Huge Police fan here. My all time favorite band. My first favorite band (okay, after the Jackson Five). Thumbing through Esquire this month I encountered a story that mentioned a documentary project about The Police. Using my Google-fu I discovered that the wittiest man in rock, Stewart Copeland, screened the flick at Sundance this year. It’s received mixed reviews - here’s a bad one (replete with response from Stew himself) and here’s a better one. Being obsessive and a collector of all things Police I will be snapping this baby up when it hits stores March 28.
Any other fans out there aware of this project? Anticipating it? Hell, anyone actually seen it?
(And in case you’re wondering, Stew says a Police reunion ain’t gonna happen. He sounds wistful though. On one hand, I can completely agree that every reunion project to date has been a disappointment and it’s probably wise that the fellas don’t go down this road. On the other hand… I’d love to be disappointed in this way.
Damn Sting and his outsized ego! One nice thing, though, is that he’s apparently going to dust off some Police chestnuts for his next tour. I saw a video for a recent song - “After The Rain Has Fallen,” maybe - and not only did it have hot girlies all over it, Der Stingster was wearing a “Ghosts in the Machine” t-shirt. How meta, and the definition of teh coolness.
I’d like to see it. Stewart did a live chat thingy on washingtonpost.com about it a few months ago. Sounds interesting.
And you can watch “Police Around The World” on youtube, if you haven’t seen it. It was my introduction to the Police, as my Sting obsessed sister rented it more or less every weekend back then.
IMO, none of their solo careers are anywhere near as good as the Police, although I did see the band Sting brought together for his first album perform sans Mr. Tantric, and they were awesome.
I would definitely want to see a full-length doc about them. Their Behind the Music episode was great. At some party or another, their friends persuaded them to play together again, and all three reported they were immediatlely annoyed with each other almost instantly. Their moment has passed, and will not return again.
Hippy Hollow, do you have the DVD of all their videos? Great memories, there.
scotandrsn, I do have the EBYT - The Videos collection on DVD. I also have the aging VHS copy as well as a DVD conversion of Police Around The World, bradministrator. Not for the casual fan, is it? But it’s great.
I like how they sort of all returned to their roots - no desire to do The Police Mk II - I suppose they couldn’t anyway. Sting went pseudo-jazz and put out the briliant Dream of the Blue Turtles, along with the top-notch docu Bring on the Night. Stew did soundtracks, the Animal Logic project, and most recently the jam band Oysterhead - I also think he was in The Doors for a while. Andy went muso (s’pose he always was) and did photos, more jazz stuff. I saw Andy in Somerville at a little club… was a few feet from him and got to see his rig up close. His rack was set to “Summersounds…” cool.
I saw Stew playing with George Martin in a tribute to The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. Midway through the show they announced a special guest - Andy Summers! Pretty cool. I think Stew was frustrated in the constraints of emulating Ringo but he went all Copeland during “A Day In The Life.” Nice.
I think The Police had one or two albums left in them. Like Stew says, they should have taken time off and reconvened. If you read Broken Music, Sting’s bio (actually not bad) it just confirms that The Police were Stew’s band and that the vitriol comes from shift from ownership from Stew to Sting. Which he had to see coming, right? I also think one can’t take away the fact that they were the rhythm section. Having played bass in a band, I can tell you the bassist and drummer either are the closest or most distant - you can really fuck one another up if you’re not in sync, or you can carry a band if you are. I don’t know much about U2 besides the fact that I’ve followed them since '84 or so, but it seems that Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton are a really good match as a rhythm section personality-wise. Stew and Sting, not so much.
I actually thought Don’t Stand So Close To Me '86 was awesome, even though Stew famously broke his collarbone and hence programmed the drums on it. I’ve had the chance to hear the updated De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da and it isn’t quite as good. I thought the idea of updating the old songs was great and they should have finished the job.