WHO COMES IN LAST?
(they were first)

Marc (Mc Towel) and Eric (Offbeat) met thru common female friend Marieke (at that time Eric's girlfriend and Marc's ex-neighbour) and whilst eating a plate of hot vegan grub they smalltalked about bands like The Specials, Bad Manners, Madness and The Selecter. At that moment in time, Marc played bass in straight edge hardcore band Betray and Eric played guitar in punkband The Slamdogs, a band that never left the practiceroom. Together they decided to start a postmodern skaband: uptempo nineties ska. So they asked some friends from the aforementioned bands who brought in some other friends. Things got going and within a couple of months the first gig was a fact. The Jam, the local practice space/amp rental, had a big open air gig in the Amsterdam Vijzelstraat on national holiday Queensday, and trusted Dance Cleopatra enough to play. It was a start you can only dream of: hunderds of happy people (remember that it was a national holiday) jumping up and down in the sun to the upbeat ska. Even nowadays people still remember that particular performance.

The one and only cd where dc is featured...So what did Dance Cleopatra actually play? Well, basically their own songs, but also some covers like Dance Cleopatra, Rat Race, Yogho Yogho, Racist Friend, Guns of Navarone, Prijzenslag and the Xmas-Medley. Not unlike The Specials, but than heavier, but with that same punkspirit without losing the fun-part. So wherever the skank meets the pogo, where beer gets tossed around and where the fun defeated the music, Dance Cleopatra could be found. At the moment that the musical ambitions took over the fun part, the band basically came to a grinding halt: beating the woodblock became playing paradiddles on a marimba, and one chord solo's became harmonical efforts on the guitar scale. The band reached the lowest point when one of the members of the original line-up was asked to leave: the fun turned into hard labour and the beers got stale....

The five song demoAll that was left was a demo-tape ("Dance Cleopatra, june 1993") and the song "who comes in last" was featured on the sampler cd "Do The Dutch Ska Dance, Volume I" (1993).