Fellow Canadians to Remix Stars

It must be nice to be born of Canada, where a thriving, pumping music scene rooted in indie- and electro-pop grinds on and on. And oh, to be a fly on the wall, because all those names you know-- Caribou (formerly Manitoba), Junior Boys, Broken Social Scene, the Dears, and this writer's own personal favorite, Metric-- they're all friends! They are the goddamn Canadian Awesome Music Collective, and now they're getting the band back together, so to speak, in tribute to their countrymen and countrywomen in Stars.

The plan is for all of the above bands (and more) to remix songs from Stars' Set Yourself on Fire in time to release an album of the new versions in the fall. Earlier this month, Billboard.com spoke to Stars' frontman, Torquil Campbell, about the possible impact of having too many cooks in the kitchen, especially when said cooks are close personal friends. But Campbell predicted the best: "They are all people who listened to the record a lot and are all close friends of ours, so it's kind of an interesting experiment from our point of view. It's kind of like saying to your friends, 'If you were going to decorate our apartment, how would you do it?' I trust these guys. I'm always ripping them off, so I can't imagine they are going to come up with something that I won't like." And he also assures fans that if any of the tracks are gems, the remixes will be added to their live rotation.

And speaking of live, the Stars are traipsing the lower 48 a bit this summer before going to Europe:

06-22 Cleveland Heights, OH - Grog Shop *
06-23 Millvale, PA - Mr. Small's Theater *
06-24 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's *
06-25 Brooklyn, NY - Prospect Park Bandshell (with the New Pornographers)
06-29 Berlin, Germany - Magnet Club
06-30 London, England - Buzzard
07-03 Rotterdam, Netherlands - Metropolos Festival
07-05 Malmo, Sweden - Folkets Park
07-06 Goteborg, Sweden - Tradgarn
07-07 Stockholm, Sweden - Munchenbryggeriet
07-09 Ottawa, Ontario - Ottawa Bluesfest (with Broken Social Scene)
07-23 Guelph, Ontario - Hillside Festival
08-18 New York, NY - Central Park Summer Stage (with Death Cab For Cutie and the Decemberists)

* with the Most Serene Republic

Meanwhile, where's that third Metric album? Seriously. Do we have to come up there?

href="http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/stars/set-yourself-on-fire.shtml">Stars: Set Yourself On Fire
href="http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-05/25.shtml#stars">Stars Tour North America, Europe
* Stars:

Posted by Susan Hopkins on Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 12:00am