Bittersweet melody

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This article was published 04/07/2017 (3350 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Michael Stipe of R.E.M wrote the song Stand, specifically the opening line, “Stand in the place where you live,” he was thinking about his good friend Georgina Falzarano, and her home on a quiet Elmwood street in Winnipeg.

“It was based on a conversation with Georgina about directions, which way is north, which way is south, and so on, and Georgina’s response was, ‘I have a really bad time with directions but I know my house faces south,’” explains Falzarano’s partner of 24 years, Norm Spencley, with a chuckle.

That story was just the first in a long line of jaw-droppers Spencley shared while sitting in the house next door to “the place where they lived”; he relocated to the smaller property after Falzarano died last August at age 61 of a stroke caused by complications of rare blood disease, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), which she had been battling for years.

Spencley described the time she had Thanksgiving dinner with R.E.M. at Al Gore’s house, and the fact she covered 48 states and eight provinces by car while following bands on tour. He provided an endless sequence of personal photographs she had taken of her friends, who just happen to be very famous rock stars.

And then there was the first show she took Spencley to, which she prefaced with, ‘Just some friends playing in Gimli,’ who turned out to be 54-40, and a trip to Chicago to see her friend Natalie play a show, who was in fact Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs.

“We show up at the Chicago theatre: she’d made these arrangements, there were two tickets with backstage passes waiting for us and when we got to the backstage and Natalie finally entered, she ignored everyone else in the room and dragged Georgina aside and hugged her like a sister,” says Spencley with a laugh.

California alt-rock quintet Camper Van Beethoven is one group whose relationship with Falzarano was particularly meaningful — Victor Krummenacher, bassist and founding member of the band, recalls meeting her for the first time in 1985 at an R.E.M. show. She suggested he give Camper’s album to R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck.

Buck and Stipe listened to the record and called the band almost immediately to ask if they would join R.E.M on tour. It took about a year for that to actually happen, but it made a major and long-lasting impact on Camper Van Beethoven’s career.

“Georgina was kind of the facilitator there, and from then on she just took us under her wing. She was very close with Michael at the time and she and I became close friends and she just kept making sure that I stayed in touch with them, so she was kind of a mentor figure,” says Krummenacher.

“She was certainly responsible for Camper’s R.E.M. connection, and that connection definitely broke us out to a larger audience and that definitely got us signed to a major label,” he recalls. “So she was just very instrumental in the initial formation of the band, and she was part of a network of people at the time in a scene that I don’t think really exists anymore. It was pre-Internet and very regionalized… these people just kept the scene alive through a lot of outpouring of energy and the support of the bands and she was really part of that.”

Camper Van Beethoven will be in Winnipeg this week to play at the Winnipeg Folk Festival; it’s their fourth time at the fest, which was introduced to them by Falzarano (a longtime folk-fest volunteer, who also worked as a teacher, web marketer and technical designer), and they are coming this time to pay homage to their friend.

“I know the last time we played with the Weakerthans, who totally blew my mind,” says Krummenacher. “That was just a really… you know occasionally you just have a cosmic afternoon where you’re sitting there going, ‘I make no money but this is still the coolest job in the world’? That was one of those days, playing in the tent with them. And I remember Georgina being there… it will definitely be weird to be in Winnipeg without her there.

“She and I were very close… Somehow or another we were able to have the naked conversation real quick and I never felt judged or unsupported,” continues Krummenacher. “And also one of the other very exceptional things about Georgina I think is important to point out is there are a lot of relationships with bands and fans, and there are a lot of weird boundaries you have to maintain… she knew when to be there, when to get out of the way, and she wouldn’t even ask you for a guest-list spot. She would pay without even asking because she really genuinely cared about the music.

“Georgina… usually gave well more than she asked and that was just the way she was constructed. And she was constructed that way in every aspect of her life.”

Both Krummenacher and Spencley are looking forward to the folk fest performance at Big Blue @ Night on Friday; while they say it will be tough to experience the festival and the music without her, they plan to celebrate her life and have fun.

“It’s going to be a party. I think we’re finished mourning. I mean, I’m still in mourning — I will admit that, and it’s been 10 months now — but we’re going to celebrate her life and what she was,” says Spencley.

“I’m ecstatic and overwhelmed and charmed that they are coming to pay homage to Georgina. I know they’ve loved each other like brothers and sisters for years.”

“I’ll tell you this: everybody will have a different emotional reaction to it, but she will be on the mind of everybody there. Everybody who knew her will be thinking about her,” concurs Krummenacher.

“She was a huge presence, and all that effusive praise that I just threw out about her, which would probably piss her off, I think everybody in the band would likely say the same thing… She had one of those weird touches that not everybody has where she made everybody feel special, everybody felt good, and it’s a unique thing to accept people at face value and show them worth…

“It’s going to be bittersweet, but she would be pissed if there were a lot of tears.”

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel