Vaughn Brown didn’t know the name of Torpedo Wharf, a public waterfront area in the Presidio where people love to go fishing and walk along to take in views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay. But the San Anselmo resident would soon come to learn it when the spot became the last place he saw his dog, Winston, on the early evening of Dec. 16, 2024, before he went unexpectedly into the water.

“He was getting older,” he said. “He was really good off-leash, and he may have just slipped and fallen. I looked for hours. He had actually fallen in that water before, but that time he swam back. I even had the bridge guys come down with their spotlights, and we couldn’t see him. He had a giant tumor on his neck, so the story I’m telling myself is that he knew he was closer to the end and maybe helped me out. I don’t know what his thinking was there, but that’s the story I’m telling myself.”

Winston’s adventurous spirit and zest for life live on in Brown’s new venture: a band named Torpedo Wharf with his brother, Carl, and friend Josh Goldberger.

As they put on the band’s website, it’s a way to “turn trauma into joyful noise.”

Since December, the band members have been collaborating on original songs about life’s good, bad and ugly moments and practicing in Carl Brown’s woodshop-turned-studio at his house in Fairfax, a place they affectionately call the “Woodshed.”

The group will perform at approximately 4 p.m. Saturday as part of a three-band concert at Peri Park in Fairfax. The event, which runs from 1 to 5 p.m., will also feature San Francisco’s El Camino Real and Oakland’s Kids on a Crime Spree with Fishmonger Don as MC. Admission is free. More information at townoffairfaxca.gov.

And next week, the band will record their music at 2200 Studios in Sausalito, an iconic venue formerly known as the Record Plant that hosted the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Journey and Santana.

“Our music is authentic and comes from a place of love, and we’re trying to put that out there,” said Goldberger, who also performs as a solo artist.

How it began

It all started at a party in December, when Vaughn Brown started playing the bass with his friend in his friend’s home studio. Inspired, later that day, he bought a bass and an amp from San Rafael’s Bananas at Large and reached out to Goldberger, a San Anselmo-based singer and guitarist with experience being in bands and playing music. The two quickly connected and started writing music.

“I had played a little bit as a teenager, and I used to work in the music industry a long time ago. I’ve always had a real strong penchant for music,” Brown said. “But I never really dug into the instrument. It’s been awesome to learn the instrument in the context of writing songs and making music.”

But they knew something was missing: a drummer. And Brown had just the person: his brother.

Carl Brown, who started playing the drums in his pre-teens, hadn’t picked up the drumsticks in a long time. In fact, when he moved to Marin a few years ago, he told himself he’d return to his drum roots but hadn’t done it quite yet.

So, for Christmas 2024, Vaughn Brown and some other family members surprised him with a used drum kit.

“I was like a kid in a candy store. I had the biggest grin on my face,” said Carl Brown, the co-owner of Oakland’s Mama Dog Studios, a 1950s warehouse-turned-sound stage and production hub, where the band played last month at an intimate gathering. “It was really sweet. … When we got together, I knew at the end of the practice we had something here. In that one session, we came away with something we were excited about. And I leave every practice with gratitude because it’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”

For Goldberger, the rush he feels being on stage never gets old.

“The first time I ever played in front of people, I realized that I wanted to do it again as soon as possible,” he said. “Every one of us, we’re all some version of an adrenaline junkie. We all snowboard. Vaughn is a big-time cyclist. Having played in bands my whole life, it gives you that similar type of adrenaline feeling. It’s really special to be able to find people who you can work together with that have the same energy and that want to get that same feeling.”

For the group, they’ve found success “writing their own experiences into music.”

“It’s from our life experiences,” Carl Brown said. “One song is based on when I had a really bad snowboard accident a couple years ago where I fell into a crevasse like 50 or 60 feet. I was injured pretty badly and had to be life-flighted. I remember thinking of my daughter, my baby girl. I shared that experience with Josh, and it’s turned into one of our songs.”

And one of their songs incorporates a lullaby Brown sings to his daughter.

“One of my dear friends just died from cancer at 41 years old two months ago. There’s relationship stuff. We’ve figured out a way to use those real experiences and turn them into real songs that are not pretentious,” Goldberger said.

No one can pin down how to describe their music — and they kind of like it that way. Under the umbrella of rock music, they forge their own path, pulling from different influences.

“Josh and I were talking earlier today, and we’re like, we picked up our guitars, and this is the music that came out,” said Vaughn Brown, who was influenced by early Modest Mouse and Sub Pop over the years.

No matter what you call it, they’re excited to showcase it on Saturday.

“This is an opportunity to bring love and light and celebration,” Carl Brown said.