Meet Your Heroes

How I Met Mine, and It Was Awesome

The first concert I ever paid my own money to attend—I mean, stood in line at the Ticketmaster terminal at Tower Records in Tustin to watch the ticket printed fresh on demand—was Dramarama at Cal State Fullerton in 1992. You might know them from their 1985 Chameleon Records hit “Anything, Anything.” I’d been introduced to the band by some older friends, and while I had heard their hit on 106.7 KROQ-FM, I was mostly just excited to attend a real live concert on a real live college campus.

The opening band was a local Orange County group called No Doubt. You may know them from their extensive catalog of massive hits—but I knew them way back when, in the skankin’ ska days, before they were famous. (And I never let my friends forget it, much to their chagrin.) Once I’d bought the tickets, I did the thing you did back then before you went to a concert. I hitched a ride to Black Hole records (because Tower didn’t have it) and bought Dramarama’s latest, 1991’s Elektra records release Vinyl, as well as No Doubt’s eponymous debut from Interscope. Had I not recently acquired a Discman, I would have bought both albums on cassette and worn the tapes thin. Instead, I only scratched up the CDs a little. (I know because when I imported them into iTunes fifteen years later, there were big patches of static.)

I fell in love with Dramarama at once. The lead signer, John Easdale, delivered his dark, quirky lyrics with a rock heaviosity tender enough to make room for his raw vulnerability. “Femme Fatale,” the ballad from their first record, became My Breakup Song. I still can’t hear it without descending into a cave of teenage ennui. Likewise, No Doubt became and remains one of my favorite bands of all time.

THE FIRST SHOW

I grew increasingly excited as the concert drew nearer. A few days before the show, No Doubt dropped off the bill. (I would later see them at the Troubadour on the Sunset Strip shortly before the release of their breakthrough, Tragic Kingdom. But that’s a story for another time.) This did little to diminish my excitement.

At last, the night of the show came, and I rolled onto the campus in my friend’s battered silver Civic. I remember the parking lot at Cal State Fullerton—patchy and potholed and littered with cigarette butts. I have a foggy memory of the auditorium, too—cavernous and grand, but somehow mundane, like an elementary school multipurpose room on steroids. Naturally, I was stuck in the back behind the Tall People, but I didn’t care; it was all part of the experience. The music was loud and the air was thick with pot and cigarette smoke and that indescribable electricity that exists only on teenaged weekend nights when anything is possible. (At least, that’s what I thought.)

The band came on, and my vision tunneled until I all could see was the stage.

Dramarama plays rock and roll in its purest form: loud, overdriven guitars, thumping bass, four-on-the-floor drums. Every member is a solid rock musician—I particularly love Mark Englert’s searing guitar hooks—but it’s John Easdale’s vocals that make the band stand out. They’re powerful and edgy, but vulnerable in an almost childlike way that sets him apart from his more testosteroney contemporaries like Chris Cornell and Scott Weiland (both of whom I deeply admire, by the way.) His lyrics are what make him a true artist—sometimes direct, sometimes stream-of-consciousness, but always emotional, always poetic.

I'll give you candy, give you diamonds, give you pills
I’ll give you anything you want
Hundred dollar bills
I'll even let you watch the shows you want to see
Just marry me, marry me, marry me

—John Easdale, “Anything, Anything”

The show was deafening, glorious, unforgettable. I remember becoming sad as the evening drew to a close, like a kid who knows it’s getting dark and he’ll have to leave Disneyland soon.

During their perennial pre-encore closer, ”Last Cigarette”, Easdale stalked across the stage, lighting a cigarette for each band member and sticking it in their gob before moving on to the next. By the end of the song, no stage fog was necessary, as the air onstage was nearly opaque with cigarette smoke. At that moment, I thought to myself: John Easdale is the coolest guy on planet Earth. That’s who I want to be when I grow up.

LOOKING BACK

Looking back, there were two concerts that cemented my desire to become a musician. The first was Oingo Boingo at Irvine Meadows (RIP) in 1991, after which I exclaimed (according to my friend, TV’s Curtis Andersen) that “Danny Elfman is God, and he invented the guitar for Steve Bartek.” Powerful claims. But, based on what I’m about to share, I think now that the ’92 Dramarama show at CSUF was just as impactful.

Now that we’ve covered the background, I’m going to share what happened to me last weekend. On Saturday night, January 4^th, 2025, thirty-three years after that memorable Dramarama show, I experienced a dream-come-true, is-this-fucking-real, pinch-me moments.

Okay, maybe this requires a little more background—but then I’ll land the plane, I swear.

MY OTHER LIFE

In my other life, I am the lead singer of California’s most-booked 80s cover band, FLASHPANTS.

I know, I know, it seems oddly incongruent with my semi-reclusive writer’s life—but I swear it’s not. When I gave up touring with my rock band and became writer, the absence of performing hit me hard. Appearing at book festivals and signings scratched the itch a little, but those events dry up pretty quickly once the buzz from your latest release dies down. I needed something more, and I found it. Now, when I tell people I’m a writer and they [rudely] ask “What’s your day job?” I tell them I have a night job, as the lead singer of Flashpants.

Singing in a goofy (but awesome!) cover band isn’t quite what I imagined when I was a teenager planning out my career as a rock star. But, since I’ve joined the band, I’ve rocked 300 shows for crowds as big as 5,000 people, and traveled to L.A., San Diego, Las Vegas, and Bend, Oregon—not to mention one performance at a castle in Missillac, France.

I think fifteen-year-old Jeff would be pretty proud.

So, now to the runway.

OPENING ACT

Last weekend, Flashpants was scheduled to play four sets at The 80s bar in Placentia. It’s a gorgeous club venue complete with 80s decor, themed cocktails, and a dozen screens playing classic music videos from The Cure to Flock of Seagulls to Great White. The sound is great, the lighting is fantastic, and the audience is always ready for a party.

Three days before the show, we were demoted from headliner to opener. Another local venue had unexpectedly gone out of business, and the band scheduled to play there was scrambling to find a new place for the show. That place ended up being The 80s Bar in Placentia. That band was Dramarama.

When I found out, I literally squealed.

I WAS GOING TO OPEN FOR DRAMAFUCKINGRAMA AT A TINY CLUB IN ORANGE COUNTY! AHHHHHHHHH!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever been more anxious in the days leading up to a performance, and I’ve certainly never had such a prolonged spasm of impostor syndrome. Here I was, about to do my weekend thing, to don the short shorts and jump around like a manic monkey, singing other people’s hits from 40 years ago. To consider possibly being seen by one of my heroes under those circumstances? Terrifying. JOHN EASDALE, ONE OF MY HEROES, MIGHT SEE ME PERFORM. What if I had a bad night vocally? Or what if I sang well, but it didn’t matter, because he thought cover bands were the lowest form of musical entertainment? What if one of my heroes saw me—and thought I sucked?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m confident about what I do. I’m realistic about my strengths and limitations musically, and I know how to work a crowd. Even on a bad night, I put on a great show. Still, it’s not for everyone. Some people, musicians especially, think our whole band is a joke. Not gonna lie, that still pokes me in a tender place, even though I disagree. Some part of my identity is still wrapped up in being an original artist. Writing fills that space now, but there will always be a part of me that wishes I were on tour playing my original songs.

So yeah, I was nervous that Easdale and company might see me perform and roll their eyes.

LOSING MY MIND

The night came. We showed up. We plugged in. We rocked the hell out of that place. My family and friends cheered from the corner of the bar. The crowd was amped and singing along. We had them in the palm of our hand. Still, the whole night, I had one eye on the stage door. After the show, we had to tear down our equipment in costume. It’s a rare kind of humiliation, bending over to unplug mic cables while wearing short shorts, but thank god there were no members of Dramarama in sight. Once the gear was loaded out and packed away, it was off to my car to change back into human clothes to watch the headliners.

I waded through the crowd, grateful for compliments from the few audience members who recognized me from the show. I found my wife and friends and wished I wasn’t doing dry January, because man I could have used a little whiskey to chill me out.

Finally, it was time for Dramarama. After some feedback-vamping from the band, John Easdale took the stage, larger than life at 6’2” and even taller with his ten gallon hat. Dressed all in black except for a pair of worn-in red Chucks, he was even MORE the epitome of cool than he had been in 1992. He was epitome-er. Then he started to sing, and I was transported.

I think I was mostly in shock for the first few songs—but when they launched into “Scenario,” my favorite track from their debut, I came back to myself just in time to LOSE MY MIND. I rushed to the dance floor and started pogo-ing as if my knees weren’t forty-eight years old. I pumped my fists. I screamed the lyrics. I was like a twelve-year-old girl at a Taylor Swift concert—but, basking in the glory of rock and roll, I was totally unselfconscious. I was out of myself. I was in the music. They blasted some of my favorite songs—“Haven’t Got a Clue”, “I’ve got Spies”, “Everybody Dies.” Then the bass player had some kind of technical malfunction, and the show came to a halt. John and the rhythm guitarist put their heads together—and then a familiar chord progression crackled through the amplifiers. No way, I thought. It can’t be. But then John Easdale started the lyrics to “Femme Fatale”, that ballad from their first record that became my breakup song. And I opened up like a faucet. Shoulders shaking, cheeks wet. I was fifteen again and totally overwhelmed.

Something fundamental returned to me that night, some part of myself that had lain dormant since I was a teenager. I wept openly, as I am fighting off tears right now. (And again as I edit, by the way.) My wife joined me and held my hand. She could tell something profound was happening to me, and she didn’t make fun of me one bit.

At the start of the night, I told her I probably wouldn’t stay for the whole show. (I was under the weather and exhausted from a long week.) And I definitely wasn’t going to try to meet John Easdale. What if he rolled his eyes? Or what if he was a jerk? Never meet your heroes, they say. And I was going to take their advice.

Only, when John said they only had two songs left, I screamed for more. I was the loudest, most enthusiastic member of the audience that night. Nobody wanted that show more than me. The tickle in my throat, the fatigue from the show I’d just played, they were blown to smithereens by the power of music.

As expected, “Last Cigarette” was their penultimate song—and when Easdale pulled a cigarette from his pocket, I screamed and laughed and clapped. He didn’t actually smoke it—he’d quit long ago—but he sort of wielded it for the duration of the song, clutched between his middle and ring fingers as was his signature, and pretended to smoke it. I was back in that auditorium at Cal State Fullerton. I could smell the sweat and the Marlboros and the skunk weed.

Finally, it was time for their swan song. But before they played it, John made a point of thanking the owners, the security, the bartenders—and the opening band. He said the name of my band. Twice. Whatever cool I’d managed to retain that evening left my body in a hurry. Halfway through the first chorus of “Anything, Anything,” I slipped out and waited by the stage door.

Mark, the lead guitarist came out first. I gushed, thanking him for all his unforgettable guitar hooks. I think maybe he doesn’t get recognized as much after shows these days, because he seemed as surprised as he was pleased. It was nice to connect with a another musician as a fan and as a colleague of sorts.

And I’m glad I got to sort of warm up by talking to him, because I was not prepared for how starstruck I was when John Easdale came out that door.

STARSTRUCK

Luckily, my friend Irene, who worked at Tower Records for years and knew John’s manager and had met him a time or two, guided him my way and introduced me. Thank you, Irene. I might be wallowing in regret if it hadn’t been for you.

John smiled and extended his hand. As I shook it, I started to introduce myself as John, then changed course mid-word and ended up saying something like, “I’m Jo-Jeff.” After correcting myself and giving him my actual name, I told him I was the lead singer of Flashpants. Before I could say another word, he said, “You guys rocked!” and thanked us for opening.

John Easdale thought I rocked.

Once I recovered from that, I was finally able to articulate how much his music meant to me. That his songs had been the soundtrack to my adolescence. I told him about my experience at that concert in 1992, and as I described his performance of “Last Cigarette”, I could tell I was taking him back in time, too. He shook his head and said, “As Bob Hope said, ‘thanks for the memories.’”

We chatted for another ten minutes, about music and kids and Tab cola. It was utterly surreal. In my time working in the guitar business, and as a working musician, and as an erstwhile TV actor, I have met my fair share of celebrities. But for some reason, I’ve never been as starstruck as I was last Saturday night standing outside The 80s Bar with John Easdale. And he was as kind, generous, and relatable as I ever could have hoped. Sitting here typing this, I am still shakey and emotional about it. It was a night I will never forget, a highlight of my music career and my lifetime as a fan of music.

So, meet your heroes. It could be amazing.

Okay, I’m off to blast Vinyl at full volume.