"Total Eclipse"

Nomi - sporting the latest in Elizabethan Era fashion
At the height of the New Wave, circa 1982, a group of friends and I gathered at somebody's house one Friday night to watch Urgh! A Music War. This was just as renting Beta and VHS tapes was becoming possible, so one planned weeks ahead of time to watch something on TV, because if you missed it, you missed it! Who knew it would all be on YouTube one day?! I thought it might have been shown on a cable channel (or maybe MTV), but it sounds like the old USA Network is where we most likely saw it (based on the Wikipedia entry). We talked about it at school the entire week before, all of us psyched to see "live" performances from The Police, as well as DEVO. I was also secretly anticipating seeing The Go-Go's, as I had the hots for Belinda Carlisle.

Truth is, we hadn't really heard of any of the other bands. So we had our minds blown and eyes opened by The Cramps (we had never seen anything so raw or crude, other than maybe footage on the news of the Sex Pistols a few years earlier), but mostly, the bizarre performer known as Klaus Nomi. We couldn't believe he was for real. We would spend the next six months or so trying to outdo each other with our Klaus Nomi imitations (singing this song in our very best, falsetto voices):

Oh! That "Secret Journey"

In reference to a comment from Kenna:

And to think that Ghost in the Machine (1981) was one of the first albums I bought (actually on cassette) back when it was released. For a while it was one of my favorite albums. I haven't listened to it in a while (thank you, Frank Sinatra!), and I'd forgotten about a moody, atmospheric (yet jammin') gem hidden toward the end of side two, called "Secret Journey." This is a cool video, featuring it, with an animated montage of the photographs Andy Summers took for the Synchronicity (1983) album:


From Wikipedia:

"Secret Journey" is a song released as a single by The Police on May 1982 only in the United States, as an alternative to the single "Invisible Sun" which was only released in the United Kingdom. Sting said the following about the song:

"It's a quasi-mystical song. You have to do something, go somewhere, to get outside yourself. I read the book Meetings with Remarkable Men which says you have to make a journey. It doesn't have to be a real journey, it can be a mental journey."

Police reunion

The Police on last night's Grammy Awards...



Thank God they were scheduled for the very beginning! I don't think I could have endured having to watch any of the actual program (and didn't). And I guess they had to do "Roxanne." For better or worse, they were The Police, again, last night! And as far as there being a reunion tour, it's official.



And on a semi-related note - if Michael Anthony isn't in the group, it doesn't matter if David Lee Roth is doing the vocals again - it still isn't what my generation thinks of as being "Van Halen." For one thing, you know all those high-pitched backing vocals on Van Halen songs? That is Michael Anthony. I'm thrilled Diamond Dave is, for whatever rea$on back in the group, but it still isn't the classic lineup.

With one breath, with one flow...

(AP Photo; no, really, I didn't take it)
Outlandos d'Amour (1978)
I grew up smack dab in the middle of the 1980s, dude, and it seems as if always somewhere, playing in the background, were Andy, Stewart, and Gordon - The Police. At around the same time I was getting into playing guitar and being in bands, they were considered to be very cool. Hip even.

Reggatta de Blanc (1979)
Some of the first (and easiest) songs the bands I was in played were things like "Driven to Tears," "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da," "Walking on the Moon," "Message in a Bottle," etc., etc. My love of guitar pedal effects (i.e., chorus and echo) was born partly due to Andy Summers. A close childhood friend, and drummer, saved up and got a Tama drum kit, along with Zildjian cymbals, because of Stewart Copeland (well, and Neal Peart). I learned about reggae from The Police (and The Clash).

Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)
A band I was in, at our high school talent show playing "Wrapped Around Your Finger," with the lead singer dressed to resemble Sting in the video of the same name. I'm playing the Les Paul.

Ghost in the Machine (1981)
The chords and chord changes became slightly more challenging with Ghost in the Machine (still my favorite Police album) and the pop/rock album of 1983, Synchronicity. In fact, The Police owned 1983 - MTV, radio, and concert circuit, all - belonged to them.

Synchronicity (1983)
The point of this post is that I was a big Police fan! It brought me great joy to see that they will most likely reunite, at least to tour. Thanks to Sting's catchy, well-written pop songs, they have really never been too far from public earshot (thank you Diddy). So younger people today have probably heard of them, or at least have heard one or two of their songs. And the article I link to also points out how behemoths such as U2 and The Rolling Stones have pretty much "exhausted" their fanbase. So the time is right for The Police to hit the road!
Here's one of their typically poorly executed (pre-Synchronicity) music videos, for "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" (from 1980's Zenyatta Mondatta).

Poets, priests and politicians...

The Synchronicity tour