Well, as you've no doubt noticed, we were missing in action for a period of about six days. For this, we can thank the dimwits at Digital Chainsaw, our current web services provider. Seems they were having problems with the machine hosting our site so they decided to replace it. But it took them six days to get my files restored and the site brought back online. Martin Purvis' "Outland" website was affected by this problem as well, being stored on the same machine, but his site was back online within a day or two. I emailed them several times and also telephoned them - each time I was promised that the site would be back online in just a few hours. Bah.

And that leads me to a special announcement, but first let me get this out of way: the "Song Of The Week" for October 21st did not, obviously, get put online on October 21st, but rather on October 27th. Rather than leave it online for a single day and shortchange poor Sam Warren (grin!), I'm going to leave it online until November 4th, which is when the next SOTW is due to be put online - in other words, I've bumped the production schedule back by one week.

Anyways, on to the announcement:

Many of you who've followed my antics here on this site or in other media such as the Gary Numan Digest know that I've been trying to put together a "Numan Server" for quite a while. And it now appears that this is going to happen. I and some other Numan site authors have committed to financing this, and we HOPE (fingers crossed, but no promises) to have it online by March 1st 1999.

Basically, in a nutshell, it'll be our own little piece of the internet, which we'll own and operate. Lots of bandwidth (courtesy the good folks at Cadvision here in Calgary and their handy-dandy "Cadvision 2000K" ADSL service) and lots of disk space and a reasonable amount of expertise will be mixed together. All of our websites will be hosted on this hardware - some using our newly-registered domain name, others opting for their own unique domain names.

One of the features we plan to offer Numanoids around the world is follow-me-anywhere email services. You buy one email address and you keep it even if you change internet service providers. Moreover, your email address will tell the world that you are a Gary Numan fan. In fact, that's exactly what it'll say: if John Smith were to sign up, he'd be "johnsmith@garynumanfan.nu". And so on.

Most of the details (pricing, services, etc.) have yet to be worked out, but the over-riding principle here is that this is not what you might consider a "commercial" service. Indeed, I doubt we'll break even - but that's not so bad, considering that we long ago made a financial commitment to keeping our websites going. We believe we've reached a price-point that will allow us to save money and offer a LOT of additional services in the bargain.

To stay in touch with all the latest developments, surf to:

Boy I've had a busy, busy month. The Calgary Stampede ran from July 3rd to 12th and that kept me REAL busy, then a myriad of other things conspired to rob me of most, if not all, of my available free time to update this site. I've got a lot of little things to take care of, including a few new updates to the Tour Page (which is now located on the MAIN FEATURES MENU by the way), some more new Numan Network logos, and lots of other piddly little things. The big time-waster, though, is converting the RealAudio files on this site over to the new G2 format.

If you haven't experienced G2 yet, I strongly urge you to visit the RealNetworks site and download a copy of the player - it will be required to play the updated files on this site.

Why the conversion? Simply put, the 28K G2 codec produces better sound than even the T1/LAN codec on the old version. It's so good that I'm going to pretty much dispense with using 56K versions at all, with the exception of some of the concert bootleg files. It's not perfect, but then again we're dealing with copyrighted material here so we actually want it to be a little less than perfect - in fact, that's why we won't be using 56K files anymore, because THOSE files are SO good that you might be tempted to simply tape the RealAudio feed and not buy the albums. And we can't have that. :-)

Y'all wondering why nothing's happened to the site in some time? Technical difficulties, nothing more. Specifically, while YOU were able to access this site, *I* was not. At all. Seems that anyone outside of the USA could not access certain UUNET-connected sites, and that includes the servers operated by Digital Chainsaw, where this site is hosted. Martin Purvis ran into the same difficulties with his "Outland" website. Thankfully, all seems to be back in working order.

Well, I'm still alive. :-)

This is going to be a short update, just to tell you what's going on. I just got back from my Pilgrimage To Mecca Part Two - aka my trip to see Gary Numan play live - and I'm kinda tired. :-) There were 122 new emails waiting in my inbox, plus about 15 that arrived before my departure that I didn't have time to deal with. PLEASE bear with me as I try to get through the backlog.

I'll be writing up an extensive set of pages detailing my trip, with lots of photos, in the next few days. For now, let me just say that I had a royal BLAST while "on tour with Gary". For that, I must single out George Ellis for some special praise: the man was WONDERFUL to tour with. He came totally prepared with maps and information, prior knowledge of "life on the road", a nice big rented car, and one hell of a great attitude. The latter was especially helpful in the latter stages of the trip, when my voice had given out from too much screaming at the shows - the most common words heard in the car during that time was George asking "what did you say?" :-)

I met a lot of you on tour - people I'd known only from the web, from email, from the Digest. People like Derek Langsford, the creator of the Numan Digest. People like Riana Pfefferkorn and John Marques Carramao, fellow site authors. People like Kathryn Silures, who (as of this writing) has attended every show from Philadelphia to LA (except Vancouver due to a friend's illness). And many others.

I enjoyed meeting each and every one of you. And if I happen to miss anyone's name as I prepare my "tour experiences" pages, please accept my apologies in advance: there were just so many of you, and so much going on, and my memory for names is sieve-like at the best of times. :-)

I and others would like to hear about YOUR experiences. If you've got some stories to tell about your experiences on this tour, whether you saw one show or twenty, send them in. If you have photos to go with them, send them in (any amount you like). After the tour I'll put together a tour monument page and EVERYTHING I receive will go in there. So send 'em in, but please try to include somewhere in your submissions that you want it included ON THE TOUR PAGES: I get a lot of email and your submission might get overlooked if you don't. :-)

I'll end this now with a thank-you. A great number of people walked up to me, out of the blue, and thanked me for all the great work I did on the Tour Page: many of them told me that were it not for this, they'd never have known Gary was coming, and/or they'd have had great difficulty planning how to see the shows. Indeed, this happened so often it was rather embarrassing: at one stage, when I was posing for a photo with Gary Numan, Gary himself thanked me for my work and this got a rousing cheer from the crowd.

My response to this is twofold: on the one hand, it's tremendously gratifying and quite an ego-boost. :-) On the other hand, it seems to be a little bit unfair, because I'm getting the credit for a body of work that involved more than a hundred fellow fans. Indeed, my role was to give the Tour Page a home, to promote it, and to basically get the ball rolling. After that, people like you went out and pounded the pavement and got answers to all the questions that we had - directions, where to meet, ticket prices, nearby lodgings, and the like. Without this, the Tour Page would have been a dismal failure.

But it wasn't - it was a colossal success, because of YOUR HARD WORK. Believe me, the outpouring of gratitude that I experienced was, at times, quite overwhelming, and those of you who contributed to the tour page deserve most of that gratitude.

So, a big hearty thank-you for those who said all those kind words, and a bigger one to all of you who made it work.

Well, Gary has now performed at five venues, and the reviews from all five would seem to indicate that everything is going beautifully. The crowds have been energized - even those Switchblade Symphony fans who've shown up for their band but stuck around for Gary - and Gary himself has provided a thrashing, energetic show. Reviews in professional media have been hot and heavy, and every single one that I've read so far has been positive to very positive, with one publication referring to him as "Nine Inch Numan" - I'm told this is a compliment. :-)

What's been really cool, though, is the memories that the fans have been building. Many people have written to the Digest (or emailed me) about not only the concert, but the pre-concert meetings, and how cool it was to finally meet some of the faces behind the names, and to meet up with people who actually know who the heck Gary Numan is. :-) Many fans have waited sixteen years or longer to see Gary perform live. I myself went through a similar sixteen year drought (seeing him first in 1980 in Calgary) before finally seeing him again in 1996 by flying to England for the Premier Tour. But such an excursion simply wasn't within the realm of possibility for many people, which is why this North American tour has become so very important to them - because it was their only chance to ever see The Man. I know the feeling, because two years ago I thought THAT was my only shot.

Although he's usually not staying in local hotels after gigs, Gary has made a point of meeting fans outside the shows at the tour bus, staying to sign every autograph and shake every hand. This has surprised a lot of people, how gracious he's been - but it didn't surprise me in the least. In 1996 I learned first-hand just what a classy individual he is. And this praise extends to everyone in the entourage. Special kudos to Gemma, who has now seen the whole Numan fan experience from both sides.

In five days I hit the highway with my good friend Ross Procter and my new friend from Germany, George Ellis, to see Numan play Vancouver, Seattle, and San Francisco (with a stop at the Portland gig possible if our tourism plans are hampered by poor Oregon May weather). For me this won't be QUITE the religious experience as it was two years ago, but then again - I'll be seeing him on my home soil. Canada is my home and it's very dear to me, and I'm just happy that Gary saw fit to include a couple of Canadian dates on this tour. Just wish he'd stopped in Calgary on the way... :-)

Many of you will remember a VERY ill-fated 1996 release called "Techno Army", which was so a blatant failure that only 2 of its tracks were, in fact, actually techno - the other tracks all sounded like two guys with Casios on their laps.

For those recordings, Gary Numan was paid 20,000 pounds to re-sing the vocals for a variety of his songs, mostly pre-1984 material but a couple of 90's tracks as well. Well, these vocal tracks have been licenced by Cleopatra Records, and the result is "Gary Numan: The Mix".

Folks, Cleopatra took the original concept but this time executed it PERFECTLY. Every track is listenable and most are highly creative, without ever losing sight of what the original song was about. I'm not a fan of techno or industrial music as a general rule but I know what I like: and I like this a LOT.

I've added "Gary Numan: The Mix" to the Discography section of the site, you'll find it in the "Odds & Ends" section, or you can follow this link to have a look for yourself. As of this writing I have not yet had the time to add any RealAudio clips of the album but they'll be added in as time permits, so do check back often.

Before anyone accuses me of concocting a rather elaborate April Fool's joke, let me assure you that the following is quite true:

In conjunction with Beggar's Banquet, the World Wide Webb is proud to announce that we will soon be presenting the entire Beggar's Banquet Numan catalog, in RealAudio format. This will allow both casual and serious collectors alike to sample music before buying (with a handy link to the Beggar's mail order site included).

This project will take quite a while to complete - sampling and encoding music for RealAudio is a laborious, time-consuming proposition. As each song goes online I likely won't be posting any announcements, so keep checking regularly to see what's new.

I've selected "Premier Hits" to kick things off, mainly because it includes two versions of Gary's most popular song of all time, "Cars".

Yep, he's gonna be chatting to the internet masses once again. As I recall, the SonicNet chat was a load of fun and resulted in my meeting (virtually) the lovely Miss Marlene (ok, ok, so we flirted a bit... ok, ok, so we flirted A WHOLE LOT... yeah, big deal... grin!)

The details:

March 31st
7pm EST 4pm PST 12am GMT

I usually dislike taking news items verbatim from other sites and trumpeting them in this space, but this item is so important that I'm gonna bend my rule. The following text appeared this morning on Robert Eggleston's (excellent) "Are 'Friends' Electric?" website:

The venues for the Numan US Tour 98 have been announced. Gary will be supported by Switchblade Symphony at all dates.

Philadelphia PA    - Theatre Of The Living Arts

Boston MA          - Paradise
Cambridge MA       - Middle East
Washington DC      - 9:30 Club
New York City NY   - Irving Plaza
Toronto, ON        - Lee's Palace
Cleveland OH       - The Odeon
Pontiac MI         - 7th House
Chicago IL         - The Metro
Seattle WA         - Crocodile Cafe
Vancouver BC       - The Starfish Room
San Francisco CA   - Slims
Los Angeles CA     - The Palace

Confirmed dates will be released very shortly.

I'm assuming that whatever the dates are, the shows will proceed in roughly this order. For me personally, that means I'll probably make the road trip out to Victoria to meet up with my good buddy Mike Sugimoto (about a 12-13 hour drive), then we'll head out for the Seattle and Vancouver shows - with a SLIGHT chance of also taking in San Francisco and LA. For anyone planning to attend any of these shows, I look forward to seeing you there!

Man, things have been moving on the Numan scene. As everyone knows, he's currently on tour in Europe. In fact, his concert from Stockholm on March 17th (around 7pm GMT, or 12pm MST) will be broadcast live on the internet. After the tour, he'll be dropping by Rocktropolis for a live chat on March 31st.

And, with any luck, the man will be hitting North America in May. Now, if you'll bear with this western redneck for a minute, let me just say this: YAAAAAAH-HOOOOO! :-) There's also some word out of Australia that some tour dates Down Under are looking more and more likely.

Random 2 is out. Everyone says it's shite. Well, not everyone. My grandmother still hasn't heard it...

The internet birthday card was a HUGE success, and I'd like to thank everyone for participating. It was quite a huge job editing it and keeping it up to date, but at the same time it was quite a joy. Messages of love and affection for Gary poured in literally by the minute, and it's hard to simply edit the text without being profoundly moved by how deeply people care for the man.

I'm looking at changing the way the Digests are accessed on this site, mainly to alleviate the TREMENDOUS PAIN IN THE ASS it is to update the listings. As an interim solution, I'm simply going to upload them as they arrive WITHOUT bothering to update everything else on the site. So, just because you arrive at the site and see the "Last Update" date is two weeks in the past, that no longer means the latest Digest isn't there. Have a nose around and see what you see. :-) This should, I hope, mean that Digests will be online within, at most, 24 hours of publication.

I'll close this on something of a geekier note. :-) As you are by now fully aware, I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Among its other virtues, it is one of the most "wired" cities in the world. Nearly every home in the city can now sign up for cable-modem access, and the local phone company (Telus) is now offering their own high-speed internet access, known as Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line or ADSL. Anyhoo, I've just subscribed to it, so I now have a high-speed link to the internet 24 HOURS A DAY! The price is a wee bit higher than cable modem service but has the advantage of being a dedicated line (that you don't share with all your neighbours). I'm paying $50 CAD per month, which is about £22 Sterling or $35 USD. Not bad!

Yes, life does begin at 40! Well, actually, you're 40 years into your life at 40, but let's not sweat the details...

The one, the only, Gary Anthony James Webb (aka Numan), turns 40 on March 8th, 1998. I'd say the first 40 have been pretty good (well, maybe except the one-minute shagging he mentions in his book...), and, like you, I hope the next 40 turn out even better.

So here's your chance to deliver YOUR birthday wishes to The Man Himself!!

Simply email your birthday wishes (maximum four sentences please!) to:

numan40@calgaryweb.net

This has been a very bad 12 months for celebrities. Just in the past few days we've lost three more, including Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys and Tim Kelly of Slaughter.

The one that bummed me out most, because he was someone I grew up listening to (much as I grew up listening to Gary Numan), and because he has acknowledged Gary Numan as an influence upon his music, is someone you may not have heard of. Born Johann Holzel, he was better known as Falco. During the 80's he had a number of hit singles, including "Der Kommissar" (later covered by English rock band After The Fire), "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", and "Jeanny".

I fondly remember buying his "Einzelhaft" album after hearing the single "Der Kommissar" on the radio. Already a Numan fan, I fell in love with Falco's brash, almost arrogant, use of synthesizers and over-the-top vocal delivery, even though I couldn't understand most of the (german) lyrics.

Falco died on Saturday after his sport utility vehicle collided with a bus on a highway in the Dominican Republic, where he was vacationing. He was 40 years old.

I dunno - I guess that as I get older, life seems more and more precious. And when I see it snuffed out so easily... when it happens to people who have given so much to so many... when it happens at such a young age... I often wonder what's the point?

I'm still quite depressed about this, but the thing that keeps me going at times like this is the realization that I *WILL* get over it, that I've done it before, and I always come away with a new appreciation for creativity, for making your mark on the world, and for leaving something behind that future generations can enjoy.

In losing Falco, we've lost something very special. But hey: we're richer for him having been in our lives, and that's something we should never take for granted. Life takes strange turns, and that makes it all the more important that we step back from time to time and appreciate what we have.

OK, plenty to get to, so let's get started:

"Gary Numan: The Mix" is the latest release announced by Cleopatra Records. Upon first glance, it looks suspiciously like 1996's best-forgotten release "Techno Army Featuring Gary Numan", which was put together by the same Castle Communications people that are now behind Eagle Records (Gary's new UK label). In fact, my contact at Cleopatra tells me that while they WILL be using Gary's vocals from those sessions, the music will be almost entirely thrown out, to be replaced by new music created by other bands in the Cleopatra lineup, including LEATHERSTRIP, INFORMATION SOCIETY, and SPAHN RANCH. Given that the original idea wasn't really that bad - just poor execution - this release actually has a good chance of being REALLY good. Certainly it will be viewed as a "Random" knockoff, but c'est la vie - I'm gonna support anything that helps Numan visibility in the US.

Recently I added a ton of MP3 files to this website, namely the "Live At The Roxy" files supplied by Joeri Peeters. If you've tried downloading them, you may have noticed something disappointing: downloading doesn't work. This is a problem with our host server and I'm working to correct it - however, I'm waiting on a rather-busy technical staff at Digital Chainsaw to handle the fix, so it could be a while. I'll announce it here when I know that they're working - in the meantime, keep trying... they may start working long before I find out about it.

Gary's European tour dates, which are still extremely tentative, are now available here. Looks like a short-but-sweet swing through some of the EU nations - not quite as large a tour as we had hoped for. HOWEVER, the word we're hearing is that the first US tour will follow right on the heels of this one... so maybe the European dates are being cut short in favour of the latter? We'll soon see.

A writer to a recent Digest said that plans are indeed well under way for some US concerts, possibly as early as April. Indeed, the booking procedure is underway. We'll soon have all the details of the European Tour as well (keep checking NuWorld). Other plans include touring Australia and the UK. Exile gets released in February and the video for Dominion Day follows 1 month later.

My friends, things are looking up. Way up. Gary's got a busy, busy, busy year ahead of him. As much as I hated to see him pass on his acting debut in "The Kinsmen", I gotta say he's making the right decision to make the absolute most of his new status as "cool again". I really, really hope this goes well for him - he's been shit on by the music establishment for so long, that I think he's finally paid the dues that he once said never needed to be paid. He's earned respect - now let's hope it translates to commercial success for the man. Godspeed, Gary.