CULTURE | JULY 27 - AUG. 2, 2023
CULTURE
Sift: 30 years of music, metal and remembrance
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by Autumn Karen
hough everyone thought he had a year, it was only three weeks. “He never told me why he wanted to call it Denouement,” Curt Meinhold says. “I never knew if it was because he knew he was dying.” Meinhold is speaking of Justin Burmeister, the passionate lead guitarist and a core songwriter for the band Sift, who passed away suddenly from esophageal cancer in 2020. Brandeis-educated and constantly absorbed in his craft, he helped Sift form into a hard-charging underground East Coast band that transcended rock boundaries. Burmeister and Meinhold were bandmates in Sift for almost three decades. Sift’s final album, Denouement, is set for release this fall. A documentary about the band of the same title by local filmmaker Tumaini Johnson is set for its first public exhibition in Greensboro on Aug. 19 at The Rockhouse. Johnson came to the project after Curt responded to a Craigslist ad for his video services. At the time, pandemic and budget restrictions meant this couldn’t be a traditional documentary. A graduate of UNCG and owner of Ephex Media, Johnson took on the project to expand and grow as a filmmaker as well as to support Justin’s legacy as a fellow artist. “We can do this,” he says of his first discussions with Meinhold. “We can rise to the challenge and tell this story in a unique way.” Across a thousand miles, former band members like drummer Todd Berozsky, guitarist Kimon Greenland, and singers Deep Chinappa and Rebecca Tognacci gave Zoom interviews and proffered long buried footage of live performances and music videos. Meinhold and his wife Serena both appear, as well as several longtime friends of Burmeister and fans of Sift.
Justin Burmeister, who passed away from cancer in 2020, was known amongst his friends as a workaholic who was always creating music. COURTESY PHOTO
‘So creative’
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he group evolved from its original iteration in the early ’90s as the four-member Speeny Bowl Wagon through various members and a change to the name Sift. Burmeister came in after Greenland left the band. “Justin [Burmeister] was definitely the one,” says Beorzky in the documentary when speaking about Justin’s initial audition for the band. His addition would go on to shape both the way the band created and the way they performed. “So creative,” shares Chinappa. “He was a terrific guitar player and he had this amazing ear.” Over the course of the late 90’s and through the turn of the millennium, lead singers like Chinappa and gospel-grounded Godjivah added their distinct flavor to the group and brought in new audiences. Through highs and lows and across varied styles, Burmeister, Meinhold and Beorzky held tight to their vision of uncompromising creativity. “He was incredibly hard working,” lead singer Tognacci remembers of Burmeister. “He never rested.... Any moment that he wasn’t at his job he was writing music, he was playing guitar.” With Burmeister’s musicality and songwriting skills at the core of the group, the band recorded albums including Yellow, If There Was A God, The Desperate Hope and others through the mid-2000s. They played all over the Southeast and throughout New England, back to Burmeister’s native Ohio, and including the legendary CBGB in New York City. Though they continued
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