Tubeway Army

After a couple lineup shuffles, Tubeway Army -- Gary Numan (aka Valeriun), Paul Gardiner (aka Scarlet), and Numan's uncle Jess Lidyard (aka Rael) -- debuted in February of 1978 with "That's Too Bad" on Beggars Banquet, a furious fusion of punk and pop, but darkly cold and clinical. During a studio session a few months later, Numan began fiddling with a miniMoog synthesizer that remained from another band's recording stint. Instantly falling in love with the instrument's capabilities, he decided that he would use synths to achieve the sounds he heard in his imagination. Though he fought the temptation to associate synths with prog rock, he felt they would help distance the band from the limitations and cliches of punk. Numan and his mates were influenced by Bowie and T. Rex as much as JG Ballard and William Burroughs (as well as being inspired later on by contemporaries Ultravox and The Human League), so the band's extraction from punk wasn't surprising at all.

Read More