Barnard's Express

Barnard's Express, later known as the British Columbia Express Company or BX, was a pioneer transportation company that served the Cariboo and Fraser Fort George regions in British Columbia, Canada from 1861 until 1921.

The company's beginnings date back to the peak of the Cariboo Gold Rush when hordes of adventurers were descending on the Cariboo region. There was a great demand for transportation of passengers to and from the goldfields, as well as the delivery of mining equipment, food supplies and mail between Victoria and Barkerville.

The stage years

The first express service offered on the Cariboo Road was operated by William Ballou in 1858. Others soon followed, usually one or two man operations where the proprietor himself packed the express goods, either on his back or with the help of a trusty mule.

In December, 1861, Francis Jones Barnard established a pony express from Yale to Barkerville. The company had originally been owned by William Jeffray and W.H. Thain and had been known as the Jeffray and Company's Fraser Express. In the summer of 1862, Barnard merged his company into the British Columbia and Victoria Express Company and won the government contract to deliver the mail.

S'Express

S'Express (pronounced ess-express; sometimes spelled S'Xpress or S-Express; otherwise known as Victim of the Ghetto) were a British dance music act from the late 1980s, who had one of the earliest commercial successes in the acid house genre.

"Theme from S'Express", based on Rose Royce's "Is It Love You're After", was also one of the earliest recordings to capitalize on a resurgence of sampling culture and went to number one in the United Kingdom as well as the Hot Dance Club Play chart in the United States (also scraping into the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at #91).

Biography

The main player in the act was DJ/producer and remixer Mark Moore. In 1989, the group released its debut album, Original Soundtrack, which featured a line-up of Mark M (Moore, noise engineer), Michellé (microdot clarinet and vox), Mark D (trumpet, noise, boogie factor), Jocasta (hi-hat hairspray, background vox), and Pascal (Pascal Gabriel, noise engineer). The album consisted of slightly longer versions of S-Express's "Theme" and its follow-up hits "Superfly Guy" (UK #5) and a cover version of Sly and the Family Stone's "Hey Music Lover" (UK #6; its b-side was remixed by minimalist composer Philip Glass), along with an album's worth of new compositions. Singer Billie Ray Martin also appeared on several tracks on its debut.