“All you have to do to have an interesting life is to be a damn fool.”
- Saul Bellow
I owe Zach Braff a lot. For a few years back in the two thousand aughts, he turned me onto all kinds of new music. This was before streaming services had really kicked in, so you still had to search different places to find fresh stuff. Braff proved to be a fine source.
If his name isn't familiar, you probably know his face. He was one of the stars of the TV comedy/dramedy/mostly comedy, Scrubs, that ran for 10 seasons (2001-2010). We loved that show. It was fact-paced, snappy-dialogued and innovative. It followed the lives of young interns and medical staff veterans at wacky Sacred Heart Hospital. It was a show full of memorable characters and it had a huge heart. There were many life lessons available. I worked at a hospital for a decade. A lot of the show rang true.
Braff is a music freak and from the get go he had a hand in the soundtrack for the show. His passion was evident throughout the ten-year run, lots of edgy, cool stuff, old and new. It was just the butter on the biscuit for an already fabulous show. This was mostly before Shazam came to be, so when I heard something I liked I'd have to wait for the closing credits to catch the title and artist. I did that a lot.
I was turned on to, among many, Dashboard Confessional, The Shins, Limbeck, Josh Joplin Group, Rhett Miller and Stroke 9. Braff also wrote and starred in a couple of movies, Garden State and The Last Kiss. Same deal, great soundtracks. The band Frau Frau and by extension, Imogen Heap, were diamonds I got from those.
I saw Colin Hay at a small venue back in 2010/11. If you don't know him by name you know him from his band, Men at Work ("I come from a land down under"). He told the crowd that his solo career was in the doldrums around 2000. He was playing to about 20 people in a tiny club in Los Angeles and Zach Braff showed up. Afterwards, Braff came up to him and said he was involved in a TV pilot for a show named Scrubs and he'd like to pitch some of Hay's music for it. “You do that very thing.” Hay told him. The next thing he knew, TA DA! - resurrected career.
I'm not the only one that owes Zack Braff!