Carla Lucero - Part 6

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 119: Carla Lucero - Part 6

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In this week’s episode, we talk to Carla Lucero about her past experiences at the recording studio, as a member of the 80s alternative all-woman rock band Mosaic, as Director of ComuArte, and how her first opera Juana set off a chain of events. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Carla Lucero, check her out here: https://carlalucero.com/. This episode was originally recorded in February 2024.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/15412945

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Hannah Chen

If you're curious to hear a little music from our guest Carla Lucero, who we spoke to in our most recent episode, check out E4TT's annual concert of music by women and non-binary composers "Midnight Serenades" on January 25.

Chapters

• 0:37 In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Carla Lucero, who we spoke to in February 2024.
• 0:45 So you had the studio, the recording studio, and you had an all girl band, Mosaic, right? What kind of music did Mosaic play? What did you learn from the studio? Did the studio end up taking up all your life, so you didn't have time for your own music?
• 7:14 And the LA opera scene has changed in the last two decades. It's quite a different thing there, there now. So yeah. Are you still working or involved with the consortium? Or is the writing operas really taking up all your career time?

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00
[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our conversation with Carla Lucero, who we spoke to in February 2024. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] So you had the studio, the recording studio, and you had an all girl band, Mosaic, right?

Carla Lucero  00:36
Yes, yes.

Nanette McGuinness  00:37
What kind of music did Mosaic play? What did you learn from the studio? Did the studio end up taking up all your life, so you didn't have time for your own music?

Carla Lucero  00:46
That's exactly what happened. I got into that business because I wanted a place to record my own music.

Nanette McGuinness  00:54
Sure.

Carla Lucero  00:55
And there was explosive growth in that studio. Because that whole...and I've never, I've never written one like rap song or anything like that. I know very little about it. But I know about the artists that were there. So we took on the overflow from Capitol Records for their, their artists...

Nanette McGuinness  01:20
Wow!

Carla Lucero  01:21
It became a huge, huge business. We were recording a lot of things from Death Row Records, Interscope, you know, it became, I got, I got in there, and at the time I got in there, it was really kind of a small operation. And then it just exploded with growth. And when that happens, you know, then it's like, well, my music, what? You know, it's like, I have to run this business.

Nanette McGuinness  01:47
Right, you're riding a tiger.

Carla Lucero  01:49
Yeah, and I burned out heavily, heavily burned out. And I thought, you know, this is not what I want to do. I don't care about having all of this money. You know, what am I going to, I'm exhausted when I go home. I'm, you know, the ungodly hours, you know, with with a recording studio, especially recording pop and rap and rock, and, you know, they'll go all night long, you know? And then you have, then you have staff turnover, and then lots of different situations that I really didn't get into that business for. So, so yeah, I was already like, within the first year, year and a half thinking like, "Uh, this is not for me."

Nanette McGuinness  02:43
You were looking for your exit visa at that point. [laughs]

Carla Lucero  02:45
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Nanette McGuinness  02:49
What kind of music did Mosaic play?

Carla Lucero  02:52
Alternative Rock. So it was really, it was very melodic, but it had like a hard edge, you know?

Nanette McGuinness  03:02
Like Heart, like the old, the 80s?

Carla Lucero  03:05
No, alternative rock like Pretenders or...

Nanette McGuinness  03:05
Oh, okay, okay.

Carla Lucero  03:11
You know, so that type of, um,

Nanette McGuinness  03:13
sound.

Carla Lucero  03:14
Yeah, so we were, we were an 80s band, you know. [laughs] So it was, you know, it was it was a weird time in music, too, because technology was starting to come into the picture.

Nanette McGuinness  03:32
Right.

Carla Lucero  03:33
So I was starting to experiment a little bit, you know, with, with that, in addition to, to, you know, acoustic instruments.

Nanette McGuinness  03:43
Right.

Carla Lucero  03:44
And it was fun. I have to say it was like a, it was it was just fun to have the camaraderie of other women too, other women musicians. All women band.

Nanette McGuinness  03:57
Yeah.

Carla Lucero  03:59
And we did the whole circuit, you know, the whole Hollywood circuit, the Roxy, the Whiskey, you know, all of those places we traveled, did a little tour. So it was fun. But then, you know, just got to be too much fun. [laughs]

Nanette McGuinness  04:19
Uh oh!

Carla Lucero  04:19
This is another thing where we're, this is not really, you know, what I want to do, I'm not honoring my full self, you know, as an artist. I'm not...I'm not being challenged. And I'm not, you know, that type of thing. So, so that was fun. Like, the whole la thing was basically fun until it wasn't. And then and then that the opera scene in LA was pretty much nonexistent at that, at that point. So I knew San Francisco was the place for me at that time, and it was a really good choice, for me. And then later on, I started to work internationally, I was the US director of ComuArte. It's a it's a consortium of women artists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, visual artists. And being the US director of that organization was great because it's based in Mexico City, has satellites besides US, you know, all over Latin America, Spain, Italy, at one point, but I was able to have my music performed in all of these different places. And it was mainly instrumental, a lot of chamber music.

Nanette McGuinness  04:21
Nice.

Carla Lucero  04:38
So it was, it was really, it was really a wonderful time in my life where I was traveling and composing and having my work performed in wonderful places. So that was great. But during that time, I, I wasn't producing any creating anything are having it produced in in San Francisco. The next thing that happened was my opera, Juana, being performed in LA., and so that set off a whole chain of events, great events, where LA opera, people from LA opera, attended the, the premiere of Juana, and I was commissioned, you know, within the next year, for an LA opera project and...

Nanette McGuinness  06:42
Wonderful.

Carla Lucero  06:43
Since then, it's been, it's, I've worked a lot extensively in LA, I still consider myself an Angeleno.

Nanette McGuinness  06:51
[laughs]

Carla Lucero  06:51
Born and raised there, and I feel really embraced there.

Nanette McGuinness  06:56
That's nice.

Carla Lucero  06:57
Really embraced.

Nanette McGuinness  06:58
Yeah, yeah. And the LA opera scene has changed in the last two decades. It's quite a different thing there, there now. So yeah. Are you still working or involved with the consortium? Or is the writing operas really taking up all your career time?

Carla Lucero  07:14
Yeah, I didn't. I stepped down from the US Director position, and the, you know, most of them remain like really good friends. Yeah, I mean, it was wonderful, because it was also a two-way street, we'd have musicians come here and perform and, or, or speak at universities. So it's just kind of a really nice cultural exchange. I miss, I do miss that, but I don't know how on earth I would be able to fit it into my schedule now, and I feel like now I'm doing what I need to be doing.

Nanette McGuinness  07:50
Yeah, it's very clear, as we've been talking, that there's this through line, and I think maybe you're unusual this way with this through line of knowing what your heart song is, and where you want to go, where you need to go, and are you there, or are you not? And I think that makes you very unusual, and it's admirable.

Carla Lucero  08:11
Well, thank you.

Nanette McGuinness  08:12
You're welcome. Yeah, certainly, I wallowed around in what I was going to do in life much more.

Carla Lucero  08:19
I think that's natural, though, right? That's more natural.

Nanette McGuinness  08:23
Yeah, it's it's, it's hard. I shouldn't say "wallow." Actually, there's a decent through line in mine too, but I don't think I had the same surety or sureness that I'm hearing and that's very cool.

Nanette McGuinness  08:36
[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Carla Lucero, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button, and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media, and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at e4tt.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]