Hipstamp Productions is a music collective of record producers, singers and musicians led by songwriter Mike Fairbairn. Mike has a knack for writing happy, catchy commercial pop melodies that re-imagine celebratory themes such as birthdays, football and Christmas.
An NHS nurse by trade, in his mid-30s, Mike picked up a guitar from a former flatmate and soon realised he had a talent for songwriting. For the last decade and a half, Mike has focused on raising his three children but has now returned to his first love, music.
Reaching his late adolescence in the mid-1970s, Mike attended concerts of many musical greats including Elton John, Bob Marley, The Who, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Bruce Springsteen, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and Bob Dylan. He often wondered what he was doing there, as several of these concerts were pretty dull, but this was the price of hanging out with his older sister’s, oh-so-cool, friends. A couple of years later, Mike was properly Inspired by seeing multiple performances by The Clash, The Stranglers and Elvis Costello -and Mike became a punk rocker.
In 1978 Mike landed a dream job (for him) working as a busboy at Richard Branson’s (of Virgin Records) brand new London nightclub, The Venue in Victoria. Over the course of 6 years, Mike worked his way up to being a barman and then floor manager at what was then one of London’s premier performance and showcase venues. Working at The Venue gave Mike the opportunity to see concerts from a plethora of emerging talents, scene shapers and musical greats who graced the venue most nights of the week. Notable performances included disco star Sylvester and the Two Tons O’ Fun, dark-edged punk rockers The Cramps, punk funksters Pig Bag and a memorable solo performance from Dr Feelgood’s talismanic guitarist, Wilko Johnson, while the more veteran performers such as Al Green, James Brown and Tina Turner really proved their worth by selling out the nightclub over multiple consecutive nights. However, despite not wanting to admit it (Mike was a punk at heart) one of the best shows Mike saw at The Venue were the Philadelphia soul-pop powerhouse Hall and Oates, who really knew how to deliver a great show with fabulous energy.
It wasn’t just the shows that were legendary at The Venue, the patrons and famous folk who passed through its doors and their behaviour were equally as memorable. One amusing incident involved Mike refusing entry to rapper Grandmaster Melle Mel as he was saying he claiming to be DJ Grandmaster Flash! Rap group Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five were touring the UK at the time but nobody knew that their leader of the group Grandmaster Flash had actually left the band but this hadn’t been announced to the British public as it would have been really bad press and might have affected the tour and subsequent releases. Mike had a freind staying from New York who told him that Grandmaster Flash were impostors! Melle Mel and the band wanted free entry to the club and Mike sensing an opportunity to conduct a subtle wind him up (from behind a re-enforced glass window) thought he’d delay their entry a little by asking Melle:
“Which one of you is Grandmaster Flash?”
“That’s me. I’m GMF” Melle Mel replied
To which Mike quickly retorted, tongue firmly in his cheek “Well you don’t look like him – he’s got much bigger muscles!”
On another occasion, Mike was on the door again helping security out for a Gregory Isaacs concert when a man arrived without a ticket or a reservation. Sadly, the night was totally sold out and there was no more room in the club. As Mike was explaining the situation to the punter on the other side of the locked glass door, the man pulled a gun from his pocket and waved it gently at them. Mike exchanged a glance with the security guard and wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene (at a time before any policemen had guns in the UK) announced- “I think that gives him access all areas - open that door!”.
Mike worked on and off at The Venue for six years but was not against pursuing various other interesting opportunities that presented themselves. From 1979 through 1980 Mike became a roadie for the new wave synth wizard Thomas Dolby.
By 1982 Mike was looking for a change and when an opportunity to relocate to New York City came about Mike took it. Soon finding himself working the door of a burlesque club in midtown Manhattan (The Wild Cat Solon) . When he wasn’t manning the velvet rope Mike was out exploring the emerging New York Hip Hop scene. One night at the legendary ‘Danceteria’ nightclub (where Madonna was discovered) he was so entranced by the track that was filling the dance floor that he scaled the stage up to the turntables to ask the DJ what the track was and who it was by? To which the then-unknown DJ, Afrika Bambaataa, confidently replied “That’s my record!! It’s called PLANET ROCK!”…within a few weeks, the track would explode into the mainstream.
US immigration eventually caught up with Mike and he was forced to return to London but his travels were far from over. Meeting up with his friend Rupert Rumney they hatched a plan to follow the England cricket team around India for the 1984/1985 tour on a new type of bicycle, mountain bikes supplied by Overbury Bikes. Mike and Rupert had a minuscule budget and for the most part, stayed in hostels and working men’s boarding houses as they cycled round India but they soon became known to the England Cricket team, the UK newspapers and they were interviewed on BBC Radio’s famous Test Match Special. The highlight of their tour came when the England cricket team asked the boys up to their team room after the pair had cycled 2,000 km (1,200 miles) in 12 days to reach Calcutta. They were given a standing ovation by the players as they were presented with two tickets for the upcoming test match.
Mike and his friend also got to know the correspondents from the Daily Express newspaper who covered their journey around India and the newspaper made a financial donation that covered their airfares. The Daily Express also treated them to meals at some of India’s top hotels whenever they completed a leg of their journey, a welcome relief for two weary travelers more used to ingesting street food and staying in working men’s hostels & dormitories. The boys cycled over 6,800 km (4,200 miles) in 42 days and they then took their mountain bikes up into the Himalayas where they thought they would be the first to people get bicycles up to Everest base camp. Sadly, when they got there it was made clear that two Americans had just pipped them to it, four weeks earlier!
Not long after returning to England, Mike decided to start his nurse training - following in a long line of nurses in his family: his mum, aunt and grandmother. When Mike qualified, he started working at an AIDS hospice, where he met Colin Tyrie (later to be his co-writer on “Hey, Hey, It’s Your Birthday”) and they soon became close friends.
Colin played guitar in a local pub band and Mike thought “How cool was that!” - and a seed was planted that one day he might learn to play guitar. 3 years later, Mike was further inspired by some other nurse musicians he met and finally, at the age of 36 started to learn how to play the guitar. Within a year or two, Mike found that he actually had a knack for writing catchy little pop songs.
In 1991, whilst on holiday in the South of France with Colin, they wrote the melody for the song which would later become “Hey Hey It’s Your Birthday”. Initially a love song, they entered the song into the competition ‘A Song For Europe’ which decided the UK’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, but sadly it was rejected early on.
In the noughties, Colin moved up to Manchester and Mike stayed in London and they both started families and focusing on building their nursing careers with Mike now working in Clinical Governance.
Nearly twenty years later, Mike learnt that Colin had become severely disabled due to a life-limiting illness and in addition, one of his daughters was severely disabled with cerebral palsy. To add to their woes, Colin and his wife had paid £200,000 to a builder to construct a specially adapted home to accommodate their disabilities, only for the builder to “go into liquidation” without hardly starting the build. This has financially devastated Colin and his family, who are currently living in totally unsuitable rented accommodation -while still paying for a mortgage for a home that was never built!
Remembering that he and Colin had written a catchy love song together back in the 90s, Mike thought that if he reworked their tune into a commercial birthday song, there could perhaps be a chance that Colin might get enough money from his song royalties to build the house that he and his family so desperately needed.
Mike decided that he also wanted to give some of the proceeds of the song to the Cavell Nurses’ Trust (a nurses benevolent charity), so that other nurses, like Colin, who fall on hard times might be able to benefit.
So, in 2020, Mike went into the studio with esteemed music producer Andy Whitmore (who has written hits with Eternal & Peter Andre) and recorded the song with singer Andrea Dee on vocals and gave the whole project the name DeeCeeDee.
Following on from the release of “Hey, Hey It’s Your Birthday" in 2021, Mike released his England Football anthem “Waiting for That Day” in the run-up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Mike believes that the key to any musical success he might achieve is by laying very low indeed as he is rather averse to the spotlight, happy to be offstage rather than on it, and allowing the stars to shine whilst he crafts the melodies.