Nathan Raney

“At this point, album two is sitting in my hand while I drink a beer on my night off as I listen to it again,” says storyteller Nathan Raney (son of Beat Farmer Jerry Raney), of his upcoming full-length Season of Serenity. The El Cajon resident studied at Grossmont College and has worked retail day jobs at businesses like Costco. He was seen at his dad’s side when the elder Raney took home a lifetime achievement trophy at this year’s San Diego Music Awards, as well as gigging around town at venues such as Navajo Live and elsewhere. Nathan Raney’s album premiers September 30 at the Casbah, where volume 13 of the local music compilation Staring at the Sun will also debut.

Sporting cover art by former local artist and San Diego Comic-Con cofounder Scott Shaw!, the two-CD Staring set includes around 50 acts including the Monroes, Mojo Nixon, Savannah Philyaw, Mittens, Pony Death Ride, Roni Lee, Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra, Spice Pistols, Manual Scan, and Electric Mud. The dual release party is hosted by Hairy Scary Spice (Spice Pistols) and Bart Mendoza (Manual Scan), with performers from the album to include Raney, Evening’s Empire, and others.

Subsurfer

Singer-guitarist Dave Montalbano, who spent years as an actor in San Diego and L.A, calls the music of his group Subsurfer “grit pop, like if Kurt Cobain surfed.” After making their live debut in January 2011 at 710 Beach Club in Pacific Beach, they released their debut We Are Stars, recorded locally with Brian Karscig (Nervous Wreckords, Louis XIV) at White Horse Recording Studio. Karscig also sang backup on the track “Girl Problem,” and their Karscig-produced song “Girl on Girl” was heard in season eight of the Showtime TV series Weeds. Two more studio albums followed, Devil’s Lounge and La La La, the latter recorded by Steve Albini (Nirvana, the Pixies, the Breeders) and spawning radio songs such as “Grow a Beard,” “Teenage Love Gone Wrong,” and “Dead Roses.” Their fourth full-length Subversive has been in progress for around four years, with Brian Karscig again producing, along with Erik Groysman. Due September 17 and sporting cover art of a beach-wrecked Volkswagen surf bus, the album features new band bassist Barry Sinclair. It’s so far preceded by a single for “Hollow,” with a new single dropping this week, “Superman.”

JT Moring

Originally a duo called Neck and Neck, Gemini Junction is a three piece folk-Americana-blues band featuring JT Moring on guitar, banjo, and percussion. Moring credits coming across singer-songwriter Eve Selis at a San Diego Songwriters MeetUp for inspiring his new solo full-length. “Before Covid, [I] worked with her to improve my song presentation. She has a great sense for what will improve a song - a pause here, a spoken line there, a lifted chorus - and it was lots of fun to hear them transform. Those sessions gave me the tools and confidence to deliver more meaningful performances. Last winter, with Eve now in Nashville, we reconnected. In the course of that, I recorded a couple songs and realized I had a bunch of pieces that would make a solid album. If not for Eve, this album wouldn’t exist, and if it did, it would not be anywhere near as good.” The record is currently being mastered at Veneto West studio.

Zack Oakley

The sounds of space rock have always fascinated guitarist Zack Oakley, vet of paisley underground locals such as Volcano, Space Nature, and he’s been known to drum for Pharlee, who’ve shared the Tee Pee Records label with Oakley’s best known band, Joy (both Pharlee and Joy made big splashes at the 2018 Roadburn Festival). Oakley’s debut solo album Badlands drops September 17 via his own Kommune Records label, preceded so far by singles for “Fever” and “Acid Rain,” as well as a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Long Way to Go.” According to Oakley, “The tunes contain verses and reverberations meant to transport the listener into a parallel universe that looks and sounds like current day California, only without the sunshine and palm trees arranged in perfect variations like the cover of a million postcards and magazines. It is a collage of barefoot sand, highway speed, LSD sunshine, and ominous dusk as I see it. I want the listener to experience the sunstroke, see the beauty and feel the dread of this place where time either speeds ahead or stands dangerously still.”

Ron Bushy

The founding members of Iron Butterfly included Danny Weis, Greg Willis, and Jack Pinney, who like Weis came from a San Diego band called the Palace Pages. After evolving into the heavier psychedelic act, the members caught a group circa 1966 at L.A.’s Hi Ho Club, the Voxmen, whose drummer Ron Bushy soon replaced Pinney in Iron Butterfly (while Pinney joined the Voxmen). Bushy played the drum solo on the band’s 17-minute “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” track, which became so iconic that it was even heard on a Simpsons episode. The same-named album that hosted the song has sold over 20 million copies. From 1968 through 1975, Bushy played on all of Iron Butterfly’s studio albums, until the band began long periods of inactivity. In 2004, the group was re-formed and toured with Bushy, and they were presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 San Diego Music Awards ceremony. As of 2019, the lineup featured Bushy backed by Michael Green (percussion, vocals), Dave Meros (bass, vocals), Eric Barnett (lead guitar, vocals), Martin Gerschwitz (keys, vocals), and Ray Weston (drums). On August 29, Ron Bushy passed away from cancer at UCLA Santa Monica Hospital, at the age of 79.