Should Gary Numan Reunite His Old Bandmates??

Was he drumming on Numan's SNL appearance back in the day? I've never seen anyone so gleefully bash the hell out of a crash cymbal.

I mean, a bit like George Michael reuniting with Andrew Ridgeley, no?

Although, Paul Gardiner was obviously still on good terms with Mr Webb, as "Stormtrooper in drag" showed.

Didn't the rest of them carry on without him? Tubeway summat-else?

It would be like that Richard Pryor Show skit with " and the Pips!"

I've just been made aware that Cedric Sharpley died a couple of days ago from a heart attack, aged 59. Rest in peace, Ced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akLKrd7zlS0

RIP. Fine drummer and a big part of what made The Pleasure Principle such a great album. As someone said upthread it was that combination of organic drums and analogue synths that made it so good.

Good searching btw.

RIP.

Oh man, tragic news.

Wait so was Lidyard only on the first two albums?

Yeah, as mentioned upthread Lidyard was part of the extended family that Numan relied on to help get himself going, so it was almost like a personal project there for a bit. I'm sure there's more in Numan's autobiography about it.

Sharpley passing, man that's a loss. That's a MAJOR loss. I'm still taking it all in.

Indeed Ned, I'm still trying to get my head around it myself. While listening to a track like 'Metal' now, where both Ced Sharpley and Paul Gardiner create that really precise groove that really drives the song along, I can't help but not only think of what a loss it is that the people responsible for moments like that no longer with us, but I also get the feeling that maybe Numan didn't realise how great a rhythm section he had in those two. Take the rhythm section away from a lot of the tracks on The Pleasure Principle, and there's a great deal missing.

I always admired Ced not only for the way he and Gardiner really locked together and sounded (to my ears, anyway) really exciting, but his timekeeping was really impeccable too. I'm thinking of the title track from Telekon for example, where there's a crossfade at the end between Ced's drumming and the drum machine at the end, and they're both very closely in time with one another. Or the way he always used to stay in time with the drum machine that runs throughout 'Remind Me To Smile' whenever they played it live. This is before we even get to his drum sound!

There have been odd mentions over the years about Numan's influence on hip-hop here and there. But I'd like to put forward that those people weren't actually listening to Numan. They were listening to Ced and Paul.

Would have to agree, though Numan and through him Kraftwerk brought in the love of strange electronic textures and melodies, so it's more of an even split.

My god, that Dramatis record is such a confused mess isn't it!?

Newman live in 2015 is sad af, not because he doesn't have it anymore (his voice is gr8) but bcuz his band is shitty Rob Zombie style industrial metal blechhhhh. That would be cool if he reunited with Pino Paladino lol.

Numan sheesh* now it seems like talking about the Seinfeld guy.

I actually agree, I'd love for Numan to team back up with Palladino and some of the guys from the earlier tours and do I, Assassin, some of the more uptempo numbers from Dance and some of the better tracks from Warriors. Palladino is a great bassist, obviously, but would he be able to pull off some of Karn's stuff on Dance like 'A Subway Called "You"'? It'd be great if he could and did.

ha 'Cars' just popped up on random play on my computer. I don't mind a bit of ind metal but the more Numan leans that way the less interested I am in his records.

I think he does it better on some albums than others. I love Splinter, Pure and Sacrifice and some of the stuff on Dead Son Rising and Exile, but I struggle to get through Jagged in one sitting.

But man, that Dramatis album... the track they did with Numan ('Love Needs No Disguise') is (of course) great, but the album itself (For Future Reference) strikes me as being more than a bit messy. All the members of Dramatis were more than capable musicians, but none of them had an anywhere near decent voice. RRussell Bell, Denis Haines and Chris Payne all take turns at singing lead and none of them are really suited to the role - although Bell probably does the best job overall, but that's not saying much. Also, throughout the course of the record, they seem to be going to great lengths to prove to the listener how musicianly they are while forgetting to write some anywhere near decent material. If they'd worked on the actual songwriting and got a decent lead vocalist in, they may have been onto something. It's telling that the best track they ever did has Numan on vocals, even though Numan never had the greatest voice in the world. I don't think Numan had a hand in writing any part of 'Love Needs No Disguise', though, so they could have done so much better if they'd been more focused.