CENTRE STAGE Martina Medica

Photo by Eric Algra. June 2018.

Martina Medica’s 2018 story about the One Direction song Best Song Ever kicked our concert set list deep into the 21^st century. And into boy-band pop!

The story is about the rigours of parenting young children and that feeling of exhaustion at, say, five in the afternoon: Sometimes salvation can be found in the unlikeliest of songs. I find the one I want in the playlist, the one you call your dancing song, and turn it up loud.

The Stereo Stories Band has played Best Song Ever not as boy-band pop but as energetic rock, with Nils Cusack (who made his name as an alt-folk singer) taking lead vocals, and fellow singers Peter Maskell and Chris Phillips dueting some lyrics. Lots of fun.We’ve performed the story at Williamstown, Glen Eira and Albury.

Martina’s stories are love stories. Romance. Wounded hearts. Memories of a friend. Love of a song.

You flick through my CDs with the kind of thought and care people put into choosing a name for their child. (Black by Pearl Jam)

If we had hours rather than minutes, we would listen to music through the tinny TV speakers, tucked up together under blankets on the mattress, arguing over the best of British. (You Do Something To Me by Paul Weller)

I never learn her name and I never speak to her. I don’t change my tutorial time so that I can be in a tute with her, the way I had done in my American History unit the previous semester with a boy who’d caught my eye in much the same way. (Je N’en Connais Pas Le Fin by Edith Piaf/Jeff Buckley.)

As well as being a patient, evocative writer, who knows the value of sitting on a story for a little while and letting it come into its own, Martina is a fine singer.

Indeed, but for having to cancel our shows this year, Martina would have been on stage with us, not just narrating her stories but singing their songs.

Fortunately, you can listen to Martina’s Soundcloud recordings.

Thank you, Martina.

The Martina Medica Stereo Stories Collection.

The Centre Stage stories profile musicians and writers who have been pivotal to Stereo Stories.