MUSIC PREVIEW
GUILLERMO SERPAS
CD Release Celebration
Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Centre
Saturday, August 11
Desdenes. The name of a song, perhaps, or the name of a lover you met in a dream? But if it's a dream, surely the dreamer stirs in her sleep, words on her lips that fall away stillborn. Desdenes, yes, a song, one about emotion that can't quite translate into the concrete confines of English. Not deadened feelings, but the hot, sticky resin of love, slow-roasted then cooled, the way it sadly must be once the fuel is spent. Somehow, in the dust-bunnies of your mind, after the song caresses your tear ducts for the third or fourth time, you understand the emotion shackled within those bittersweet notes. Desdenes: Disdain.
"I am searching for the word. It is... a difficult word," says singer-guitarist Guillermo Serpas over coffee at a musical alcove in southwest Calgary. He’s responding to a question about the meaning of the song, sung in sweetly seared Spanish, that appears on his first solo album, Guillermo.
"I am telling her, if you want to hate me, go ahead, but I know that that hate is all stemming from the love that she still feels underneath for me."
Later, he admits,"I have had several love affairs – none of them were good ones that worked out well." "Desdenes," the album's first song, joins with nine other flowing, vibrating, wistful songs that stretch together to fling love's crumpled flowers on life's stepping stones, petals crushed only after they have danced until their colours have drained.
In the early 1980s, at age 14, Serpas and his family escaped the political repression of El Salvador and came to Calgary. Despite leaving his Latin American heritage behind as a teenager listening to Led Zeppelin albums, Serpas eventually went on to complete a degree in music at the University of Calgary. Trading his metal Jimmy Page-inspired strings for the nylon ones encouraged by his culture, Guillermo then joined forces with his slightly older brother, Roberto, who had earned a master's degree in composition at the University of Toronto. Soon, The Serpas Brothers were the keepers of the songs of San Salvadorians' bliss, hurt, hopes and dreams as they played regularly at several Calgary establishments.
"Although I miss the beaches, the sun and the food, I would not go back to (El Salvador) live, even though things have gotten better there. Calgary is where I am, and where my family is now," says Serpas, smiling. He has travelled to Vancouver and Edmonton on the broad, strong back of his music, and appreciates the fact that he can make a living solely through music here.
"People there (in El Salvador) are so focused on survival, they do not have enough time to work on their music. The are very warm and giving, because I think that's their way of dealing with the situation."
Serpas notes that he has seldom encountered racist behaviour since arriving in Calgary, a city he appreciates for its orderliness and cleanliness in contrast to the chaos of his native land. Many of his memories of his homeland are of sitting in traffic jams or waiting in lineups that ate up time he would have preferred to spend coaxing notes from his guitar. Even now, he works so hard at his music, practicing at least two hours daily on top of gigging, that he often does not have the opportunity to see other musicians play around town.
For now, his album will have to be his ambassador, carrying his music beyond his shows. Recorded in his bedroom on his own equipment, the music needs few words to convey the sweetness of the emotions it bespeaks, emotions that would fit as well on an old Iggy Pop album as they do in these 10 tracks: lust for life. A simple emotion, with no desdenes, and no translation, needed.
Before the CD was recorded, The Serpas Brothers were an extremely popular act, playing several times weekly in the city. The question of whether Serpas will re-join his brother for gigs is answered affirmatively, although he compares the idea of The Serpas Brothers to a monogamous marriage.
"We were exclusive. You were not allowed to play with anyone else. I like the freedom of this, and to have proved to myself that I could do it. Yes, it will inspire (Roberto) to know that he can do his own album, too. But we will be playing together again sometime." |
