So Close To Me

So we’ve got The Police reforming and I couldn’t be happier.

When I was a kid I loved The Police and they had the rare benefit of getting better as time went on, never making too many albums and just being a band.

They were also three of the best musicians in the business. Andy Summers was technically brilliant, and you won’t find a better rock drummer in the world than Stewart Copeland. Sting is/was a bit of a nupty, but when I was 14, I was hugely impressed by his lyrics, which I was pouring over by the time Synchronicity came out. I would sit and listen to King Of Pain and be like: “Oh my god, there is a king on a thrown with his eyes torn out.”

I had a video of the Montreal gig of the Synchronicity tour and it’s so good that it’s almost painful to watch. I actually feel anger among the admiration for Stewart Copeland, because some of the things he does, make me lost for works as I think affectionately: “You cunt. Look at you. You don’t even know what you’re doing and it’s fucking amazing. You are a fucking cunt.”

Favourite Police moments are too many to mention.

[The happy repetitive guitar solo in Omega Man - The snare sound in Demolition Man - The frenetic drumming at the end of No Time This Time - The defiant and proud vocals in Born In The 50's - The tom rolls at the beginning of Next To You - The chiming guitar chord at the start of Walking On The Moon and the way the drums are high hat, kick and rim shot and nothing else for the longest time - The trance-inducing riffy brilliance of Voices Inside My Head - The steel drums in the chorus of Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (thought they were backing vocals? Listen again) - The glockenspiel and upright bass in the intro to King Of Pain and the cheekiest drum fill at 1:37 (ok, now I'm just being sad)]

I liked the way The Police never brought in guest musicians on their albums and they played everything themselves. It showed huge nerve and confidence that they never dragged in people to play sax or keyboards or backing vocals or anything. They just had a go and nailed it, without roping their famous mates in. They may as well have said in the sleeve notes: “No one appears courtesy of fucking anything, OK? We’re fine. Thank you.”

When I joined a band in 1990, I bought a Fender Telecaster, which wasn’t a very fashionable guitar at the time. It’s a little twangy, with not much sustain to speak of, but I played one because Andy Summers and all the country guys had them.

They have a great, clear attack so you can hear every string in a chord, like at the beginning of Walking On The Moon and the chords on the whole notes in Can’t Stand Losing You and it’s why the arpeggio riff on Message In A Bottle don’t all bleed into one note. I’m a rhythm guitarist anyway and Telecasters are great in a rhythm section and the action is high like the acoustic I was used to playing. Give me an SG or a Stratocaster and I’ll just overplay it.

Because of The Police, I was playing a Telecaster at the height of grunge but I didn’t care; those other guys could have stuck their Les Pauls up their backsides. Not literally. Although there was this one band that supported us once who had this mandolin player…

Anyway, I missed seeing them live because I was about 12, but the first gig I went to was Sting’s Dream Of The Blue Turtles concert in Avignon a couple of years later.

So the prospect of a Police (a The Police?) reunion is a bit like getting a call from your old girlfriend who you still kind of like and she wants to meet up. Even with no strings attached, would you trade in a perfect memory for a worse reality? Would you polish up the dull jewel if there were a chance you would tarnish the treasure?

Can I shed my attachments to the past and just enjoy it?

So here I am, sending out an SOS to the world, caught, if you will, between the Scylla and Charibdes. Damn it, life is complicated when things are this simple.

Oh – forgot to mention. I got a ticket to see James Taylor. He’s playing down the road from my office, not that a half day crawl across burning hot coals would have stopped me.

I’m just going to go to New York first, OK?

New York first, then James Taylor.

And This Is This been nominated for some cool blog awards.

Did I say this was going to be a big year? Did I? I distinctly fucking remember saying something.