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seedarklyxeroWelcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
It's entirely natural for many of us to question reality these days when what seemed so unlikely to ever happen in the U.S. election actually did. The middle ground "between light and shadow, between science and superstition," has never appeared more unstable. Between "the pit of our fears and the summit of our knowledge," we still allowed the unthinkable to occur. Is it possible that we've just crossed over into an alternate dimension previously beyond imagination? This week, our Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th century focuses on a stomp-worthy cover of a theme song that could inform us where we're headed, if we've not already arrived:
Rusty Egan – The Twilight Zone (Marius Constant)
The Twilight Zone, a science fiction/fantasy/horror anthology series dealing with disturbing questions of "what if," debuted in 1959 and ran for five seasons on CBS. It was revived as a series in the mid-eighties following the 1983 film adaptation and for a short run from 2002 to 2003. Its iconic and well known theme, however, didn't actually air until its second season in 1960. Lud Gluskin, CBS's network music director, had commissioned a French avant-garde composer, Marius Constant, to create a number of short interstitial musical pieces for their stock library to use on various radio and television programming. The unsettling and dissonant quality of Constant's compositions rendered them largely inappropriate for conventional television so they went largely unused. However before The Twilight Zone's second season Gluskin spliced together the Constant's pieces titled Etrange 3 (Strange No. 3) and Milieu 2 (Middle No. 2) for what would from then on be recognized as the show's theme. Having fulfilled his contract and sold all rights to the work to CBS, the show did not even credit Constant and he was unaware for some time that his work even became so well known.
In the late seventies, Peter Anselm "Rusty" Egan was the drummer of a new wave band called "The Rich Kids," founded by Glenn Matlock, former bassist of the Sex Pistols, and fronted by Midge Ure. Egan went on to work with Midge Ure (in his solo effort), The Misfits, Visage, and others. Egan went on to be one of the most influential DJs of the eighties in London and opened the Camden Palace nightclub with Steve Strange of Visage in 1982. In 1983, Egan recorded his electronica dance cover of The Twilight Zone theme and an original track called The Other Side for the single's b-side. Egan has said that he was unhappy with a change in the theme melody that the then-chairman of the Warner Brothers label insisted he include. It is unclear if for that or some other reason Egan never put out a full album at the time, but his later production discography would indicate that he never worked with the label again. He also did not release any original material again until 2010. In addition to his regular podcast radio program, Egan is currently working on his full length 14-track album debut due out in the near future, which will feature Peter Hook of New Order and Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet.
In 2012, Trevor Jackson of the British dance project, Playgroup, released an edit of Rusty Egan's Twilight Zone, which Egan was pleased to hear it removed the portions he disliked.
(I'm including this edit below the cover version, in part for those international readers for whom the embedded youtube players will not work in their countries. I don't have a non-youtube embed-able source for the original.)
Egan's cover is basic in its reconstruction as a danceable callback to the theme of the pop-culture institution that still airs in syndication and on SciFi Channel's bi-annual marathons, yet satisfying in that simplicity.
The Cover:
The Edit:
The Original:
Next week:
There is a recently released cover of a familiar futurepop club favorite and it's past due its feature here.
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! (You do not need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened to prevent spam.)
I spin next on Black Friday. For details on that and other upcoming events on my schedule, click on over to my website. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Nov 13 - Cindergarden - Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen)
Nov 06 - Simi Nah - You Spin Me Round [Like A Record] (Dead or Alive)
Oct 30 - Autopsie D'Une Ombre - Little 15 (Depeche Mode)
Oct 23 - Marilyn Manson - This Is Halloween (Danny Elfman/The Citizens of Halloween Town)
Oct 16 - Lydia Lunch - Spooky (Mike Sharpe)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
It's entirely natural for many of us to question reality these days when what seemed so unlikely to ever happen in the U.S. election actually did. The middle ground "between light and shadow, between science and superstition," has never appeared more unstable. Between "the pit of our fears and the summit of our knowledge," we still allowed the unthinkable to occur. Is it possible that we've just crossed over into an alternate dimension previously beyond imagination? This week, our Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th century focuses on a stomp-worthy cover of a theme song that could inform us where we're headed, if we've not already arrived:
Rusty Egan – The Twilight Zone (Marius Constant)
The Twilight Zone, a science fiction/fantasy/horror anthology series dealing with disturbing questions of "what if," debuted in 1959 and ran for five seasons on CBS. It was revived as a series in the mid-eighties following the 1983 film adaptation and for a short run from 2002 to 2003. Its iconic and well known theme, however, didn't actually air until its second season in 1960. Lud Gluskin, CBS's network music director, had commissioned a French avant-garde composer, Marius Constant, to create a number of short interstitial musical pieces for their stock library to use on various radio and television programming. The unsettling and dissonant quality of Constant's compositions rendered them largely inappropriate for conventional television so they went largely unused. However before The Twilight Zone's second season Gluskin spliced together the Constant's pieces titled Etrange 3 (Strange No. 3) and Milieu 2 (Middle No. 2) for what would from then on be recognized as the show's theme. Having fulfilled his contract and sold all rights to the work to CBS, the show did not even credit Constant and he was unaware for some time that his work even became so well known.
In the late seventies, Peter Anselm "Rusty" Egan was the drummer of a new wave band called "The Rich Kids," founded by Glenn Matlock, former bassist of the Sex Pistols, and fronted by Midge Ure. Egan went on to work with Midge Ure (in his solo effort), The Misfits, Visage, and others. Egan went on to be one of the most influential DJs of the eighties in London and opened the Camden Palace nightclub with Steve Strange of Visage in 1982. In 1983, Egan recorded his electronica dance cover of The Twilight Zone theme and an original track called The Other Side for the single's b-side. Egan has said that he was unhappy with a change in the theme melody that the then-chairman of the Warner Brothers label insisted he include. It is unclear if for that or some other reason Egan never put out a full album at the time, but his later production discography would indicate that he never worked with the label again. He also did not release any original material again until 2010. In addition to his regular podcast radio program, Egan is currently working on his full length 14-track album debut due out in the near future, which will feature Peter Hook of New Order and Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet.
In 2012, Trevor Jackson of the British dance project, Playgroup, released an edit of Rusty Egan's Twilight Zone, which Egan was pleased to hear it removed the portions he disliked.
(I'm including this edit below the cover version, in part for those international readers for whom the embedded youtube players will not work in their countries. I don't have a non-youtube embed-able source for the original.)
Egan's cover is basic in its reconstruction as a danceable callback to the theme of the pop-culture institution that still airs in syndication and on SciFi Channel's bi-annual marathons, yet satisfying in that simplicity.
The Cover:
The Edit:
The Original:
Next week:
There is a recently released cover of a familiar futurepop club favorite and it's past due its feature here.
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! (You do not need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened to prevent spam.)
I spin next on Black Friday. For details on that and other upcoming events on my schedule, click on over to my website. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Nov 13 - Cindergarden - Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen)
Nov 06 - Simi Nah - You Spin Me Round [Like A Record] (Dead or Alive)
Oct 30 - Autopsie D'Une Ombre - Little 15 (Depeche Mode)
Oct 23 - Marilyn Manson - This Is Halloween (Danny Elfman/The Citizens of Halloween Town)
Oct 16 - Lydia Lunch - Spooky (Mike Sharpe)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies