Mike mastered OC punk

As the frontman for the Orange County hardcore punk band MIA, Michael Conley raged against war, racism and the isolation of modern life on stage alongside other legendary acts in the 1980s like the Dead Kennedys and Social Distortion.

“Life’s a mess, you gotta face it, if you’re not a millionaire it’s hard to make it, I’m a mess, that’s for sure,” Conley sang in one song.

More recently, Conley became a champion for revitalizing the economy in Westside Costa Mesa as the owner of The Avalon Bar, 820 19th St., a popular venue for Orange County DJs.

“We used to kid he was the mayor of Costa Mesa because everyone knew him,” said Jeff “Meatball” Tulinius, a longtime friend of Conley’s. “He was a popular guy — everyone knew Mike Conley.”

Conley, a father of three, died in suburban Chicago Thursday after he was found suffering a major head wound in a motel parking lot near O’Hare International Airport. Cook County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating. Investigators are waiting for the results of toxicology tests after an autopsy was done. He was 48 years old.

A longtime local resident, Conley was known for his efforts to bring music and art to Westside Costa Mesa.

“He was a pioneer,” said Brett Walker, owner of eVocal, a boutique and art space near The Avalon Bar.

Conley was Walker’s landlord, and helped him get eVocal off the ground, he said.

“He was one of the few people on the Westside to bring in businesses and help make change in this area,” Walker said. “He was an artist himself who understood the importance of arts and culture.”

As a bar owner, Conley strove to make The Avalon Bar a hip enclave for people in the know. With no sign to attract customers, the establishment relied on word-of-mouth advertising. Conley was skilled at working with wood and restored all the wood cabinetry in the bar himself, Tulinius said.

“It was like something you would find in New York — very dark-low-lighting-cozy atmosphere,” Walker said. “Once people made the Avalon their home, that’s where they would go. He really wanted it to be a special place for people who understood what he was doing.”

Former MIA guitar player Nick Adams said Conley had a knack for drawing people to him.

“Mike was really a very charismatic guy,” Adams said. “He had an energy about him that I think attracted people.”

The band formed out of the ashes of the Las Vegas punk band the Swell after members Adams and Conley both moved to California, according to their official biography from Alternative Tentacles, the band’s record label. MIA played parties and at the seminal Costa Mesa punk venue the Cuckoo’s Nest in the early 1980s.

After breaking up and eventually reforming and short tours through the Southwest, MIA landed a record deal with Alternative Tentacles and toured America and Canada in 1984.

The band broke up in 1985, but reformed again in 1986. Alternative Tentacles released a compilation of the band’s studio and live recordings over the years in 2001 titled “Lost Boys.”

Conley made friends everywhere he went, Adams said. Wherever the show, Conley would be surrounded by a crowd.

Conley’s new friends would often end up tagging along with the band for a few stops on tour — which generally consisted of four punk rockers rolling across the United States in a van full of equipment.

Barking out the lyrics to songs like “I Hate Hippies” over buzz-saw guitar parts, Conley was a charismatic frontman, Adams said.

“He was very energetic on stage, he had a lot of drive. He had a vision for the band that was very creative,” Adams said. “It was a time when there was kind of a rebellion against the regular music industry so it was exciting to make your own records and put together your own tours.”

Former Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra remembers the first time he saw MIA in Las Vegas in 1983.

“The venue was two used storage spaces that some punks had knocked the middle wall out of and turned into a secret illegal nightclub,” Biafra said. “You can’t get more punk rock than that that, and that is where I first saw MIA.”

Biafra offered to sign Conley and MIA to his Alternative Tentacles label that night. Biafra said Conley’s distinctive voice was one of the factors that made the band stick out.

“The minute you hear a song with him singing you know it’s him. It’s the best possible thing a singer can have — even if he has a range of one note, but Mike had a range of many more than one note,” Biafra said.

Mike Watt, bass player of fellow ’80s punk group the Minutemen, also spoke of Conley’s distinct vocals.

“I could tell it was them right away because of his singing,” Watt said via e-mail. “Very distinctive.”

Biafra said MIA mastered the Southern California hardcore sound of the early ’80s. He said the conservatism of Orange County influenced many of the area punk bands like MIA, TSOL and DI.

“That is partly what made the hardcore that came out of Orange County so hardcore — they were so repressed.”

The news of Conley’s death saddened Biafra, who noted he is among many in the hardcore community who died too young.

Conley is survived by longtime girlfriend Shelly “Syd” Leonard and his three daughters: Alex, 18, a freshman and Division 1 soccer player at La Salle University; Zoe, 9, and Ava, 5.