Farmers

TSOL

Local concert attendees now pushing their fifties still swap war stories about the times that T.S.O.L. (which stands for True Sounds of Liberty) played around town at punk-friendly places like the Adams Avenue Theater and the Skeleton Club in the late 70s and early 80s. At Costa Mesa’s punk haven the Cuckoo’s Nest, fans of the Long Beach band once tried to burn down a neighboring country-western nightclub, just because its patrons liked to pick fights with passing punks. The founding trio of Jack Grisham, Ron Emory, and Mike Roche (who’ve all been in and out of the band at various times) will be accompanied by keyboardist Greg Kuehn, who was briefly in the group in the early ‘80s and returned in 2005. They’re hoping to sell you copies of their 2017 full-length The Trigger Complex, one of only four albums they’ve released since the turn of the 21st century. The bill includes the Detours, who were among the original Orange County punk bands to make a splash in L.A. circa 1977. That group currently features co-founding members Rikk Agnew and Gordon Cox.

Sickstring Outlaws

Ron Houston started off as an acoustic solo act, playing Pizza Port in Ocean Beach and doing open mic nights at Winstons, before founding the Sickstring Outlaws. The group has been through numerous lineup changes but still includes longtime guitarist David Berry, presently backed by guitarist Jason Russell and drummer Jack Hoole. Their debut album Johnny Drank Jack was nominated Best Local Recording at the 2013 San Diego Music Awards, while a second full-length, Electric Moonshine, served as a tribute to famed liquor bootlegger Martin “Popcorn” Sutton. They later ended up inspiring their own brand of moonshine, courtesy of Liberty Call Distilling, Electric Moonshine, sold online, in stores, and at shows. You can catch them every week at area venues such as Molly Malone’s, the Landing, Cheers, and Hooleys. In addition to gigging, they’ve branched out into films like Buckshot: The Movie, a dark 2017 comedy about a struggling country singer which includes a Sickstring original, as well as Houston singing a song written by director Josh Smith. Among the influences cited by the band are Hank Williams Jr., Merle Haggard, and similar renegade country stars.

Sure Fire Soul Ensemble

“For me, it all started in 1987 with five years of classical piano lessons,” says Tim Felten of the Sure Fire Soul Ensemble. “A few years later, after hearing a bunch of the amazing albums from Daptone [Records] and Truth & Soul Records artists such as El Michels Affair, Menahan Street Band, Budos Band, and Lee Fields, I was highly inspired and realized I needed to put together an ensemble to make gritty recordings and perform this music, fused together by all of my diverse and eclectic influences such as Afrobeat, soul-jazz, trip-hop, soul-funk, ethio jazz, jazz-funk, and psychedelic music from around the world.” Citing influences from Freddie Hubbard and Al Green to Marvin Gaye, Quincy Jones, and Herbie Hancock, they’re a heavy, original, instrumental soul band with a cinematic sound featuring Felten on organ and electric piano, his wife Sheryll Felten, and anywhere from five to eight more players. A self-titled debut full-length was released in 2015, followed the next year by Out On the Coast. The group won Best Blues Album at the 2015 SDMAs and Best Recording at the 2017 SDMAs, and their newest album, Build Bridges, debuted number one on Billboard’s contemporary jazz chart in October. The bill includes Thee Sacred Souls and DJ Mike Wallace.

Farmers

Surviving members of local honky-tonk heroes the Beat Farmers - alongside an array of local friends and longtime musical associates such as Mojo Nixon, Mick Jagger guitarist Stevie Salas, and Tom Petty bassist Ron Blair - will pay tribute to the late Beat Farmers guitarist Buddy Blue and drummer, Country Dick Montana. The hard-partying Montana died during a Beat Farmers gig in Whistler, British Columbia, on November 8, 1995. At the end of the set’s third song (his second behind the drum kit), “The Girl I Almost Married,” Montana slumped over. Guitarist Jerry Raney began to play Hank Williams’s “Setting the Woods on Fire,” as Montana weakly hit a cymbal, looked at bassist Rolle Love, and then lay slowly across his kit. Road manager Tom Ames rushed out from the wings and lowered Montana to the stage as band members kicked the drums out of the way. He was breathing but unable to move or speak. When paramedics arrived ten minutes later, the 40-year-old was dead from what was ruled an acute aneurysm. He had cysts on his kidneys, and it was later revealed by road manager Ames that Montana knew he had a blood clot in his leg but hadn’t gone to a doctor for treatment. The remaining Beat Farmers decided to dissolve the group three days later. Members formed several new bands, including Raney-Blue, Powerthud, Joey Harris and the Mentals, the Flying Putos, and – eventually – the Farmers, who will perform at the event with a lineup featuring Joey Harris (who'll also play a set with the Mentals), Jerry Raney, Rolle Love, and Joel Kmak. The entire Beat Farmer album Tales of the New West will be performed.

Chase Morrin Trio

Until he graduated in 2011, jazz pianist Chase Morrin attended Canyon Crest Academy in Carmel Valley, where Michael Bogart of Tower of Power was one of his teachers. He was still a freshman when he composed the full musical score for the Academy’s adaptation of The Corpse Bride, and he also conducted and played keyboards for productions of Grease, High School Musical (ACT), Cats (San Diego Jr. Theater), and South Pacific. The same year he graduated Canyon Crest, the teen won four Downbeat Awards, and his song “Mumphis” won the Next Generation Jazz Festival’s Composition Competition. Morrin continued his education with a summer session at the UC San Diego jazz camp (on a full scholarship) and served a month long residency at the California State Summer School for the Arts at Cal Arts. In addition, he received a Herb Alpert Scholarship for Emerging Young Artists, going on to attend both Harvard and the New England Conservatory of Music. Known for his sense of style (things like wearing a black bowler hat onstage), he performs his own compositions alongside covers of classical and contemporary numbers.