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| Point A. |
I had an unbalanced loathing of most things with synthesizers growing up. But I made a quiet exception for this song - almost certainly because I liked it, but felt like I shouldn't. Related, a very young me found Gary Numan fascinating for reasons I had neither the experience nor vocabulary to express.
The Hit
I can think of no better way to start this than with this quote from a solid, very current (2021) interview in SongwriterUniverse.com:
“I did have a piano by then, but it’s difficult if you’re not a good keyboard player, to come up with good synth/bass lines on an upright piano. So I bought a Shergold Modulator bass guitar from the West End in London, and brought it home. I opened up the case, pulled out the guitar, and the first four notes that I played was, “Do-do-do-do,” (he sings the bass hook of “Cars”). And I thought…That sounds pretty good, I’ll keep that. And then I did something else—the next four notes became [the other hook]. It was really simple, like a child’s song. It took me 5 to 10 minutes to get the three parts of the song worked out, and figure out a structure. Then it took me another 20 minutes to do the lyric.”
I love that it was that simple. Moreover, it makes a lot of sense after you read just a little about Numan. That fuzzy, modulated bass/rhythm riff he stumbled on dominates the song in such a way that I can’t imagine anyone associating any other sound with it, but it's that mixed with lose long treble synthesizer bleeds (for they way they, for lack of a better word, descend) that made Numan’s signature sound. At least at his frenzied peak. And frenzied it was…
The Rest of the Story
“You know, his album Replicas never left my turntable in junior high school. There are people still trying to work out what a genius he was.”
- Prince. Wait for it…
Born Gary Anthony James Webb, somewhere in London in 1958, the man who later transformed into Gary Numan grew up (mostly) as an only child (there was the late addition of a cousin) in a stable, supportive family. His parents hardly had money to burn - his father moved luggage for British Airways - but they indulged his interests often enough that he didn’t seem to want for anything. While he gravitated to the same interests most boys do - e.g., Numan told GQ in a 2020 interview that he wanted to be a pilot until he found out that only 1 in 1,000 make the cut - he became obsessed with music at a fairly young age and set his sights on the opportunity-rich career path of paid musician. Possibly related, Webb was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at age 14. Never mind. It’s related.
By the time he was old enough, he would scour the want ads in Melody Maker (that’s according to Wikipedia; he said Music Melody to GQ) for bands to join. After a couple swings (he started with Mean Streets, and had a failed audition with The Jam), he auditioned as a back-up guitarist for a punk band called The Lasers. It didn’t take him long to notice that his bandmates played only covers - he clocked the time as halfway through the first rehearsal - and, when he asked why, they told him that none of them knew how to write a song. Webb, who started writing songs (“terrible copies of what T Rex and Marc Bolan were doing”) around the same time his pops bought him his first Gibson Les Paul (about age 14, 15) answered with a brisk, “Well, I do. I’ve got loads.” He went from back-up guitarist to front man and sole songwriter in one afternoon. And this will be the last time this comes up:
“I’ve got Asperger’s, so I’m not always overly sensitive to how other people might be thinking or feeling. You become obsessed and by that point I was like a bulldozer. You’re so blinkered to other people’s feelings that you just plough through them, unfortunately.”
The key person Webb met through The Lasers was bassist Paul Gardiner, who he continued to play with when the rest of the band melted away. Those two eventually formed a new band they named Tubeway Army, a unit they rounded out by drafting Webb’s uncle, Jess Lidyard, on drums. The band played punk at that time, joining a rush of artists stuffed under that umbrella whether by their sound or for no better reason than someone put them there. They landed a label, Beggars Banquet, and released some singles - “That’s Too Bad” b/w “Oh! Didn’t I Say” and “Bombers” b/w “Blue Eyes” - but none of it broke through. It’s possible, even likely, that Webb didn’t mind. He developed a quick loathing for the near-riots that popped up at pub-venues and, as Numan told Signed Media in a 2009 interview (that one’s video, about an hour, but also pretty good), for all the value he saw in the punk movement (independent labels, mostly), he saw its end coming; ambitious as he was, punk “died” for him by 1977.
Tubeway Army got a little more elaborate from there. Webb was deep into J. G. Ballard and Phillip K. Dick at the time and started incorporating borrowed themes into his songwriting; the band members adopted stage names - Webb became “Valerian,” while Lidyard became “Rael” and Gardiner “Scarlett.” Two pivotal moments happened in short succession from there: Webb spotted a plumber named Arthur Neumann in the phone book and changed his stage-name to Gary Numan. The bigger moment came when Numan spotted a mini-moog tucked away in the corner of the studio that had given Tubeway Army three days to record. While all sources agree this moment changed Numan’s life and gave him the springboard that let him pivot from punk, he gave his most dramatic retelling to SongwriterUniverse. First, he convinced everyone in the band - which, for the record, was very much his band by then - to re-work everything into “rushed together electronic versions” of the demos they came in with, and then presented those new demos to Beggars Banquet. They resisted, and to the point of saying “no” outright, but Numan wasn’t having it. From his recollected side of a conversation with his label that nearly came to blows:
“This is coming. These machines are amazing and will revolutionize music and the way it sounds. And we have a chance to be right at the front of it. If you won’t release this album…if you insist that I go back and re-record the punk album, you are tying me to something that’s dying, and not letting me be at the front end of something that’s coming. I would never fuckin’ forgive you.”
Numan got his way, but only so far. Tubeway Army’s 1978 full album debut sold out its limited printing in short order - lead by the single “Down in the Park,” a frigid number that didn’t sell many units at the time, but that later became his most-covered song - and that delivered a shot at a second album. Numan wanted to perform under his own name at this point, but Beggars Banquet had a name to market by then and pushed back, so he stuck with it. There’s no way of telling what would have happened had Gary Numan released 1979’s Replicas under his own name, but the Tubeway Army’s second album became a UK No. 1 album within two months - May to June; the timeline matters here - on the back of the single “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?,” a UK No. 1 single (that list one links to an unbroadcasted live performance).
Somewhere in June, Gary Numan got an invite to one of John Peel’s famous sessions and, he either debuted four entirely new songs as Gary Numan (Wikipedia), or Peel credited him as Gary Numan during the broadcast (GQ), but he seized the chance either way and performed as Gary Numan from then on.
The Hit
I can think of no better way to start this than with this quote from a solid, very current (2021) interview in SongwriterUniverse.com:
“I did have a piano by then, but it’s difficult if you’re not a good keyboard player, to come up with good synth/bass lines on an upright piano. So I bought a Shergold Modulator bass guitar from the West End in London, and brought it home. I opened up the case, pulled out the guitar, and the first four notes that I played was, “Do-do-do-do,” (he sings the bass hook of “Cars”). And I thought…That sounds pretty good, I’ll keep that. And then I did something else—the next four notes became [the other hook]. It was really simple, like a child’s song. It took me 5 to 10 minutes to get the three parts of the song worked out, and figure out a structure. Then it took me another 20 minutes to do the lyric.”
I love that it was that simple. Moreover, it makes a lot of sense after you read just a little about Numan. That fuzzy, modulated bass/rhythm riff he stumbled on dominates the song in such a way that I can’t imagine anyone associating any other sound with it, but it's that mixed with lose long treble synthesizer bleeds (for they way they, for lack of a better word, descend) that made Numan’s signature sound. At least at his frenzied peak. And frenzied it was…
The Rest of the Story
“You know, his album Replicas never left my turntable in junior high school. There are people still trying to work out what a genius he was.”
- Prince. Wait for it…
Born Gary Anthony James Webb, somewhere in London in 1958, the man who later transformed into Gary Numan grew up (mostly) as an only child (there was the late addition of a cousin) in a stable, supportive family. His parents hardly had money to burn - his father moved luggage for British Airways - but they indulged his interests often enough that he didn’t seem to want for anything. While he gravitated to the same interests most boys do - e.g., Numan told GQ in a 2020 interview that he wanted to be a pilot until he found out that only 1 in 1,000 make the cut - he became obsessed with music at a fairly young age and set his sights on the opportunity-rich career path of paid musician. Possibly related, Webb was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at age 14. Never mind. It’s related.
By the time he was old enough, he would scour the want ads in Melody Maker (that’s according to Wikipedia; he said Music Melody to GQ) for bands to join. After a couple swings (he started with Mean Streets, and had a failed audition with The Jam), he auditioned as a back-up guitarist for a punk band called The Lasers. It didn’t take him long to notice that his bandmates played only covers - he clocked the time as halfway through the first rehearsal - and, when he asked why, they told him that none of them knew how to write a song. Webb, who started writing songs (“terrible copies of what T Rex and Marc Bolan were doing”) around the same time his pops bought him his first Gibson Les Paul (about age 14, 15) answered with a brisk, “Well, I do. I’ve got loads.” He went from back-up guitarist to front man and sole songwriter in one afternoon. And this will be the last time this comes up:
“I’ve got Asperger’s, so I’m not always overly sensitive to how other people might be thinking or feeling. You become obsessed and by that point I was like a bulldozer. You’re so blinkered to other people’s feelings that you just plough through them, unfortunately.”
The key person Webb met through The Lasers was bassist Paul Gardiner, who he continued to play with when the rest of the band melted away. Those two eventually formed a new band they named Tubeway Army, a unit they rounded out by drafting Webb’s uncle, Jess Lidyard, on drums. The band played punk at that time, joining a rush of artists stuffed under that umbrella whether by their sound or for no better reason than someone put them there. They landed a label, Beggars Banquet, and released some singles - “That’s Too Bad” b/w “Oh! Didn’t I Say” and “Bombers” b/w “Blue Eyes” - but none of it broke through. It’s possible, even likely, that Webb didn’t mind. He developed a quick loathing for the near-riots that popped up at pub-venues and, as Numan told Signed Media in a 2009 interview (that one’s video, about an hour, but also pretty good), for all the value he saw in the punk movement (independent labels, mostly), he saw its end coming; ambitious as he was, punk “died” for him by 1977.
Tubeway Army got a little more elaborate from there. Webb was deep into J. G. Ballard and Phillip K. Dick at the time and started incorporating borrowed themes into his songwriting; the band members adopted stage names - Webb became “Valerian,” while Lidyard became “Rael” and Gardiner “Scarlett.” Two pivotal moments happened in short succession from there: Webb spotted a plumber named Arthur Neumann in the phone book and changed his stage-name to Gary Numan. The bigger moment came when Numan spotted a mini-moog tucked away in the corner of the studio that had given Tubeway Army three days to record. While all sources agree this moment changed Numan’s life and gave him the springboard that let him pivot from punk, he gave his most dramatic retelling to SongwriterUniverse. First, he convinced everyone in the band - which, for the record, was very much his band by then - to re-work everything into “rushed together electronic versions” of the demos they came in with, and then presented those new demos to Beggars Banquet. They resisted, and to the point of saying “no” outright, but Numan wasn’t having it. From his recollected side of a conversation with his label that nearly came to blows:
“This is coming. These machines are amazing and will revolutionize music and the way it sounds. And we have a chance to be right at the front of it. If you won’t release this album…if you insist that I go back and re-record the punk album, you are tying me to something that’s dying, and not letting me be at the front end of something that’s coming. I would never fuckin’ forgive you.”
Numan got his way, but only so far. Tubeway Army’s 1978 full album debut sold out its limited printing in short order - lead by the single “Down in the Park,” a frigid number that didn’t sell many units at the time, but that later became his most-covered song - and that delivered a shot at a second album. Numan wanted to perform under his own name at this point, but Beggars Banquet had a name to market by then and pushed back, so he stuck with it. There’s no way of telling what would have happened had Gary Numan released 1979’s Replicas under his own name, but the Tubeway Army’s second album became a UK No. 1 album within two months - May to June; the timeline matters here - on the back of the single “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?,” a UK No. 1 single (that list one links to an unbroadcasted live performance).
Somewhere in June, Gary Numan got an invite to one of John Peel’s famous sessions and, he either debuted four entirely new songs as Gary Numan (Wikipedia), or Peel credited him as Gary Numan during the broadcast (GQ), but he seized the chance either way and performed as Gary Numan from then on.
 |
| What? I stumbled into it. |
To pick up the descriptor “frenzied” up above, Numan released his solo debut, The Pleasure Principle, September 1979 with “Cars” to sell it. And it did sell, landing him his second UK No. 1 in 1979, plus another No. 1 in Canada and a climb to No. 9 on the U.S. charts. He followed it up with a sold-out 1980 tour - The…Touring Principle (ampersands are mine) - and took it around the world. And it’s kind of the same for a while from here - e.g., he released Telekon in 1980, which added a No. 5 (“We Are Glass”) and a No. 6 (“I Die: You Die”), plus another top 20 single (“This Wreckage”); he promoted that with an even more elaborate, equally successful tour (The Teletour), and told the world he’d retire after that one. And head-faked with a bang (yes, he returned to touring):
“He announced his retirement from touring with a series of sell-out concerts at Wembley Arena in April 1981, supported by experimental musician Nash the Slash and Shock, a rock/mime/burlesque troupe whose members included Barbie Wilde, Tik and Tok, and Carole Caplin.”
Now just a studio band, Numan kept churning them out, first with 1981’s Dance (“She’s Got Claws” was the single...and you can hear something coming here), then 1982’s I, Assassin (led with the Top 10 single, “We Take Mystery (to Bed)." The returns declined - though, for the record, even I, Assassin went to No. 8 and stayed on the album charts for six weeks - but Numan started to feel less and less relevant as the 1980s hit middle age. New bands started working the electronic market - e.g., the Human League, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, and, a band that used to open for Gary Numan, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark - and his sales dropped off till he, more or less, gave up for a while.
This one actually has a happy ending. With the support of a fan/friend named Gemma, who later became his wife (and the story of the courtship as cute as the Dickens; see GQ), Numan got back to releasing material, with his first post-peak breakout coming with 1992s Sacrifice (no access to that one). He’s still going - and I mean going: his 2013 release, Splinter (Songs for a Broken Mind) and 2017’s Savage (Songs from a Broken World), gave him his biggest successes in two decades. The latter actually deals in the same themes as his 2021 released, Intruder: both speak to his alarm over climate change, with the latter attempting to come at it from the Earth’s perspective:
“If Earth could speak, and feel things the way we do, what would it say? How would it feel? The songs, for the most part, attempt to be that voice, or at least try to express what I believe the earth must feel at the moment. The planet sees us as its children now grown into callous selfishness, with a total disregard for its well-being. It feels betrayed, hurt and ravaged. Disillusioned and heartbroken, it is now fighting back.”
It should go without saying that I left all kinds of things on the cutting room floor - e.g., why he adopted his “android persona” (stage anxiety…but probably also Asperger’s), his ear-based approach to songwriting (i.e., he programs better than he plays), how much Ultravox impressed and helped him along (he was a real student; the Signed Media interview is best on this), and that one time where he tried to watch a Queen concert at the Budokan, but Japanese audiences knew him to well for him to sit in the crowd, so Freddie Mercury rescued him and took him out to a fancy dinner and, when Mercury noticed he wasn’t eating, he sent someone to buy Numan McDonalds. That last bit gets to his answer when GQ asked him about the kinds of things he put on his rider:
“I didn’t drink or do drugs. All I really liked was hamburgers, so as long as there were some chips at the end of a gig I was all right.”
Gary Numan is pretty unique for a pop star. Obsessive, because he had to be, but also pretty down-to-earth.
About the Sampler
The sampler came from several different places - e.g., the Tubeway Army singles (released as an album in 1984 as The Plan), Replicas, Numan’s first four albums (e.g., Pleasure Principle, Telekon, Dance, and I, Assassin), but also a couple from Intruder (“The Gift” and “Intruder”) - but, at 25 songs and with only just over a week to dig into it, I both missed and left out, again, a lot. My advice: if you like anything from an given era of Gary Numan's stuff, bounce around the albums. You'll find some more.
As I always say when reviewing any synth-heavy act, I went in expecting to, at best, tolerate most of what I heard. That was kinda dumb, in retrospect, given that I’d heard and rather liked Replicas on the first pass - and repped it in the sampler with some favorites, e.g., “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?,” “It Must Have Been Years,” “You Are in My Vision,” and, personal favorite, “The Machman” - and, of course, what worked for me in “Cars” worked just as well across most of The Pleasure Principle. For that one, I added “Metal,” "Films,” another favorite, “ME” (periods throw hyperlinks) (“Observer” just came off today), as well as the one big U.S. hit. Though, again, Numan doesn’t remotely count as a one-hit wonder.
To finally loop back to the top, more artists name-drop Gary Numan than you might think. Prince was an admirer, obviously, but other admirers include Dave Grohl, Marilyn Manson, Damon Albarn, the members of Nine Inch Nails, and all of David Bowie, Kanye West and Lady Gaga spoke well of him. Other (slicker, which, here, means less dedicated to the bit) acts eclipsed him, but Gary Numan deserves plenty of credit for pioneering the electronic sound, if in a poppier vein than, say, Kraftwerk (who Numan cites, while acknowledging he was after something different). Now, for the rest…
I already linked to a couple songs from Telekon up above, but I also added the title track; the same goes for Dance, with the addition of “Night Talk.” I went a little heavy with I, Assassin, mostly because two songs on that one - “Music for Chameleons” and “White Boys and Heroes” - got a second life on the American club scene (both asremixes), and I added “War Games” for reasons I can’t explain. I wound up adding a couple from Numan’s fifth solo album, 1983’s Warriors - “I Am Render” and “The Iceman Comes” - because that one sounds, 1) different than the rest (horns, more melodic), and 2) like a solid spin on the post-austere synth sound.
That’s everything. And I mean just about everything. I have just one more act to go before wrapping up the 1970s, and it’s a big ol’ left off this one. Happily, it takes me back to somewhere I’ve already gone and I like it. Till then…
“He announced his retirement from touring with a series of sell-out concerts at Wembley Arena in April 1981, supported by experimental musician Nash the Slash and Shock, a rock/mime/burlesque troupe whose members included Barbie Wilde, Tik and Tok, and Carole Caplin.”
Now just a studio band, Numan kept churning them out, first with 1981’s Dance (“She’s Got Claws” was the single...and you can hear something coming here), then 1982’s I, Assassin (led with the Top 10 single, “We Take Mystery (to Bed)." The returns declined - though, for the record, even I, Assassin went to No. 8 and stayed on the album charts for six weeks - but Numan started to feel less and less relevant as the 1980s hit middle age. New bands started working the electronic market - e.g., the Human League, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, and, a band that used to open for Gary Numan, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark - and his sales dropped off till he, more or less, gave up for a while.
This one actually has a happy ending. With the support of a fan/friend named Gemma, who later became his wife (and the story of the courtship as cute as the Dickens; see GQ), Numan got back to releasing material, with his first post-peak breakout coming with 1992s Sacrifice (no access to that one). He’s still going - and I mean going: his 2013 release, Splinter (Songs for a Broken Mind) and 2017’s Savage (Songs from a Broken World), gave him his biggest successes in two decades. The latter actually deals in the same themes as his 2021 released, Intruder: both speak to his alarm over climate change, with the latter attempting to come at it from the Earth’s perspective:
“If Earth could speak, and feel things the way we do, what would it say? How would it feel? The songs, for the most part, attempt to be that voice, or at least try to express what I believe the earth must feel at the moment. The planet sees us as its children now grown into callous selfishness, with a total disregard for its well-being. It feels betrayed, hurt and ravaged. Disillusioned and heartbroken, it is now fighting back.”
It should go without saying that I left all kinds of things on the cutting room floor - e.g., why he adopted his “android persona” (stage anxiety…but probably also Asperger’s), his ear-based approach to songwriting (i.e., he programs better than he plays), how much Ultravox impressed and helped him along (he was a real student; the Signed Media interview is best on this), and that one time where he tried to watch a Queen concert at the Budokan, but Japanese audiences knew him to well for him to sit in the crowd, so Freddie Mercury rescued him and took him out to a fancy dinner and, when Mercury noticed he wasn’t eating, he sent someone to buy Numan McDonalds. That last bit gets to his answer when GQ asked him about the kinds of things he put on his rider:
“I didn’t drink or do drugs. All I really liked was hamburgers, so as long as there were some chips at the end of a gig I was all right.”
Gary Numan is pretty unique for a pop star. Obsessive, because he had to be, but also pretty down-to-earth.
About the Sampler
The sampler came from several different places - e.g., the Tubeway Army singles (released as an album in 1984 as The Plan), Replicas, Numan’s first four albums (e.g., Pleasure Principle, Telekon, Dance, and I, Assassin), but also a couple from Intruder (“The Gift” and “Intruder”) - but, at 25 songs and with only just over a week to dig into it, I both missed and left out, again, a lot. My advice: if you like anything from an given era of Gary Numan's stuff, bounce around the albums. You'll find some more.
As I always say when reviewing any synth-heavy act, I went in expecting to, at best, tolerate most of what I heard. That was kinda dumb, in retrospect, given that I’d heard and rather liked Replicas on the first pass - and repped it in the sampler with some favorites, e.g., “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?,” “It Must Have Been Years,” “You Are in My Vision,” and, personal favorite, “The Machman” - and, of course, what worked for me in “Cars” worked just as well across most of The Pleasure Principle. For that one, I added “Metal,” "Films,” another favorite, “ME” (periods throw hyperlinks) (“Observer” just came off today), as well as the one big U.S. hit. Though, again, Numan doesn’t remotely count as a one-hit wonder.
To finally loop back to the top, more artists name-drop Gary Numan than you might think. Prince was an admirer, obviously, but other admirers include Dave Grohl, Marilyn Manson, Damon Albarn, the members of Nine Inch Nails, and all of David Bowie, Kanye West and Lady Gaga spoke well of him. Other (slicker, which, here, means less dedicated to the bit) acts eclipsed him, but Gary Numan deserves plenty of credit for pioneering the electronic sound, if in a poppier vein than, say, Kraftwerk (who Numan cites, while acknowledging he was after something different). Now, for the rest…
I already linked to a couple songs from Telekon up above, but I also added the title track; the same goes for Dance, with the addition of “Night Talk.” I went a little heavy with I, Assassin, mostly because two songs on that one - “Music for Chameleons” and “White Boys and Heroes” - got a second life on the American club scene (both asremixes), and I added “War Games” for reasons I can’t explain. I wound up adding a couple from Numan’s fifth solo album, 1983’s Warriors - “I Am Render” and “The Iceman Comes” - because that one sounds, 1) different than the rest (horns, more melodic), and 2) like a solid spin on the post-austere synth sound.
That’s everything. And I mean just about everything. I have just one more act to go before wrapping up the 1970s, and it’s a big ol’ left off this one. Happily, it takes me back to somewhere I’ve already gone and I like it. Till then…
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