LEND ME YOUR EARS: JOINING A FAN CLUB
The last couple of weeks, I feel like the tone of my shiny new corner of the Internet here has been a little, shall we say, dour. Heavy. Morose, even. That wasn't my goal. Maybe I was channeling the overall sense of societal unease that's permeating the ether. Maybe I was getting a little full of myself, word-wise, resulting in overly-written screeds that weren't as deep as I thought they were.
Honestly, all I'm trying to do is tell stories. They're slight, and they're inconsequential, and they're incredibly Don-centric. I'll give you all that. But I'm not fighting to change the world here. (Not overtly.) I'm just trying to entertain.
So I figured this week I'd toss all the pretentiousness out the window, and concentrate on album that I absolutely love. An album that has no deep, instructive meaning attached. All it did was add some awesomeness to my life. That in and of itself is worth sharing, if you ask me.
Uh... where was I? Oh, right! My article. So without further ado, let's toggle the italics button, and dive right into the beautiful musical perfection of...
JELLYFISH.
Thank goodness for my friends.
Seriously. There's no greater blessing than having a passel of good pals. Money comes and goes. Health waxes and wanes. But a handful of good, solid compadres makes every high higher and every low survivable. Over the years, the people I've been lucky enough to connect with have brought me untold gobs of happiness and strength and love.
And music! Man-o-man-o-Manimal, have they introduced me to some great music! I'd estimate that a good quarter of my favorite music is comprised of bands and artists that friends exposed me to. To say I'm grateful is an understatement of staggering proportions.
Case in point: It was the summer of 1993. Jurassic Park was dominating the cineplexes. Prince was just beginning his very public fight with Warner Bros. The United States was a few scant months into what would eventually become the eight years of the Clinton Era. And I was hanging out with my friends Lisa and Trey at their apartment, about to enjoy another one of their excellent home-cooked meals. We were in the process of serving everything up, when Lisa nonchalantly said, "Oh, by the way, I heard a song today you might like. It sounded like Queen."
Now, I haven't really gotten into how much I love Queen yet. Yes, my first installment was about the Flash Gordon soundtrack, and how my friend Tom brought the band into my life. But looking back on that article, I don't think I really hammered home just how much Queen means to me. They're my absolutely favorite band. I've almost gotten into fist fights defending my opinion that Brian May is the greatest guitarist in the history of rock. I paid crazy stupid money to sit in the front row of their 2005 show at the Hollywood Bowl, the first time Queen had performed in the United States since 1982. I. LOVE. QUEEN.
So when someone tells me a "band sounds like Queen", I get all "Squirrel!", and I need to know details right away. I grilled Lisa relentlessly about what she heard. She didn't know the name of the song, but she had actually paid attention when the deejay announced the name of the band: Jellyfish.
"Jellyfish"?!? I'll admit, the name almost put me off. Which is stupid, because a plethora of my favorite bands had, shall we say, unique names. Men Without Hats. Beastie Boys. My Bloody Valentine. Deee-Lite. A FLOCK OF FRIGGING SEAGULLS, for Pete's sake! You can slot "Jellyfish" into that rogues gallery without missing a beat.
If this guy can have friends, anyone can have friends. Look at him! He’s a doofus.
So I overlooked the goofy name, and the next day, I slipped my Honda Civic into a parking spot and ran into good ol' BB's. (You remember BB’s, my musical mecca.) I elbowed my way to the "J" section and flipped through the discs until I found Jellyfish. And there it was! Spilt Milk. The unknown title was unknown no more! I soaked up the eclectic cover: The golden curtains. The sad redheaded girl in her pink tutu. The musical instruments arrayed behind her. And that harlequin-styled logo. Awesome! Now all I needed to do was give it a listen.
Here's a cool thing about BB's that I didn't mention before: they had a listening bar! They had set up CD players under the counter, and mounted the remotes to a periscope-like mirror assembly that sent their infrared beams down to the players' receptors. So the staff would throw a disc in the player, and you could sit there and sample it. Play, rewind, next track, the works. Hell, you could listen to the entire album in one sitting, technically.
Eager to give this recommendation a spin, I plopped myself down at one of the open spots, and the helpful clerk put Spilt Milk into the player. I popped on the big headphones. I hit "Play".
And the world fell away.
The first few strains of soft music crystallized into a thunderous multi-tracked harmonized "AAAAAAH" that gave Queen's "Death On Two Legs" opening a run for its money. Then lead vocalist (and drummer) Andy Sturmer entered the song, crooning the refrain of a sweet lullaby. A few seconds in, and I was already hypnotized.
Sold on this first song, I hit "Next". The gentle orchestrations were demolished by a sudden attack of powerful guitar chords and pummeling drums. The harmonies were back, but now the band was rocking. Twenty seconds in, and I was woozy with delight.
I did the same thing with the following two songs. One sported layers of playful "toy box" instruments, the other caressed my ears and brain with jangly guitars, subtle keyboard work, a bassline that was setting its own rhythm and melody underneath... and the harmonies! Dear God, the harmonies!
I had listened to a grand total of maybe a minute and a half of music. But it was the greatest, most bombastic, most amazing ninety seconds I'd heard in years. Years! Flustered and excited, I ran over to the clerk and told him I'd take it, right now, pretty please, thank you very much. The poor guy probably thought I was having some sort of epileptic episode, because I have this vague recollection of shifting from foot to foot and flexing my fingers with impatience. The world went into slow motion: The clerk retrieved the CD. He put it back in the jewel case. He checked the price. He rang it up. He took my money. He counted out the change. And finally he handed me my new prize. Oh. My. God. I was Peter Parker incredulously watching Flash Thompson's fist drift by his face. Everything was moving through molasses until I got that damn disc in my hand. (And then I had to fight the traffic back to my apartment, because I didn't have a CD player in my car at that point! The horror!)
Eventually I got home, and settled down to host my own one-person listening party. With time to relax and let the CD spin, I got to hear the entirety of the first four songs. "Hush" was a pitch-perfect lullaby, with harmonies so sweet they made my pancreas ache. "Joining A Fan Club" swept me away in an ending propelled by an energetic cascade of vocals and percussion. "Sebrina Paste And Plato" skipped along with a playful, 60s pop-sike vibe.
And then I came to "New Mistake". Wow. There was nothing like "New Mistake". Take all the best parts of Queen, the Raspberries, and ELO, add a pinch of Badfinger and Big Star, and maybe - maybe - you'll get a sense of what this song sounds like. The chiming guitars. The rhythmic electric piano. The wonderfully subtle guitar solo. The deceptively intricate percussion. The fantastic bass work during the coda. And the voices! The heavenly, Brian Wilson-like voices. "New Mistake" charmed its way into my head and grabbed on for dear life. I listened to this one song probably ten times in a row. It instantly vaulted onto my list of Favorite Songs Ever.
The rest of the album was just as varied, and just as incredible. The bitter kiss-off of "Ghost At Number One". The wistful longing for the simplicity of childhood that permeates "Russian Hill". The furious not-an-apology of "All Is Forgiven". The epic psychedelic finale of "Brighter Day". Oh, and the song that Lisa had heard: "He's My Best Friend", a bouncy ode to... well, a very intimate friend that every guy shakes hands with at some time or another. (ahem) I soaked up all twelve songs, a dozen incredible tracks that came together to form a unique, classic, nearly perfect album.
Andy Sturmer, Tim Smith, Roger Manning, and Eric Dover. I miss these guys.
Jellyfish founders Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning had a vision of what they wanted their music to sound like. And their Muses bestowed them with the talent and the inspiration to achieve their goals. But once they reached that pinnacle... that was all she wrote. Jellyfish didn't survive, unfortunately. In the ruins of their breakup, however, they left the world two nearly perfect slabs of music: Bellybutton and Spilt Milk. A lot of fans prefer Bellybutton due to its more pop-oriented songwriting. But not me. I consider Spilt Milk a towering achievement, an untouchable pop/rock masterpiece that I will cherish until the day I die.
And to think that I might not have ever found it! I have Lisa and Trey to thank for one. They paid attention to me and what made me tick. That's what good friends do: they make things better. Many of my most cherished moments and successes have involved my eclectic collection of companions and cohorts. My friends invited me into their homes, made me a part of their families, and never gave up on me, even when I was acting like an immature schmuck. They supported me when my first marriage fell apart. They flew halfway around the world for my second wedding. They laughed at my stupid jokes. They helped me pack up the truck when I was moving away from them. They were immeasurably loving and helpful. I wouldn't have made it this far without my friends.
But I now live thousands of miles from most of them. And believe you me, I feel every painful inch of that distance. Especially now, with all the craziness going on in the world. Sure, there's email, and texting, and Facetime, and Skype, and Zoom... Most everyone that means something to me is easily reachable. But it's not the same as bar hopping, or rain hiking, or crate digging, or road tripping, or just plain hanging out with someone who means the world to me.
I love my friends. And I'm damn lucky that they love me back.
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.
