Gary Numan Digest Thu, 25 Apr 96 Volume 1 : Issue 221 Today's Topics: Gary Numan Digest V1 #220 Introduction My new member info Numan on VH-1 Ten of the Best Oh Joey. (2 msgs) Record Collector Interview Techno Army Techno Army CD The Witchman Remixes Trip To UK Value of those 2 for 1 CDs ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Jan 28 00:00:34 GMT From: dhughes@tbass.demon.co.uk (David J. Hughes) Subject: Gary Numan Digest V1 #220 To: numan@cs.uwp.edu (Gary Numan) Dear Derek, Sorry to be a nuisance but could you please post this forward for Troy Walters. His service provider continues to bounce my replies to his e-mails. Dear Troy, I would heartily recommend changing my service provider again. Your messages from tlwalter@accs.net continue to get bounced even though the address looks valid etc. Find a large, blunt object and go have a quiet word with their sysop... In response to your enquiry, we don't as yet have a dedicated US distributor although Progron and Eurock have both taken copies. Eurock have sold out once already and I gather are about to order more. Details are as follows: Progtron 19293, Via Crecente Court Saratoga California 95070 Eurock P.O.Box 13718, Portland, Oregon. 97213 End of message Again, many thanks, Derek. Here was me thinking the internet would solve all of these niggling little problems. Best Wishes to all David J. Hughes Tranquility Bass ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 13:58:13 +0000 From: Phil Marsh Subject: Introduction To: numan@cs.uwp.edu Hello all. I've just joined and had the last 2 Digests and accessed a few of the archive Digests and can only say I wish I'd found this list earlier! As requested, a brief(ish) intro:- I'm (almost) 32 and live in West London. I got into Gary after buying (oddly) "Complex" in '79. I'd thought "AFE?" was ok, liked "Cars" and went and bought "Complex" on the strength of that - quickly followed by "The Pleasure Principle". From all that came a discovery of electronic music in general and especially Ultravox. I play keyboards and once upon a time I formed a Numan covers band called "Young Things Don't Scream" which did a number of gigs in the late 80s. Some of you older people who used to attend "The Flag" in North Wembley between 1986-88 may remember them. We also put together "Numan Days" which was basically our live set from our 1st gig played in 1 or 2 takes to tape. This sold pretty well but not all copies were checked before being sold - disappearing stereo channels apparently were not unknown. If by some weird miracle anyone on this list has just such a bad copy lying around going mouldy, get in touch by private email and I'll sort something out. Come to think of it, if anyone remembers YTDS (good comments or bad!), I'd be fascinated to hear from you! Anyway, since those days, I've tended to record original material/covers for my own amusement (marriage and work have rather tended to get in the way of anything more). My interest in Gary's music has waned a fair amount over the years I suppose, but my brother in law still buys all the albums and I still tag along with him and my wife to Hammermith Odeon (oops sorry...Labatt's Apollo) each tour. I have access to this list and the Web through work and have been surprised at just how much Numan related material is available. The first page I found was Matthew Holbrook's which was an excellent first find! What clearly comes across from what I've uncovered is how much Gary values his fans - his own web page is excellent. Although, as I say, my interest in his more recent music has waned, I do still think he can write a great tune at times and I remain interested in what he has to say. I must say the recent gig and discovering this list has made me go back to my records and last night I started doing a cover of "Films" - heavy "live" sounding drums, meaty keyboards...anyway I've already gone on way too long. Until I have something to say...bye for now! Phil Marsh pmarsh@bpmf.ac.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 23:34:43 -0400 From: JARUTLAND@aol.com Subject: My new member info To: numan@cs.uwp.edu Greetings, I've been a HUGE Gary Numan fan since "Cars" first made the American airways when I was in Junior High School. (I'm 30 now). I have tried to collect anything of note that I did not already have. My collection includes 25 CDs and 30 something albums. Some of these are quite rare (I think) and I have never seen more than the one copy I have. For example: "Asylum 1,2, & 3" with Japanese lyrics, "Numa Records Year One" (on cassette), "Exhibition", "Metal Rythm", "New Anger", "Outland", etc.... also have two copies of "Living Ornaments" on album, one of which has never been opened. I also have the early albums on either colored vinyl or picture disc. The one thing I have really been looking for is "Ghost". There are also some other items that have escaped my notice that I'm sure I would like to know more about. My personal musical tastes seem to be stuck in the 80's. I also listen to UltraVox, Depeche Mode, Japan and so on. I would love to get any e-mail on how I might improve my collection, or help others improve there's. I live in Dallas, Texas and might have more resources available than other fans (ie: several import music stores in the area). I was also wondering if you could re-send Gary Numan Digest Volume I: Issues #219 & 220? These were the first two mailings I have received. Something ugly happened while I was trying to download these and I lost everything except the first two pages that I printed out before trying the download. (I still don't know what I did wrong.) I'm very new to this Internet thing but I knew I had to make this one of my first stops. Thanks for having such a great mailing list and including me on it. Please let me know if you need any other infomation from me. Hope to hear from you soon. JARUTLAND@aol.com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 22:04:06 +0000 From: apjacks@ibm.net Subject: Numan on VH-1 Ten of the Best To: "Numan Digest" Ladies and Gents, Gary's "Ten of The Best" selection is apparently due to seen on the VH-1 satellite channel on the following dates: Tuesday 21/05/95 at 2:00 pm Friday 24/05/95 at 1:00 am Saturday 25/05/95 at 9:00 pm. VH-1 is a rock channel found on the Sky Satellite and this show usually gets repeated a few times so I doubt if these will be the only showings. Gaz will introduce ten of his favourite videos over an hour and they usually end and open the show with videos from the featured artist. Mmmm. Lets hope it 's not "Cars" again....... :) Tony Jackson ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 96 15:14:49 EDT From: Alexander Deacon <100603.3353@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Oh Joey. To: Numan Digest )> Well hello I thought we'd seen the last of this. BUT oh NO. Apologies and all. I was so glad to see that JOEY LINDSTROM enjoyed his trip to our fair land to see Numan and it REALLY was INTERESTING to hear his tale. I hope you found the time to discuss the digest, it does seem to have occupied you for rather longer than the more sophisticated digest members. Well I mustn't disturb you as I imagine you need plenty of time to wash out those excited looking stains in your pants.:-) Please note the "appropriate" use of humourous symbols. Now we know what I mean. Don't bother flaming me as I'm on holiday as of now. LOL Alex ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 96 15:14:49 EDT From: Alexander Deacon <100603.3353@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Oh Joey. To: Numan Digest )> Well hello I thought we'd seen the last of this. BUT oh NO. Apologies and all. I was so glad to see that JOEY LINDSTROM enjoyed his trip to our fair land to see Numan and it REALLY was INTERESTING to hear his tale. I hope you found the time to discuss the digest, it does seem to have occupied you for rather longer than the more sophisticated digest members. Well I mustn't disturb you as I imagine you need plenty of time to wash out those excited looking stains in your pants.:-) Please note the "appropriate" use of humourous symbols. Now we know what I mean. Don't bother flaming me as I'm on holiday as of now. LOL Alex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 11:45:01 +0100 From: lbrophy@trintech.ie (Larry Brophy) Subject: Record Collector Interview To: numan@cs.uwp.edu (Gary Numan) The following is a interview that Gary did in RCs April edition: Gary Numan is a candid, personable bloke. He has no pretensions about his stardom, his music, even his aeroplanes. Get him going on the subject of money and he'll tell you what he earns to the nearest =A3100,000. Ask him what he remembers about the artists formerly associated with Gary, whom he signed to his own Numa label in the 80s, and he'll unleash a tirade of expletives that'll make the poor musos' ears burn. It's now seventeen years since "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars" both hit No. 1, catapulting the former Gary Webb to heights he would only reach again in his World War II Harvard 2B. He may have issued more than fifteen albums since then, but his public profile has slipped so far down the back of the music industry sofa that it would take a major re-upholstery job to retrieve it. Back in February, that's just what he was hoping the fourth reissue of "Cars" would achieve. Plucked from old-gold limbo without his knowledge by advertising execs for Carling's Premier Lager TV and cinema campaign, the song has already inspired a TV-advertised best-of album, and a fifteen- late U.K. hits tour set for March and April. RC collared Gary in the studio, where he's recording one of two albums to be issued later this year, and stirred up a few hornets' nests. RECORD COLLECTOR: What do you feel about yet another reissue of "Cars"? GARY NUMAN: I'm really pleased about it, but it puts me in an awkward position. I don't like nostalgia, and I don't like the constant re-release of old tracks. In fact, I've been desperate for most of my bloody career to get out of the shadow of writing "Cars", and yet here I am, trying to use that same song to draw attention to the fact that I'm still around. I've been struggling for years to get my new material out to the public, and by and large, I've failed. The fans know it's there, but I've not been able to get beyond that. RC:Now do you feel, then, about being effectively abandoned by the music industry? GN: In some ways, it's my own fault, because I have the option to write poppy songs which would get played on the radio. In other ways, I've been a bit unlucky. British radio has become so narrow and has getting progressively worse over the last few years. There is very little variety. If a band gets to No. 1 with a certain dance sound, someone else will turn up six months later with exactly the same thing. RC: Your latest material is far less commercial than the songs you're best known for, and a lot more introspective. How would you describe it.? GN: Exactly that: introspective. It's much darker than anything I've written in a long time. But I don't want to say that it's not like "Cars", because people might like "Cars". RC: When you can obviously write songs which appeal to the greater masses, what inspires you to record music which, on the face of it, no one except your hard- core fans is interested in? GN: That's not easy to justify as a comment, because you don't know whether people would be interested in it or not, if they only got the chance to hear it. "Are 'Friends' Electric? was hardly the classic pop song. It was too long. You couldn't dance to it. It had no discernible hookline, and yet it sold a million copies. When I did that, I did exactly what I wanted to do, with nobody telling me otherwise. And I got to No. 1 and became one of the biggest things in the world for a year or so. It's the same now. I record exactly what I want to, but I have the stigma of having once been famous. RC: It obuiously matters to you that you no longer enjoy massive commercial success? GN: I long for it. I'm old enough to deal with it better than I did before, but I hate not having hits. I want to be successful as possible, for as long as possible. Anyone who says they're just doing it for the fucking art of it are lying out of their arses. RC So do you see your work as art? GN: Yes. But I see it as a connection between art and making a living. If I can sell 100,000 albums and buy myself a Ferrari and a jet, I'd rather do that than sell 10,000 and drive round in a Mini. And if can do that with exactly the same album, then all the better. I think I've proved that I'm not driven commercially, otherwise I'd be writing songs which sound like Take That. RC: What keeps you going in music, despite the indifference? GN: I love doing it. I've done aeroplanes, I've got into other things, but at the end of it all, it's music that I care about the most. I can go into my studio and play what I want. The whole lifestyle that comes with it is really nice. I can get up when I want, and if I don't feel like going to work I don't have to tell anyone. It's a cool job, whether you're No. 1 or No. 101. But I am aware that I'm getting older, which makes my desire to do well again even more urgent. RC: But you wouldn't sell out, and write a deliberately commercial, pop- orientated song? GN: No. That's no guarantee of success, anyway. Lots of people can write poppy tunes and only very few of them ever make it. You also run the risk of alienating those people who have stayed with you. You burn all your bridges with something you don't even like yourself! I was on IRS for while, Miles Copeland's company. They wanted me to do a remix of one of my songs. They got these posey dance guys to do it, and in my opinion, it was a total pile of shite. I said to them, "I hate every single bar of this. I don't want anything to do with dance music. You have totally corrupted a song which I had been proud of. And now you're going to make me talk to the press about something I hate. What do you think I'm going to say? In addition to that, those remixers were the most offensive bunch of twat-heads I'd ever met in my life. Ever. They were standing in my studio, messing about with the EQ, going, "Oh, wicked, man. That's real cool." And they hadn't even switched it on! You can turn the dial until you're blue in the face, but nothing will change until you switch the thing on. They were all convinced it sounded brilliant, so I leaned over, pressed the button and said, "Now you'll really notice the fucking difference!" My career had been put into the hands of these people! They spent twenty minutes telling me where I'd gone wrong. I know I'm no longer the biggest thing in the world, but by then I had sold several million records. These people had sold jack shit. They didn't even know how to turn on the EQ on a control desk! I'm not an arrogant man. I don't think I'm a genius, but I don't think I'm a terrible musician either. I'm alright. I know a little bit about what I'm doing. Just because I haven't had hits for a few years doesn't take away the fact that I have had over thirty singles which have made the charts, and fifteen or sixteen albums which have charted, against three or four which haven't. And these fucking people . . . But getting back to your question: no, I have no desire to sell out and try and do something deliberately commercial. RC: Would you agree then that there was a point in your career where you went wrong? GN: I think I've done albums which I shouldn't have done. The most wrong one I ever did was called "Machines And Soul" in 1992. RC: What was wrong with it? GN: Musically, it was well put together but it had very little of me in it. It was the worst period of my life. My career had been in big shit for a long period of time. I'd run out of ideas. It was horrible. I didn't do anything for about six months. But I was desperate to get an album out. That experience, plus getting a new girlfriend, pointed out a few home truths. It made me become insular, which is why my last album, "Sacrifice", sounded like it did. RC: Did you learn anything from that? GN: I've stopped worrying about radio, and all that shit. I don't give a fuck anymore. I just did what I do, and "Sacrifice" ended up being voted the best album I'd ever done by my fans. RC: For that album you did everything yourself: you wrote all the material, played all the instruments, produced it in your own studio, published it yourself and released it on your own label. How much of that is control and how much is vanity publishing? GN: It's hard to say. If something goes out with the name Gary Numan on it, I see no harm in everything, and I mean everything right down to the sleeve design being done by the man whose name's attached to it. I don't think that is any more vain than putting out an album as Joe Bloggs having just gone into a studio and sung songs which somebody else wrote. RC: How well do your albums sell now? GN: The last one I had figures for, "Outland", which was my last for IRS, sold about 38,000. I was quite happy with that. The "Replicas" album in 1979 sold something like 380,000, so things have changed quite a bit. RC: Any regrets? GN: No, not really. There are songs that I've written which I don't like any more, but everyone has that. And I do say what I honestly think, which is a talent I should have lost a long time ago. RC: It hasn't done Oasis much harm. GN: No, but there's a difference between being honest and just out-and-out bolshy. They may appear now not to give a fuck. But when an album of theirs comes out and doesn't sell, when they're no longer flavour of the month, then we'll see how much of a fuck they give. RC: You are renowned for pouring tons of money into your tours. You're even prepared to lose money, aren't you? GN: Most of the time, yes. There was one I broke even on, but generally I lost money. RC: Didn't you once spend an extra =A312,000 on a lighting rig for a tour which had sold out anyway? GN: Yeah. That was the Warriors tour in 1983. That =A312,000 was for sixteen moving lamps. It wasn't the whole rig, that cost about =A318,000. At the end of the tour, out of those sixteen lamps, just three were left. They were absolutely shit, and I never got my money back. I took them to the manufacturers and asked them to buy them back off me, and they said, "We don't want them. They're rubbish." Thanks very much! I have been seriously turned over many times. RC: Why do you still do it? GN: I'm extremely indebted to the fans I have left. It's not always easy for them. There's a lot of piss-taking going on. I like to give them the biggest show I can, and keep the ticket prices as low as possible. I added it up a little while ago, what I'd lost on tour over my career. Not spent. Lost. It came to =A3600,000. That's a lot of money. It's not like I lose fifty quid each time I play. RC: Can you afford to lose money in that way? GN: Yeah! Remember, I earned about =A35 million in the first few years. Ther= e have been times when I've had to dip into my savings, but the thing which isn't often realised is that through back catalogue alone I'm getting on for about half-a-million pounds a year. Even now.. That's straight into my pocket. I'm not Prince. I'm not Michael Jackson. But I'm not playing the Hope & Anchor, either. RC: Does your catalogue sell that well? GN: It all trickles away nicely. I've got sixteen or seventeen albums, six or seven live albums, maybe more, and more compilations than I can possibly remember. Plus there are more and more cover versions of my songs being recorded. I get money from all of them. I've lost money touring, but I've made it everywhere else. RC: What happened to your own Numa label? At one point you seemed keen to sign other artists. GN: It's just me now. Numa ran from '84 to '88. I didn't have much success with it. I killed it off because of the attitude of some of the people I'd signed. A couple of the bands in particular were both the most arrogant, nasty, back-stabbing bunch of toss-bags I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Horrible! We had a photo session with a big photographer, I forget his name, up in London. I had about five different Numa acts, of which I was one. As these things go, we were running late, one band couldn't get the lighting quite right. I was running about an hour late myself. That band came back from the pub, where they'd been at my expense and they said, "We're not going to be treated like this", and started smashing up the lights in the hallway. I said, "What are you fucking talking about? I'm the man, and I'm an hour behind! What makes you so special?" I remember when I was at Beggars Banquet, I was so grateful whenever they did anything for me, like fork out for a photo session. I remember it to this day, twenty years later. And there were these people, who were actually vandalising the hallway in this studio because they'd been kept waiting for an hour. They hadn't even made a record, let alone sold any. Absolute fucking wankers! Gary Numan has created his own 'Nuworld' homepage on the Internet. You can reach him at http://www.numan.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 11:33:00 BST From: Matthew Tamea Subject: Techno Army To: Numan Mailing List So what on earth was Gary up to getting involved with the Techno Army project. I bought the cd on Saturday and have never ever been so disappointed with a cd. It is the most dreadful thing. Andy McHaffie summed it up by saying it was like a Yamaha home keyboard. It's exactly like one. Now Gary must have heard these tracks because he redid the lyrics (the one saving grace of the cd) so why didn't he say 'this is bollocks' and leave it at that? I just can't understand it. It makes waiting for Exile even more worth it if we get stuff like this in the meantime. Later - Matthew ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 08:26:12 +0200 (MES) From: Markus Dietrich Subject: Techno Army CD To: numan@cs.uwp.edu Hello all You ...noids, Lately (Sat,20.4.) for my surprise there were about 6 TECHNO ARMY CDs in a store here in germany(nuerem- berg). Although it is very hard to come familiar with it I bought it (of course) and find the tracks "WE ARE GLASS", "cars (rush hour skadiva)", "she=B4s got claws" a little interesting. Maybe because these are that songs that are at least a little similar to the original versions :-) BUT the very sad topic about this CD is: The internet address is WRONG !!! It=B4s very stupid, but they wrote http://www.numan.oo.uk - No one will get contact with this little but fatal error!!! I VERY HOPE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO CREATE AN NODE, THAT FITS THIS ADDRESS, AND DEFINE A HTML DOCUMENT THAT OPERATES AS AN ORDINARY LINK TO THE RIGHT=20 NUMAN SITE !!!! We must try everything, because it looks that this CD is distributed ALSO OUTSIDE the UK, so the=20 connection to numans web pages MUST be possible!!! By, M a r k u s (email contact only here: na468@fim.uni-erlangen.de) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 11:35:00 BST From: Matthew Tamea Subject: The Witchman Remixes To: Numan Mailing List I have managed to get hold of three copies of the cars witchman remixes on 12" orange vinyl. One of them I'll keep, the other is spoken for which leaves me with a spare one. So to anyone who wants it, you can have it for ten pounds, which is just what it cost me in the first place. Also a reminder that I have a copy of 1978 Volume 3 in blue vinyl for anyone that wants it - FREE TO A GOOD HOME. Later - Matthew ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 06:23:56 MDT From: numanoid@netway.ab.ca (Joey Lindstrom) Subject: Trip To UK To: numan@cs.uwp.edu I've been receiving some very, very nice feedback in regards to MYTRIP.TXT, an excerpt of which appeared in the last Digest. The most interesting one was one from a fellow who described himself as a "biker type", saying he literally cried while reading it. Man... wish I'd win the lottery, I'd take the whole LOT of you with me the next time I go. :-) Anyways, as I said, the full original text is still available as: http://www.netway.ab.ca/numanoid/mytrip.txt For the web-challenged, just email me at numanoid@netway.ab.ca and I'll send you a copy via email. For the seriously web enhanced, you'll now find a PRELIMINARY version of a corresponding set of web pages at the following address: http://www.netway.ab.ca/numanoid/premier/index.html (Or just surf to The World Wide Webb as per usual, then look under "Found You Now". The main address is http://www.netway.ab.ca/numanoid/wwwebb.htm) What you'll basically find right now is MYTRIP.TXT with a few updates, split into six sections (for the six shows I saw) and enhanced with photographs. There are more photographs to come, plus I still need to write the "book-ends" (my experiences leading up to the coach tour, plus my final week in England). This'll develop over the next couple of weeks as I find available time. I've only managed to spend a few hours on this so far, but already it's not looking half-bad. Have a look, I think you'll like it. /--------------------------------------------------------- / Joey Lindstrom / numanoid@netway.ab.ca / http://www.netway.ab.ca/numanoid/wwwebb.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 14:14:43 -0700 From: dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu (Derek Langsford) Subject: Value of those 2 for 1 CDs To: numan@cs.uwp.edu In #220 "Jeff Colaw, 224E, 7473" asked about the UK 2 albums on 1 CD issues. >A few years back, I purchased the single-CD, two-album reissues of The >>Plan/Replicas, Pleasure Principal/Warriors, Tubeway Army/Dance, and >>Telekon/I Assassin. I was disappointed about the elemination of several >>songs due to time constraints and never found (still haven't) Exhibition. "Exhibition" has been deleted as it was superceded by the "Very Best of Gary Numan 1978-83" which came out with the 2 CD set issues. >The other day I found the two-album, double-CD reissues with bonus tracks >>at a new Best Buys in Annapolis. Now, there's really no need to keep the >>previous CD's. Before I give them up though, I'd like to know if the >>single-CD reissues are valuable collectors items. It just seemed such a >>bizarre way of releasing material (cutting songs so two albums fit on one >>CD?), it wouldn't surprise me to learn they're worth more now than when I >>bought them. Anyone know? I don't really know, but I can offer my persepctive. IMO, they are not collectors items and are unlikely to become so in the future, unless Gary has a comeback that is bigger than can be forseen at the moment. Fans either already have them, or have junked them in favour of the 2CD sets. Those who view them as collectors items already will have them. There may be some demand by some Johnny come latelys to CDs, especially in the UK where CDs are only now reaching the market penetration that was present in the US by the early 90s. But, I don't think it likely that they will become prized possessions. They are inferior in almost every way to the new reissues. Derek -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Derek H. Langsford dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu Dept. of Biology Tel. (619) 594 2885 San Diego State University Fax (619) 594 7831 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of Gary Numan Digest ****************************** _______________________________________________________________________ _____ ____ ____ _____ _____ / \ | | / \ / \ / \ / \ | |-----| |-----| | |-----| |-----| | | | G | | A | | | R | | Y | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-----| |-----| | |-----| |-----| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | N | E | W | S |=====| | | | | | | | & | | | | | | | \_____/ I | N | F | O | | | | is produced and distributed by Derek Langsford dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To reply to the messages in this list, mail to: numan@cs.uwp.edu If you want to be removed, or someone wants to be added, you can mail to numan-request@cs.uwp.edu ----------------- The Gary Numan Digest is brought to you via Datta Production and Development, 905 97th Street, Kenosha, WI 53143 USA datta@cs.uwp.edu and computer resources courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Parkside and Datta Production and Development. 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