Consuelas de Amor

How much I miss Scarlet Experiment

Back in 2014 to 2015, I was in a Shoegaze project, with guitarist Ian Caporali.  We both lived in the Haight Ashbury, we were neighbors, we both had cats, and we both clicked on creating something from nothing, really.
Ian had several guitars and a bass, but he didn't have drums.  So, he purchased online a computer program for creating drums and bass by plugging in the key and selecting a beat.  That done, he would play these thrilling guitar licks over the bass. 

I had more experience with being in a band, given that I lived with the London guitarist Snakefinger and had fun dancing onstage with the band at the I Beam, The Stone, The OnBroadway and other venues.  I was not stage -shy.

As talented as Ian is on guitar, he had not really played out with his guitar nor had he really any experience playing with a drummer.  I had played bass in the punk band Electric Death Poppies in the early nineties, singing and playing rhythm guitar in my band with my ex, Ron Donabedian in Martyr Mia, and playing out with my tabla in the band Bhakti.

When I and I would get together to play, however, there was no stopping us.  The ideas and melodies just came to me like divine inspiration, haha, and Ian was just wailing melodically on guitar.  All our recordings are one take only.  We would talk about what the song was going to be about, and I would think up the first few lines, and the rest just came to me like I said.

Ian wanted to call his music project Scarlet Experiment, after a meme from the American writer Emily Dickenson.  He didn't want to share the name with me, for some reason.  My lyrics might have sometimes been too political, I don't know.  But he could recognize that we had something happening, and what it was, I just know, I was able to keep the recordings, for the most part.  THe songs where I am singing are my lyrics and melody, but one could say we worked on  the songs together, and I was willing to share.

San Francisco can be a difficult place to be an artist sometimes.  There are people who would rahter see themselves on the stage and not you.  It's very sad to me.  I had been friends with an older woman artist and her husband who gave parties in their carriage house with a lovely stage and pretty packed audiences.  When I asked her if Scarlet Experiment could play the twenty-minute slot at the party, she said, "Oh no, everyone's gonna love you. I don't want that."

And then, I was very much disturbed by what was and is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza, and I wrote a song called 'Gaza City'.  Ian was not that into it, but then it appeared on our Soundcloud page with a picture of President Kennedy being shot.  This was Ian's idea, but as soon as I got to liking it, he took the song down.  I still to this day do not have a copy of this important song.  Ian put together the most sombre lead to 'Gaza Cit'y you would be a robot if it didn't move you.  This was a tragedy, in my estimation.

We started playing with be on bass and him on guitar, and we put together quite a few tracks, but again, there was a problem.  These ambient Shoegaze tracks I think Ian might have somewhere on his computer. 

I should just skip up to today.  Since bein in quarantine, I have revisited the songs and quick videos I made to them.  Today's video is for the song 'Consuelas de Amor.'  IIan's parents are from Colombia. He had expressed concern over the name Consuela bevause it seemed to always refer to the woman who does the cleaning up that no one wants to do.

We had talked about how this song was supposed to go, and he put the bass down.  Then we went for it.  Like always, I had no lyrics written down and everything is improv.  I liked to sing in Spancais, I call it, Spanish and French.  For Consuelas I wrote from the perspective of Consuela,  She says she is breathing for,  'Soy respirando para ti.'  Now that we are in quarantine, I do believe that Consuelas and all people who are doing the 'janitorial' work might have the most difficult job of all staying safe.

So today I posted 'Consuelas' on my instagram with the video of me playing Martha in Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf/'  She is a young 1990's version of the Elizabeth Taylor (who probably never appeared onscreen without eye makeup).  My Martha is young and drunk and confused.  She is not a person of the 1960's. 

In any case. I haven't written in a while, and I know I should write every day.  Today is April 14 th, so I promise to write at least 3 t0 10 paragraphs a day.

Maybe also I should try to recover the lyrics to the songs and post them, too.