Singer’s gear stolen, guitar smashed
For years, Niagara country singer Angela Siracusa chose trust over suspicion. Acceptance over paranoia.
She would leave doors unlocked, welcome strangers to her St. Catharines studio.
It’s how she confronted her anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Early Sunday morning, that trust broke her heart.
After driving home from her weekly gig in King City, Siracusa took a look at the gear in the back of her 2009 Dodge Caliber with a “weird feeling.” Like she might not see it again.
She brushed it off, went inside, and fell asleep at about 1:30 a.m. Six hours later, her neighbour on Chestnut Lane in St. Catharines woke her up with some grim news: Someone had vandalized and broken into four vehicles on the tightknit street, including hers. The back window was shattered, and the thief made off with her mikes, her Samsung tablet, and her precious acoustic guitar.
A guitar that was smashed and left behind, it turns out.
She was stunned. The tools of her trade were now gone or broken.
“This is my one job,” she says. “This is how I earn a living. It’s a meagre living, but I share everything I earn.”
The Niagara Music Award-winning singer lives across from the small studio space, Songpie Connection Inc., she created with boyfriend Ian Faiers to help local musicians create tracks on a tight budget. She sees it as a “retreat” for artists to gather and connect with each other.
It has created a unique vibe to the area, and she hopes to see it grow.
But after seeing the aftermath of the break-in, she had a more pressing concern: How would she perform that night? She had an open mike gig booked at Rigs Sports Pub in St. Catharines Sunday.
“They took the three things I need to do my job,” she says.
After posting about the incident on Facebook, some of her musician friends brought over some equipment. As a show of support, the bar was packed. Siracusa was overwhelmed.
“Our feature act, they ended up bringing all their gear for me to relieve my stress,” she says. “The people that showed up, it was unreal.”
Some friends have urged her to start a GoFundMe page to recoup her $2,500 in losses (insurance will only cover damages to the vehicle), but Siracusa says it’s not her “style.”
She’ll instead create “some means” to get her equipment back.
The broken guitar was especially painful. It wasn’t stolen, just broken and laid on top of a car about 20 feet away. It was an instrument Siracusa poured her heart and soul into over the years.
To ease the pain, friend Victor Agnew gave her a new guitar Sunday, which she promises “will be loved and cared for.”
Beyond the theft, however, Siracusa is most upset about the lost trust. She can no longer look at her neighbourhood the same way.
“I think you get a lot more out of life when you don’t think the person in front of you is trying to take from you,” she says.
“I try to create an openness, and that has to start in my head and how I live. It can’t be the other way around. Now, I’m going to be thinking like an ‘afraid local person,’ and lock the door. I hate that.”
Niagara Regional Police say the incident is still under investigation.