THE 1993 CD RE-ISSUES INC “CARS ‘93” AND THE BEST OF GARY NUMAN 1978-1983 ALBUM
Released December 1993.
STEVE WEBBON – Beggars Banquet Records.
STEVE WEBBON:
With the increasing viability of CD sales in the early ‘90’s, I soon
regretted hacking the albums about back in 1987 but in 1993 Gary's
sales were not very good, so again I doubted the sales potential of the
last 4 albums. Most CD's were full price then so the solution seemed to
be again to double up albums but sell them at single CD price. The
artwork was one of the first jobs we did on the Apple Mac - I wasn't
very experienced, had no budget, and though they seemed OK at the time,
I've lived to regret it! The mastering was based on the Japanese Asylum
which in turn used the 1987 / 88 studio tapes transfers.
GARY NUMAN:
I delayed my album Sacrifice to help promote the “Cars” remix and the
“best of” album. Beggars thought it would be very messy if two Gary
Numan albums came out at the same time. GARY NUMAN:
Beggar's Banquet asked me to promote the "Cars" remix. I was pleased
with all the work Beggars Banquet had done on the remix although I
don’t think the fans were all that keen on this remix. All the
packaging was extremely good. I was very impressed with Beggars
throughout the planning, great ideas, great quality and tremendous
enthusiasm for the work. We put the tribute to James Hunt on the
7-inch poster sleeve because I am a big fan of Formula One and I
thought it was such a shame when he died and I didn’t think there was
much fuss made about it.
CHARLES PIERRE:
I was working with a friend on some stuff for East West Records and we
stumbled on a musical hook which we both simultaneously turned to each
other and said “Gary Numan “Cars”!” We rang Beggars Banquet who passed
the idea on to Gary then who agreed to meet us. We arranged to meet him
at his home in Essex just after he'd heard, and liked, our mix of
“Cars” and our ideas for other tracks. We were only contracted to remix
“Cars” but we also suggested reworking a number of Gary's songs
including “Are “Friends” Electric?” I'd love to see the “Are “Friends”
Electric?” mix we did released. It might need updating though, but it
would make a great re release. As to why it never surfaced, I don't
really know. It was never planned for release, it was only an idea
which we had to re-record it because the originalmaster couldn't be
located, having scoured the planet!! There's a great“multivalve2
style version though which has got to be heard! I must admit I like the
“Multivalve mix” of “Cars” the best. I remember we appeared on a
television programme called It’s Bizarre. It was a great show and
Francis (my production partner) and I thoroughly enjoyed performing on
the programme with Gary. It was also great to meet one of my boyhood
crushes Linda Lusardi as well!
GARY NUMAN:
Even though I flew up to Derby and performed for the Radio 1 Road Show
they still didn't play the single which was very sad. I flew Gillian,
one of the cast from Neighbours in the plane and did some aerobatics
around the show.
“multivalve2
style version though which has got to be heard! I must admit I like the
“Multivalve mix” of “Cars” the best. I remember we appeared on a
television programme called It’s Bizarre. It was a great show and
Francis (my production partner) and I thoroughly enjoyed performing on
the programme with Gary. It was also great to meet one of my boyhood
crushes Linda Lusardi as well!