hey! giovanni blessed us all with one of the best posts this page will ever see. thanx g! regarding andy, sting will be the first to admit that the "sound" of the police would not have been possible without andy. i firmly believe that. i like bands that are not only driven by guitar, but are dominated by it (hendrix, van halen, the who, radiohead). also, admittedly, the aspect of the police sound that most appeals to me is the interplay bass and drum interplay between sting and stewart. but, in recent years, i have paid more attention to what andy does: the best word for it is subtle. his style is not an overpowering one: he picks his spots and fills in the space between that drum and bass with intricate, abstract fills, especially on "ghost" and SYNCHRONICITY. in a sense, sting's bass played the role that guitar plays in virtually all rock bands (being the dominate instrument (well, dominate guitar anyway))- and andy's guitar playing was in the background, doing great things. rich --- Giovanni <giovanni.pollastri@libero.it> wrote:
Hi everybody from Giovanni.
I've got another opinion on seeing Andy Summers live. He simply can't play. It's not that it's jazz and the melodies are strange. His guitar playing is full of mistakes. And the tunes are boring and awful.
I have to disagree, Dietmar; it's not a matter of mistakes (that everybody do in a live show, from Rolling Stones to Beatles, from NOFX to orchestras directed by Riccardo Muti); Andy Summers uses a particular finger and hand technique that is not for everybody to be understood or to be used; it's mora a technical thing, based on jazzy tunes, sometimes based on a feeling back from the music and the inspiration. That makes Andy Summers music sometimes a bit boring for someone not into playing instruments or many other personal reasons; I'm not saying this is wrong, as everybody do react in the way he prefers to, there is nothing wrong with it; your opinion is absolutely right if you feel this way, but to say that Andy can't play is a bit...'out of tune'.
During his Police days he had many effects to cover up his inabilities as a guitar player. And - like The Edge - that worked perfectly.
I think this is a mistake; you probably didn't understand what he was working on as a guitar player at the end of the 70's, when punk reacted to the Seventies music and businness breking all the rules; that was a sort of musical revolution, and many musicians tryed to escape to what the Seventies were bringing. Punk opened a door, like it or not, and all the bands coming out of this revolution did something new, from Police to Dire Straits, from Sex Pistols to Talking Heads, I can name so many others. In 'our' case, Andy did with his guitar what nobody did before, bringing a new conception of playing the guitar, a new approach; and the technique was immense (Police coldn't exist without his way of playing, and Sting couldn't write that stuff without Andy ability to understand and play what was on Sting mind). All those effects gave the sound, another great step in music history; still today we have band trying to emulate andy way of playing and sound; have you ever tried to play a 'simple' tune like 'Every Breath You Take'? It seems easy, and that's the intelligence of playing, but technically is one of the most complicated things guitarist can't do the same way; not even Sting play that song the way Andy used to.
But I won't pay money to see him live again. That's ok, if you don't like it.
And I can't read any more from the people who talk themselves into thinking that Oysterhead produce good music. I see the Oysterhead project as a pure technical experience; those artists are into their instruments so much that sometimes live in their own world; as a musician I appreciate those kind of records, but I can easily understand people may react not too good to those projects. I heard a new Stewart Copeland, who brought one step ahead what he was doing with the Police; not only he sat back on his drum kit but gave something more, technically speaking, giving a sense to his project as a musician.
Don't be too angry, it's just a personal opinion. I felt I should say my opinion; no way I should be angry for that; one good thing about a list on internet is sharing visions of a single matter, we may learn from each other. I don't like when people react badly without thinking (sometimes it happened on this list, unfortunately). Hope to meet you one day and talk about it, maybe at a concert! Ciao ciao Giovanni
Dietmar
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