BIGGER STRINGS: DANNY THOMPSON

Well, strings don't  come much bigger than Victoria. Who she? Victoria is the stand-up bass guitar Danny Thompson bought for a fiver (£5) in around 1954, when he was fifteen. And who Danny Thompson? Shame on you for asking, but I guess not all tastes are as rarified as mine. Sir Danny of Thompson, as he has yet become officially recognised as, an MBE having to suffice, is the fella who has gone as far as most in making stand-up bass other than an old fogey associated item. If you are familiar with Pentangle, Nick Drake, John Martyn and Richard Thompson, the chances are that you are familiar with his work. If you have watched the Transatlantic Sessions, live or on TV, the chances are that you have seen him, an avuncular presence, holding all the virtuosi musicians also featured in check, more that likely with a beatific beam on his face, itself usually under a hat of some intrinsic coolness.

With Martin Simpson, 2014

I used to hate the double bass, it encompassing everything old and fuddy-duddy of the pre-rock era. All these bloody b&w jazzers, with the bass perpetually walking up and down in the background, whilst the usual focus of attention showed off in the foreground, besuited drummers tip-tapping away politely alongside. Sometimes they crossed over into my awareness, notably in the Seekers, my father's favourite band, courtesy the comely charms of Judith Durham. They could always be relied upon to turn up on BBC Saturday night variety shows, I finding the grinning buffoon on bass an offence to my pre-pubertal sensitivities. (Apologies thus due, now, to Athol Guy, the player in question, even if I have not the heart to go back and actually check out his playing.) This prejudice took forever, a bit like trumpet, to rid, but, boy, when I did....

With Richard Thompson, 2001

Thompson was the man from the start, even if I was slow to get up to speed. As an RT freak, it was when he first started appearing alongside Richard, his Thompson 'twin', that I got up to speed. You know how it is, when you sometimes 'get' something, the scales fall from your eyes like roof tiles in a hurricane. Suddenly I was hoovering up John Martyn and, even, if a bit later, Nick Drake. (His vocals still alienated for longer than I care admit.) Suddenly big ol' bass was cool, she even when one Gordon Sumner came on board, I was already, o yes, on message.

So, Daniel Henry Edward Thompson..... Like the recently deceased Charlie Watts, he too was an alumnus of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, taking over bass duties from Jack Bruce. Following that four year period, 1664-7, he became a member of Pentangle, that undersung folk-jazz hybrid, ploughing their idiosyncratic acoustic vibe at the same time as Fairport and Steeleye were inventing an electric folk tradition. He and Terry Cox, drums, both crossed the then gulf between traditions, joining nominal folkies Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, with the consummate purity of Jacqui McShee on vocals. 

With Pentangle, 1972

The John Martyn years, which followed, were as famous for their onstage "dynamic" as for the often mercurial music, both not averse to the occasional pre-, per- and post-stage snifter. Thompson was able to take a longer view, and withdrew. Martyn, sadly not, his death as much to do with the ravages of alcohol as anything else, if sober at the time of his death. 

With John Martyn, 1977

A solo career beckoned, or at least as bandleader, his band, 'Whatever' a sonic free for all, genre-wise, with some astonishing material. When this expanded to into an even wider ubiquity, as 'Songhai', featuring flamenco purists, Ketama, alongside Malian kora maestro, Toumani Diabaté, any sense of categorisation became redundant.

Songhai, 1988

Round about the same time he hooked up with kindred spirit, Richard Thompson: each had embraces Islam, possibly, in part, as an escape from the hedonism of the musical life. For several years he was the right hand man to his namesake, whether in a band format or as a duo. An interesting memento of that time comes with 1997's 'Industry', a joint production, encompassing both the songs of RT and the music of Whatever. It's a worthwhile listen.

Industry, 1997

A jovial presence, he was also getting work as an amiable onstage presence at Fairport Convention's Cropredy Festivals, as host and master of ceremonies. I remember my horror, I think in 1998, as it was announced from the stage that Thompson had sustained a stroke. The audience were invited to sing Danny Boy, so that, by phone, he could hear their well wishes. I thought that the end, but he made a decent recovery and was soon playing again, seemingly as well as ever. The couple of times I caught the Transatlantic Sessions tours, in the early 20 teens, he was terrific, the cheer for him, when introduced, as big as for any of the other performers. Grab a look at his website for a list of records he has appeared on, a ridiculously large roster, encompassing jazz, folk, blues, world, everything, including a number of surprises. Did you know he played on Cliff Richards' Eurovison winner, 'Congratulations'? Or with artists as diverse as T.Rex, Kate Bush and David Sylvian, let alone most of Donovan's recordings. Not bad for an old jazzer!

Transatlantic Sessions, 2016

Back with RT, 2019

Here's rather a good interview, from only a year or so ago.

Get this!

LESSONS: FALLING IN LOVE WITH MY TEACHER/DANNY ADLER

 

Sting was famously a teacher, something the lyrics, and video, of the Police hit Don't Stand So Close make no small reference to, although surely in fantasy, it seeming hard to imagine any teenage girl being enraptured by the gormless looking Gordon. But this is not about him, this is the other side of the coin. This song is the world of crushes and besottedness, and relates more to the phenomenon of the spotty teenage oik, gazing in slack-jawed awe at the woman of his dreams. Add in the scenario of an all boy school, maybe a boarding school, and you can see how it happens, that teach being, perhaps alongside Matron, the only female form for mile, age and comeliness no hurdle for the bubbling surges of testosterone. And it's actually quite a bit creepier than Sting and co.

At least Danny Adler, onetime guitar jockey for pub-rock stalwarts Roogalator, made no bones about it. An unheralded talent who went largely unlauded then or later, he started off a guitar for hire in Cincinnati, getting gigs with some of the local blues scene talent, folk like Bootsy Collins and Slim Harpo. He later moved to San Francisco, hooking up with further bigger blues names, such as John Lee Hooker and T-Bone Walker. Another packed suitcase had him later being part of Frank Zappa and (later) John Lennon acolytes, Elephant's Memory, in New York. So quite how he came to be in London come 1971 is anyone's guess, other than the wanderlust that had led him to study jazz guitar in Paris.

Roogalator were a classic right band in the wrong time, and they shoulda and coulda, were it not for that timing. Part of the fizzing pub rock scene, where any style of music, whether derived from blues, from country, or from soul could make a name and a living of sorts, provided the sounds were held in sway by a tight rhythm section and the songs were short(ish) and catchy. The stirrings of an antidote to prog, more accomplished and more innovative than the later dawn of punk which, in turn, kicked pub rock off the stage and into the footnotes. And, yes, it's true, many of the denizens of that early 70s movement revived and reinvented themselves as new wave dawned, becoming elder statesmen feted to this day, your Nick Lowes, your Elvis Costellos, Graham Parker even. Not quite so was the lot of Adler, although he was, for a time, part of the studio band set up by Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe, under the names, variously, of the Disco Brothers and the Tartan Horde. Nothing of any great repute came therefrom, but it is interesting to consider what if made the the cut for the band Rockpile, instead than Billy Bremner.

No relation to the similarly London locked harmonica king Larry, or at least I think not, he then retreated to his roots in blues and boogie boogie, next popping up as part of the often Charlie Watts and Jack Bruce helmed collective, Rocket 88. In truth it was probably more the baby of Ian 'Stu' Stewart, the perennial 6th (Rolling) Stone, whose barnstorming piano play was a permanent fixture in their early career, even if his lantern jaw and short hair had him officially sidelined as their roadie. Lured in by the prospect of Watts and Bruce, neither of whom showed, I caught a memorable show by this two pianos and lashings of brass throwback to the 1940s, at Dingwalls Dance Hall, the fabled venue at Camden Lock, London. The nerdy looking guitarist with an astonishing tone was Adler.

After the demise of that project, itself probably accelerated by Stewart's death, Adler became an integral part of another collection of UK jazz and blues veterans, the De Luxe Blues Band, many of whom were seasoned session men from the 60s british blues boom, as indeed was Dick Heckstall-Smith, the ex-Colosseum reedsman, who later joined. Eventually his itchy feet again caught up with him and he returned to the USA. Since that time, the early 1990s, he has been continuing to plough his own idiosyncratic furrow, as well as buffing up his Roogalator and other back catalogues. The featured song for this piece comes from a collection, Hub-cap Heaven, about which I can find little, other than the purchase link below. The song is from 1986, seemingly the album part of a trilogy about early postwar England and America. Maybe. His personal website is intriguingly incomplete, his material, new and archive, seemingly best sourced through Bandcamp, with information via Facebook, as well as sporadic new offerings. Any guess as to whether or how this supplies a living is open to conjecture, but, if it works for him, all power to that.

Hubcap Heaven.

Masks: I Advance Masked

Andy Summers/Robert Fripp: I Advance Masked
[purchase through Discogs because Amazon’s prices are not reasonable ]

You’re probably sick of reading how I learned something interesting in researching my post, but this time, I learned four interesting things. And what better way to spend the continued COVID-19 life slowdown than learning three interesting things about music, right?

First, if you asked me who was older, Andy Summers, former guitarist for The Police, or Robert Fripp, King Crimson guitarist, I probably would have said Fripp. Mostly because he’s been pretty famous since the late 1960s, is generally categorized as being a prog-rocker and usually wears suits these days, while Summers became famous as the guitarist in a punk band in the late 70s-early 80s. But that’s wrong. Summers is 77 (!), while Fripp is 74. I think I knew that Summers played in Soft Machine, and with other bands before The Police, but I guess his time in that band made me think he was younger than he is (Sting is 68 and Stewart Copeland is 67. Henry Padovani, The Police’s original guitarist (!), is also 67.)

The second thing that I learned is that Summers and Fripp first met in the early 1960s, when Summers’ band, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, was the regular entertainment at the Bournemouth Majestic Hotel when Fripp was attending Bournemouth College. And when Zoot Money moved to London, Fripp’s band, the Majestic Dance Orchestra, replaced them at the hotel. The Majestic was a Jewish hotel, and the Majestic Dance Orchestra occasionally played weddings and bar mitzvahs. (Interesting thing number three!) Apparently, the two incredible, but different, guitar players remained friends.

We’ll get to the fourth interesting thing soon.

In 1981 and 1982, when both men had time between their Police and Crimson obligations, they met to jam together, and those sessions ultimately resulted in an album of 13 instrumentals entitled, I Advance Masked. To my ears, much of the album, and particularly the title track, displays some similarity to the interlocking guitar work that Fripp was doing with Adrian Belew in the recently reformed King Crimson, except that Summers and Belew’s styles are very different, so it didn’t sound exactly like Crimson. Not being a guitarist, or really a musician of any sort, I’ll let Summers describe how his and Fripp’s styles were different:

We’re still pretty much polar opposites in our playing. Robert over the years has gone down one line, the polyrhythmic single-line approach, and he’s brought it to a degree of perfection where he can improvise on it and play it like no other guitarist in the world. His strengths are playing the sort of fuzz solo, very quirky and very rhythmic. I’m classically-trained, came up playing pop and blues (Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Soft Machine, Animals, etc.), a regular rock soloist in many ways. It’s hard, but it clicks. Robert gives the music a spine, he’s the masculine element, and I probably represent the feminine side of the duo, but out of it a whole new personality emerges. It’s a beautiful form of alchemy. 

The song, remarkably, also spawned a very bad video:



So, what’s the fourth thing? The title of the song and album was derived from something that none other than René Descartes once wrote in a diary, and which supposedly became the second most famous thing he ever said (although I admit to never having heard it before): “larvatus prodeo,” which sounds like a Harry Potter spell, but means, “masked, I advance.” Apparently, it relates to how Descartes had to disguise his true self to succeed.

OK—there’s a fifth thing I learned, although it isn’t as interesting as the other stuff. On the DGM Live website, the official site for Fripp/Crimson and related projects (and projekcts), Fripp often publishes a daily diary, and since March, he occasionally titles them “I Advance Masked,” and includes a picture of him in a mask. Here’s one recent example.

Non-Sense: De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da

The Police: De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
[purchase]

Would it surprise you to find out that Sting believes that this song, with its nonsense title and refrain, is actually a very serious song? Look, we all know that Sting can be very pretentious, but he knows that—even embraces it—and I think that you have to give him credit. And as I’ve mentioned before, I have no problem with pretentious music. It’s just that you wouldn’t expect that from a song with that title. But here’s what Sting said about the song in a New Musical Express interview in 1981:

I think my songs are fairly literate - they're not rubbish. 'De Do Do Do', for example, was grossly misunderstood: the lyrics are about banality, about the abuse of words. Almost everyone who reviewed it said, Oh, this is baby talk. They were just listening to the chorus alone, obviously. But they're the same people who would probably never get through the first paragraph of Finnegan's Wake, because that's 'baby talk', too. I know that sounds pretentious, but in that song I was trying to say something which was really quite difficult - that people like politicians, like myself even use words to manipulate people, and that you should be very careful. It's quite a serious song, but because it's by The Police it was just written off as being garbage.

In 1993, in Q, Sting said about the song:

God, I got flak for that one. I always thought it was an articulate song about being inarticulate. The first thing you have to consider is that this was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic. I was intrigued with why songs like that worked. Why 'Da Doo Ron Ron', why 'Doo Wah Diddy Diddy', why 'Be Bop A Lula', why 'Tutti Frutti' worked. I came up with the idea that they worked because they were totally innocent. They weren't trying to tell you anything or distort your vision - it was just a sound. So in the song I try to intellectualise and analyse why that works so effectively which is self-defeating in a way but it was still a massive hit. Some people might think that the man who wrote 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' is a stupid twat but...I'm living here. 

And, according to Wikipedia, Joni Mitchell, a pretty fair songwriter, loved it. 

It is hard not to listen to the song, and Sting’s explanation, without thinking of our remarkably inarticulate president, who nevertheless uses his simple (minded) words (and his lies and insults), to manipulate people—somehow getting millions of people to vote for him for a job that he is profoundly unqualified for. And to maintain their blind loyalty despite his consistent lies, corruption and failures. His actions in response to the current coronavirus emergency—for which the Police song “Don’t Stand So Close To Me,” comes to mind, although the subject of the song, about an affair between a school girl and an older man is more fitting for the social lives of Trump and his friends—have been dangerous and incoherent, but hasn’t yet seemed to erode the support of his base. Sadly, though, in this era or hyperpartisanship, he could stand in front of a podium, say “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” and walk away, and his sycophants would somehow declare it brilliant.

Eventually, though, I’m hoping that another Police song, “Truth Hits Everybody,” becomes appropriate—hopefully, before November 3, 2020.

Shadows: Shadows In The Rain

 
Sting: Shadows In The Rain (studio version)
[purchase]

For those who remember 2012, I mentioned in a post that one of the first dates I went on with my now wife was to see the movie Bring On The Night, which was the Michael Apted-directed documentary about the creation of Sting’s first solo album The Dream of the Blue Turtles and the subsequent tour. We loved the movie, and I still have fond memories of seeing it, both because of the film and my date.

I enjoy learning about how music is created, probably because my love of music is not coupled with any real ability to make it. I’m jealous of those who can, so this movie was right up my alley. I was also a big Police fan and had heard, and liked, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. I know that Sting has gotten a reputation for arrogance and pretension over the years, but as someone who likes the often pretentious prog rock, it didn’t bother me that for his first solo album, Sting tried to move beyond the reggae flavors of the Police and try to push the boundaries a bit. As a brief aside, I had the chance to briefly interview Sting the summer before my senior year in college, backstage at an outdoor concert at Liberty Bell Race Track in Philadelphia. He was extremely genial and answered all my probably dumb questions, and readily recorded a station ID that we ran regularly — Stewart Copeland, on the other hand, had to be shamed into even doing a station ID for us. But he did two. You can hear them here.

In addition to wanting to expand his musical palette (which the Police had begun to do as time went on), Sting decided that his band wouldn’t be The Police Mark II (or III, for those few Henry Padovani fans out there), and instead chose young, hotshot jazz musicians. This isn’t as strange as it sounds — Sting’s earliest gigs were playing jazz and fusion music in Newcastle during his free time during college and while working as a teacher. Here's a jazzy tune from Sting's last pre-Police band, Last Exit—the melody of which was used in Blue Turtles' "We Work the Black Seam."

The people that he chose were all extraordinary musicians. Keyboard master Kenny Kirkland had played with Wynton Marsalis, bass player Daryl Jones had been in Miles Davis’ band, and Branford Marsalis, on sax, had been in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and played with his brother Wynton, Herbie Hancock and Dizzy Gillespie. Drummer Omar Hakim, who was in Weather Report (with Mino Cinélu), was the only member with significant rock credits, having backed Carly Simon, David Bowie and Dire Straits. In addition, Sting brought on veteran backup singers Janice Pendarvis (who was in another of my favorite documentaries, 20 Feet From Stardom) and Dolette McDonald (who worked with the Talking Heads, but was not in another of my favorite music films, Stop Making Sense, or on my favorite Talking Heads album).

The film shows how this mostly non-rock band fused with Sting to create a sound that was still identifiably rock, but had some elements of jazz. Maybe the easiest way to see what Sting was after is to compare the original Police version of “Shadows In The Rain,” a somewhat meandering, spooky dub track, with the studio version from Blue Turtles, which was reportedly based on the original demo that Sting wrote. Amusingly beginning with Marsalis asking frantically what key the song is in over a funky Hakim groove, a harsh voiced Sting enters, and the song turns into an exuberant, upbeat soulful and jazzy tune with solos from Kirkland and Marsalis.

Part of the tension in Bring On The Night, beyond the question of whether the whole concept would work, is that the band was scheduled to play some live shows on little rehearsal. As you can see from the video above, they had no problem with the performance, and the exuberance of the album track is even more apparent.

Another part of the tension in the movie is that it shows, in pretty graphic detail, the birth of Sting and wife Trudy Styler’s son Jake, who is now this guy.

SIDE PROJECTS : KLARK KENT

Buy a used copy ;-(

Spoilt for choice here, so I simply went through my singles collection, gathering dust up on the shelf. And there, resplendent in greeen vinyl was, and indeed is, this gem . I loved this and bought it ahead of buying any of his then other day job material. Klark Kent was the alter ego of Police drummer, Stewart Copeland, and always seemed a much more fascinating character than his somewhat severe and serious bassist. (Mind you, the guitar player was pretty interesting too.)

Like his bandmates, Copeland had already had quite a career ahead of the Police, much of which seems at odds with the desired youthful and, initially at least,  punky received wisdom thereof. For a start, in year zero of punk in the UK, which could be anything from 75 to 77 depending on your stance, he was already older than many of the bands around him, with a 1952 birthday. Of hybrid US/scottish stock, the son of a CIA officer, he spent a peripatetic youth in the middle east, before receiving his secondary education in the UK, at "progressive" and somewhat experimental school Millfield before returning to the US for college. Later, back in the UK he started his musical career as road manager for reformed prog-rockers Curved Air, top right in the picture, longer of locks than later, even if his clattering drum style is already in evidence in this live clip, having swiftly become their sticksman. Later he was to marry their frontwoman, Sonja Kristina, object of many a teenaged brits lust in their halcyon days. The Police he formed in 1977, but this isn't about them.

Klark Kent was born in 1978, issuing a flurry of singles and EPs in that year, and a later LP in 1980. "Don't Care", the song in the first clip from above was the most successful, rising to the heights of 48 in the british pop charts, via an appearance on my much loved Top of the Pops. Clearly realising that Sting was perhaps going to claim the stakes to the majority of the songwriting in their joint band, I think KK was as much to show that he could sing and play a bit too, and more than just drums: he plays everything on these recordings. There are one or two KK sounding songs on the first couple of Police LPs, graced by his twangy western drawl, but this grace seemed to peter out as they became huger and huger, making my green vinyl all the more to relish.

Subsequently, between spatty Police reunions, Copeland has amassed a steady volume of other projects, notably his soundtrack work, including for Rumblefish . This was followed by further soundtracks, as well as music for ballets and even operas. I have never got round to these, I confess.

Things I didn't know department: in 2007 he was appointed a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et Lettres, along with Summers and Sting. Well I never!

1979: Landlord

The Police: Landlord

[purchase]

The Police came to the height of their popularity with 1979's Regatta De Blanc, turning the buzz of their stylistically broad, borderline New Wave-slash-Rock debut Outlandos d'Amour into something more palatable yet still unique enough to mark a true moment in the development of modern music. As proof, we offer the fact that Regatta charts higher on the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (though 1981's Ghost in the Machine charts even higher), and that the album hit #1 in both the US and Britain, where Outlandos never made it past #6. Added bonus: most people don't remember, but the track which gave the album its title even won the band their first Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental the following year.

But though I love the whole disc - the mellow reggae funk of Walking on the Moon and Bring on the Night, the subtle strains of lesser-known gems such as The Bed's Too Big Without You, oddity Does Everyone Stare, and the high-energy rock n' roller It's Alright For You - rather than rehash such a well-traveled album, we turn tonight to B-side Landlord, a perfectly new wave punk racetrack complete with unbroadcast-able lyrics and a not-so-subtle violence that serves as a perfect antidote to the album's first single, the radio-ready Message in a Bottle.

The contrast between the A-side's pop-rock bounce and jangle and the B-side's thrash and grunt tell a story of mass marketing and the band's move towards the mainstream; to be fair, the Police were never really that Punk, but it's still not hard to figure out why the track wasn't chosen for inclusion on the album itself. Still, it's a keeper, even if the only way to pick up the studio version these days is via the Message in a Box completist's collection.

Solitude: So Lonely

The Police: So Lonely

[purchase]

Admittedly and unabashedly based on Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry - itself an admonition to a lonely subject - this deliberate attempt to hybridize Thrash Punk with Reggae came into being on Outlandos D'Amour, but didn't chart until its 1980 re-release as a single.

Throbbing with Punk's alienatation, but like so much of The Police canon bereft of its class consciousness, the second verse comes across as a bit too theatrical, perhaps a fitting harbinger for Sting's later solo career as a sensitive popstar. But I like the speed-up-slow-down of plodding verse and driving chorus; with it, the song plays out as an apt rhythmic portrayal of the alternately maudlin and angry character of so much of our own loneliness.

Jailbait: Don’t Stand So Close To Me

The Police: Don‘t Stand So Close To Me

[purchase]

Like Susan, I was taken aback when I saw our theme for this week. How did we get here so soon after Domestic Violence week? But, I didn’t have to deal with it right away. I had work to do for my own blog, that occupied most of the start of this week. And then Susan’s post appeared. So I needed more time to figure out how I wanted to deal with the Jailbait problem.

For me, it was not clear cut. Yes, many jailbait songs objectify young women. And, as my daughter just started high school this year, I can condone that less than ever. And yet, I do have a fondness for some of those songs. I can remember my high school days, and I know that my hormones gave me just that point of view for quite some time. I’m not proud of it, but I am honest about it. And that became a key for me.

Don’t Stand So Close To Me is a perfect example. Sting gives the listener both points of view, and both teacher and student find themselves in the throes of lust. It is obvious to all around them, and becomes the subject of rumors and accusations. And yet, they never do anything about it. The both know they should not, and somehow they resist. But that does not help their reputations.

I like the fact that Sting is honest about his characters’ feelings. They both recognize what they are feeling; perhaps they even discuss it during that rainy-day car ride. And perhaps they agree not to let it go any further. But the feeling is powerful, and it scares them. When Sting sings “...he starts to shake and cough, just like the old man in that book by Nabakov”, his character is feeling fear at the power of his own emotions.

One final thought. Many years ago, I read an interview with V C Andrews. Andrews was the author of Flowers In The Attic, which was the beginning of a series of books in which adults in positions of responsibility did horrifying things to the children in their care. Andrews was asked, in light of this, what kind of mother she was. She replied that she thought she was an excellent mother, because whenever she had the urge to do anything to her children, instead she wrote a book. So maybe, in listening to a jailbait song, we can vicariously work through our feelings of lust, so that we never act on these feelings in inappropriate ways.

School Days: Don't Stand So Close To Me

The Police: Don't Stand So Close To Me

[purchase]

As if we needed further evidence of Sting's literary leanings, here's a Lolita story of mutual longing, a teacher deperately struggling to resist nubile temptation, a parable of the flightiness of immortal youth and the dark secrets that lurk in the grown-up mind. Not exactly a celebration of the classroom, but then, school is hell for teachers some days, too.

Though it was their earlier, punkier work which makes collectors and purists drool, this song is a textbook example of the distinctive sound that made The Police a household name. Listen for the subtle bass, the bouncy guitar thrum, the tenor's cry, and the pounding "Police Pulse", and you'll have heard each band member, straining against their already growing differences, using the tension to drive the music forward. Perfect late night beachparty music, too, if you've got sand and surf and one more weekend to party before classes begin.