http://www.sfbg.com/AandE/33/19/twolive.html Jeff Bright and the Sunshine Boys I tell you what OK, OK, I'm a sucker for any song that happens to mention the city of Brisbane, lovely nearby hillbilly haven that it is, and Jeff Bright and the Sunshine Boys mentioned it with particular relish in "50 Dollar Bill." Written by Bright himself, it inspired a cheer of approval from the crowd at Club Deluxe, and immediately made them tops in my book. That particular tune came early in the evening, too, setting a decidedly California-country theme that would (happily for me) continue all evening. Bright can sing like nobody's business, with a voice that's equal parts Buck Owens and Chris Isaak -- an unusual sort of Bakersfield-San Francisco hybrid that produces a lovely, resonant, subtly honed twang. There would have been no mistaking that vintage Bakersfield influence either, even if I had missed it in Bright's voice, since the Sunshine Boys spelled it out with every drawling note of David Phillips's pedal steel, every solo from Max Butler's lead guitar, and every word of each Buck Owens cover tune (including such sturdy standards as "Act Naturally" and "Tiger by the Tail"). The band's own songwriting -- with an Owens-esque sense of humor -- explores the fundamental country themes of love, loss, drinking, more loss, and some more drinking. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was the lyrics, but as I sank down to a suitable level of appreciative melancholia, it occurred to me all over again that the most powerful tunes are never the ones that touch a new nerve, but those that evoke, with but a single simple phrase and some well-bent pedal steel, a hundred songs and a thousand feelings. The Sunshine Boys (which also included David Antony on upright bass and Christopher Fisher on drums) couldn't have sounded more impeccably cohesive and finished and clearly fresh from recording their first album, scheduled for release this month on San Francisco's Rogue Records. See them perform this week with the Hollisters at DeMarco's (honky-tonk venue par excellence) in -- where else? -- Brisbane. Mon/14, 9 p.m., DeMarco's 23 Club, 23 Visitacion, Brisbane. $7. (415) 467-7717. (Also Fri/19, 10 p.m., Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo, Albany. $5. 510-524-9299.) (Westbrook)
