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Ricardo Autobahn (John Matthews) | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | John Matthews |
| Also known as | Rikki (in Rikki & Daz) |
| Born | 8 March 1978 |
| Genres | Pop, hip hop, dance, Europop |
| Website | www |
John Matthews (born 8 March 1978), better known by his stage name Ricardo Autobahn, is an English producer, songwriter and musician. He is also known in collaborations with Daz Sampson as in Rikki & Daz and the projects like Barndance Boys, Cuban Boys, and his current project Spray.
Matthews is a member of the band Spray and earlier in the Cuban Boys. The latter was most famous for their UK Christmas hit “Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia”. The band allowed their label to market "Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia" as "The Hampster Dance Song".
In addition, Matthews was Rikki in the duo Rikki & Daz (with Daz Sampson), who also recorded under the name of the Barndance Boys. Rikki & Daz scored a UK top 20 hit with their version of the song "Rhinestone Cowboy", involving Glen Campbell who re-recorded his vocal and appeared in the video. The Barndance Boys, infamous for their papier mache heads, had a top 40 hit in 2003 with "Yippie-I-Oh". With Daz Sampson, Matthews co-wrote and produced the UK's 2006 Eurovision entry "Teenage Life" with Daz Sampson and the European hit "The Woah Song" by DJ Daz.
In 2006, Matthews co-wrote and co-produced the eponymous debut album for US electro artist Lolly Pop. He was also involved in Pop Inc, known for their single "Looking 4 The KLF". In 2008 he formed the musical project called Attery Squash, who had their single "Devo Was Right About Everything" remixed by Devo members Robert & Gerald Casale [1]
In 2009, Matthews released a video on YouTube called "The Golden Age of Video". [2] This was a mash-up of video clips from various TV Shows and movies. In 2012, he collaborated on a Christmas single release titled "And The Salvation Army Band Plays" with Helen Love, [3] and playing keyboards with the band. [4] Matthews also co-founded Pound Shop Boys with Phil Fletcher, performing covers of theme tunes to children's television programmes in the style of the Pet Shop Boys. [5]
As a remixer and producer, Ricardo Autobahn has remixed Becky's dance single, "Less Than Three", The Crimea's "Loop a Loop", along with singles by Nathalie Archangel, Jane Badler and Christopher Anton. And he directed work vocalist/performer Brooke R. Calder's on-stage personae Lolly Pop in collaboration with Minneapolis producers Monte Moir and Doctor Fink.
In 2014, Matthews joined the band Helen Love to play keyboards for a number of dates, including at Primavera Sound in Spain. He also remixed Helen Love's "Pogo Pogo".
(for a comprehensive listing, see discography section in Cuban Boys
 | This section needs expansionwith: more compositions. You can help by adding to it. (March 2017) |
"Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia", also known as "C vs. I", is a song by English electronic music group the Cuban Boys. The song consists almost in its entirety of an unofficial soundalike sampled loop from "Whistle Stop" by Roger Miller which was featured in the Disney movie Robin Hood, played at high speed in a manner similar to the classic "Chipmunks" records. The original sample, also sped up, was first featured on the Internet as part of "The Hampster Dance" song on the website of the same name.
Cuban Boys are an English electronic group and production team, currently composed of Skreen B and Ricardo Autobahn; the band formerly also included B.L. Underwood ("Blu") and Jenny McLaren. Their music is characterised by fast electronic beats, heavy reliance upon samples and the repetition of the name drop "The Cuban Boys" in the background of many of their tracks. They achieved success after being aired on John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show with sample-heavy dance tracks and cut-ups and were responsible for the UK No. 4 hit single "Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia" which was released through EMI.
Spray is a synth-pop duo from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, consisting of siblings Jenny McLaren and Ricardo Autobahn. Following the demise of their previous band, the Cuban Boys, McLaren and Autobahn released the album Living In Neon on Ninthwave Records in the United States. This was followed in 2003 by the extended single "I Am Gothic". A new album, Children of a Laser God was released online in 2006, along with the single "Run With Us", a cover of the theme tune of the popular 1980's cartoon The Raccoons with the "Michael Trenfield" remix as the main single accompanied with the original version and remixes from JKZ, Absorb, FMU and Diskowarp.
Neil Joseph Stephen Fraser known by his stage-name Mad Professor, is a British dub music producer, engineer and remixer. He has collaborated with reggae artists Lee "Scratch" Perry, Sly and Robbie, Pato Banton, Jah Shaka and Horace Andy, as well as artists outside the realm of traditional reggae and dub, such as Sade, Massive Attack, The Orb, Gaudi, the Brazilian DJ Marcelinho da Lua, Grace Jones, and Perry Farrell.
"3 a.m. Eternal" is a song by British acid house group the KLF, taken from their fourth and final studio album, The White Room (1991). Numerous versions of the song were released as singles between 1989 and 1992 by their label KLF Communications. In January 1991, an acid house pop version of the song became an international top ten hit single, reaching number-one on the UK Singles Chart, number two on the UK Dance Singles Chart and number five on the US Billboard Hot 100, and leading to the KLF becoming the internationally biggest-selling singles band of 1991.
Darren "Daz" Sampson is a British professional football manager/scout, music producer and broadcaster. Sampson is known for his commercial dance music as part of several groups and his television appearances. He has had nine Top 30 UK singles.
The KLF are a British electronic band who originated in Liverpool and London in the late 1980s. Scottish musician Bill Drummond and English musician Jimmy Cauty began by releasing hip hop-inspired and sample-heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded the British number-one single "Doctorin' the Tardis", and documented the process of making a hit record in a book The Manual . As the KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered stadium house and, with their 1990 LP Chill Out, the ambient house genre. The KLF released a series of international hits on their own KLF Communications record label and became the biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991.
"Teenage Life" was the British entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, which was sung by Daz Sampson in English.
Bus Stop was a British dance act made up of Darren Sampson, alongside Graham Turner, Mark Hall and Nikki Reid (Lane). The group was formed in 1998 and had a string of hit singles before disbanding in 2002. Main vocalist, Sampson, went on to represent the UK in the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest.
"Rhinestone Cowboy" is a song written and recorded by Larry Weiss in 1974, then popularized the next year by American country music singer Glen Campbell. When released on May 26, 1975, as the lead single and title track from his album Rhinestone Cowboy, it enjoyed huge popularity with both country and pop audiences.
Lolly Pop is a persona of Brooke R. Calder, as produced by Ricardo Autobahn, Monte Moir and Doctor Fink.
Andreas S. Jensen is a Danish-born, London-based, singer-songwriter, record producer and multi-instrumentalist.
Attic Lights are a Scottish indie rock band from Glasgow, Scotland, formed in 2005 by Kev Sherry, Colin McArdle and Jamie Houston, later joined by Tim Davidson and Noel O'Donnell. The four-part harmonies in a number of their songs have led to critical comparisons with Teenage Fanclub and The Beach Boys. Their guitar heavy powerpop has been compared to alternative rock bands such as Weezer, R.E.M. and The Lemonheads.
Rikki & Daz, was a pop music duo, formed in 2002 by John Matthews and Daz Sampson. John Matthews of the Cuban Boys fame and also known as Ricardo Autobahn, became Rikki in the duo. He teamed up with Sampson, named just Daz in the duo and went on to release the single, "Rhinestone Cowboy ", a take on Glen Campbell's hit "Rhinestone Cowboy". It featured the country singer in a new vocal for the release, and Campbell appeared in the video. The single went on to reach No. 12 in the UK Singles Chart and No. 16 in the Irish Singles Chart. The pair also contributed separately to a cover of their version of the song with the band Hyperbubble on their 2017 album Western Ware.
The Barndance Boys was an English trio musical formation made as a country and folk dance act in 2003. Barndance Boys was the brainchild of John Matthews from the Cuban Boys fame. He launched the novelty band with Darren Sampson known as Daz Sampson, with whom he had cooperated in many other musical projects including in the duo Rikki & Daz. Brian LH was also included to complete the trio.
Hyperbubble is an international visual and performing arts electropop/synth-pop duo from San Antonio, Texas, formed by Jeff DeCuir and Jess Barnett DeCuir. The music of this American group is variously described as "early Eurythmics meets Josie and the Pussycats," referencing "markers such as New Musik, the Normal and Thomas Dolby." Their songs are "catchy synth pop that mixes kitsch, retrofuturism and pop art in a chrome blender and sets the contents jiggling to a hypnotic robo-rhythm" with "lyrics that offer quirky takes on SF tropes from cyborgs and clones to ray guns and erotic surveillance."
"Euphoria" is a song performed by Swedish singer Loreen. It was released on 26 February 2012 as the third single –first single internationally– from her debut studio album, Heal (2012). The song was written by Thomas G:son, Peter Boström and produced by Boström and SeventyEight. It represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 held in Baku, Azerbaijan. It won the contest with a total of 372 points, at the time the second-highest point total in the contest's history. It received the highest number of maximum (12) points until then, with eighteen countries giving the song their top marks.
Algiers is an American-English post-punk band from Atlanta, Georgia, United States, formed in 2012. The band consists of multi-instrumentalists Franklin James Fisher, Ryan Mahan, Lee Tesche, and Matt Tong. Algiers pulls from a divergent number of musical influences; the most notable of which being post-punk, hip-hop, Southern Gothic literature, and the concept of the Other. Their sound has been described as dystopian soul due to its somber mood, afrofolk inspired vocal approach, and heavy emphasis on atonal textures.
Western Ware is an album by the American synth-pop/electropop band Hyperbubble from Fellowshipwreck released on February 26, 2017. An aim of the collection was to follow through on the promise of band member Jess DeCuir to "plan to produce, mix and create the first electro Country & Western LP" since the work of Gil Trythall. One reviewer noted that the recording also marked a change for Hyperbubble in that while Jess is regarded as "the voice of band, ...on this album Jeff (DeCuir) cleans up rather nicely as lead vocalist on a good number of tracks."
"The Hampsterdance Song" is a novelty song by Hampton the Hampster. The song's hook is based on a sped-up sample of "Whistle-Stop", a song from the 1973 Disney film Robin Hood. This sample was originally used for a 1998 web page called the Hampster Dance, created by Canadian art student Deidre LaCarte. Using the web page's popularity as a springboard, she and a Toronto native, Jeffery Lane, worked together with Canadian remix duo The Boomtang Boys to create a full song out of the sample. Due to licensing issues with Disney, Rob DeBoer and Tony Grace of the Boomtang Boys re-recorded the sample and added new lyrics.
