Getting into the Grove

Marisa O’Neil

Local band Garden Grove has graduated from garage-band to

living-room-band status.

Not only has the band, comprised of Newport Beach high school

students, upgraded their practice space, they have their biggest gig

yet tonight. They’re playing at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, opening

for ‘80s band the Romantics -- whose hit “What I Like About You” came

out five years before most of Garden Grove’s members were even born.

“I know that song and it’s a good song,” Garden Grove bassist Eric

Mirowitz, 17, said. “It’s got to be one of the top-grossing songs of

all time, or up there. Everybody knows the song, even if they don’t

necessarily know the band.”

Eric and lead vocalist/guitarist Mikayel Currim, 17, started their

band four years ago as an outlet for their creative rock energies.

Both play in the Corona del Mar High School jazz band.

The name Garden Grove came from the city where Mikayel, who writes

most of the music and lyrics, bought his car.

“There’s no reason we came up with the name,” he said. “I just

thought it sounds cool.”

With bandmates Ryan Ratfield, 17, and Reed McMillan, 18, they

started practicing their indie-rock music in the garage of Eric’s

house.

“His parents are really good about it,” Mikayel said. “It gets

loud, but his parents like our music.”

But their neighbors, in Newport Beach’s port streets, weren’t

always as impressed. As their amplifiers got bigger and their music

got louder, they had a few visits from the cops.

So they moved the act indoors, to the Mirowitzes living room.

After gigs at backyard parties, races like last month’s Spirit Run

and Newport Beach bar Hogue Barmichael’s, they scored the Galaxy gig.

But tonight won’t be the first time a Mirowitz opened for The

Romantics. Eric’s uncle, Sheldon Mirowitz, was in a band that opened

for them back in the ‘80s.

Tonight’s show might be the height of Garden Grove’s career. Three

of four of its members will graduate from high school in a couple

months and go on to college.

Eric is considering Tulane University on a scholarship for

engineering. He wants to minor in music and maybe play in local New

Orleans clubs.

“I want to be on the frontier of combining engineering and music,”

he said. “[People are] making music with computers and doing a lot in

the field of algorithmic music to a generate piece of music that can

sound like Mozart or Beethoven.”

Mikayel, who scored a perfect 1600 on his SAT, is thinking of

following in his parents’ footsteps by going to Stanford. He wants to

keep playing music as a hobby, but plans on going to medical school.

“I’d definitely rather become a doctor,” he said. “A rock star’s

career is short-lived. It might be fun, but very short-lived. I’ve

always wanted to be a doctor.”

Growing up, Mikayel’s parents focused heavily on academics with

him, his mother, Saboohi, said. She and husband, Imran, prefer the

music from their native India and Pakistan, but are proud of

Mikayel’s musical success.

And, she added, Sheldon Mirowitz went on from his gig opening for

The Romantics to become a music professor and Emmy Award-winning

composer.

“So it does help, to open for the Romantics,” she said with a

laugh.