I Am, I Feel

I Am, I Feel (master edit) 4.25

Director: Dave Stewart
Producers: Louise Matthews & Steve Adams
Production Company: MAS Productions
Date: 7 June 1996

The first single to be taken from the girls' debut album "Alisha Rules The World", the video was filmed at the Church Studios in Crouch End, London.

The girls say of producer Dave Stewart:

"He's a wild and wonderful person. When we were looking for a producer for the album, he happened to be in the office, because he was working on something else for Mercury, and the label asked us if we'd like to meet him - we were like, no way, he's too famous. We literally went to meet him just to keep everyone happy, and as soon as we saw him we knew it was going to be so perfect."

"The stories he's got, that man is just the most interesting man to talk to."

"We went to Covent Garden where he's got this million-pound pad," Karen grins.

"Me and Shel had never met anyone famous before. The walls were all pink glitter and he was standing at the end of the hall with this weird hairdo, like a mad professor. We connected like we'd known him for ages. He's mad, but in a cool way.

"We had four weeks to do it in - the record, photos, videos, everything.

"We built a council bedsit inside the Church, and did everything inside it, including our vocals, photos and the video," says Karen.

"We even slept in it a couple of nights.

"It was great cos we could just get pissed there and leave our curry and fag ends lying around. I think I even threw up there a couple of times! We'd just wake up with hangovers, roll out of bed and walk over to do the vocals."

Photos and video snaps seen here on this page show just how realistic a set they built!

The video shows Karen and Shellie stumbling around their dirty, dishevelled flat whilst "Prince Charming" (aka the Big Bad Wolf) sleeps on through the mess.

However help is at hand, one shake of the magic wand (or to be accurate, three clicks of Shellie's sparkly heels) and armies of little mice clean up in the twinkle of an eye!

Cinderella (or Harry Potter!) couldn't have done better!

In real life however Karen and Shellie are nowhere near as messy as they are portrayed in the video. The sisters, who at the time shared a central London flat, were at pains to keep it as tidy as they could, despite a frantic travel and promotional schedule for the album.

Four singles were released from the "Alisha Rules The World" album and a promotional video was produced for each one. Unfortunately, none of these videos are available to buy commercially.

Maybe at some time in the future Mercury Records might consider issuing a compilation, but since they have parted company with the girls I'm not holding my breath. If they were ever going to do it, they would have done it at the same time as they issued "The Collection" on CD.

From a collector's point of view, all the Aa videos are unique for one reason - they all come in a full colour picture sleeve which matches the picture covers of the singles.

I can think of no other band who has had this done for ALL their promotional videos - some have had picture covers for the occasional video, but not every one. These videos make great collectibles.