When Love & Rockets played their first show in 15 at the Cruel World Festival in 2023, Rob (D.J. K) and Scott (The Crystal Method) were in the audience and later approached the band with an interesting proposition: remixing their 1989 hit “So Alive.” The band, originally formed in 1985 by former Bauhaus members Daniel Ash, David J, and Kevin Haskins, took it a step further with a six-song EP featuring five remixes of the song by D.J. K and The Crystal Method.
Out August 30 (Beggars Archive), the limited-edition remix EP features remixes of the track by The Crystal Method and D.J. K and is available on a clear picture disc and digitally.
Released on the band’s 1989 self-titled album, “So Alive” went to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Rock Tracks chart for five weeks. Initially written by Ash, “So Alive” was inspired by a moment when Ash was caught by the presence of a woman at a party on the other side of the room.
“I was completely transfixed,” remembered Ash of the song in a 2023 interview. “I never went up to her because it wasn’t appropriate—I was married at the time—but she had long brown hair, and it was like I’d known her in a different lifetime or something. It was just this thing that hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.”
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By that next Monday, the band was about to record one of David J’s songs when Ash interjected with his song, which wasn’t completely written yet. “I had the first line because I didn’t know what color her eyes were—she was on the other side of a dark room—and the first two chords,” remembered Ash. “There are only two chords in that song anyway. I just said, ‘Give me half an hour. I’m going into the basement of the studio.’”
While recording at Blackwing Studios in London, Ash retreated to the cellar with a bottle of whiskey and finished the song in 45 minutes. “It was a very magical day,” he said. “I don’t know where that came from. I wish that would happen more often. But I went up and played it, and just like [Bauhaus’] ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead,’ Kevin started playing the beat and David followed along with the bassline he came up with. We recorded the whole thing that day, got the backing singers in the following day, and it was all done in 24 hours.
Named after the 1982 underground comic by the Hernandez brothers (Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario), Love & Rockets, released seven albums from debut Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven through Lift from 1998.
In 2024, Love & Rockets kicked off their summer tour with the recently reunited Jane’s Addiction. The 23-city tour kicked off on August 9 at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas and will make stops across North America before wrapping up at Evolution Festival in St. Louis, Missouri on September 29.
‘So Alive’ Remix EP Tracklist:
“So Alive (Original Version)”
“So Alive (D.J. K’s Vibrant Nu-Disco Mix)”
“So Alive (The Crystal Method Remix)”
“So Alive (D.J. K’s Vibrant Nu-Disco Single Edit)”
“So Alive (The Crystal Method & Future Funk Squad Dub)”
“So Alive (D.J. K’s Vibrant Nu-Disco Dub Mix)”
Photo: Daniel Ash of Love and Rockets at Lollapalooza in Chicago, Illinois, Day 3, Chicago, Illinois, August 3, 2008, by Ray Garbo/Shutterstock
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