starlister: a eulogy

i officially broke up the band on july 5, 2005. i feel that it's for good this time.

i need to move on with my life and do different things musically. for a while now, it has felt awkward for me to use the songs i wrote for this band as my public musical identity. i need to make some new music--music that i am honestly comfortable making, and music that has more in common with the artists i now listen to. i'm a very, very different person now from the person who started this project three and a half years ago, and i never figured out how to make starlister grow and change along with myself.

i hope my disenchantment with performing & writing starlister's music doesn't convey any ill feelings about the people who took part in this project and helped me out so often when i was feeling down. they're the real heroes, and the vast majority of the songs that i wrote for this band were in homage to (and occasionally about) them. in chronological order, along with myself, starlister was:

sara johnsen.
robert voyer.
becky stark.
emily bernstein.
brian sulpizio.

and, last but not least, others who helped out & pushed the thing along:

john dunlevy. (potential label guy, if i only could have convinced myself to release anything)
nilay patel. (2 shows, guitar)
jesse irwin. (video at the metro)
shelly steffens. (live sound at the metro and the empty bottle)
nick hudac. (1 show, guitar)

to all the lovely bands along the way who invited us to play with them: i'm sorry that we didn't bring as many people as we should have sometimes, but we had some really magic moments together, didn't we?

to all the people who came to see us and liked what you heard: all this was for ourselves, but when it worked, it was because you were making it work. thank you for giving us a little part of your lives. i will always be grateful for that.

defining moments (chronological):

• secret first show in the basement of pierce.
• beautifully crowded shows at the cove.
• lollapalivingroom II, trying to play all of our songs really fast so as to avoid the oncoming thunderstorm above our heads.
• playing both packed and horribly underattended shows at the fireside and the prodigal son.
• retsilrats rave show in the second floor of the reynolds club.
• opening for the p1xel live dvd filming at the parking garage.
• scrunching into a station wagon to play a couple of well-received shows in st. paul, minnesota.
• starting a set at 2am at that crazy loft party at chicago and ashland.
• crowd-surfing at an almost sold-out gunther murphy's mrhyde03 release show.
• packed all-ages hp showcase at transmission gallery.
• playing in front of almost 400 happy-seeming people at the metro. (no thanks at all to me, since i had spoken harshly against us playing it)
• crowd-surfing (or just being carried around?) and singing without playing a guitar at the double door. (thanks to nilay patel)
• playing as a duo in the basement of the reg with huge video screens and wireless mics.

it's been such a long trip. i've had so many good & life-defining experiences that it's overwhelming to think about them all at once. i think that it's good to stop doing things when my feelings about them stop doing them justice; i think this is one of those times. i hope that future endeavors make old friends proud.

loren jan wilson
july 13, 2005.