Author: Joey deVilla

Old fart alert: Yes, I bought the Police’s first album, Outlandos D’Amour, when I was a teenager (a too-young-to-drive one, at that). On a format that involved dragging a diamond needle over grooves on a spinning vinyl surface.

(For those of you are thinking, “Oh c’mon, record players aren’t that ancient!”, here’s something that will shock you. Natalie Portman had to be shown how to operate a record player for a scene in the movie Garden State; she’s from that generation that’s only operated CD players or newer devices.)

Even better, I saw them perform near the peak of their popularity in 1983 (when the album Synchronicity came out) at the Police Picnic, a Lollapalooza-like all-day concert series. The Toronto show, held at the no-longer-standing CNE Grandstand, featured:

• Canadian new wave act Blue Peter
• King Sunny Ade and His African Beat
• The Fixx
• Peter Tosh
• James Brown
• and as the closing act, The Police

Last night, the Police gave the Grammy Awards audience a taste of some of their live performance skills, which are still pretty sharp after all these years. Here’s their performance of their first hit single, Roxanne, which someone captured and kindly uploaded to YouTube:

The Ginger Ninja and I are going on vacation for a week starting quitting time tonight. Expect posting up until next Tuesday morning to be a bit on the light side. There may even be an automated post or two made in my absence.

In celebration of this vacation, I present to you this week’s song of the week, California Stars [7.1MB MP3] by Billy Bragg and Wilco, off their delightful and unexpected joint project of an album, Mermaid Avenue. I remember playing this song back in 2001 at full blast on iTunes 1.0 the first time I closed OpenCola’s new San Francisco office for the night and thinking “Whoa, I live in California now.” (By June, I’d been relocated back to Toronto, and that’s a story for another time.)

I also remember playing this song — again on iTunes, but a later version on a faster Mac — as the bride and groom’s first dance at Ashley Bristowe’s and Chris Turner’s wedding in Canmore at the start of 2004. That was the first time I’d travelled anywhere with Wendy, so the song brings back as many happy memories for me as I’m sure it does for Ash and Turner.

You’ve got a week to download this song, after which it’ll evaporate. Enjoy!