Strange Things Happen reviewed in NY Times

[njperry]

I font have the link but Strange Things Happen got a prominent review in today's (January 31, 2010) book review section.

It is a largely negative review being critical of the lack of discussion of the Police in their glory days.

I saw the hard copy and don't have the link. Will try to find it later if others haven't done so first.

[dufmanno]

Interesting review. I thought he made some fair points but in my humble opinion the book is a whirlwind laugh riot with lots of interesting stories.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/books ... ght-t.html

[TheEqualizer]

QUOTE

GLORY DAYS

By all rights, sidemen should be the ones with the best stories in rock ’n’ roll. Lead singers, burdened by the requisite narcissism and constant media presence, seem unlikely to open up and reveal much. The other band members are the ones with front-row seats for the madness and less public image to preserve.

When it comes to rock memoirs, however, it hasn’t really worked out that way. Frontmen like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Anthony Kiedis and Ray Davies have written books that — while each a bit strange in its own way, from Clapton’s cool detachment to Dylan’s meticulous feints — give a real sense of the author’s personality.

For too many musicians, though, it seems as if their one big shot at telling their story often gets sidetracked by a specific agenda — the Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer’s recent “Hit Hard” is essentially one long recovery saga, while even Levon Helm’s generally outstanding “This Wheel’s on Fire” nearly drowns in his fury at the Band’s guitarist, Robbie Robertson. Others (the Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman’s “Stone Alone,” the Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s “Inside Out”) are long on chronology but short on insight.

To be fair, it has to be tough trying to write when the underlying question on every page is “What is Mick/Axl/Ozzy really like?” So it’s easy to sympathize with the Police drummer Stewart Copeland and the E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, both clearly smart guys who are struggling with a way to write something beyond the standard rock bio. Ultimately, though, the resulting books aren’t satisfying as either literary efforts or historical documents.

With Copeland’s “Strange Things Happen,” the Police have become the first band (as far as I can determine) in which every member has written an autobiography. That could theoretically make for some fascinating compare-and-contrast, he-said-he-said versions of a notoriously contentious group’s history — if, that is, Copeland, like Sting before him, spent any time at all talking about his tenure in one of the most popular bands ever.

“Strange Things Happen” is just slightly more generous on the Police years than was Sting’s “Broken Music,” which dismissed the band in a single page. Copeland devotes 10 skimpy, highly impressionistic pages to the years between 1976 and 1984, at which time the trio became the biggest band in the world. (The guitarist Andy Summers was more expansive about the glory days in his endearing “One Train Later.”) Almost as much attention is devoted, for no clear reason, to a single show in which he sat in with middling alt- rockers Incubus, or an incomprehensible MTV event for which he accompanied the Foo Fighters.

Above and beyond the Police, Stewart Copeland has had a pretty wild life. He was raised in the Middle East, the son of a C.I.A. operative. He was something of a pioneer in the pop exploration of “world music,” recording with African musicians well before Paul Simon made his “Graceland” trek. He has worked on various documentary films and is an accomplished polo player.

In “Strange Things Happen,” though, he glosses through these events at such high speed that at best, we get a wisecrack or a flip observation (“my daddy used to conduct his nefarious manipulation of local potentates with cocktail parties at our modest Ottoman palace”), but no real sense of what any of it means to him. His family, in particular, remains an enigma — what are his actual thoughts about his father’s profession, beyond the exotic pedigree it bestowed on him?

The book settles down in its final section, which covers the Police’s lengthy 2007-8 reunion tour. This is rich territory, since the always fraught relationships between the three musicians remained tense, and the motivation for a megatour, without even the excuse of some new music, is a bit suspect. After decades apart, they had come to appreciate the magic of their combination, but had become even more different as people. The scale and machinery of the concert industry (and the ticket prices) had grown exponentially, making the logistics of touring both better organized and far more elaborate.

Copeland and Summers maintained a steady peace, as long as they stayed in their own lanes. But Sting, even more emboldened by his success as a solo act in the intervening years, is presented as an arrogant musical tyrant. The squabbling built to a moment in which the drummer finally said to the singer-bass player that only “my high esteem for you has kept my hands from your throat, my ax from your handsome brow” (whether this is Copeland’s actual speaking voice or just his authorial voice is not clear, but you get the idea). For a reunion that was essentially a big-ticket nostalgia act, the passions of the Police still ran high — and maybe a full book devoted to this curious era would have made for a better, and a more honest, story than “Strange Things Happen.”

Clemons, the horn player who has stood at Bruce Springsteen’s side for almost 40 years, takes an altogether different, even more baffling approach in “Big Man.” The book is co-written with the television producer Don Reo (who seems to vie with Springsteen for “best friend” status throughout the pages), and many of the stories are told in Reo’s voice, rather than the musician’s.

In addition, sections are interspersed labeled “Legends,” with the explanation that these are “stories that we have told over the years. . . . Most of them contain some fact and a lot of fiction.” Occasionally, everything stops and Reo gives some of his own recollections from his television work, at which point you really start to wonder just what it is you’re reading.

The fraction of “Big Man” that serves as actual memoir runs heavy on such matters as Clemons’s romantic relationships, the mystic qualities of the saxophone and his preshow routine — and alarmingly light on the music. There’s scarcely a mention of any time spent in the studio, and most of Clemons’s bandmates are virtually invisible. He has a kind word for everyone, which is a fine quality in a dinner guest but doesn’t make for riveting reading.

As for the “Legend” stories — in which Clemons hangs out with people like Norman Mailer, Fidel Castro and Thomas Pynchon — they reveal him to be thoughtful and well read but otherwise aren’t especially revelatory. The strongest material in “Big Man” consists of the tales from the E Street Band’s early days in the Jersey Shore music scene, though these anecdotes would certainly benefit if they slowed down a bit and were given some context.

The other territory hinted at but mostly dropped is the matter of race. Clemons is possibly the single black artist who has performed in front of the most white people; he has sometimes been described as Jim to Springsteen’s Huckleberry Finn. After addressing the racism he encountered in his youth in Virginia, though, Clemons pretty much leaves the topic alone.

This isn’t surprising, given the affable tone of “Big Man,” but it’s a reminder that sometimes the sidemen are the ones faced with rock’s most complex situations, both musical and social. It’s too bad that both Copeland and Clemons weren’t able to rise to their rare moment in the spotlight.

END QUOTE

[English-lion]

Sideman sideman


what the fuck! sideman!!!! Stewart's A Drummer Drummer and the Founder of The Police

Jesus fucking Christ and holy crap almighty!!!!!





grumble grumble giving the one finger salute!!!!!!

[ltwoman]

Thanks, EQ, for once again coming through for us with the "translation"!

[ltwoman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/books ... ght-t.html

A--hole. Must be a friend of Chris Campion's.

[YUMIKO]

[quote="English-lion"]


>Stewart's A Drummer [size=200]Drummer[/size] and the Founder of The Police

Yes!!!!That's right!!!!!


Who is sideman???who?whoooo???


も。。。馬鹿！！！...shout in anger ...

[njperry]

The reviewer's statement that the Police might be the only band in which all the members wrote memoirs has gotten me thinking. I can't think if another. Of course it is easier with a 3 member band.

Anyone know another band in which all wrote books?

[Chatchka]

[quote]Anyone know another band in which all wrote books?
The reviewer's statement that the Police might be the only band in which all the members wrote memoirs has gotten me thinking. I can't think if another. Of course it is easier with a 3 member band.

Anyone know another band in which all wrote books?
[/quote]

Anyone know of another band in which all members can write?

[ltwoman]

[quote="Chatchka
Anyone know of another band in which all members can write? [/quote]


Oh, good one!

[63falcon]

Well, no reason to start reading NY Times now.....blehblehbleh.......and bugger them all.

Didn't dude go in search of Ian's book?
Or any of the THREE well written and fascinating volumes Dad Miles Jr. authored abck in the late 60's/early 70's?
'Nuff said.....hmphf!