"For Love, We'll Carry On": Whisper and Amoeba remember 'Lirios'

Music without emotion is like life without feelings.
(Diego Silvani, "Remolino de lirios").

Once Upon a Time

The archive of Whisper and Amoeba, local veteran emocore and skate-rock bands, is prolific and can be consulted in media that now feel rudimentary, slow or imprecise: photocopied fanzines, printed magazines, handwritten letters, pen-rewound cassettes, loose singles on scribbled CD-Rs, paper photos, split 7"s, and so on.

For the younger crowd, these rustic formats may be the items of incipient collecting. Materials from a DIY mythology that they had to rely on forgotten technologies and devices –mailboxes!– to be able to circulate. In the veteran audience we hold these formats close. Because these formats helped us form one body. A body of our own work, at times, rustic, dispersed, messy, and almost never closed, but ours. There is what we expressed, said, sang, shouted, painted, wrote, cut out and pasted: the laurels we managed to earn, with the modest resources that we were able to use.

But today we we won't dig too deep into the beginning of that story. Our meeting with Whisper and Amoeba happens in medias res. And, in reality, it is up to me –the writer– to begin by restoring a painful chapter in this story that involves cross-pollination between bands of friends, between small but intense scenes, between the edges of genres that emerge on the edges of an underground culture. I tread carefully –at the edge– of this ground. And I ask for grace to write a story that is not mine, and about a friend of many who is no longer here.

Whirlpools and Cataclysms

It is March 26, 2022. "Tester" Mariano, singer of Amoeba, has a birthday. Out of courtesy, I won't give away how many. Celebrate in the afternoon with a homemade feast that includes a good assortment of meats and vegan delicacies. He, now, is one of the carnivores who drinks wine in a metal cup, next to the grill. He, now, is a man who walks around. Ten years have passed since the last time he was on a stage, at Salón Pueyrredón. But Tester invited his lifelong friends. Many are folks of other bands, but they share with him a plot in the same underground mycelium. There is Pájaro (guitarist in Amoeba, Flores del Sol, Sentidos Alterados and Los Dañados) and he is also coming Diego Silvani, aka Lirios and/or El Viejo (singer of Whisper, Baltimore in Love) who, among other things, are still vegan. Even now, after all these years. And if veganism was ever a gesture adopted within a subculture that both cultivated with creole variations, at this point it is a whole way of standing in the world, questioning even the unquestionable. What a gesture, in a cattle country.

But I return to the birthday boy. Booze is flowing and the food is piling high for all kinds of friends and adherent members of the old guard. But Diego doesn't arrive. He dies that same afternoon, due to a sudden health problem. And yes, a cataclysm erupts among his immense network of affections.

"Get together –go for it"

Silvani's death causes a shock not only among those who loved him, but also in the archive. Photos poured in; fanzines surfaced. It happens that Diego was a cultural engine and a powerhouse of DIY expression, who did not stop copying cassettes to share, corresponding with bands from all over the planet, recording and extending what was happening outside the mainstream, in all formats possible.

As the days go by, friendly voices are heard who want to organize a tribute to El Viejo Lirios –and I say this: they are rude when they call him "old", Diego was barely two years older than some–, a nickname that comes from the title of his fanzine Remolino de lirios. The tribute idea began to take shape.

At some point in these years after his death, some records also appear in VHS format, taken by Diego himself, or where he appears in passing: scenes with Whisper playing and recording. Amoeba doing their thing. Tester and Fede "Minucha" (Sniffing Recording Industries, guitarist in Amoeba) start digitizing those tapes. Fede Pérez Losada (drummer in Whisper, Compañero Asma) adds others, already digitized, that he has been guarding since Lirios himself passed them on. From back in the day: circa 1997-1999.

With these materials on the surface, the idea arose of making a screening that commemorates El Viejo. A location is chosen –the basement of Galería Fémur, of course, since it is the den of visual artists like Tester. A date is set, March 26, 2025. Collaboration is requested with drinks and snacks from those who come. It's a two-sided gathering. Because a face celebrates Tester's birthday. The other commemorates Diego's departure. A strong, long-lasting VHS tape binds them –beyond joy or sorrow.

"It was very emotional", says Pájaro. "It was a lot of people, even Lirios' parents, brother, sister". And Minucha adds the icing on the cake of that meeting: "Lirios passed away and Tester did not celebrate again. And it happened quite organically and spontaneously to do something with these videos. I threw it at Marian and it was a kick, within the framework of the tribute to Diego, to also think about a return of Whisper and Amoeba". From some subtle plane, Lirios does it again. Galvanizes friends, mobilize resources. Once again he encourages his people to get together and make music. To take the stage, again.

Pájaro explains: "But this had to be discussed with the rest of the band, with Gugu Sancricca (drummer in Amoeba, Restos Fósiles, Las Fuerzas Subterráneas) and with Marcelito Mascetti (bassist in Amoeba, recording and sound technician, Limonhero Estudio) and with Whisper too. Then we got together. And Whisper also got together. Everything was OK. And we started rehearsing and Whisper started rehearsing. And that's how it started".

For his part, Poli (Whisper, Los Álamos) says more or less the same thing: "All the people were insisting on the question of when Amoeba was going to return. And I think the moment Marian clicked was when the exhibition was made in the gallery. And the chip fell on him at the same time as offering us to play again and do a kind of mini tour together. Half crazy, because Peter (bassist in Whisper, Los Alamos) lives abroad and Diego is no longer with us. It could be a weird mix from a musical point of view and also from an emotional one. Because, suddenly, you have to look for a replacement for someone who is no longer here, who was very loved by many. So, our thing was to address the question of whether we wanted to do this or if it seemed like a complete nonstarter to us".

Fede Pérez Losada adds: "We also chatted with Peter. Since he's abroad, is also strange. But I think that if Peter were living here, he would be the most amped". Poli retorts: "He'd be climbing the walls by now". And then the boys say that Peter said from France: "Crazy, get together –go for it". Her place on bass was taken by Marce Lasbats (Flores del Sol, Lastbeats), another veteran of underground culture and a close friend of the entire gang. To cover the place of Lirios, the voice, Whisper consulted the cream of Buenos Aires' DIY lairs. And then they defined that Seba Saire (Mofa, Inerme Discs) and Hernán "Diente" Osorio (Cutre) split vocal duties, in the best style of the hardcore bands of the '90s, where groups with two singers emerged. "Total survival", says Poli. In the distribution, Seba was left with the most emo-melodic part, and Diente, the caustic screams. You couldn't ask for better.

Having a Good Time

And when you get together things happen. Fede Pérez Losada compares it to exorcising some energies. Minucha associates it with like others do with their weekly five-a-side: "Thursday is coming and I'm already waiting for rehearsal. It's a release". Pájaro embellishes sensations with this anecdote: "I have been going to skate every Tuesday with Marcelito for about two years. But now he hasn't skated in about two months. Then I spoke and asked him when he was coming back, because it is good for him –Marcelito is very wound-up–. And he tells me: no well, I don't know when I'll be back. I said that at least now I have what we are doing with Amoeba, which is really cool".

Tester also chimes in: "Rehearsals are like a kind of therapy. We are a group of friends who have known each other for a long time and the truth is that we are enjoying it". Poli adds: "We are older and fussier. So the idea is that we end up calm, relaxed. We do what we can. And if not, everything is fine". And Minucha: "Now we are in a place where the fact that one does not feel like doing something means we just don't do it".

Coming Up

There is talk of rehearsals, a mini tour is proposed. But, for now, there is only one confirmed date, for this lineup that is a tribute, elegy and return to the ring: on Thursday, October 30 at 8 p.m. at Espacio Rincón (Rincón 1330, CABA). Opening act: Movimiento Tenso Expectations? Nerves? Reunion of veterans or also space for new generations? Fede Pérez Losada explains: "Seba, for example, participates a lot in the newest scene of emo or hardcore bands, although now from the label side. But there is a very powerful and very beautiful scene. Several of those kids have already told him that they are going to listen to us. Perhaps mobilized by the curiosity of listening to bands that did something similar to what they do today. Now, you listen to the kids of today, typical bands Clamor, WRRN o Cursi No Muere and what they do is super tight, next-level. You hear what we were and there is no point of comparison. But hey, at some point we are pioneers in that, so we are going to live up to it".

In Numbers

Fede Pérez Losada did the numbers: "In the first rehearsal we did the math. There were songs that we hadn't played in at least twenty-six years". He says he remembered them all; Poli says he didn't. But returning to that songbook in the rehearsal room was as if things clicked into place. Or as if he had had twenty tabs: "A wild trip". Pájaro says that after two rehearsals he appeared... more archive! A new demo with twenty songs. So who knows where this story of comebacks, reunions, tributes and friends ends. There's plenty of mycelium left.

Postscript

These are the formations for October 30 at Espacio Rincón. For Amoeba Marcelito on bass, Gugu on drums, Minucha on guitar, Pájaro on guitar and Tester Mariano on vocals go up. For Whisper Seba and Diente on vocals, Chino on guitar, Poli on guitar, Marce on bass, Fede on drums and Javi on drums.