Despite Shaky Circumstances, T.S.O.L. Turns In Solid Performance : Rock: The O.C. band has long struggled with identity and personnel problems. But its show at Bogart’s Thursday was surprisingly good.

The final refrain of T.S.O.L.’s show at Bogart’s Thursday night could have served as the long-running local group’s state-of-the-band message: “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock ‘n’ roll.”

Introducing the song, originally done by AC/DC, singer Joe Wood told the audience that the idea of rock stardom is nonsense.

“I’m a working stiff,” he said. That down-to-earth attitude is probably what it takes to get by these days for anyone connected with T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty). It has been an awfully long road for the band, and recent events haven’t made it any easier.

T.S.O.L., which started out in Huntington Beach, always seems to have had to struggle against something. In the early ‘80s, when it was a leader of the Southern California punk rock scene, it had to fight the stigma attached to being punk. In the middle ‘80s, when Wood and drummer Mitch Dean joined, signaling a new direction, the band had to grapple with its punk past in order to forge a new identity (and following) as a blues-driven, hard-rock band. In the late ‘80s, with a heavy metal element entering its sound, T.S.O.L. decided to compete for a level of commercial success far beyond its current cult status.

Now it is struggling just to keep a stable lineup.

Founding bassist Mike Roche lost his spot in the band about a month ago, with drug abuse the central issue (Roche’s decision to play a punk rock reunion show and record a live album with the rest of the original T.S.O.L. lineup added to the friction). Wood and Dean say that Roche’s future role in the band depends on whether he can resolve a drug problem that he has acknowledged in interviews. Meanwhile, Dave Mello is the new T.S.O.L. bassist.

As if the stormy departure of its last original member wasn’t turmoil enough, T.S.O.L. also seems to be faced with a revolving door at lead guitar. Last summer, just before the band was supposed to record its new album, “Strange Love,” guitarist Scott Phillips shocked his band mates by suddenly quitting T.S.O.L. to join another band. Marshall Rohner, a former member of the Cruzados, came in and contributed some excellent playing on the album, which is due out in March.

But Thursday night, there was Phillips, back in his old lead guitar slot almost as unexpectedly as he had left it. The reason, Dean explained after the show, was that police recently arrested Rohner because of an outstanding warrant, giving T.S.O.L. three days’ notice before the Bogart’s show to find a replacement for its jailed guitarist.

Despite all that uncertainty, T.S.O.L. managed to turn in a surprisingly solid set. Phillips, a deft, fluid player, seemed to pick up right where he had left off six months ago, turning in a glitch-free performance. Bassist Mello played solidly.

But it takes a special, personal chemistry and cohesion for a hard-rock band to really explode on stage. For now, circumstances have robbed T.S.O.L. of that. The band’s obvious challenge is to get that chemistry back, with whatever combination of players. For now, that stubborn, working-stiff ethic and an infusion of strong new material from “Strange Love” are keeping T.S.O.L. afloat through yet another transition.

With five songs from the new album worked into the show, T.S.O.L.’s 80-minute set was well-stocked with good material. T.S.O.L. always has had a dark, fatalistic cast, with gritty songs drawn from what today’s fashionable hard rockers like to call “the street.” With T.S.O.L., songs about precarious lives lived in the shadow of violence, alienation and drug abuse have always sounded like sketches drawn from experience, not some tough-guy fantasy.

New songs such as “Hell on Earth” and the elegiac “In the Wind” go well with such brooding older numbers as “Flowers by the Door” and “Sixteen.” Another new number, “One Shot Away,” is T.S.O.L.’s toughest, most direct commentary on the consequences of hard-drugging.

Still another new song, “Candy,” allowed for a comical change of pace and an opportunity to inject some lowdown, bluesy hard-rock boogie into the show. It would have been nice, though, if T.S.O.L. could have sequenced its songs so that the concert could have held together with an ebb and flow of theme and mood.

Wood is singing with a broader vocal range these days, adding a Janis Joplin-style high-note yowl to his customary Jim Morrison/Alice Cooper leathery growl. He sounded a little strained as he reached for some of the higher passages during “In the Wind,” but the new dimension is a great help to a band that in the past had been too monolithic.

Phillips’ sharp, concise lead guitar work was strong, but after a while it sounded kind of rote--notes spilled out in orderly, efficient fashion, when the emotions in the songs would have been better evoked by a more jagged and gritty approach. It would have been interesting to see whether Rohner could have duplicated on stage the edgy, emotive playing that he brought to the “Strange Love” recordings.

In the best of all worlds, perhaps T.S.O.L. could turn into a five-man band, with Rohner and Phillips forming a duo that could replicate the harmony guitar parts that spice the new album--a move that would free rhythm guitarist Wood to concentrate on singing and showmanship. But the way things have gone for T.S.O.L. lately, finding one steady hand on lead guitar seems like a sensible first step.

The consistent, highly melodic “Strange Love” has the potential to take the band a long way toward the top. The main question now is whether T.S.O.L. can find the stability and internal chemistry to maximize its chances when it comes time to tour and promote the album.

The Hangmen, who opened the show, play noisy, unpretentious garage rock in the mold of the New York Dolls and early Alice Cooper. But unlike those early ‘70s precursors, who were loaded with cleverness and style, the Los Angeles band, which has an album out on Capitol Records, showed little personality.

At times the band hit a good, tough groove, but there is so little of interest in the Hangmen’s unimaginative songs that it hardly mattered. More proof that getting signed to a major label deal is no indication of merit, especially on the dime-a-dozen Southern California hard-rock scene.