One day, there were photographs of him all over the sixth form common room. The girls had torn his picture out of Smash Hits and pinned them across the wall. Even the girl I fancied, black bobbed hair, cheeky smile and dimples, had Sellotaped her very own b&w Gary Numan icon over the notice board. ‘He’s my man,’ she said.

We boys didn’t get it. We were either in the denim-and-musk of Hawkwind, Motorhead and Gong. Or, reading Kropotkin with Joy Division, PiL, and The Buzzcocks. I watched Karen as she eyed her ‘man’, and wondered what it was the white-faced loon had that I was still to find?

Then, one week, some boys began listening to Tubeway Army, and that’s when the pictures of Gary started to be taken down, and Adam Ant went up instead.

Gary Numan in concert 1979. Quite an impressive selections of tracks, from the Thin White Look’s fertile period between Replicas and his astoundingly good The Pleasure Principle.

01. “Me! I Disconnect From You”
02. “M.E.”
03. “We Are So Fragile”
04. “Everyday I Die”
05. “Conversation”
06. “Remember I Was Vapour”
07. “On Broadway”
08. “Down In The Park”
09. “My Shadow In Vain”
10. “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”
11. “Tracks”

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Little boy gets wish to drive around in Gary Numan’s car (1982)