Bibliography XIII

“Strange Things Happen – A Life with The Police, Polo and Pygmies” – Stewart Copeland

An excerpt from my rock n’ roll journal, dated May 31, 2007:

“Strangely, perhaps because Sting has remained a pop icon and produced commercial hits since 1984, and perhaps because I’ve seen him 3 or 4 times already, I found myself more enthralled with Stewart Copeland’s masterful touch on drums and percussion. He was mesmerizing on all counts. Impossible to ignore, really. A phenomenal drummer, maybe the best I’ve seen. It was a privilege to hear him play live; if I’m glad of anything on this trip, that is it—getting to see him work his magic in sublime testament to Sting’s hilarious descriptions of him in Broken Music. The man is, as Terri said, a mad genius. Completely manic and wild, he ran laps around the stage a couple of times, like a lanky kid hyped on sugar. He actually out-did Sting himself ...”

* * *

Looking back, what I wrote about him that night pretty well describes Stewart Copeland, period, as indicated in his most excellent autobiography. Alas, though it was a Christmas present in 2009, I took almost a dozen years to read it. I say “alas” because it is easily one of the most entertaining books, and maybe the best of the autobiographies, I have ever read. 

It’s not so much the story of his life as it is a bunch of stories from his life, everything from scaling crumbled castle walls as a kid in Lebanon to playing polo against the Prince of Wales to touring with a posse of musicians during Notta della Taranta festivals in Italy to composing operas and writing film scores to judging singers on a BBC reality show to facing off against a pride of lions in Africa ... and I’m not finished reading the book! I have yet to embark on the final section, chronicling Copeland’s 2007 experience touring with Sting and Andy Summers, aka The Police.

These tales are written with such articulate hilarity that he has propelled me into areas (like opera and Africa) that hold no interest for me at all. If I felt lukewarm at the start of any such segment, I quickly learned to pay attention because the story is so brilliantly told I would regret missing it. His acuity is so outrageous that I must put the book down for spontaneous bouts of laughter—Terri asked me yesterday if I was okay because I was quaking on the couch with my hand over my eyes, and given the current health climate, she feared something was amiss. I responded by releasing the laughter I was hopelessly trying to suppress.

Aside from the Calvin and Hobbes treasuries, books that capable of assaulting my funny bone are so few as to be counted on one hand. Comedy is really hard to convey in writing, though the humour here is not in the least contrived. Copeland is genuinely funny.

I have also been disappointed by autobiographies over the years. One actress managed to make a potentially fascinating life into an appalling snoozefest, and some of my rock icons have relied on ghost writers to get their stories told—for which I’m grateful, else I’d not know the stories at all, but still. You want a sense of the artist’s self in any book about him/her. Well, Stewart Copeland’s voice is all his own: a brash, shoot from the hip, sharply witty voice that prevails alongside nuts and bolts detail about subjects too varied to name, including music itself, that few ghost writers could or would affect, and many artists, though outstanding in their fields, will not achieve no matter how expert their command of English.

In short, it’s a cracking good read that even eclipsed Sting’s!

Little Sting

“After Dark” is Elliot Sumner’s latest single. Who is Elliot Sumner, you ask? She (yes, she) is Gordon Sumner’s 24 year old daughter, also known as Coco. Dad is also known as Sting.

If I heard this song without knowing the artist’s name, I’d have thought that someone unearthed a previously unpublished song by the Police. I can’t get over how much like her daddy this girl sounds. The song is a new wave ditty straight out of the 80s, and darned if the bass in the video isn’t the iconic beaten-up bass that I’ve seen on stage at countless der Stingle concerts over the years. I doubt that she’s trying to cash in on her platinum DNA; my guess is that she genuinely wants to be a musician, and she may even have something to call her own … except that she sounds so much like the old man, one wonders how she can possibly stand on her own merit when the comparison is inevitable.

It’s confusing for a fan, as well. I like the song because it sounds like the Police. I like the vocal because it sounds like Sting. So am I a fan of the artist, or am I simply nostalgic for the early work of her father? Is her paternal bloodline a help or a hindrance? Could be that the next generation, the one that has no idea Sting ever played in a new wave band, will fall in love with her the way my generation fell with the Police, and that would be wonderful because she, like every other child of a superstar parent, deserves success in her own right. Tackling success in the same field takes some steely resolve, though. With traits so obviously inherited from a deity, I’d always wonder if I was famous because I was talented, or was the world just honouring my father?

Parents want their kids to be happy and successful … but it can be scary when a daughter is so much like her father.

Just ask mine.

Sting, Stang, Stung



Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Two days later, I still wake up looping “If Ever I Lose my Faith in You” – the first song Sting played live at the Save On Memorial Arena last Friday night. At last, for the first time in his life and in mine, the deity himself stopped in my hometown on his latest tour. And all I can say in one syllable is … Wow.

An 8 p.m. start, no opening act, no flashy lights, no rinky-dink set, no video screens and no more than six people on the stage. He wasn’t kidding when he named the tour “Back to Bass”. That’s what we got. A stripped down, professionally executed set spanning over 25 years of a career that defies labeling. He’s written so many brilliant songs that he couldn’t possibly have played everyone’s favourite, so he dug into the archive and produced a half-Police, half-solo show that was all Sting no matter how crunchy, twangy, jazzy or rock n’ reggae the piece. He’s a musician first, a songwriter second, and a singer third. The order may change on a given day, but it’s a holy trinity of talent no matter how it’s numbered.

That said, I admit to being a bit confused until I figured out that what he was playing was absolutely relevant to the name of the tour. My first thought was, “Man, that’s loud.” Which actually means “that’s loud for Sting”, though in truth it wasn’t. He was an angry young man when he started with the Police and has since mellowed considerably, so methinks I was fooled into expecting a reprise of his later offerings when in fact what I got was, well, loud. His sound crew remains the best in my experience, though – after I accepted what I was being served, my ears ceased to bleed. This was a rock concert, pure and simple. And it was fun!

More recent fans might have been disappointed. I was a Police fan from “Message in a Bottle”, so I knew every single song he played. He didn’t spend a lot of time chatting, but he told a story about attending his first NHL game a few weeks back. He named the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins, then scolded the audience: “What are you booing them for? Most of them are Canadian, for ***’s sake!” Which got a laugh, but really, not popular teams in Canuck country. Anyway, he used it as a segue into “Demolition Man”, and that’s when I realized where we were headed. A diehard fan has favourites beyond the radio hits, so I had to acquiesce for the most part. “Every Breath You Take” is a great song, but I tune it out when I hear it, and I’m unsure that he’s as in love with it as he may have been a million performances ago. He played it anyway, with a few other must-haves, but sprinkled throughout were gems from gentler times. “Fields of Gold” and “Shape of My Heart” stand out, and I’ll never tire of “Englishman in New York”. “Message in a Bottle” was done so mind-bendingly well that I can’t remember a better version of it over the half a dozen times I’ve seen him. “Wrapped Around Your Finger” was played to this really cool light effect where a dozen white spotlights drew lazy circles over the crowd; we were all hypnotized by the time the song ended. And he ended the show gently, of course, with “Fragile”. *sigh*

Each of his players were highlighted at various times – the most excellent Dominic Miller on guitar, David Sancious on keyboards, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, Peter Tickell on violin/mandolin and Jo Lawry on backing vocals. Each a superlative performer in his/her own right, perfectly blended to support the master. I adore Dominic Miller; it’s as much fun watching him play as it is to watch Sting. I forget that he can play killer rock riffs as well as classical melodies, he’s a tall skinny guy with loads of charisma and an elegant manner of playing that marks him as a natural musician.

I could rave on about every little thing (he does is magic, ha ha), but overall, I had blissfully sublime moments when I closed my eyes and let the joy pound with the bassline. I sang, I laughed, I stomped and clapped and cheered and dreamed and even wept a little … “King of Pain” is a weird one for me. I care for it as much as “Every Breath …”, but every time I hear it live, I start tearing up about halfway through. It’s the line about the black winged gull with the broken back that gets me; I have to quit singing along at that point else I’ll start bawling. I wonder what past life is tweaked by that image? Maybe I was the gull?

When my Cohen-worshipper at work asks me tomorrow how the Sting gig went, I’ll have to confess that Leonard’s show in March was probably the more religious experience of the two … this time. Sting is definitely a god – Ter reiterated his status after the show – but last Friday, he was less a deity than he was a rock star.

Not bad for an old guy.