I'm another 'Numanoid' fan of 16 years.

When I was 14, I remember listening to a 'classic/album rock' station in Louisville, KY USA (where I grew up) and hearing the hook of that torrid, distorted and tightly flanged sound of the guitar in the chorus of "Are 'Friends' Electric?". That song had such a draw on me! I don't know about the rest of the US but, "Are 'Friends' Electric?" got plenty of air play (though not quite as much as "Cars" of course) in Louisville and was definately on the "A-list" of play at this particular station (WLRS) at the time. Needless to say, I bought the Replicas LP immediatley! When "The Pleasure Principle" hit the streets a few months later, I bought it too. WOW two LP's in the same year!

It seems that everything in one way or another is different about Gary. I've never discovered an artist with such an imagination that could write a song like "A.F.E.", follow it up with something completely unconventional like "Cars", and then, take things to even greater heights with songs off of Telekon like "I Dream of Wires", "The Aircrash Bureau", "Agent", and "The Joy Circuit". There's no other artist to compare Numan's music to without the clause of 'close approximation' prepended to it.

I've been a musician virtually all my life. At the time I discovered Gary I was playing drums -- but all of that would change immediately as Numan introduced me to the synthesizer, exposing me to it's awesome power and flexibility. I got my first Moog a year later ('80) and was soon hungry for a more powerful instrument. When I bought my Roland Jupiter-6 in 1982 Gary, through his music, turned me on to new programming techniques that no patch-preset from the factory could ever do!

Sure, I could have listed to Kraftwork or whoever but, Numan's music is of a completely different genre and diminsion in which no one else even comes close! Still 16 years after the fact, I find myself returning to him for fresh and new ideas in song composition and sonic texture. The man is indeed ahead of his time and it's too bad that the US pop culture does not have a clue as to his effect on the mainstream pop-music scene of the 80's. He is the 'grandfather' of synth-pop who made the synthesizer cool for a decade or so. I honestly believe that!

Now it's the 90's and the closest thing to Numan is fast fashion or rather, "Depeche Mode". Though I'm a great fan of the Mode, as is Gary himself, it's not the same. Thanks to the Internet and many Numanoid websites, I can now catch up on the 10 years that I have missed. I cannot begin to say how much of a relief it is to truely know that I'm not the only Gary Numan fan in the US!!! So now I can "press 'C' for comfort" once again as "I Dream Of unix sockets and telephone Wires". Sorry, as an engineer I just couldn't pass that one up!

Steve Hampton
Atlanta, GA, USA
steven_hampton@vos.stratus.com

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