Looking Back: BCR X VCR Simon Viklund Rewrites, Reforms, Perfects An 80’s 8-bit Gospel

Sumthing Else writes:

Richard Hell, co-founder of seminal New York punk-rock band Television, was recently asked about his long-fractured relationship with song-writing partner Tom Verlaine, and if the two men still had any contact with each other. Hell replied: “What level of connection there is, is just some kind of inevitable consequence of the friendship that we once had.” Hell continued: “But yes, sure there’s a connection in the sense that we spent so much time together and did so many things together in a period that was really crucial to me. He is just necessarily built into who I am.” That last line really struck me, as it perfectly articulates the full-measure of two people going beyond mere symbiosis: it gives credence and proof to the abstract idea in which two individuals are created to complement each other. No matter what happens, Hell concedes, in some small or large part, Verlaine is a part of him. It’s how I thought best to describe the marriage that Simon Viklund and the 8-bit music of Bionic Commando have shared for the better part of twenty-five years. A partnership was formed quite unexpectedly from some now-antiquated 13” tube television languishing in a corner in Viklund’s now defunct, childhood bedroom.