Dick Montana; Member of Beat Farmers Group

Dick Montana, 40, country singer and drummer with the San Diego group Beat Farmers. Born Dan McLain in Carmel, Montana gravitated to San Diego, where he ran an underground record store and became “Country Dick,” performing with the garage rock band the Crawdaddys. He also worked with the Penetrators before forming the Beat Farmers in 1983, whose albums include “Tales of the New West” and “Viking Lullabys.” After a series of surgeries for thyroid cancer, Montana formed a second band called Country Dick’s Garage, which made its Los Angeles debut last year at the Palomino in North Hollywood. Montana developed a reputation for his “smarmy drinking tunes,” including Dean Martin’s “Party Dolls and Wine.” The Beat Farmers, which toured widely through the United States and Canada, produced recordings once described by Times critic Mike Boehm as “highly skilled and heartfelt heartland rock one minute, and Montana’s stumblebum barfly meanderings and toilet humor the next.” On Wednesday in Whistler, Canada, of a heart attack.