Look up complex or complexes in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A complex is a whole that comprehends a number of intricate parts, especially one with interconnected or mutually related parts; for example, a complex of buildings.

Complex may refer to:

Biology[link]

• Multiprotein complex, a group of two or more associated polypeptide chains
• Complex (taxonomy), in biology, a cluster of species so closely related that they intergrade, can interbreed, and are difficult to firmly distinguish except at the extremes of their ranges
• Mimicry complex, a complex system of organisms and dependencies involved in a case of mimicry

Chemistry[link]

• Coordination complex, also called a "coordination compound" or "metal complex", a structure consisting of a central atom or molecule weakly connected to surrounding atoms or molecules (ligands)
• Chelate complex, a coordination complex with more than one bond

Mathematics[link]

• Complex number, an extension of real numbers obtained by adjoining imaginary numbers
• Complex system, a system of interconnected simple parts that together exhibit a high degree of computational complexity from which emerges a higher order behavior
• Complex analysis, the study of functions of complex numbers
• An element of a complex algebra or field of sets
• Chain complex, a (possibly long) sequence of maps
• Simplicial complex, a kind of topological space that can be divided into fully adjacent triangles, or more generally, into simplices
• CW complex, or closure-finite weak complex, a kind of topological space, a generalization of the simplicial complex
• Line complex, a 3-dimensional family of lines in space

Other scientific uses[link]

• Complex (psychology), a group of mental factors that are unconsciously associated by the individual with a particular subject and influence the individual's attitude and behavior
• Synonym for a complex system which generally includes all interactions between elements
• Complex crater, a type of large impact crater morphology

As a name[link]

• Complex (artist), an American Rap artist
• Complex (band), a Japanese rock band
• Complex (magazine), a young men's style/lifestyle magazine
• CoMPLEX (ucl) is an interdisciplinary centre at University College London into biology and biomedicine
• "Complex" (song), a song by British musician Gary Numan

See also[link]

• The Complex (disambiguation)
• Complexity
• Complexity (disambiguation)
• Complexity theory (disambiguation)
• Theory of complex systems
• The Military–industrial complex

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2008)

Gary Numan
Gary Numan – Bestival – September 2008
Background information
Birth name	Gary Anthony James Webb
Born	(1958-03-08) 8 March 1958 (age 54) Hammersmith, west London, United Kingdom
Genres	1977–1994: New Wave, synthpop, electronic, experimental rock 1994–present: Industrial rock, gothic rock, Dark Wave
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, producer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, synthesiser, guitar, bass, drums
Years active	1977–present
Labels	Metropolis, Beggars Banquet, Numa, IRS, Eagle, Mortal, Atco
Associated acts	Tubeway Army, Dramatis, Nine Inch Nails, Paul Gardiner, Bill Sharpe, Fear Factory
Website	www.garynuman.co.uk
Notable instruments
Minimoog, Polymoog, ARP Odyssey

Gary Numan (born Gary Anthony James Webb on 8 March 1958) is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" (as Tubeway Army) and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesiser hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.

Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music.^[1][2] His use of themes from science fiction, and his combination of aggressive punk energy with electronics, have been widely imitated.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Born in Hammersmith, Gary Anthony James Webb was the son of a British Airways bus driver based at Heathrow Airport. Webb was educated at Town Farm Junior School Stanwell, Ashford County Grammar School, Middlesex, Slough Grammar School^[3] and Brooklands Technical College. He joined the Air Training Corps as a teenager. He then briefly did various jobs including fork lift truck driver, air conditioning ventilator fitter and clerk in an accounts department. A guitar was purchased for him at an early age and he began writing songs when he was about 15 years old. He played in various bands, including Mean Street and The Lasers, before forming Tubeway Army with his uncle, Jess Lidyard, and Paul Gardiner. His initial pseudonym was "Valerian", probably in reference to the hero in French science fiction comic series Valérian and Laureline.^[4] Later he picked the name "Numan" from an advert in the "Yellow Pages" for a plumber "A. Neumann".^[5]

1970s[link]

Tubeway Army[link]

Numan rose to prominence at the end of the 1970s as front man, writer and producer for Tubeway Army. After recording an album's worth of punk-influenced demo tapes (released in 1984 as The Plan), he was signed by Beggars Banquet Records in 1978 and quickly released two singles, "That's Too Bad" and "Bombers", neither of which charted.

A self-titled, New Wave-oriented debut album later that same year sold out its limited run and introduced Numan's fascination with dystopian science fiction and, more importantly, synthesisers. Tubeway Army's third single, the dark-themed and slow-paced "Down in the Park" (1979) also failed to chart but it would prove to be one of Numan's most enduring and oft-covered songs; it was featured with other contemporary hits on the soundtrack for the movie Times Square, and a live version of the song can also be seen in the movie Urgh! A Music War. After exposure in a television advertisement for Lee Cooper jeans with the jingle "Don't be a dummy", Tubeway Army released the single "Are 'Friends' Electric?" in May 1979. The single took seven weeks before it finally reached No. 1 at the end of June; the parent album Replicas simultaneously reached #1.

As Gary Numan[link]

A few months later Numan found success in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with "Cars", which peaked at No. 1 in the UK in 1979 and No. 1 in Canada^[6] and No. 9 in US in 1980. "Cars" and the 1979 album The Pleasure Principle were both released under Numan's own (assumed) name. A sell-out tour ('The Touring Principle') followed; the concert video it spawned is often cited as the first full-length commercial music video release.^[7][8] The Pleasure Principle was a rock album with no guitars; instead, Numan used synthesisers fed through guitar effects pedals to achieve a distorted, phased, metallic tone. The Pleasure Principle remains one of Numan's most highly-regarded efforts to date. A second single from the album "Complex" made it to No. 6 in the UK charts.

Personality and style[link]

While angry like his punk contemporaries, Numan suppressed his anger and "got really hung up with this whole thing of not feeling, being cold about everything, not letting emotions get to you, or presenting a front of not feeling".^[9]

Around this time, Numan also developed his distinctive style. According to Numan, this was an unintentional result of acne; before an appearance on Top of the Pops, he had "spots everywhere, so they slapped about half an inch of white makeup on me before I'd even walked in the door. And my eyes were like pissholes in the snow, so they put black on there. My so-called image fell into place an hour before going on the show".^[9] His "wooden" stage presence was, in his words, a result of extreme self-consciousness and lack of "showmanship".^[9] He also wore costumes and openly proclaimed his influences: David Bowie, Marc Bolan, and contemporary electronic acts such as John Foxx's Ultravox. His persona was aloof, alien, and androgynous; Numan was not seen to be part of the punk or New Romantic movements. During this period, Numan generated an army of fans calling themselves "Numanoids", providing him with a fanbase which maintained their support through the latter half of the 1980s, when his fortunes began to fall precipitously.^[9]

1980s[link]

Numan performing in February 1980.

In 1980 Numan topped the album charts with Telekon, with the concurrent singles "We Are Glass", "I Die: You Die" and "This Wreckage" reaching No. 5, No. 6 and No. 20, respectively. The final studio album of what Numan retrospectively termed the "Machine" section of his career,^[10] Telekon reintroduced guitars to Numan's music and featured a wider range of synthesisers. The same year he embarked on his second major tour ("The Teletour") with an even more elaborate stage show than The Touring Principle the previous year. Although considered a success^{[by whom?]}, Numan claimed the tour actually lost him a great deal of money because of the vast expense in mounting it. He announced his retirement from touring with a series of sell-out concerts at Wembley Arena in April 1981, supported by experimental musician Nash the Slash and Shock, a rock/mime/burlesque troupe whose members included Barbie Wilde, Tik and Tok and Carole Caplin. The decision to retire would be short-lived.

Moving away from the pure electro-pop that he had made his name with, Numan then experimented with jazz, funk and ethereal, rhythmic pop. His first album after his 1981 farewell concerts was the bleak, atmospheric and experimental Dance (1981). The album charted as high as No. 3 on the UK charts, with an eight week chart run and produced one hit single ("She's Got Claws") reaching No. 6. The album featured several distinguished guest players; Mick Karn (bass, saxophone) and Rob Dean (guitar) of Japan, Roger Mason (keyboards) of Models and Roger Taylor (drums) of Queen.

With his former backing band, Chris John Payne (Keyboards, Viola) Russell Bell (Guitar) and Ced Sharpley (Drums) now reformed as Dramatis, Numan contributed vocals to the minor hit "Love Needs No Disguise" from the album For Future Reference. However, Numan's career had begun to experience a gradual decline, and he was eclipsed initially by acts such as Adam Ant, and later by The Human League, Duran Duran, and Depeche Mode. Each album also saw a new "image", none of which captured the public's imagination to nearly the same extent as the lonely android of 1979.^[9]

The more upbeat and danceable I, Assassin (1982) fared less well than Dance. Despite producing one Top 10 and two Top 20 singles, the album peaked at No. 8 with a six week chart run. Numan supported the album with a concert tour in America in late 1982 (where he was living as a tax exile), which were his first series of live shows since his farewell at Wembley.

Warriors (1983) further developed Numan's jazz-influenced style and featured contributions from avant-garde musician Bill Nelson (who fell out with Numan during recording and chose to be uncredited as the album's co-producer) and saxophonist Dick Morrissey (who would play on most of Numan's albums until 1991). The album peaked at No. 12, produced two hit singles including the Top 20 title track and, like I, Assassin, spent six weeks in the charts. Warriors was the last album Numan recorded for Beggars Banquet Records, and was supported by a 40-date UK tour (again with support from robotic mime and music duo Tik and Tok) – Numan's first live tour in the UK since his Wembley appearances in 1981. Numan's look for the album artwork and tour was a Mad Max-influenced black leather costume against a post-apocalyptic backdrop, but this latest image change was scorned by the music press.

Now battling against the increasing public perception that he was a spent force, Numan issued a series of albums and singles on his own record label, Numa. As the decade continued, he experienced a creative malaise, trying to recapture his former chart glory with less distinguished albums, some of which were stylistically derivative of artists like Robert Palmer and Prince.

The first album released on Numa, 1984’s Berserker was also notable for being Numan's first foray into music computers/samplers, in this case the PPG Wave. Berserker moved away from the fluid, fretless sound that characterised Numan's previous three albums, featuring instead harder-edged electric bass and drum sounds. The album was also accompanied by a striking blue-and-white visual image, a tour, a live album/video and produced two hit singles, but it divided critics and fans and commercially was Numan’s least successful release to that date. This year also saw the death of Paul Gardiner, who was Numan's bassist and friend since his Tubeway Army days, from a fatal heroin overdose on 4 February 1984. Numan's song 'A Child With The Ghost' is about Paul Gardiner and also featured on Tik & Tok's album 'Intolerance' (1984).

Numan's next album, The Fury (1985), charted slightly higher than Berserker, produced four hit singles and featured another new image of white suit and red bow tie. To date, The Fury is the last Numan album to crack the British Top 30.

Collaborations with Bill Sharpe of Shakatak helped little, though two singles the duo recorded, "Change Your Mind", did see chart action, reaching No.17 and "No More Lies" reaching No.35 in 1988 in Britain. Numa Records, which had been launched in a flurry of idealistic excitement, folded after the release of Numan's Strange Charm album (1986). In addition to Numa's commercial failure, a lack of radio play (his records were removed from the BBC Radio 1 playlist) and sales drained the fortune (he estimated £4.5 million) Numan had amassed in the late 1970s. Numan signed to IRS Records and his final studio album of the 1980s, the edgy, industrial-funk Metal Rhythm (1988) found favour with fans and scored some positive reviews in the UK music press, but it sold poorly despite two hit singles. Metal Rhythm's sales were arguably confounded by the lack of strong promotion and IRS's inappropriate choices of singles (the record label also changed the album's title to New Anger, changed the album colour shade from black to blue, and remixed several of its tracks for its American release against Numan's wishes). 1989 saw the release of the Sharpe + Numan album Automatic. A more lightweight-pop effort than Numan's solo albums, Automatic fared less well than Metal Rhythm, and has been out of print since its initial release, fetching high prices on auction sites.

1990s[link]

In 1991, Numan ventured into film-scoring by co-composing the music for The Unborn with Michael R. Smith (the score was later released as an instrumental album in 1995, Human). After Outland (1991), another critical and commercial disappointment and his second and last studio album with IRS, Numan reactivated Numa Records, under which he would release his next two albums. However, even Numan considers his 1992 Machine + Soul, a misguided attempt at a purely commercial release recorded solely to pay off debts, a career low point. The album sold only a few thousand copies. By 1994, Numan decided to stop attempting to crack the pop market and concentrate instead on exploring more personal themes, including his vocal atheism. His future wife Gemma encouraged him to strip away the influences of the previous years. Numan re-evaluated his career and went in a harsher, more industrial direction with his songwriting on the album Sacrifice — for the first time he played almost all the instruments himself. The move was critically well-received, as Numan's harder and darker sound emerged just as Numan-influenced bands like Nine Inch Nails were enjoying their first rush of fame. The influence was two-way; Numan claimed that Nine Inch Nails' song "Closer" is his favourite hit single of all time, and influenced his music. Sacrifice was the last album Numan made before shutting down Numa Records permanently. His next two albums, Exile (1997) and Pure (2000), restored his critical reputation. Numan toured the U.S. in support of Exile, his first stateside concerts since the early 1980s.^[9]

2000s[link]

Gary Numan performing in 2007

Numan has become acknowledged and respected by his peers, with such musicians as Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters and Nirvana), Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails), and Marilyn Manson proclaiming his work an influence and recording cover versions of old Numan hits.^[11][12] The band Basement Jaxx had a huge hit in 2002 with "Where's Your Head At?", which relied on a sample of Numan's "M.E." – from The Pleasure Principle – for its hook. Fear Factory produced a cover of "Cars" (featuring a prominent guest appearance by Numan himself) for the digipak version of their album Obsolete. Nine Inch Nails covered the song "Metal" on The Fragile remix album Things Falling Apart as did Afrika Bambaataa (with Numan himself) on the album Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light. "Cars" remains Numan's most enduring song; it was a hit again in 1987 (remixed by Zeus B. Held) and 1996, in the latter case thanks to an appearance in an advert for Carling beer. In 2000 DJ Armand Van Helden sampled the track and mixed it up in his single "Koochy" which conquered the dancefloors. In 2002, UK pop trio Sugababes scored a No. 1 with "Freak Like Me" – a mashup of Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" and "Are Friends Electric?" by Numan's Tubeway Army.

Other musicians, and at least one comedian, who have sung Numan's praises in recent years include Beck, Grant Nicholas, Tricky, Damon Albarn & Matt Sharp, Jarvis Cocker, Queens of the Stone Age, David Bowie, Noel Fielding and Afrika Bambaataa, who spoke of the influence Numan's music had on the fledgling American DJ scene: "In the late 70s and early 80s Gary had the rhythms that DJs wanted to get hold of and people waited for his records on the dance floor." "^{[cite this quote]} Cars" was featured on the soundtrack for the blockbuster 2002 videogame Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as part of the New Wave radio station Wave 103, although it did not appear on the soundtrack CD release for the game. "Are Friends Electric" appeared on EA's game Need For Speed: Carbon in 2006.

In 2002, Numan enjoyed chart success once again with the single "Rip", reaching No. 29 in the UK chart and in 2003 with the Gary Numan vs Rico single "Crazier", which reached No. 13 in the UK chart. Rico also worked on the remix album Hybrid which featured reworkings of older songs in a more contemporary industrial style as well as new material. Other artists and producers who contributed on these remixes included Curve, Flood, Andy Gray, Alan Moulder, New Disease and Sulpher. 2003 also saw Numan performing the vocals on a track named "Pray For You" on the Plump DJs album Eargasm, which was well received. In 2004 Numan took control of his own business affairs again, launching the label Mortal Records and releasing a series of live DVDs. In late 2006, Numan announced on his website that recording would begin on his new album in January 2007, with Ade Fenton co-producing. Numan stated "think of Jagged and Pure, but faster, with bigger choruses, more energy, and more aggression"^{[cite this quote]} to describe the album's intended sound. The album, Jagged, was duly released on 13 March 2006. An album launch gig took place at The Forum, London on 18 March followed by UK, European and US tours in support of the release. Numan also launched a Jagged website to showcase the new album, and made plans to have his 1981 farewell concert (previously released as Micromusic on VHS) issued on DVD by November 2006 as well as releasing the DVD version of the Jagged album launch gig. Numan undertook a Telekon 'Classic Album' tour in the UK in December 2006.

On 6 November 2006, Numan took part in the Sky1 reality show The Race. It pitted ten celebrities (five male, five female) against each other in a series of Formula One-style car races. These races were held at Silverstone over the next five days, and varied in racing styles, ultimately culminating in one final Grand Prix race on Sunday, 12 November. Numan did win on the overall leaderboard, though he lost the final race to AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson.

Numan contributed vocals to four tracks on the April 2007 release of Fenton's debut solo album Artificial Perfect on his new industrial/electronic label Submission, including songs "The Leather Sea", "Slide Away", "Recall" and the first single to be taken from the album, "Healing". The second single to be released in the UK was "The Leather Sea" on 30 July 2007.

Promoting the 2008 Replicas Tour

He sold out a fifteen-date UK tour in Spring 2008 during which he performed his 1979 number one album Replicas in full, and all the Replicas-era music including B-sides.^[13] The highly successful tour also raised Numan's profile in the media again due to the fact that it coincided with his 30th anniversary in the music business. The tour was also notable for the Manchester gig on 8 March 2008 which also happened to fall on his 50th birthday. The band, along with wife Gemma, helped Numan celebrate by bringing a large cake onstage. A recording of the concert was released on DVD under the title "Replicas Live".

In November 2007, Numan confirmed via his website that work on a new album, with the working title of Splinter, would be under way throughout 2008, after finishing an alternate version of Jagged (called Jagged Edge) and the CD of unreleased songs from his previous three albums (confirmed to be titled Dead Son Rising on 1 December 2008 via official mailing list message). He wrote that Splinter was likely to be released in early 2010. Numan has recently completed a four-date run of gigs in Australia and will be touring the UK in the coming months.^{[citation needed]}

In July 2009, Gary Numan appeared as a special guest at the "Wave Goodbye" Nine Inch Nails concert at The O2 arena (London) in London. Before coming on stage, Trent Reznor explained how Numan was "vitally important and a huge inspiration" to him during the past 20 years. Numan then went on to play two songs with Nine Inch Nails; "Cars" and "Metal". Numan appeared once again at the final run of the "Wave Goodbye" shows in Los Angeles, CA. In August 2009 he played at the Hevy Music Festival in Folkestone, UK. On 2 September 2009 at the Hollywood Palladium, Numan joined Reznor on stage to perform "Metal" and "Cars" near the end of the Nine Inch Nails set. He then joined the band onstage a third time at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, CA, this time performing "Metal" and "I Die: You Die" from the album Telekon. He then joined them a fourth time at the Henry Fonda Theater, performing "Down In The Park", "Metal" and "Cars". Mike Garson initially played "Down In The Park (Piano Version)" before they started the song. He then joined them for the final show at the Wiltern Theater.

In a September 2009 interview with The Quietus, Numan says that he and Trent Reznor plan to make music together.^[14]

2010s[link]

He was set to perform a small number of American live dates in April 2010, including a Coachella Festival appearance in California, but had to cancel because air travel in Europe was halted by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud. As a result, the tour was not only postponed but expanded, and his Pleasure Principle 30th Anniversary Tour's American and Mexican dates began on 17 October 2010, at Firestone Live in Orlando, Florida.

Gary Numan toured Australia in May 2011 performing his seminal album The Pleasure Principle in its entirety to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. Joining him on tour was renowned Australian electronic band Severed Heads, coming out of retirement especially for the shows.^[15]

Numan lent his vocals to the track "My Machines" off Battles's 2011 album "Gloss Drop". He has been chosen by Battles to perform at the ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival that they co-curate in December 2011 in Minehead, England.^[16] Numan's new album Dead Son Rising was released on 16 September 2011 which had a full U.K tour split in two halves, 15–21 September and 7–11 December, Both parts were supported by Welsh soloist Jayce Lewis in an interview during the tour; Gary praised the Welshman to being the best supporting act ever in his 30 years of touring, later documenting the tour in a Tour diary and publicly inviting Jayce to join him for an American tour in 2012.^[17][18][19]

Numan also provided narration for Voltaire's short film Odokuro in 2011.

Personal life[link]

Numan is a positive atheist and has incorporated anti-religious motifs and images in his music.^[20] Numan was an outspoken supporter of the Conservative Party and of Margaret Thatcher after her inauguration as Prime Minister.^[21][22] He later expressed regret for giving his public support, calling it "a noose around my neck".^[22] He has recently said that he considers himself neither left-wing nor right-wing and that he does not support Tony Blair or David Cameron.^[22] He also said, "I'm not socialist, I know that. I don't believe in sharing my money."^[21]

Numan married a member of his fan club, Gemma O'Neill, a native of Sidcup.^[23][24] In 2003, after some pregnancy difficulties, the couple had their first child, Raven. In 2005 they had a second daughter, Persia. In 2007 the couple had their third child, Echo. Numan resides with his family in East Sussex.^[25] He published his autobiography, Praying to the Aliens, in 1997 (updated edition 1998), in collaboration with Steve Malins. (Malins also wrote the liner notes for most of the CD reissues of Numan's albums in the late 1990s, as well as executive producing the Hybrid album in 2003.)

Numan is known for his love of flying, a passion which has featured in some of his music videos ("Warriors", "I Can't Stop"). He has owned several small aircraft. Numan was a member of the Air Training Corps. He is one of a very small handful of flyers with the credentials and qualifications to train aerobatic instructor pilots.^{[citation needed]} He was once forced to emergency-land his light aircraft on the A3051 near Southampton. Numan is referenced several times in the BBC TV series The Mighty Boosh as Vince Noir, one of the main characters, is a huge Gary Numan fan. Examples of this are in the episode "Tundra" where Numan gives Noir a lift to the Antarctic in his personal jet (a black jet with a red trim with "NUMAN" written in white), in the episode "Electro" Numan's influence is clear to see on Noir when he joins electro band "Kraftwork Orange". Along with making several other references to Numan (notably a scene where Noir states he's made some 'tapes' for a journey saying "This is the best of the 60s (holding one tape), this is the best of the 70s (holding another tape) and THIS (picks up a horde of tapes) is Gary Numan!"), Numan guest-starred in "The Power of the Crimp", being locked in a cupboard and is used (unsuccessfully) to cheer Vince up.^{[citation needed]}

At age 15, after a series of outbursts in which Numan would "smash things up, scream and shout, get in people's faces and break stuff", he was prescribed antidepressants and anxiolytics.^[9] Numan's wife, then a nail technician, considered him to have Asperger syndrome. He has never been medically diagnosed.^[26] In a 2001 interview, he said: "Polite conversation has never been one of my strong points. Just recently I actually found out that I'd got a mild form of Asperger's syndrome which basically means I have trouble interacting with people. For years, I couldn't understand why people thought I was arrogant, but now it all makes more sense.".^[27]

Following the harassment of his wife while his family was walking on High Street and the 2011 England Riots Numan filed papers to emigrate to the United States. He plans to live in Santa Monica, California. Numan said "Every village and town in England has a bunch of thugs running around in it. The riots were the nail in the coffin".^[28]

In late August 2011, in the Q&A section of NuWorld, in answer to the question "Is it true you now hate England and want to leave?" he replied, "No, that’s utter rubbish." He explained that he'd "never been abused in my local high street," and has "made no firm decision about leaving the UK" but thugs are helping make such a decision, pointing out that the rioting "makes us look like a country of ignorant savages, beating up people already injured, pretending to help while stealing their things, hitting old men, killing them." He went on to explain that soundtracks may be a logical step, as he gets older and since "in the UK we have no meaningful film industry to speak of," a move to the U.S. might be more reasonable. He concluded by saying his family are highest priority and, "If I see somewhere that seems safer, happier and will give them a better life than the UK, I’ll take them there if I possibly can."

Discography[link]

• Tubeway Army (1978) (with Tubeway Army)
• Replicas (1979) (with Tubeway Army)
• The Pleasure Principle (1979) (Numan's first album under his own name)
• Telekon (1980)
• Dance (1981)
• I, Assassin (1982)
• Warriors (1983)
• Berserker (1984)
• The Fury (1985)
• Strange Charm (1986)
• Metal Rhythm (1988) (New Anger in the United States)
• Automatic (1989) (With Bill Sharpe)
• Outland (1991)
• Machine and Soul (1992)
• Sacrifice (1994) (Dawn in the US)
• Exile (1997)
• Pure (2000)
• Hybrid (2003)
• Jagged (2006)
• Dead Son Rising (2011)

References[link]

• Paul Goodwin (2004). Electric Pioneer: An Armchair Guide To Gary Numan.
• Guinness Book of British Hit Singles 7th Edition

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gary Numan

• NuWORLD: Official website
• Complete discography, unofficial
• Review: Exposure – NXLive.co.uk
• North American Gary Numan Fan Club, unofficial

Benjamin Watson

Benjamin Watson during the 2009 NFL season.
No. 82     Cleveland Browns
Tight end
Personal information
Date of birth: (1980-12-18) December 18, 1980 (age 31)
Place of birth: Norfolk, Virginia
Height: 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) Weight: 255 lb (116 kg)
Career information
College: Georgia
NFL Draft: 2004 / Round: 1 / Pick: 32
Debuted in 2004 for the New England Patriots
Career history
New England Patriots (2004–2009) Cleveland Browns (2010–present)
Career highlights and awards
Super Bowl XXXIX champion
Career NFL statistics as of Week 14, 2011
Receptions 272 Receiving yards 3,275 Receiving touchdowns 25 Stats at NFL.com

Benjamin Watson (born December 18, 1980 in Norfolk, Virginia) is an American football tight end for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. He was drafted by the New England Patriots 32nd overall in the 2004 NFL draft. He played college football at Georgia.

Early years[link]

Watson attended Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, South Carolina and was a letterman in football. In football, as a senior, he caught 31 passes for 515 yards (16.61 yards per rec. avg), was an All-Area pick, All-Region selection, an All-State honoree, selected to play in the Shrine Bowl, and voted Student of the Year. As a junior, he was an All-Area pick, an All-region selection, led his team to the state championship, and voted Student of the Year. He was also a member of his high school chapter of The Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

College career[link]

Watson played football at Duke University prior to transferring to the University of Georgia where he majored in finance.

Professional career[link]

New England Patriots[link]

Watson entered the league rumored to have scored a 48 on his Wonderlic Test, an achievement that projects to an IQ of 156 . He was drafted by the New England Patriots 32nd overall in the 2004 NFL draft. He was on the injured list for almost his entire rookie season for the Patriots, playing in only one game.

His two biggest plays of the 2005 season came in the playoffs. In one, during the Patriots' first game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, on a third-down play that nearly forced the Patriots to punt, Watson broke free of one tackle to earn the first down; in all, Watson broke three tackles and outran five defenders, taking the ball 63 yards to score the touchdown.

Even more notable, though, was his pursuit and tackle of Champ Bailey during the Patriots' 2005 AFC Divisional Playoff game against Denver on January 14, 2006. Bailey intercepted a Tom Brady pass in Denver's endzone, and proceeded to run it down the full length of the (near) side-line, towards New England's endzone. At the time of the interception, Watson was on the opposite side of the field from Bailey (on the far side-line), and so he had to take a diagonal pursuit the full (diagonal) length of the field in order to have a chance of catching him. Watson caught up with Bailey at New England's 2-yard line and tackled him hard, causing Bailey to fumble the ball. After an extensive review, the refs announced that the evidence was inconclusive as to whether or not Bailey fumbled the ball through the end-zone, or out of bounds. Thus, the call on the field stood (that he fumbled it out of bounds at the 1-yard line). This controversial call led to a crucial Denver touchdown, and was the key play in allowing the Broncos to upend the 2-time defending Super Bowl champs. Many NFL experts compared Watson's extraordinary play to that of Don Beebe's pursuit of Leon Lett in Super Bowl XXVII as two of greatest hustle plays of all time.

Cleveland Browns[link]

On March 12, 2010, Watson signed a three year deal with the Cleveland Browns reuniting him with former Patriots assistant coach, Eric Mangini. In the 2010 season, Watson led the Browns in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns (tied with Brian Robiskie).

References[link]

Angela Davis
Davis in October 2006
Born	Angela Yvonne Davis (1944-01-26) January 26, 1944 (age 68) Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Ethnicity	African-American
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Brandeis University, B.A., (1965) University of California, San Diego, M.A. Humboldt University, Ph.D., Philosophy
Occupation	Activist, educator, author
Employer	University of California, Santa Cruz (retired)
Influenced by	Herbert Marcuse
Political party	Communist Party USA (1969-1991), Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (1991-currently)
Spouse	Hilton Braithwaite div.[1]
Relatives	Ben Davis, brother

Angela Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis emerged as a nationally prominent activist and radical in the 1960s, as a leader of the Communist Party USA and Black Panther Party, and through her association with the Civil Rights Movement. Prisoner rights have been among her continuing interests; she is the founder of "Critical Resistance", an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department.^[2] Her research interests are in feminism, African American studies, critical theory, Marxism, popular music and social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons.^[3]

Her membership in the Communist Party led to Ronald Reagan's request in 1969 to have her barred from teaching at any university in the State of California. She was tried and acquitted of suspected involvement in the Soledad brothers' August 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California.

She was twice a candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket during the 1980s.

Early life[link]

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Her father, Frank Davis, was a graduate of St. Augustine's College, a historically black college in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was briefly a high school history teacher. Her father later owned and operated a service station in the black section of Birmingham. Her mother, Sallye Davis, a graduate of Miles College in Birmingham, was an elementary school teacher.

The family lived in the "Dynamite Hill" neighborhood, which was marked by racial conflict. Davis was occasionally able to spend time on her uncle's farm and with friends in New York City.^[4] Her brother, Ben Davis, played defensive back for the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Davis also has another brother, Reginald Davis, and sister, Fania Davis Jordan.^[5]

Davis attended Carrie A. Tuggle School, a black elementary school; later she attended Parker Annex, a middle-school branch of Parker High School in Birmingham. During this time Davis’ mother was a national officer and leading organizer of the Southern Negro Congress, an organization heavily influenced by the Communist Party. Consequently Davis grew up surrounded by communist organizers and thinkers who significantly influenced her intellectual development growing up.^[6] By her junior year, she had applied to and was accepted at an American Friends Service Committee program that placed black students from the South in integrated schools in the North. She chose Elisabeth Irwin High School in Greenwich Village in New York City. There she was introduced to socialism and communism and was recruited by a Communist youth group, Advance. She also met children of some of the leaders of the Communist Party USA, including her lifelong friend, Bettina Aptheker.^[7]

Education[link]

Brandeis University[link]

Davis was awarded a scholarship to Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she was one of three black students in her freshman class. She initially felt alienated by the isolation of the campus (at that time she was interested in Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre), but she soon made friends with foreign students. She encountered the Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then became his student. In a television interview, she said "Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar, and a revolutionary."^[8] She worked part time to earn enough money to travel to France and Switzerland before she went on to attend the eighth World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki, Finland. She returned home in 1963 to a Federal Bureau of Investigation interview about her attendance at the Communist-sponsored festival.^[9]

During her second year at Brandeis, she decided to major in French and continued her intensive study of Sartre. Davis was accepted by the Hamilton College Junior Year in France Program and, she wrote in her autobiography, she managed to talk Brandeis into extending financial support via her scholarship. Classes were initially at Biarritz and later at the Sorbonne. In Paris, she and other students lived with a French family. It was at Biarritz that she received news of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, committed by the members of the Ku Klux Klan, an occasion that deeply affected her, because, she wrote, she was personally acquainted with the young victims.^[9]

Nearing completion of her degree in French, Davis realized her major interest was in philosophy. She became particularly interested in the ideas of Herbert Marcuse and on her return to Brandeis she sat in on his course. Marcuse, she wrote, turned out to be approachable and helpful. Davis began making plans to attend the University of Frankfurt for graduate work in philosophy. In 1965 she graduated magna cum laude, a member of Phi Beta Kappa.^[9]

University of Frankfurt[link]

In Germany, with a stipend of just $100 a month, she first lived with a German family. Later, she moved with a group of students into a loft in an old factory. After visiting East Berlin during the annual May Day celebration, she felt that the East German government was dealing better with the residual effects of fascism than were the West Germans. Many of her roommates were active in the radical Socialist German Student Union (SDS), and Davis participated in SDS actions, but events unfolding in the United States — the formation of the Black Panther Party and transformation of SNCC, for example — impelled her to return to the US.^[9]

Postgraduate work[link]

This section requires expansion.

Marcuse, in the meantime, had moved to the University of California, San Diego, and Davis followed him there after her two years in Frankfurt.^[9]

Returning to the United States, Davis stopped in London to attend a conference on "The Dialectics of Liberation." The black contingent at the conference included the American Stokely Carmichael and the British Michael X. Although moved by Carmichael's fiery rhetoric, she was disappointed by her colleagues' black nationalist sentiments and their rejection of communism as a "white man's thing." She held the view that any nationalism was a barrier to grappling with the underlying issue, capitalist domination of working people of all races.^[10]

Davis earned her master's degree from the San Diego campus and her doctorate in philosophy from Humboldt University in East Berlin.^[11]

University of California, Los Angeles[link]

Davis was an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), beginning in 1969. She had been pursued with positions at Princeton and Swarthmore but chose UCLA for its urban location. ^[12]At that time, she also was known as a radical feminist and activist, a member of the Communist Party USA and an associate of the Black Panther Party.^[2]

The Board of Regents of the University of California, urged by then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, fired her from her $10,000 a year post in 1969 because of her membership in the Communist Party. Black students and several professors, however, claimed that they fired her because of her race. The Board of Regents was censured by the American Association of University Professors for their failure to reappoint Davis after her teaching contract expired.^[13] On October 20 when California judge, Perry Pacht, ruled that the Regents could not fire Davis because of her affiliation with the Communist Party, Davis resumed her post at the University. The Regents, unhappy with the decision, continued to search for ways to release Davis from her position at UCLA. They finally accomplished this on June 20, 1970 when they fired Davis on account of the “inflammatory language” she had used on four different speeches. “We deem particularly offensive,” the report said, “such utterances as her statement that the regents ‘killed, brutalized (and) murdered’ the People’s Park demonstrators, and her repeated characterizations of the police as ‘pigs.’” ^[14][15][16]

Arrest and trial[link]

On August 7, 1970 Jonathan Jackson, a heavily armed, 17-year-old African American high school student, gained control over a courtroom in Marin County, California. Once in the courtroom, Jackson armed the black defendants and took Judge Harold Haley, the prosecutor, and three female jurors as hostages.^[17][18] As Jackson transported the hostages and two black convicts away from the courtroom, the police began shooting at the vehicle. The judge, one of the jurors, the prosecutor, and the three black men were killed in the melee. Davis had purchased the firearms used in the attack, including the shotgun used to kill Haley, which had been purchased two days prior and sawed off.^[18] She had also written numerous letters found in the prison cell of one of the murderers. Since California considers “all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense… principals in any crime so committed,” San Marin County Superior Judge Peter Allen Smith charged Davis with “aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley” and issued a warrant for her arrest. Hours after the judge issued the warrant on August 14, 1970 a massive attempt to arrest Angela Davis began. On August 18, 1970, four days after the initial warrant was issued, the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made Angela Davis the third woman and the 309th person to appear on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List.^[17][19]

Soon after, Davis became a fugitive and fled California. According to her autobiography, during this time she hid in friends’ homes and moved from place to place at night. On October 13, 1970, FBI agents found her at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in New York City.^[20] President Richard M. Nixon congratulated the FBI on its “capture of the dangerous terrorist, Angela Davis." On January 5, 1971, after several months in jail, Angela Davis appeared at the Marin County Superior Court and declared her innocence before the court and nation: "I now declare publicly before the court, before the people of this country that I am innocent of all charges which have been leveled against me by the state of California." John Abt, general counsel of the Communist Party USA, was one of the first attorneys to represent Davis for her alleged involvement in the shootings.^[21] While being held in the Women's Detention Center there, she was initially segregated from the general population, but with the help of her legal team soon obtained a federal court order to get out of the segregated area.^[22]

Angela Davis and Erich Honecker in GDR, 1972

Across the nation, the thousands of people who agreed with her declaration began organizing a liberation movement. In New York City, black writers formed a committee called the Black People in Defense of Angela Davis. By February 1971 more than 200 local committees in the United States, and 67 in foreign countries worked to liberate Angela Davis from prison. Thanks, in part, to this support, in 1972 the state released her from prison.^[17] After spending 18 months behind bars, Davis was acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury.

On February 23, 1972, Rodger McAfee, a dairy farmer from Caruthers, California with the help of Steve Sparacino, a wealthy business owner, paid her $100,000 bail. Portions of her legal defense expenses were paid for by the Presbyterian Church (UPCNA).^[17][23]

In 1972, she was tried and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The fact that she owned the guns used in the crime was judged not sufficient to establish her responsibility for the plot. Her experience as a prisoner in the US played a key role in convincing her to fight against the “prison industrial complex” that she claims exists in the US.^[17] John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded their song "Angela" on their 1972 album Some Time in New York City in support. The Jazz musician Todd Cochran, also known as Bayete, recorded his song "Free Angela (Thoughts...and all I've got to say)" that same year. The Rolling Stones recorded the song "Sweet Black Angel" on their 1972 album Exile on Main Street.^[24][25]

In Cuba[link]

After her release, Davis visited Cuba following her fellow activists Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, and Assata Shakur. Her reception by Afro-Cubans at a mass rally was so enthusiastic that she was reportedly barely able to speak.^[26]

During this visit she also became convinced that “only under socialism could the fight against racism be successfully executed.” During her stay in Cuba, Davis witnessed what she perceived to be a racism-free country which led her to believe that blacks could only achieve racial equality in a socialist society. When she returned to the United States, her socialist leanings increasingly influenced the ways she looked at race struggles within the US.^[27]

Criticism by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn[link]

In a New York City speech on July 9, 1975, Russian dissident and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told an AFL-CIO meeting that Davis was derelict in supporting prisoners in various socialist countries around the world, given her stark opposition to the U.S. prison system. In particular, Solzhenitsyn claimed that a group of Czech prisoners appealed to Davis for support, which he said she refused to offer. ^[28]

Specifically Solzhenitsyn stated, "Little children in school were told to sign petitions in defense of Angela Davis. Although she didn’t have too difficult a time in this country’s jails, she came to recuperate in Soviet resorts. Some Soviet dissidents–but more important, a group of Czech dissidents–addressed an appeal to her: `Comrade Davis, you were in prison. You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when you consider yourself innocent. You have such great authority now. Could you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those people in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?’ Angela Davis answered: `They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.’ That is the face of Communism. That is the heart of Communism for you.” ^[29]

In a speech at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, Davis denied Solzhenitsyn's claim.^[30]

Activism[link]

In 1980 and 1984, Angela Davis ran for Vice-President along with the veteran party leader of the Communist Party, Gus Hall. However, given that the Communist Party lacked support within the US, Davis urged radicals to amass support for the Democratic Party. Revolutionaries must be realists, said Davis in a telephone interview from San Francisco where she was campaigning. During both of the campaigns she was Professor of Ethnic Studies at the San Francisco State University. ^[31] In 1979 she was also awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union for her civil rights activism. She visited Moscow in July of that year to collect the prize.

Angela Davis as honorary guest of the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1973

Davis has continued a career of activism, and has written several books. A principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons within the United States. She considers herself an abolitionist, not a "prison reformer," and has referred to the United States prison system as the "prison-industrial complex".^[32] Davis suggested focusing social efforts on education and building "engaged communities" to solve various social problems now handled through state punishment.^[2] Davis was one of the primary founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison system.

In recent work, Angela Davis argues that the prison system in the United States more closely resembles a new form of slavery than a criminal justice system. According to Davis, between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century the number of prisons in the US sharply increased while crime rates continued to rise. During this time, the African American population also became disproportionally represented in prisons. "What is effective or just about this "justice" system?" she urged people to question.^[33] To encourage people to critically think about the criminal justice system and its racist history, Davis has also spent years lecturing in schools, parks, and other public places to the American public.

She has lectured at San Francisco State University, Stanford University, Bryn Mawr College, Brown University, Syracuse University, and other schools.^[2] She states that in her teaching, which is mostly at the graduate level, she concentrates more on posing questions that encourage development of critical thinking than on imparting knowledge.^[2] In 1997, she declared herself to be a lesbian in Out magazine.^[34]

As early as 1969 Davis began publicly speaking, voicing her opposition to the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, and the prison industrial complex, and her support of gay rights and other social justice movements. In 1969 she blamed imperialism for the troubles suffered by oppressed populations. “We are facing a common enemy and that enemy is Yankee Imperialism, which is killing us both here and abroad. Now I think anyone who would try to separate those struggles, anyone who would say that in order to consolidate an anti-war movement, we have to leave all of these other outlying issues out of the picture, is playing right into the hands of the enemy,” Davis declared.^[35] In 2001 she publicly spoke against the war on terror, the prison industrial complex, and the broken immigration system and told people that if they wanted to solve social justice issues they had to “hone their critical skills, develop them and implement them." Later, after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she declared, the “horrendous situation in New Orleans,” is due to the structures of racism, capitalism, and imperialism with which our leaders run this country.^[36]

Davis spoke out against the 1995 Million Man March, arguing that the exclusion of women from this event necessarily promoted male chauvinism and that the organizers, including Louis Farrakhan, preferred women to take subordinate roles in society. Together with Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, an alliance of Black feminists.^[37]

Davis is no longer a member of the Communist Party, leaving it to help found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which broke from the Communist Party USA because of the latter's support of the Soviet coup attempt of 1991.^[38] She remains on the Advisory Board of the Committees.^[39]

Davis at the University of Alberta, March 28, 2006.

Davis has continued to speak out against the death penalty. In 2003, Davis lectured at Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts women's college in Atlanta, on prison reform, minority issues, and the ills of the criminal justice system.^[40]

This biographical article is written like a résumé. Please help improve it by revising it to be neutral and encyclopedic. (April 2012)

}At the University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz), she participated in a 2004 panel concerning Kevin Cooper. She also spoke in defense of Stanley "Tookie" Williams on another panel in 2005,^[41] and 2009.^[42]

As of February 2007, Davis was teaching in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.^[43]

In addition to being the commencement speaker at Grinnell College in 2007, in October of that year, Davis was the keynote speaker at the fifth annual Practical Activism Conference at UC Santa Cruz.^[44]

On February 8, 2008, Davis spoke on the campus of Howard University at the invitation of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. On February 24, 2008, she was featured as the closing keynote speaker for the 2008 Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference. On April 14, 2008, she spoke at the College of Charleston as a guest of the Women's and Gender Studies Program. On January 23, 2009, she was the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King Commemorative Celebration on the campus of Louisiana State University.^[45]

On April 16, 2009, she was the keynote speaker at the University of Virginia Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies symposium on The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequity, and Justice.^[46] On January 20, 2010, Davis was the keynote speaker in San Antonio, Texas, at Trinity University's MLK Day Celebration held in Laurie Auditorium. On January 21, 2011, Davis was the keynote speaker in Salem, OR at Willamette University's MLK Week Celebration held in Smith Auditorium where she declared that her biggest goal for the coming years is to shut down prisons. During her remarks, she also noted that while she supports some of President Barack Obama's positions, she feels he is too conservative. On January 27, 2011, Davis was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration speaker at Georgia Southern University's Performing Arts Center (PAC) in Statesboro, Georgia. On June 10, 2011, Davis delivered the Graduation Address at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington.^[47] On May 12, 2012, Davis delivered a Commencement Address at Pitzer College, in Claremont.

As of 31 October 2011, Davis had spoken at the Philadelphia and Washington Square Occupy Wall Street assemblies where, due to restrictions on electronic amplification, her words were human microphoned.^[48][49]

Teaching[link]

Davis was a professor in the History of Consciousness and the Feminist Studies Departments at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1991 to 2008^[50] and is now Distinguished Professor Emerita^[51].

Davis was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Syracuse University in Spring 1992^[52] and October 2010.^[53] She was hosted by the Women's and Gender Studies Department and the Department of African American studies.