Sometimes change is the best thing that can ever happen to you.
There are a lot of people who don't like change. They actively avoid it. They fear it. But change is the engine that drives the world to bigger and better things. I think a lot of our current political turmoil is partially the result of peoples' fear of the growing change in the world. But change comes eventually, no matter how hard you try to stop it.
Me, I've learned to like change. Now that I've got a few decades of life experience under my belt, I've been able to look back and see how change, be it small or apocalyptic, has worked out for me. Sometimes the change is something I willfully create, like going to college. Or moving across the country. Those are big events, big decisions, big changes that had very evident positive outcomes.
But sometimes, the change is out of my hands. Like not getting an amazing job because quotas needed to be filled. Or saying a tearful goodbye to my beloved cat Hoshi as her heart gave out.
Or getting dumped after dating someone for five years. That was a big one. At the time, it was hard to imagine that anything good was going to come of all the sadness and chaos. But good did come. And my life is better for it, because had my universe not been upended, I would have missed out on the perfect pop delights of…
THE ORANGE PEELS.
The summer of 1998 was a big one for yours truly. I spent two glorious weeks traveling through Europe and England, visiting friends I hadn't seen in ages. I leased a brand-new Honda CR-V, my first new car in nine years. I started a new job at a dot-com startup that had the potential to be "the next big thing". And, as I mentioned earlier, my girlfriend of five years broke up with me.
The trip, the car, and the job were my doing. Positive changes. The breakup, however, was out of my hands. Well, not completely, I guess. We'd arrived at a point where our long-term plans were no longer in step. As boyfriend and girlfriend, we were awesome. (I've got to take a moment here and pat myself on the back... I give great boyfriend, I really do.) But once we domesticated things, once we started becoming a "real couple", that's when our different viewpoints on life turned into a stumbling block. Truth be told, a couple of weeks before I left for Europe, it became apparent we were on shaky ground when we got into a big discussion about religion. A discussion that, to put it mildly, did not go in my favor.
It all came to a head one muggy August afternoon, after seeing Saving Private Ryan, when she told me she wanted to end it. Dear God, I'd just had to live through the trauma of watching national treasure Tom Hanks die in the mud in France! Couldn't she have waited a day or two?!?
But no, she had made up her mind. (With the help of her own personal Iago, a high school friend who'd been pouring anti-Don poison in her ear since our first couple of months together. I still have no idea why this overweight vegan was so against me.) Not long after, I moved out. And that was that. Five fun and pretty damn good years undone in the span of a few days.
For a while there, I was a little unsteady on my pins. I was emotionally woozy. I'd absorbed a lot of change in a very short amount of time. And losing a five year relationship... whew. That's a tough blow for anyone to take. But damn if things didn't turn around very quickly. I was thirty-two years old. Single. Making six figures. Living in a house with my cats overlooking the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. I had no one but myself to answer to. For the first time in years... I was a free man.
After work, my cat Hoshi would join me for a glass of “freedom wine” as we took in the view.
Embracing this new chapter in my life, I spent the next few months doing my own thing. I went hiking all over the Bay Area. I explored old, funky restaurants. I played softball on a team that got trounced every weekend. I bought a DVD player and loaded up on discs. I pulled a “Christmas Story" and ate Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I just did stupid Don stuff. And I had a blast doing it all. Change hit me hard, but I rolled with the punch.
And so one January afternoon, after one of my regular Amoeba Music CD sprees, I found myself sitting at Jupiter in Berkeley, enjoying a pizza and a cold pint of their delicious beer. Flipping through the SF Guardian, my eyes landed on an ad for something called "Poptopia". The description lit up the pleasure centers in my brain: five days of pop music at various venues throughout San Francisco.
At that moment, it dawned on me that there was one advantage of not having a significant other that I hadn't thought of. Without the need to acquiesce to the tastes of my once-beloved, I could go see whatever live music I wanted! No more Episcopalian Christmas chorales or touchy-feely James Taylor sing-a-longs for this guy! I could spend an entire week soaking up new bands and new music at venues all over the city!
Twenty-one years and dozens of concerts later, I can safely say that the four nights I spent at Poptopia are still one of the best live music experiences I've ever had. There's nothing like discovering great new bands in small, intimate venues. Standing a few feet from the stage gives you an incredible window into the skill and talent required to perform music in the flesh in front of a crowd.
And boy howdy did I discover some talent! The power chord dreaminess of Julie Plug. The hook-laden indie rock of The Happy Regrets. The garage-revival rock 'n roll of The Heebee Jeebees. The quirky pop of Cockeyed Ghost. I was so gobsmacked by all the amazing music that, after each show, I made a beeline to the merchandise table and scooped up every available CD. I was over the moon in musical bliss.
I’ve got a golden ticket, I’ve got a golden ticket…
The final night of Poptopia, at the venerable Bottom Of The Hill, I was right up front, ready to be entertained. The advertised lineup for the evening promised four bands, headlined by The Sugar Plastic. Capsule kicked things off with their indie-leaning alternative sound. They were followed by the amazing Sissybar, who accentuated their bouncy art pop with, of all things, a banjo. We were only halfway through the show, and it was already a winner.
The next band up came across as a typical indie group. The front man resembled a younger Marshall Crenshaw, draped in cooler clothes. The bass player was so slender and statuesque that it looked like she had a cello slung over her shoulder. There was nothing different about their setup, like a banjo, or wacky clothes. They weren't out to shock anyone. They just wanted to play music. They were just The Orange Peels.
But then... something strange happened. And by "strange", I mean "unexpected and wonderful". They started playing. And the sound... the sound! Chiming, jangly guitars. Muscular but subtle drumming. Distinctive, dense bass lines. Powerful vocals. Simple but nimble lyrics. Every song was clear and crisp and damn near perfect. Especially "Everbody's Gone", a propulsive but melancholy story about the emptiness of life after relationship ends suddenly. (Gee, I wonder why that particular song stood out?)
When their set ended, I was smitten. I was entirely under the spell of The Orange Peels. So much so that I gave up my coveted spot at the front of the crowd and muscled my way to the merch table. Screw waiting for the show to end... I was buying their CD right then and there. Finding Square front and center there on the table, I cradled it like I was handling the One Ring. My precious!
And that's when I met Paul.
Paul was coordinating Poptopia for the people in Los Angeles who founded the festival. At the very moment I was at the table, he had stopped by to check in with his wife Elena, who was handling cashier duties for the evening. Paul made a point of introducing himself as I was paying for my haul. He said he had seen me raiding the merchandise every night, and he wanted to thank me for supporting the bands. As he was shaking my hand, I realized: hey, he was the lead singer for the Heebee Jeebees the other night! I'm hobnobbing with an actual rock star!
After just a few minutes of chatting, though, the hobnobbing became serious man-crushing. I could tell that I'd met a musical soul mate. Paul's infectious, overflowing energy was hard not to get swept up in. In fact, we were yenta-ing it up so much, we missed most of the Sugar Plastic's set! Eventually he had to disengage to go deal with show stuff, but he scribbled his phone number on a Poptopia promotional postcard for me. A couple of days later, I gave him a call.
And we've been friends ever since. Paul and I have been geeking out over music for years now. Not long after Poptopia, we came up with the idea to stage our own Bay Area-centric music festival. Baypop launched in the summer of 2000, at several different venues on both sides of the Bay. We only made it three years, but what a three years they were. The Posies! Jimmy Eat World! Jason Falkner! The Chocolate Watch Band! We reunited the Beau Brummels! And our new good pals The Orange Peels also played a gig or two for us. It was a lot of work, and a lot of heartache. But it was worth it. I'm incredibly proud of what we accomplished.
Three years and dozens of shows… yet this is the only photo of Paul and I at Baypop. (That's me on the left.)
Thankfully, the death of Baypop wasn't the death of our friendship. We never stopped being nerdy, obsessed music fans. One of us will hear an awesome song and send a rave review to the other one. I'm actually in the process of editing a couple of videos for his new band, Strangers In A Strange Land. Through Paul's connections, I've been lucky enough to spend time with musical luminaries like Cyril Jordan of The Flamin' Groovies, Alec Palao of The Sneetches, Greg Hawkes from The Cars, and - holy crap - TODD RUNDGREN, whose ear I twisted for an uncomfortably long time about how much I love Utopia's Oblivion.
I suppose it sounds like the two of us are the music fan equivalents of those creepy twins from The Shining. But we're not that bad. We don't share exactly the same likes and dislikes. Where we overlap, however, we overlap hard.
And the Orange Peels are still making music, too! Not only have they recently reissued Square in a gorgeous super deluxe vinyl/CD edition, but the band just released a new single, their first new music in two years. And apparently, there's a double album on the way this fall. I can't wait to add it to my collection.
But I wouldn't be enjoying any of this awesomeness - the friendship and the music - if my life hadn't been turned upside down. Change razed my comfortable little existence to the ground, giving me the chance to create something new and different. With my relationship ended, I had the freedom to plunge into the local music scene. And by attending the Poptopia festival, I discovered the The Orange Peels. And the genius of The Orange Peels drove me straight to the merchandise table, where I met a man who's been my friend for over two decades now.
Call it providence, call it coincidence... Whatever it was, it worked out great. I'm lucky to have Paul and The Orange Peels in my life.
And that's something I would never change.
BIO
Don Stroud is not the famous actor and world-class surfer of the same name. He is the non-famous California transplant who became an award-winning film editor and struggling amateur screenwriter. He loves cats, sushi, comic books, movies, music, and Cherry Coke. What's that, dear? Oh yes: and his wife. You can follow him on Twitter, where he pops up sporadically, at @DonStroud2.