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| STILL
GAME - TV THEME TUNE |
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"A
demo came through someone's letterbox, seemingly, and the
producer loved it"
Catherine Grimes, BBC TV
"It's
complete and utter rubbish"
Noel Gallagher, Oasis
STILL
GAME - OFFICIAL BBC WEBSITE
DOWNLOAD
THE STILL GAME THEME TUNE
Right
click and 'save as' to download mp3.
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In
2001 the Cuban Boys were approached by the BBC with
a request for them to use 'Cuban Boy' as the theme tune
for a new Scottish TV comedy series called 'Still Game'.
Naturally, the Cuban Boys were only to happy to oblige,
and since then the TV show has gone on to become a cult
favourite, now in its 5th Series and beamed across the
national tv network on BBC TWO.
The
history of the track 'Cuban Boy' is quite interesting,
as it was actually the track which was responsible for
the formation of the Cuban Boys. By complete chance,
one day in 1998 Ricardo included a very early demo version
of an old song which sampled the Frank Chacksfield track
'Cuban Boy' on a minidisc which he sent to Skreen when
they were working together on some possible music for
a film project. When Skreen heard 'Cuban Boy' he felt
it had great potential and inspired by his reaction,
on 25 June 1998, Ricardo remixed the track into a beaty
version which the boys decided to send to John Peel.
Quite matter-of-factly, Skreen and Ricardo agreed to
form a musical partnership for this and without too
much thought labelled the demo as being by 'Frank Chacksfield
& The Cuban Boys'. The promo cdr which included
the new version, now titled 'Cuban Boy (Cuban Boys Go
Boom! '98), plus the original verison and an oddball
remix by Skreen, were lovingly posted to John Peel.
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In
the meantime, Skreen and Ricardo set about taking over
the media. Realising that teletext was a much underused
media, they wrote a batch of letters and emails to the
BBC and Channel 4 either celebrating this mysterious song,
or berating it’s makers. Within a week, they had
also lit the touch paper of the internet by suggesting
Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller were behind 'Cuban Boy'.
The rumour swamped the web, Noel
even went on MTV to deny it, and within another week
a large proportion of the nation was discussing this madcap,
enigmatic, and largely unheard song.
Stephen Eastwood, teletext journalist and top bloke, gave
the band - now named the Cuban Boys - an eight page feature
on national Channel 4 teletext, just two weeks after they’d
formed. The same day, John Peel played “Cuban Boy”
on Radio 1. Another amazing feat of conjuncture. |
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Much
happened in the months after this initial play of 'Cuban
Boy' and the Cuban Boys profile changed from unknown to
one of the most-loved bands on the John Peel Show. 'Cuban
Boy' was released by ORG Records in 1999 on 'The Blueprint
For Modernisation EP' and apparently this is where the
Producer of Still Game heard it and loved it so much that
it ended up as the theme tune to Still Game.
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