| Martin Streek, Radio DJ, Dead at 45 |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|09:08 am] |
Much like everyone my age that's been romping through the internet for some years now, I have social networking profiles littered everywhere that I don't pay proper attention to. Somehow, this past Monday evening, I began an attempt at updating my Myspace page, and smiled fondly when I found this blurb I'd written on my profile page:
"Who I'd Like to Meet: Martin Streek, Radio DJ of The Edge 102.1 in Toronto. It was a Sunday night when James was driving me around a historical section of Toronto lined with beautiful, gated homes, when he remembered to turn on the radio. What did I hear but an old Nine Inch Nails track off of Pretty Hate Machine playing, followed by Skinny Puppy's "Dig It." I couldn't believe it, especially when the DJ, Martin Streek, interjected with some Skinny Puppy trivia and a fond recollection of one of their shows, and then cued up an old Ministry track. On FM! I was all O__O because it was 2007, not 1987."
That was a lovely and memorable moment in my relationship with James. I was like a little kid in a toy store, falling in love with Canada because no one dared play Skinny Puppy on the FM airwaves in the States. It was not the first time I'd heard Martin Live to Airs from the Velvet Underground; he'd play really terrific tracks that James and I would listen to via an internet stream while we'd chat late into Sunday nights. The Edge 102.1 was a fantastic, solid radio station, with Martin Streek being the reverent music nerd that seemed to know exactly what I loved--everything from Psychedelic Furs to Images in Vogue to Duran Duran and Siouxsie and Depeche Mode to, obviously, Skinny Puppy. It all made Toronto seem like that much more of a possible home.
But there I was this past Monday night, 30 years old and single and rather far from Toronto now, reflecting on that phantom soul mate I can't seem to find when I deleted that passage about Martin on my Myspace page and replaced it with a cheeky blurb about my ghost love elluding me. I had no idea that on this same night, Martin Streek would pass away.
James called me last night, stirring me from near-sleep, to talk about something more business-related (our relations with eachother are sadly beyond strained, even for ex-lovers). I'd had a pretty bad day already, mostly due to some things stirring up feelings about Bryan's death, plus other clouds crowding my mind.
"By the way, I have some bad news. Well, news you'll probably think is sad." I was so mentally exhausted by then that I couldn't even imagine what he was about to tell me. Perhaps another stock of Kodak film was being discontinued, or one of the places in Toronto we'd shared a moment in was gone. .
"That guy you liked on the radio, he died." "Martin Streek?" "Yeah."
Funny how an alt-rock station DJ in a country you're not even living in can actually make you feel a pang of sadness. "How?"
"He did it himself."
I couldn't even let that sink in. Suicide. A word I hate so much because it represents this black scar across my heart. As romanticized as it is with all the tortured gone-too-soon artists we've known throughout history, it tears your life apart when it's someone you know. And from that moment on, it will still eat at you even when it's someone you don't know. Like some DJ you used to listen to via the internet.
Martin Streek was an incredibly vibrant radio personality. He'd spew off music trivia about every single artist he'd have in rotation on his playlists, not to show off, but just to share. He "knew his shit," as they say, and more than that, he loved it. It came through in his voice and his enthusiasm. He was a public breath of life that kept the classic industrial, new wave, darkwave genres alive. And just like that, gone. One last Facebook status update bidding farewell, and gone.
I lament the loss of someone who loved all that great forgotten music even way more than me. I lament the quiet death of that evening in the car, James' faced spotted by the shadows from tree branches dancing across his face. The unadulterated joy of me hearing the first beats of "Dig It' and James just smiling and letting me be a kid about it, in awe that simple magic like that could still exist.
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