DJ Xero, Operative of SeeDarkly™ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seedarklyxero) wrote2019-09-01 10:00 am
seedarklyxero) wrote2019-09-01 10:00 am
SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies: Triple-X Light Beams
Welcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Looking for something previously featured? Click here.
Sometimes I write these up and for one reason or another I set them aside to feature something else. I had scheduled today's feature for April 22 in 2018, but when that date came up it had become the anniversary of the death of a certain icon and I had an opportunity to write up a tribute because a legitimate source for their music had finally been made available. So this got pushed back... and back... and buried. I unearthed it yesterday while organizing for the month and decided now is as good a time as any for this industrial remake of an 80's synthpop track exploring the cyberspace of life inside the game:
HexRX – Living On Video (Trans-X)
Trans-X, a Canadian synthpop band (whose name is a contraction of the Kraftwerk album titled, Trans Europe Express), released their first album, Living On Video in 1983, though it was called Message On The Radio in their home country. The title track was their second single and their breakout hit. Though far more successful over seas than in the states, it still earned them the status of a "one-hit wonder." The high energy dance track, sung in English, has a solitary French lyric in the chorus, except on select prints of the single where what is attributed as the original version of the song is sung almost entirely in French under the title, Vivre Sur Video. Frontman Pascal Languirand said in a 2007 interview that he "was inspired to compose this song listening to French pop songs musically. Conceptually the idea came from the movie Tron, living inside a video game. I am at ease with new technologies. I studied Flash programming and website design. I believe the Internet will be as much of a change for society than television was in the 50s. It will change everything. We are in the dawn of the information society. It is only beginning."
Trans-X is still active today and their 2014 compilation album, Anthology, includes a modernized version of their seminal hit.
The track has been covered by over a dozen artists, most not well known, and a least one is of the French version (that one covered by Mind Confusion.)
HexRX, a California-based industrial project led by Roger Jarvis of Kevorkian Death Cycle and composed of members from Fractured Transmission, Sleep Clinic and Dead Animal Assembly Plant, released their cover of Living On Video on their E.P., Serial Hex Addict, in 2012. However it actually appeared first a year earlier in May of 2011, when the organizers of the LA-based industrial dance and live music event Das Bunker produced their fifth in a series of compilations, Choice of a New Generation. A representative from Das Bunker has said that this compilation was "just something we did for fun, with friends." Jarvis has said that when asked to contribute he had no idea what to do and the suggestion for the Trans-X cover came from Das Bunker's resident DJ Rev. John.
While Jarvis had no direct inspiration for doing the song, it is interesting that he wrote and recorded My Eyes Are Red for their album that followed, X, which includes samples from Tron, the very movie that inspired Living On Video to begin with.
The now defunct Hex RX (evolved into what Jarvis has named Punish Your God) give this electro/new-wavey classic an aggressive industrial make-over: growly, punchy, and crunchy. If the lasers Trans-X envisioned for their "video game" are precise and focused, HexRx's are far more jagged, bleeding kinetic energy while delivering solid stompy rhythms in an assault of the dancefloor!
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Second Sunday Slowly featuring a downtempo track from a pop artist, often embraced by sects of the goth community for the melancholy nature of her style and sound, with a just-released a cover of a So-Cal alternative hit that itself interpolates lyrics from a classic opera first heard in the mid-thirties! It's a simmering and sexy song to say so long to the summer!
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to reply below, but all replies are screened for spam prevention.
I've got some gigs coming up and possibly more to announce soon! What IS confirmed is a few weeks away and in two vastly separate areas of New England, but if you care to join either, please check my schedule for details!
(And if, after 4 years and 227 weekly entries, you find this blog of any value, please click over to my profile and find out how you can leave us a tip if you like.)
Thanks for reading and keep dancing in darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Aug 25 - Iris – I Wanna Be Adored (The Stone Roses)
Aug 18 - Apoptygma Berzerk – All Tomorrow's Parties (The Velvet Underground & Nico)
Aug 11 - Kidneythieves – Crazy (Patsy Cline)
Aug 04 - In Strict Confidence feat. Melotron – The Sun Always Shines On TV (A-ha)
Jul 28 - Fur – Cruel Summer (Bananarama)
. 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.
Looking for something previously featured? Click here.
Sometimes I write these up and for one reason or another I set them aside to feature something else. I had scheduled today's feature for April 22 in 2018, but when that date came up it had become the anniversary of the death of a certain icon and I had an opportunity to write up a tribute because a legitimate source for their music had finally been made available. So this got pushed back... and back... and buried. I unearthed it yesterday while organizing for the month and decided now is as good a time as any for this industrial remake of an 80's synthpop track exploring the cyberspace of life inside the game:
HexRX – Living On Video (Trans-X)
Trans-X, a Canadian synthpop band (whose name is a contraction of the Kraftwerk album titled, Trans Europe Express), released their first album, Living On Video in 1983, though it was called Message On The Radio in their home country. The title track was their second single and their breakout hit. Though far more successful over seas than in the states, it still earned them the status of a "one-hit wonder." The high energy dance track, sung in English, has a solitary French lyric in the chorus, except on select prints of the single where what is attributed as the original version of the song is sung almost entirely in French under the title, Vivre Sur Video. Frontman Pascal Languirand said in a 2007 interview that he "was inspired to compose this song listening to French pop songs musically. Conceptually the idea came from the movie Tron, living inside a video game. I am at ease with new technologies. I studied Flash programming and website design. I believe the Internet will be as much of a change for society than television was in the 50s. It will change everything. We are in the dawn of the information society. It is only beginning."
Trans-X is still active today and their 2014 compilation album, Anthology, includes a modernized version of their seminal hit.
The track has been covered by over a dozen artists, most not well known, and a least one is of the French version (that one covered by Mind Confusion.)
HexRX, a California-based industrial project led by Roger Jarvis of Kevorkian Death Cycle and composed of members from Fractured Transmission, Sleep Clinic and Dead Animal Assembly Plant, released their cover of Living On Video on their E.P., Serial Hex Addict, in 2012. However it actually appeared first a year earlier in May of 2011, when the organizers of the LA-based industrial dance and live music event Das Bunker produced their fifth in a series of compilations, Choice of a New Generation. A representative from Das Bunker has said that this compilation was "just something we did for fun, with friends." Jarvis has said that when asked to contribute he had no idea what to do and the suggestion for the Trans-X cover came from Das Bunker's resident DJ Rev. John.
While Jarvis had no direct inspiration for doing the song, it is interesting that he wrote and recorded My Eyes Are Red for their album that followed, X, which includes samples from Tron, the very movie that inspired Living On Video to begin with.
The now defunct Hex RX (evolved into what Jarvis has named Punish Your God) give this electro/new-wavey classic an aggressive industrial make-over: growly, punchy, and crunchy. If the lasers Trans-X envisioned for their "video game" are precise and focused, HexRx's are far more jagged, bleeding kinetic energy while delivering solid stompy rhythms in an assault of the dancefloor!
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Second Sunday Slowly featuring a downtempo track from a pop artist, often embraced by sects of the goth community for the melancholy nature of her style and sound, with a just-released a cover of a So-Cal alternative hit that itself interpolates lyrics from a classic opera first heard in the mid-thirties! It's a simmering and sexy song to say so long to the summer!
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to reply below, but all replies are screened for spam prevention.
I've got some gigs coming up and possibly more to announce soon! What IS confirmed is a few weeks away and in two vastly separate areas of New England, but if you care to join either, please check my schedule for details!
(And if, after 4 years and 227 weekly entries, you find this blog of any value, please click over to my profile and find out how you can leave us a tip if you like.)
Thanks for reading and keep dancing in darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Aug 25 - Iris – I Wanna Be Adored (The Stone Roses)
Aug 18 - Apoptygma Berzerk – All Tomorrow's Parties (The Velvet Underground & Nico)
Aug 11 - Kidneythieves – Crazy (Patsy Cline)
Aug 04 - In Strict Confidence feat. Melotron – The Sun Always Shines On TV (A-ha)
Jul 28 - Fur – Cruel Summer (Bananarama)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .