Dillon & Dickins is a dance music production group based in London, England, and one of the many aliases used by house music producers and DJs Marc Dillon and Patrick Dickins who also founded the dance record company and music publishing company Higher State. Other aliases include the commonly miss-spelt Dillon & Dickens, Dpd, 99 Allstars, Disco Biscuit, Sound Environment, Spacebase, Upstate and their more successful one, Illicit.

Career

As Dillon & Dickins, their Steers & Queers EP (catalogue numbers 99NTH15 & CDNTH15), released on Higher State's sublabel 99 North in May 1999, contained a track entitled "Queers R Doin It" which was used in the U.S. TV series Queer as Folk. Having released a number of unofficial so-called mashup songs under the alias of Illicit, one of their first official releases under this alias was "Pulsation" featuring Shannon, released on 99 North in 2000. However, their most successful chart bound release was "Cheeky Armada", released in September 2001 on Azuli's Yola label, which reached number 72 on the UK Singles Chart. This was a re-vocalised and replayed version of one of their mashup songs called "Sneaky Armada", which combined Groove Armada's "I See You Baby" with Teddy Pendergrass's "You Can't Hide from Yourself". This single also featured the vocals of Gram'ma Funk, who performed the original vocals on "I See You Baby". Under the alias of Dillon & Dickins, notable remixes include those of Vengaboys' "Cheekah Bow Bow (That Computer Song)", Blackout's "Gotta Have Hope" (which included an interpolation of the classical music piece Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, and which also reached number 46 in the UK in March 1999 ), Todd Terry's "It's Over Love" (which also featured Shannon on vocals), Gala's "Freed from Desire" and Martha Wash and RuPaul's cover version of the Weather Girls' "It's Raining Men". As Illicit, remixes include Alcazar's "Crying at the Discoteque", Cyndi Lauper's "Shine", Madison Avenue's "Who the Hell Are You", Cher's "Song for the Lonely", Stevie Nicks' "Planets of the Universe", Kylie Minogue's "Butterfly", India.Arie's "Brown Skin" and Etta James "Miss You", the latter of which was used in the soundtrack of the second season of the U.S. TV series Queer as Folk. They have also contributed music for the UK film Shoot the DJ which was released in 2010 by Sonic Hub Films and directed by Sean J Vincent, Dan Peters, Andre Renner and Kim Wilde's brother Ricky Wilde. Both Ricky and Kim Wilde are cast in the film alongside Tony Hadley and Normski. "Digigen", the first single from their album Exquisite Illicit, was released on 2 September 2011 and featured the then 13-year-old South London based rapper Sonny. This was subsequently followed by "Nite Moves" featuring the vocals of Rose Windross, released on 16 December 2012. The album was released on 10 February 2012.

Discography

Albums

Dillon & Dickins

99 Allstars

Singles and EPs

Dillon & Dickins

Illicit

99 Allstars

Spacebase

Other aliases

Remixes

Higher State

Dillon & Dickins

Illicit