Posted on April 27, 2010 - by Mark Zonda

Watashi Wa The Message In A Bottle

They had their time between 1978 and 1984. Police arrived just in time. They heard the call, they already knew they wouldn’t miss their target. The band was born with punk rock, when zillion of youngers tried to rush their way to success with a primitive and abrasive sound, sarcastic and blaspheme lyrics, a dirty and spooky look. Clean and blonde: that what you got from Sting band. Their silly love songs aimed to catch teenagers attention while looking more like their teachers rather than some classmates. Stewart Copelan is the bass player. He was born in America in 1952. His father was in the army. The man was just kick out from a prog band: The Curved Air. Andy Summer has got the same age of George Harrison, played guitar for twenty years never making it. He was in New Animals, leaded by the American Eric Burdon and backing other guys like Zoot Money, Kevin Coyne, Neil Secada and Kevin Ayers. Matthew Gordon Summer sings and plays bass. He is born in 1951, but you’ll probably know him with another name: Sting. He enjoys jazz music, he’s a teacher during the day, he plays in some unknown club outside in the night: he’s tout court Mr. John Smith. So unexpected they could have made it. But they did! Their success is under the sun since the very start. Outlandos d’amour is released on 1978 and launches the unforgettable and scandalous tune Roxanne (“Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light / Those days are over / You don’t have to sell your body to the night”).

Their music is too tart and emotive for the masses but it’s too mannered and gay to be punk. It runs right in the middle risking to disappoint any radical musical taste, still it happens to be their fortune. Police was able to embrace those days fashion of  punk minimalism taking its beating heart right back in the chest of pop, already killed under load of bombast. Sting is soon appointed not only for his fascinating look and his high pitched voice but for delivering hits in and out, driving some blaspheme musical writers to compare them to another notorious band from Liverpool. Superblanding rock and reggae was another lucky move from the band, mixing Jamaican beats with a neurotic tension typical of  WASP urban people. The recipe is completed by the simplicity of their structure: Police sent back rock attitude to bring on load of instruments and stuff, said goodbye to technicians, applying to Robert Fripp idea of a single cleaver mobile unit, able to face gigs with very few devices and two pounds records.

Success turns to glory with Regatta de blanc, so typical of the first phase of the band starting from its programmatic title. Lyrics are totally naif and addressed to youngsters, turning around a world of doubts and emotions, half the way between direct dialogue and first  attempt to put a posh clever touch on it.  Music has improved the band’s reggae-rock starting to become mature and more defined. Easy to find it out by yourself looking for classic anthems such as Walking on the Moon, The bed’s too big without you and Bring on the night.

Sting shows his talent for writing happy song managing somehow not turning them into stupid stuff. Regatta’s magic box holds also a Message in a bottle, reaching the top of 7 inches charts with a über piffling sketch of individual and universal loneliness. (“Walked out this morning, don’t believe what I saw / Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore / Seems I’m not alone in being alone / Hundred billion castaways, looking for a home”).

Sting is riding the wave of a golden age and shines out his talent even in secondary tracks like It’s alright for you and Deathwish, revealing what latest moments of Police will be like on the last two great albums. Regatta’s at last a good excuse to listen to the smooth still powerful sound of Mr. Copeland and the refined and polite guitar strumming provided by Summer, while nobody’s paying to much attention to the inconsistency of Sting’s bass skills thanks to his impressive voice.

Sporadic reunions aside Police influence is still alive on nowadays younger scene. I swear I was totally impressed when I heard Message in a bottle the last time and someone told me he was a cover by the christian rock band Watashi Wa.   Since Seth Roberts left the band and formed a new band with the same name, seems like Sting it’s not  not alone in  singin alone anymore.

Watashi Wa – “Message in a Bottle” (Police Cover)

Let it ring on...

• Human League. Credo. (0)
• Dittos from Outer Space: A David Bowie First Contact (0)
• The Brigadier At Work (0)
• Outbursts: feeling good with Turin Brakes (4)
• Tinted Windows, Empty Walls (0)