– Tubeway Army – In Session for John Peel – January 10, 1979 – BBC Radio 1 –
Punk, turned Post-Punk, turned Electronica tonight, by way of Gary Numan.
Originally known as Tubeway Army. And then Gary Numan and Tubeway Army and finally just Gary Numan – they represented a changing taste in late-70s music. Initially a Punk band, they gravitated to New Wave, but just prior to the direction change, introduced a synthesizer into the mix, and became the first Post-Punk band to do that, opening a whole new sub-genre in the process.
Aged 18 years, Gary Webb had fronted London band Mean Street in 1976 (their song “Bunch of Stiffs” appeared on the Live at the Vortex compilation, and was the B-side of the Vortex 7-inch). After leaving this band, he auditioned as lead guitarist for another band called The Lasers, where he met bass-player Paul Gardiner. The Lasers soon became Tubeway Army, and were eventually reformed with Webb’s uncle Jess Lidyard on drums. Webb renamed himself “Valerian”, Gardiner “Scarlett”, and Lidyard “Rael”.
As Tubeway Army, the band scored a sizable hit with Are Friends Electric, along with their debut album Replicas. but after the album’s release, Numan dropped Tubeway Army in favor of just Gary Numan, since he was the sole writer for the band.
Gary Numan became synonymous with New Wave/Synth-Pop throughout the 1980s, scoring an impressive string of hits and well received albums in the process.
In 1981, following Numan’s (temporary) retirement from live shows, his backing band of the time formed the synth-pop group Dramatis and released the album For Future Reference (1981) which featured Numan as guest vocalist on one track. The album was issued on CD in 2000 by Metrodome Group under the title The Dramatis Project and credited to “Tubeway Army featuring Gary Numan,” but it is not a Tubeway Army album.
But tonight it’s still Tubeway Army – a ways from the name change and the release of their debut album, in a session recorded for John Peel at The BBC on January 10, 1979.
The rest, as they say, is history.
