PEROXIDE POLICEMAN: ANDY SUMMERS

If you’re like me, when and if you think about the Police, the first member that comes to mind is Sting, the matinee idol who writes most of the band’s material, comes up with some very neat bass lines, and sings with THAT voice. Then if you’re like me, the next Policeman you’d think about would be drummer Stewart Copeland, who wrote most of the band’s worst songs and still had enough left over to put out under the assumed name of Klark Kent. (I’d use an assumed name too if they were my songs!) And after that, if you’re like me, you’d think about lunch.

Which, of course, is quite unfair to the third peroxide muppet of the trio: Andy Summers, whose effects-laden guitar-playing gives the Police much of their distinctive sound. One moment his shimmering guitar will be all that is holding the band together—weaving in, out, and around the voice and rhythm section and pulling it all together like a drawstring. The next moment everything else will gel and it’ll be Andy fragmenting the chord structure with jazzy progressions and echoplexed lead lines. The fact that until recently the band was just three pieces meant that Summers’ guitar was always right out in front, making it obvious that without Summers it just wouldn’t be the Police.

Despite the band’s nominal new wave classification, Summers himself was classically trained, and his own history can be

traced back to some of the stranger bands of the late 60’s and early 70’s. These included Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band and the psychedelic Dantalion’s Chariot, as well as a stint in a later version of Eric Burdon’s Animals, which he toured the States with in 1969.

During the early 70’s Summers fell in with noted English loonies Kevin Ayers and Kevin Coyne, both of whom are known for their eccentric and erratic— though often brilliant—solo albums. Those interested in the guitarist’s earlier work should look for Coyne’s excellent Matching Head And Feet, Heartburn and In Living Black And White LPs to see what Summers was into before he discovered just how much fun blondes could have.

Coyne broke up his band in 1976, and a year later Summers replaced guitarist Henry Padovani in the embryonic Police. His fluid playing was instrumental in moving the band away from the two-chord punk thrashes they had been dealing in and towards the ersatz reggae sound they have since made popular worldwide. Before the international acclaim, however, there were lean years of hand-to-mouth playing and tours by broken-down van.

Then came the hits, and as the DJs say, they just kept on coming. The punky reggae of their debut album gave way to the darker, murkier sound of Regatta De Blanc, where the songs began to take on a sinuous quality largely the result of Summers taking liberties with Sting’s relatively straightforward basslines. The hypnotic “The Bed’s Too Big Without You” is perhaps one of the best examples of how good the Police could be when they were on.

Zenyatta Mondatta came next, and while it showed the band to be increasingly sophisticated musically, their flair and expertise were wasted on some of their most mindlessly formulaic songs yet. De doo doo doo de dah dah dah indeed! While this album cemented their pop status, it also caused many of their early followers to throw up their hands in despair at the band’s unabashed commercialism.

Their new album Ghost In The Machine, however, shows the band to be tinkering with their formula somewhat, adding keyboards and other musical embellishments that reduce Summers’ prominence in the group’s sound. Whether or not this is the Police of the future remains to be seen, but either way, rest assured—you haven’t heard the last of Andy Summers.