O El Amor
The Band with the Broken Hearts
It was a breezy night in early March and the dark clouds looming in the sky above suggested that rain was in the forecast.
Outside a seedy pub in Bethpage called Mr. Beery’s, a crowd of people dressed in ‘80s throwback garb sucked on cheap cigarettes to compliment the drunk high they worked up from sipping on chilled alcohol. Women adjusted their mini-skirts and men argued about the outcome of the night’s football game.
It was 8:30 p.m. when five masked musicians took to the stage and began adjusting the sound on their amplifiers.
A man of medium height and stature approached the stage microphone with a frothy beer in hand, and just as some nervous laughter erupted from the side of the bar he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the best goddamn band this bar’s ever seen here. We’re back again, we’re O El Amor. Let’s have some fun with us.”
The singer was Mark “Disco Goya” Dicarlo and at his cue, the rest of his band began playing Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Cuando, Cuando,” much to the amazement of the onlookers scattered alongside the edge of the stage.
O El Amor performed roughly 12 cover songs that night, all of which were love songs made popular by bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s. The night was filled with warm pop melodies and the female bartenders did what they could to stop themselves from getting too distracted as they sung along and poured beer for their patrons.
Offstage the members of O El Amor were surprisingly subdued and less lively. The love ballads they played just moments before had made many people smile that night, but you could sense that beneath the masks wrapped around their sweaty faces, the band hid tears of sadness.
After they began packing up their equipment, Dicarlo and guitarist Rob “Jesus Mana Cerveza Jr.” Manaseri, stumbled down to the basement of the bar with ice-cold Budweiser’s in hand.
“We started playing together as a band back in 1999,” said Dicarlo. “We all share the same love for love songs and we play these love songs to hide the pain. We wear the masks to hide the shame that we feel and we drink as much alcohol as possible.”
The depressed O El Amor frontman said this while he stared at some cigarette butts littering the concrete floor beneath his feet.
Manaseri soon chimed in. “We try to spread the love and we all come from similar backgrounds, we all have broken hearts,” he said. “And, uh. Every time a member moves on or passes away, we come back together and start the love-making again.”
Manaseri took some time to speak about a personal tale of heartbreak. According to the guitarist, whenever the band plays a particular song live on stage he feels distraught, but continues to perform it in concert to preserve the memory of his ex-girlfriend.
“’Cuando’ is a very special song for me,” began Manaseri. “It is a song that I shared with Rosie Perez. God Rosie, I really miss you,” he cried.
Manaseri began choking back tears as he spoke and had to be escorted outside the venue where a car was waiting for him.
In an instant, O El Amor was gone. Leaving behind them a trail of unanswered questions and beer-soaked footsteps.
While no one can quite understands the band and attempts have been made to keep their identities a secret, it has been said that if you can get close enough to the stage, sometimes, just sometimes, you might see a tear or two beneath their masks.