numan finds his way

2006.08.15 11.31

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, Sunday, August 13, 2006, Article By J. Poet

"In America, I'm still the classic one-hit wonder," Gary Numan says philosophically, via phone from his home outside of London. His 1979 single "Cars" was a worldwide smash, one of the first pop hits to use the synthesizer without trying to make it sound like a piano. He went on to become a superstar in England, but in the States his career quickly fizzled out.

"I can only blame myself," Numan says. "The tour I did back in '97 was the first time I'd been to the U.S. in more than a decade. So many new musicians come along every year that sitting over here thinking people would remember me (in the United States) was stupid. I should have been more ambitious, but I concentrated on the U.K. I had enough problems to fix over here."

Numan's problems in Britain started almost as soon as he became successful. Although he wasn't the first artist to use synthesizers, he was the first to achieve huge success with an instrument that would soon come to dominate pop music.

"Electronic music wasn't considered to be real music at the time," "Since I was the biggest act in the genre, I got the brunt of the hostility. Even as it became more popular, that hostility stayed focused on me. I also said some arrogant things, and that didn't help, but today I'm in a fantastic position. I get good album reviews and get credit for being an innovative musician. Most people didn't think I'd be around for 30 minutes, much less 30 years."

Numan says he takes full responsibility for his quick rise and fall. He prematurely retired in 1981, and when he came back only a year later, the sounds that once were so inventive had become new-wave dance cliches. Numan tried making music that was more accessible and club friendly, but the results were savaged in the press and failed commercially.

"I lost my way, musically speaking," he says. "I went from brilliant to dead on my feet, from loving music to making music in a desperate attempt to salvage my career. I followed advice from record companies and people around me. Before I knew it, I had no idea of who I was or what I was doing. By the time I made 'Machine + Soul' in 1992, I was complexly out of ideas."

While Numan was having his artistic woes, bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters were covering his songs and Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson were citing him as an inspiration. He was also diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a neurobiological disorder named for Hans Asperger, who studied young boys with normal intelligence who exhibited autistic-like behavior and insufficient social skills. People with Asperger's have a normal IQ and many exhibit exceptional talent in a specific area.

"I realized there was a reason for the way I see the world, which was a relief," Numan says. "I'm more comfortable around machines than people. When I was younger, there were a lot of misunderstandings because I didn't know how to deal with people. I'd do something that was perfectly understandable to me, but people found it offensive. Finding out I had a condition let me focus on what I was doing that annoyed people and helped me change the way I relate, even if I had to learn the new behavior in a mechanical manner."

After a period of soul searching, Numan reinvented himself.

"I went back into the studio and didn't think about my career, or radio, or anything," he says. "I tried to approach (my music) the way I did when I was a teenager. I made music for the sheer joy of it, not stopping to care if anybody else liked it."

His "comeback" albums -- 1994's "Sacrifice," 2000's "Pure" and the just-released "Jagged" -- continue to explore the emotionally bleak arena of dysfunctional relationships with the sinister, industrial sound of a hermetically sealed universe full of crushing minor-key rhythmic noise.

" 'Sacrifice' was heavier and darker than anything I'd ever done. It felt as if I'd come home and was back on the road I should be on. 'Jagged' is too harsh to get on the radio, even if it gets on the charts, but I made the decision to make the music I want to make, even if I don't win any new fans and only sell to a limited market."

Numan produced "Jagged" with the help of Ade Fenton, a United Kingdom techno DJ and remixer whose love of synthesized sound is equal to Numan's.

"The songs come from me, but Ade's great at creating and manipulating sound," Numan says. "He has a lot of patience as far as tweaking things. I'd write songs while he was manipulating the sounds and doing the production. On some tracks we have 70 or 80 tracks of drums, guitar and synthesizer, some played live but most processed. And there are no solos in the songs. I don't write to exhibit musical ability. It's all about mood and atmosphere."

Despite all the studio-generated chaos, "Jagged" sports some of the best melodies Numan's ever written, many of them with a distinctly Arabic lilt.

"I've been listening to Arab music since '84," Numan says. "It adds an element to the sound that I like, but I don't write or read music. I just stumble along and do what sounds good. I've avoided musical training and have a left-of-center approach to composing. If I'm doing a progression, I don't really know what the next chord should be, so I may go someplace else entirely. I still don't know the most basic stuff, even after three decades."

Another thing that may surprise people is Numan's unexpectedly melodious vocals. They bring the only hint of human feeling into his otherwise grim soundscapes.

"I've never liked my voice, but I'm finally accepting that it's all I've got," he says. "Rather than hiding it, I'm singing as hard and as good as I can and getting more out of it. I'm never going to go down in history as a great singer, but I'm more comfortable now. And I'm singing in tune these days, so that's an improvement." GARY NUMAN plays at 9 p.m. Sat. at the Fillmore, 1850 Geary Blvd., San Francisco. $25. (415) 346-6000, www.livenation.com.

I'll be in San Francisco this weekend to attend Numan's concert. I'm also gonna drop a box of toothpicks on the ground to see if he can instantly count them all. Good times!

the matrix phone has died

2006.08.06 13.22

In 2003, my former coworker Bill Hall was sitting on the other side of the cube from me when I heard him say, ''Oh my Gawwwd! The Matrix phone!! It's so cool!!!'' I anxiously replied, ''What's that? The Matrix phone?! What's the URL for the love of all that is holy!?!'' The Samsung SPH-N270 Matrix phone was a replica phone produced by Samsung in conjunction with the release of the second film THE MATRIX: RELOADED. In that film you can occasionally catch some of the characters using it. I'm a total movie prop freak, so owning a prop phone that really worked became my newest obsession.

My company was using SprintPCS so, other than the crazy $500 cost for the phone, I only had to switch over the service. The phone worked great, but there were times now and then when it wouldn't take a charge if I'd let the battery completely run down. I learned to keep the phone charged daily to prevent this problem, but sometime in 2004 the phone completely died as a result of this unfortunate condition. Sometimes the phone would be in a virtual ''I Don't Want To Be Charged'' coma for days only to snap out of it at random. Not this time. I sent my dead little phone back to Samsung for repairs to the tune of $75. Samsung asked that I keep my battery and only send the phone. I did as they asked, but I had a sneaking suspicion in the back of my head that the battery was the culprit. I got the phone back from the repair place and it was shiny and new and I smiled a lot when I held it. Mmmm. New phone. This joy didn't last long. The phone's display was inverting and rebooting at random. WTF? I sent it back again WITH the battery and included a nasty note about their stupid ''Don't Send Us The Battery'' policy. The Samsung repair tech that I spoke with had the cajones to suggest that perhaps my phone was too old. Excuse me? I'd owned the phone for freakin' 16 months. Calling it old was super dumb. FIX MY PHONE! After several weeks, I received the repaired phone once again. At that point, I decided to keep it in storage and to switch it out for my *backup* Matrix phone. Oh, did I forget to mention that I bought two of them? Ummm. Yeah. I know. I know. I believe that all Samsung SPH-N270 phones have this same problem because my ''new'' backup phone had the same charging quirks as its predecessor. Still, things were going great using until I was in Houston last weekend and forgot my charger. The phone completely ran out of power -- and stayed that way for a couple of days. I thought it had survived the ordeal when I returned to Minneapolis late Sunday night and plugged back in. Wrong. It died a wrenching death at lunchtime and hasn't come back since. Destiny had pulled the head plug out of my beloved super geeky prop phone for the last time.

I used Skype for a while as I searched for a new phone. Domestic calls in the United States are FREE with Skype as long as you give them an initial payment of $10. They don't use that money unless you invoke one of their pay services (like calling long distance outside the states, for example). The quality is great, but I'd prefer to use a mobile phone and not be tethered to my computer. I first tried hitting up Best Buy for the Samsung SPH-A900 (see photo below), but Sprint told them to charge me a $36 activation fee. I tried to weasle my way out of it -- but couldn't. The next day I hit up the SprintPCS store. No luck. They were super snotty there, anyway. Pfft. Screw those guys! Last night I returned to Best Buy and gave in to the activation fee. I only ended up paying $99 for the phone! Maybe that fee will be on my Sprint bill? Who knows. I like the new phone, but I'm still trying to Matrix-ize it. Check out the new and the old below.

hanging out with biff tannen

2006.08.05 16.44

Last Friday I flew into Houston and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Texas Land and Cattle with Christina, her mom, my dad, and Daniel my houston-based roommate. I use the term roommate loosely because I'm only living in the master bedroom and the rest of the house is essentially all him with the exception of my piano. After dinner, Christina and I left and headed to the River Oaks Laff Stop to see actor/comedian Tom Wilson. Who the hell is Tom Wilson? Tom portrayed Biff Tannen in the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy. We didn't know if the show was going to be funny or not, but figured meeting Biff would be cool nonetheless. I asked for a good view and we were seated at a table that wrapped around the perimeter of the stage. Two other couples sat alongside us. This was the 10:30 PM show and the place was about 1/2 full. The opening comedian / host began by saying that he liked to record his set during every show. He then grabbed a videocamera mounted on a tripod and pointed it at Christina's chest. Niiiice. That got a laugh. He then did about 5 minutes during which time the camera chugged away. I wonder how much of that was really filmed. She didn't mind, luckily. The next guy did about 15 minutes and it was mostly about how he was a teacher and the trials and tribulations associated with the job. Christina also happens to be a teacher -- an elementary school P.E. teacher to be exact. They bonded. He was mad at me because I told him I woke up at 8 AM every morning whereas he had to wake up at 6 AM. Cry me a river, as Mr. Timberlake says. Hey, I work really late, okay? When Tom Wilson finally came on he had the whole audience chanting and whooping. He humorously covered his background quite well and included plenty of BACK TO THE FUTURE references and stories to entertain even the most hardened fan. He interracted with me when he was asking each of the males on the wrap-around stage table what they did in high school. Guy #1 -- footbal. Guy #2 -- football. Wilson paused, looked at me, then said, ''Not football, huh?'' I felt like Marty McFly, suddenly. I meekly informed him that I was in band. He laughed and then revealed that he was also a band member back in high school. An ashthmatic tuba player, to be exact. He was even drum major his senior year, so we exchanged a fellow band member kinsmanship. The rites of passage when you're in a marching band are not particularly normal by any stretch of the imagination. My freshman year at the end of summer band party featured me and all the other freshman band members being forced to dance with the senior girls -- while wearing female flag corp vests and skirts. Not too terribly humiliating, but I won't forget it. I got to dance with then drum major Kim Frederick. She's 40 and married now. Holy crap, does time fly? Wow. Unlike the other two comedians, Tom was a total gentleman with Christina and didn't hassle her. He's 47 years old, which is fascinating as he portrayed both his 47 year-old self in 1985 as well as his 17 year-old self in 1955 for BACK TO THE FUTURE. The make-up artists really got that right. After the show I bought Tom's CD and got his signature and shook his hand. Good guy. Check him out if you should ever have the chance to see him in your area. He won't call your friend a butthead on their answering machine, but he's still nice nevertheless.