“I don’t want to play ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ for the millionth time”

“The Covid lockdown was a mixed blessing for me,” says former Steve Miller Band guitarist and songwriter Greg Douglass. “After two weeks of staring at Netflix, my eyeballs began to melt, so I went down to my office and, at the age of 71, began to practice like I used to when I was 15, three to four hours a day, relentlessly revisiting my guitar heroes and my kick-ass rock roots. Obviously, I want to play guitar, but I don’t want to play ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ for the millionth time.”

After booking two sold-out shows at a Kona club called Gertude’s, “I made a big chunk of change and decided return to San Diego and put together a killer group of players.” The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and his new band the Sidewinders will make their onstage debut at the Mission Fallbrook Theater on Friday, September 10. “I’ve got my old pal Hector Toro on drums and vocals, singer Jesus Guillermoprieto, a world-class vocalist, Mark Knoll on keyboards and vocals, and our secret weapon, J.D. Pinckney on stand-up and regular bass. He’s also an amazing luthier. The setlist includes ‘Beck’s Bolero’ by Jeff Beck, ‘Vaseline Machine Gun’ by Leo Kottke, and of course bucket-loads of Steve Miller material.”

A rugged country band based in the North County, the Sickstring Outlaws first made their local mark when their album Johnny Drank Jack was nominated Best Local Recording at the 2013 San Diego Music Awards. Singer-guitarist Ron Houston released a solo single last year, “Take a Walk With Me,” inspired by the George Floyd protests and recorded before the outcome of any related trials. Then in November, he lost studio time while battling covid-19, which he says he believes he was exposed to at a gig. He was still recovering in early 2021 as he put the finishing touches on a just-released debut solo album, A Long Road Home. Produced, mixed, and recorded by Jeff Berkley, it features an array of local guest stars, including Berkley’s partner in Berkley Hart, Calman Hart, as well as the recently passed multi-instrumentalist Dennis Caplinger. Other players include Cathryn Beeks, Doug Pettibone, Sharon Whyte, Veronica May, Josh Hermsmeier, and Jason Littlefield. Banjo player Daniel Mason, from the Hank Williams III band, also makes an appearance.

Americana singer-songwriter Michael Brondstetter grew up in Detroit, Louisville, and New Orleans before relocating to southern California, where his gig history includes playing venues ranging from Genghis Cohen and The Bootleg to appearing at Bar 20, The Mint, The Lost Knight, and the Pig N Whistle. His debut solo EP Iron Mountain was released in 2014. “Everything I see, hear and experience influences my writing,” he says. “I guess working in the hospital and dealing with the loss of my wife to cancer [in 2016] has made me more appreciative of life and living it. I believe in living it and enjoying it, with the hope of the future to drive us forward. I try and write about the things that we all experience and, despite getting your butt kicked, fighting back and trying to show the hope in everything we do.” His single “Dark Cloud Blues” was followed by an EP called Change Your Mind. Within a couple of years, his songs had earned more than one million streams on Spotify. 2020 saw the release of his album Eyes on the Moon, along with singles for “On My Way,” “The Other Side,” “You Make My Day,” and “We’ll Walk Away.” Brondstetter just released a new single, “Sunset Silhouette.”

Nathan Williams, a former Music Trader manager who called his early band Fantastic Magic, originally brainstormed Wavves as a one-man lo-fi DIY project. His debut album as Wavves was recorded on a laptop computer in his parents’ garage, on the trial version of Garage Band with a Macbook routed through an internal mic. The band’s first new release since 2018 dropped in April, “Sinking Feeling,” with a Jesse Lirola-directed video that features Williams driving around and sleeping in his car in remote desert locales. It’s the group’s first new music since re-signing to their former label, Fat Possum Records. Wavves will tour with a full band in support of their new album Hideaway, beginning October 1 in Las Vegas, and concluding in San Diego at Soda Bar on November 20. A single for “Caviar” is streaming online. Williams is also said to be currently working on a cinematic side band with his brother Joel, Sweet Valley, pitched on Patreon as a project “where the duo creates a remix for every Sopranos episode strictly using sounds from that episode.”

After a brief stint studying musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, Jason Mraz moved to San Diego. He soon joined percussionist Toca Rivera and his brother, Latin-pop guitarist Carlos Olmeda, in a regular Thursday-night gig at Java Joe’s coffee shop, where Jewel played many early gigs. Mraz’s major label debut release, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, would be certified platinum by the RIAA in July 2004 and reach number two on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. During the pandemic shutdown of early 2020, his La La La Livestream concert broadcasts happened every Wednesday morning at 10am for several weeks. He donated proceeds from sales and streams of his 2020 reggae album Look For the Good, including a $250,000 advance, to organizations working for racial equality and justice. Mraz will follow up his new single “Be Where Your Feet Are” with a September 26 appearance at the San Diego Symphony’s new $85 million downtown venue, Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.