. Probably 12 times each snippet had to be recorded and re-recorded until the right note and beat was recorded at the right time so that the track was constant. The style was a move away from 'mixed' tracks where gimmickery and technology was used to join different tracks such as in predecessors, which in any case Steve did not have access to. Tried in local discos, as soon as the music came on, people danced to music which they had often forgotten about or not heard before - and with the upbeat nature of the music, the floor filled with dancers very quickly.
The subject tracks were carefully chosen by Steve for their similar beat pace and mixed by him listening for the drum beat and natural vocal pauses and suitable dialogue gaps. Often unknown music was incorporated along with film and tv dialogue clips.
In the first tapes, rock and roll was used as the genre had a pretty similar tempo accross different bands and artists and it was quite easy to select different tracks with the same drum-beat from compilation vinyl records (yes vinyl was used as the recording source). Steve got more creative by inserting different beats to vary the tempo yet continue the dancability of a track. The best tape ended up around 20 minutes and included the cult Blues Brothers and some dialogue. Starting with the classic, 'Were One Hundred and Six miles from Chicago....', going into the sound of '....Lets Hit It' with the machine gun fire and the 'Dont Turn Me Loose' intro, then using 'We're On A Mission From God' as a divider between tracks - this technique no doubt inspired Les Hemstock's producers' who later used Jiiiiivvvve Bunny as their track divider.
Due to popular demand a number of local djs and friends requested copies for their parties and no doubt other copies were made. In fact Steve recalls a special request for a Christmas version which he produced in around 1983.
Steve experimented with well-known tv tracks and found that Hawaii 5-0 offered a perfect partner to The Beach Boys and other classic rock n roll tracks. This track featured a lot on the original mixes and was the first time the eighties generation had danced to a theme tune in this way!
A Glen Miller mix was a brave thing to introduce to a teenage market, but quite simply this collection came from Steve's dad's vast record collection. Also using Royal Marines drumming beats and adding in rock n roll, a continous dancable track was created from music not usually listened to by kids. Steve recalls stopping in Marlow High Street as a number of people spontaneously danced to the tracks played loud from his VW outside a pub.
So, the brilliant commercial success that was to become Jive Bunny actually had a very humble beginning it seems. Although Steve was never paid or recognised, it is sure that his friends in Spain or London (who he regularily gave copies of the tapes to) passed them on one way or another to the eventual producers. Good luck to Les Hemstock for getting the number ones and creating the Jive Bunny brand - but the fist four records sound exactly like Steve's popular original tapes, in style as well as content.
- ^ !980's /1990's private tape collection