The June issue of Guitar World magazine has a feature on "Spinal Tap" moments -- in other words, moments of rock star excess that veer toward self-parody. Among the anecdotes is one from Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, who recalled a surprise backstage visit from the early 1980s. "We were doing drugs in the dressing room," he said, "when suddenly the tour manager stuck his head around the corners and said, 'The police are here!' ... We all panicked and threw our drugs in the toilet. And then Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland walked in." ***************April 2005 - Daily Telegraph Just over 20 years ago, Andy Summers produced Throb, a surreal photo scrapbook documenting his time on the road as guitarist with the Police. He had carried a camera around since the late 1970s, taking pictures whenever a scene took his fancy. "I never stopped," he says. "I've compiled a massive archive over the years." Around 30 images chosen from this stash can currently be seen in City Like This, an exhibition at the Beaux Arts gallery in Cork Street, London. Summers has no qualms about taking pictures surreptitiously - "I don't think you impact on their life in any way, so it doesn't matter" - and he rarely pays the people who populate his images. His photographs sell for around pounds 1,500. Today he spends his time touring the world with his jazz-fusion band. He always packs his Leica ("It's with me right now") and is about to collate the photographs he took during his time strumming for the Police into a giant volume, jammed with unseen images of Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland. "The book will be really hardcore, like Throb on steroids," he says. "Outside the glitz at the front of the stage, there's the underbelly - and there's loads of that." And lots of groupie action, of course? "You'll have to buy it if you want to find that out," he says. ###########March 7 2005 Manhattan Music On Feb. 23 at Carnegie Hall, the American Composers Orchestra gave three pieces of music their world premiere and, in so doing, provided a reunion of sorts for two well-traveled musicians. Film composer Danny Elfman's first orchestral work for the concert stage, Serenada Schizophrana, was the evening's biggest event. Immediately prior to Mr. Elfman's piece, the A.C.O., led by music director Steven Sloane, performed Ingram Marshall's Dark Florescence: Variations for Two Guitars and Orchestra, featuring guitarist Andy Summers as one of the principal soloists. The last time Mr. Summers and Mr. Elfman had shared a bill was more than 20 years ago, in 1983. At that time, Mr. Elfman led the frenetic rock band Oingo Boingo; Mr. Summers was one-third of the Police -- and a pop superstar. As rock musicians, Messrs. Elfman and Summers were nothing if not adventurous -- and judging by the Carnegie Hall concert, that hasn't changed. Though neither Mr. Elfman's Serenada Schizophrana nor Mr. Marshall's Dark Florescence could be called a complete success, both compositions were imbued with a winning, what-the-hell spirit that left one hoping for a repeat performance. Ever since his days as a student of Morton Subotnick at the California Institute of the Arts in the late 60's, Mr. Marshall has been enraptured by the modal gamelan music of Bali and Java and by the possibilities of blending electronics and live instrumentation. Both interests were on display in Dark Florescence. Mr. Summers played a striking, butterfly-shaped electric guitar whose tone was heavily processed; at one point, his distorted notes faded into a thick haze of reverb. The other guitarist, Benjamin Verdery, stuck with a more traditional classical instrument, but it too was amplified. Oddly, the semi-improvised duet by the two guitarists, probably meant to be the piece's heart, turned out to be its least compelling feature, as both players leaned on comfortable cliches. The guitarists' thorny rhythmic interaction with the orchestra was far more interesting, and the somber closing section, in which the violins produced sliding harmonics that suggested the whistle of tracer bullets in the air, carried a potent emotional charge.