Quick Before it Melts

Monday 28 December 2009

Defining a Decade: Stars Heart (2003)

If the Sigur Rós post in this series was the hardest to write, this one just may be the easiest.  It’s dedicated to my good friend Krista Libman, but she was Krista Burgess when I first met her so she’ll forever be “Burgie” to me.  In Burgie I found a musical soul mate, someone who was as passionate about records and artists as I was.  Our tastes were remarkably similar but there were enough points of divergence for us to be constantly introducing new artists and songs to each other.  In the history of my life I’ve seen more concerts with Burgie than any other person.  Sadly, we’ve never been able to share our love of Stars together at a show (she’s been to see them a few times I think, so far I have not).  But were it not for Burgie, I would not have a love of Stars to share with anyone.

I have to give you a bit of context here.  I have not always been the trumpeter of Canadian indie music you’ve come to know me as.  I’m ashamed to admit that at the onset of this decade, I was about as far removed from the Canadian music scene as I’ve ever been in my life.  As I’ve indicated elsewhere in this series, the UK music scene pretty much shaped my listening habits for a number of years.  Burgie and I had drifted apart geographically but there was always email and the occasional mixed CD in the post to keep us connected.  On May 15, 2004, Burgie put together a copy of Heart for me, jotted me a little note in her unique handwriting style, and dropped it in an Ottawa mailbox, destination: Welland.  There was no band bio, press shots or even a copy of the record sleeve:  the jewel case just featured black Helvetica on white paper, “STARS:  HEART” across the centre top and a numbered listing of the albums tracks.  below that in lower case letters she typed “for jimmy”, in case the CD possibly fell into the wrong hands.

And I could argue, that it did.  I don’t remember why exactly, but I didn’t listen to it right away, and when I did put it on, I let myself be distracted by other trivial pursuits, so it became background music.  I intended to give it a proper listen, but like so many good intentions that never came to fruition.  You can lead a horse to water, I guess, but you can’t make him listen to the great CD you know he’s going to love if he’d only give it half a chance to make an impression.

I must have gotten thirsty enough a few months later, when unbeknownst to me I was listening to CBC Radio 1 and heard this incredible song playing.  I sat motionless, fearing that the slightest movement would create noise and distraction and I would miss the announcer telling me what I was listening  to.  It turns out the song was “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead”, the opening track to Heart‘s follow-up, Set Yourself On Fire.  I instantly thought of Burgie, and the gift she’d sent me, and ran down to my CD library and pulled the disc out.  Finally!  I played it front to back, end-to-end a number of times that day.  I did what all good geeks do and Googled the band, bought myself a copy of the new record, and started exploring some of the other Canadian bands Stars were associated with.  My love affair with Canadian music was born anew, and my voracious appetite for new sounds would eventually lead me to start writing this blog, and thus bringing you the story of how Burgie was the spark that set my heart on fire with Stars.

Happy birthday, Burgie!  Thank you so much for being a true and loyal friend.  I’m so lucky to have you in my life, and though we’re some 600 kilometres apart, I hope you always know you’re in my heart.  If any of you casual QBiM readers have made it this far, please be kind and leave Krista a birthday wish in the comments.  It would certainly mean a lot to me.

MP3: Stars “Elevator Love Letter”
Mysapce: Stars

Tweet

by J. Di Gioia | 11 Comments »

This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Defining A Decade, MP3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.