In 1983, deep in the suburban hinterland of Campbell, the punk rock photographer Murray Bowles attended a backyard party and shot several pictures of The Faction, San Jose’s legendary skate punk band. A software engineer by day, Bowles was just starting a decades-long side job of capturing Bay Area punk.

In San Jose, the scene was a hodgepodge of house parties, rented halls and skate ramps because no real venues existed. As the Faction played, an 11-year-old kid named Lars Frederiksen sat on the ground in front of the drum set to keep it stationary. (See photo.)

“The cinderblock wasn’t working so the kick drum kept moving and moving and moving,” Frederiksen recalled. “I remember someone tried to put a 12-pack of beer in front of it, and that obviously didn’t work. I think someone even said put the keg in front of it, but then everybody would have to come up when the band was playing to fill their beer. So somebody said, ‘Put Lars in there.’ And that’s how I ended up in there.”

The rest is history. Ten years later, Frederiksen joined the band Rancid, which then exploded into one of the most successful punk bands of all time, inspiring generations of fans around the world, even still.

But now, in what is probably the most spacetime continuum-shattering full-circle punk hoedown in local living memory, the Faction will first open up for Rancid in San Francisco on Thursday, and then they will headline on Friday with one of Frederiksen’s other bands, the Old Firm Casuals, at The Ritz in downtown San Jose. The whole shootin’ match will trigger many individuals to reflect on their own crazy journeys over the last several decades.

Over the years, Bowles’ photos from that party have almost achieved folk status. He may have captured the most punk rock Norman Rockwell moment in San Jose history.

In those days, the Faction’s bass player, Steve Caballero, was already a world-famous professional skateboarder with sponsorships, trophies, tour stories and the whole nine yards, all while not yet even 20. People around the world devoured skateboard magazines and then VHS videos of the Bones Brigade, of which Caballero was a key member. Thanks to what he and his crew were doing, it’s not an exaggeration to say San Jose was one of the skateboarding capitals of the country. Specific street tricks and maneuvers were pioneered right here in town. As the lifestyle became inseparable from punk rock, the whole scene put San Jose on the map way more than any politician has ever been able to do. It is a travesty of justice that Caballero is not in the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame.

But I digress. With the Faction, Caballero eventually switched from bass to guitar as the band became a five-piece and then soared to even more stardom before breaking up a few short years later. After sporadic reunions over the decades, they returned to semi-regular gigging about four years ago.

Bowles’ photo captures what the scene was like in those days: punks and skater kids dealing with the intrinsic boredom of suburbia. Several people in the photo are still in the area. For example, leaning on Caballero’s bass amp is Denice Vaughn, wearing a pair of pink Paradise Garage creepers, shoes Caballero bought her when he was in LA for a contest.

“I threw a fit because he wanted to get me the red and black ones,” Vaughn recalled. “And I said, ‘No, I want the pink ones, and if I can’t have those, then I want nothing.’ And he drove all the way [across LA] back to Hollywood to get me those. I totally remember that. I still have them.”

Bowles has since retired from the software industry, but still has a long photography career on which to reflect. His catalog of photos, now in the thousands, remains an integral component of Bay Area punk history, although he doesn’t scour the scene as much as he used to.

“Nowadays everybody takes pictures with their phones,” Bowles said. “It’s not as though if I didn’t take pictures, there’d be no pictures taken at all. Which is sort of the way it was for a lot of shows.”

When it comes to picking songs for that carefree, windows-down summer playlist, front seat selectors would do well to consider The Mowgli’s. With acoustic anthems about holding hands beneath a California sunset and disco-punk celebrations of kissing in the dark, the SoCal indie-pop outfit have built a career upon songs in praise of life, laughter and, above all, love.

Indeed, love takes center stage at every Mowgli’s show and on every Mowgli’s record—not just through the band’s music and lyrics, but also through the deep love and appreciation they all have for each other as fellow musicians.

“We all love what we do, from making and playing music to performing that music,” says Katie Jayne Earl, the band’s cherry red-headed vocalist. Speaking from the group’s hometown in Los Angeles, Earl shares that her group’s creative process is based upon collaboration and sharing the spotlight.

“Everyone is really multitalented, so it’s really about making sure that everybody who wants to express themselves differently on the record or on stage has that opportunity,” Earl says. Guitarists Colin Dieden and Josh Hogan, bassist Matthew Di Panni, keyboardist Dave Appelbaum and drummer Andy Warren all sing, and it’s not uncommon for the band members to switch instruments and play with vocal arrangements on stage “We’re always pushing ourselves to be a little bit better and a little bit braver in our craft.”

The Mowgli’s play a particularly vibrant brand of indie rock—full of sunny ukulele chords and choral melodies that are easy on the ears.

Spreading positivity and good vibes is what the band strives to do on stage, as well as off stage through charity work. Last year, The Mowgli’s released the single “Room for All of Us” and donated the proceeds from the song to the International Rescue Committee, a refugee-relief nonprofit. They also wrote “I’m Good,” the single off their sophomore album, Kids in Love, for an anti-bullying campaign.

That’s not to say The Mowgli’s don’t have their faults, Earl says.

“We’re definitely assholes in a lot of ways—just like everybody else—but when it comes to giving back, it’s a really easy thing for us to do,” the singer says. “I seriously can’t stress that enough. If more people knew just how easy it is to make a big difference in somebody else’s life, hopefully more people would make the choice to do that.”

The band recently wrapped recording on their third studio album, due this fall on Photo Finish Records. The as-yet-untitled album was produced by Mike Green, whose past credits include Paramore’s All We Know is Falling and All Time Low’s Dirty Work. Earl says the recording process as “really chill and super awesome,” noting that Green’s production style, paired with minimal outside pressure or opinion from their label, cleared the way for the band to just make music.

“Nobody heard any demos and we didn’t have to get anybody’s approval during the process,” she says. “We just made the record that we wanted to make. We listened to each other a lot, and everybody was the bravest version of themselves when it came to giving their input and sharing ideas. We got a chance this time to hear everybody, because we trust each other after all these years.”

The Mowgli’s upcoming show at The Ritz—which serves as a warm-up before the band embarks on a nationwide tour—will give fans an opportunity to hear a lot of the new music live for the first time. For Earl, being on the road and interacting with fans every night gives the band the ability to spread their positive vibes to audiences across the states, and reminding fans that love is really what it’s all about.

“I think we try to tell people the same things that we try to remind ourselves—because we all need a reminder every once in awhile,” Earl says. “It’s not always easy being the best version of yourself, and we all fail at it regularly. Every once in awhile you need to remember to hit the refresh button.”

The Mowgli’s
Jul 3, 8pm, $20-$23
The Ritz, San Jose

Though he doesn’t have the energy he had in his 20s, Bobby Liebling, the creator and longtime frontman for pioneering metal band Pentagram, says he still feels like a 25-year-old at heart.

“I didn’t grow up,” the singer and songwriter says, speaking over the phone from Mesa, Arizona, where his band is gearing up to perform for what they anticipate will be a packed house.

According to Liebling, his band’s current tour has been going great—drawing crowds that are equal parts men and women from the ages of “6 to 60.”

All of this makes sense, considering. Liebling, who started Pentagram 47 years ago, is 62. With recorded demos dating back to 1972, he has fans that have been into his music as long as he has been making it. There is an entire Gen X subset of his fan base, who discovered his band in the late ’80s and early ’90s; those fans hopped on the bandwagon during a spate where Pentagram was active, signed to multiple labels and touring.

Many of the youngest generation of Liebling devotees—who occupy the coveted 25-to-35 demographic—discovered the band online, where bloggers have identified Pentagram as a seminal, if obscure, group responsible for creating music that would ultimately pave the way for what is now called doom metal: a sludgy and plodding, yet melodic, branch of the many headed serpent that is modern heavy metal music.

For his part, Liebling dismisses the label, noting that all the doom bands he’s heard have growling, “cookie monster” vocalists, while he prefers to keep his vocal lines clean. Nevertheless, the Virginia-born musician is grateful for his group’s newfound fame, which came about thanks to file sharing, YouTube, blogs and a 2011 documentary, titled Last Days Here.

The documentary debuted at South by Southwest, and was quickly snapped up by Sundance. The film follows Liebling through some of his darkest days—beginning with footage from 2006, when the 50-year-old was using heroin, smoking crack and living in his parents’ basement, and ending with the singer straightening out as best he knows how and hitting the road with his band.

“I’ve relapsed here and there,” says Liebling, recalling the years since 2009, when things started going his way. But, he maintains that he stays clean when he’s busy with music—touring and putting out records, like the band’s 2015 LP, Curious Volume. “When I’m on the road, I don’t use anything at all,” he says. “I like knowing what I’m doing. I’m trying to live.”

Pentagram
May 28, 8pm, $20-$23
The Ritz, San Jose

We walk around with the entire internet in our pockets, calling up ride-sharing services from our mobile devices and perusing menus online whilst en route to our favorite restaurants. The world is at our fingertips and waiting… well, that is so 20th century.

The organizers of the annual SoFa Street Fair certainly have gotten the memo—or email… or, uh… status update? Fans of local art and music won’t have to wait until fall for the return of the SoFA Street Fair, as an abridged installment of the annual festival is slated for this weekend.

The one-day SoFA Street Fair SPRING 16 will feature speakers, bands, DJs, opera, art exhibitions and even a few pile-drivers. And all of it is taking place on South First Street, Sunday, April 24.

With performances at Aura, BackBar SoFa, Café Stritch, The Continental, Haberdasher, Miami Beach Club, The Ritz, SoFA Market and more, there is a whole lot going on in a short amount of time. It’s all free, so the only thing you have to sweat is deciding who to check out. This cheat sheet ought to help with that.

Periscope: progressive, experimental; Heroes Stage, 2pm

Dave Miller & Friends: punk rock; SoFA Market, 2:30pm

No Water After Midnight: R&B, soul covers; San Carlos Stage, 3pm

Andre Hart: local visual artist; Aura Stage, 3:30pm

Julius Papp: house DJ; San Salvador DJ Stage, 4pm

Infinite Sleep: melodic metal, post-hardcore; BackBar Stage, 4:30pm

Jean Jackets: garage rock, indie; Café Stritch, 5pm

Rabbit Quinn: piano-driven, atmospheric indie; SoFA Market Stage, 5:30pm

DJ Dan: breakbeat, funky house; San Salvador DJ Stage, 6pm

Talkie: indie-pop, rock & roll; Aura Stage, 6:30pm

Citabria: progressive, alternative; The Ritz Stage, 7pm

Socorra: mellow indie rock; SoFA Market Stage, 7:30pm

ONOFF: rock & roll; Balanced Breakfast Stage, 8pm

Kwesi Young: alternative hip-hop, trap; Aura Stage, 8:30pm

SoFA Street Fair SPRING 16
Apr 24, 2pm-9pm, Free
SoFA District, San Jose

Even if you don’t recognize the name, you’ve probably heard the Stone Foxes. Their music has been used in multiple TV shows, including Showtime’s Shameless, FX’s Sons of Anarchy and a 2013 Jack Daniels TV campaign that prominently featured their cover of Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” (a song once covered by The Rolling Stones).

Ahead of the release of their most recent album, the Stone Foxes ran into an increasingly common problem for bands these days.

“Every single person who makes vinyl is backed up like 6 months,” singer and multi-instrumentalist Shannon Koehler says, referring to a global dearth of vinyl pressing factories.

Despite the hold up at the plant, the San Francisco band’s fourth full-length, Twelve Spells, still managed to ship in time for its March 18 U.K. release. When I speak with Koehler, he is just completing the final preparations for shipments and signing records for pre-orders.

Though technically an album, the production of the set of songs on Twelve Spells was unorthodox. Instead of going into the studio to record the whole album in one go, the songs were recorded at different times. Even more unorthodox is the fact that the composition of the band itself changed in the process. In this sense it is a document: capturing a band in flux, and highlighting the changes the band has gone through since being featured on national television.

“It was this chronicle of how new guys got into the band,” Koehler says, describing the album’s development, and the gradual accumulation of new members.

A propos of the process, the band decided to release each of the songs individually, putting a new one online once a month for a year.

“At the end we thought, well, this is an unconventionally put-together record,” Koehler says. “Should it be put out like a conventional record? We kinda thought it would be cool to give our fans something new every month.”

It’s clear that the whole band thinks of the record as their first step in a new direction. And for the three newest members (guitarist, bassist, and drummer), it literally is.

Since its U.S. release last September, the band has been touring regularly, crisscrossing the states and making their first jaunt across the pond. England is a long distance for the California natives, and they recently followed up the tour with a show that took them almost home, to Fresno—near where the core members of the group grew up, just outside the even more remote Tollhouse, population: 2,000.

The group’s rural upbringing is clearly audible in their sound, which pays homage to all things Americana. And though it might now have rebranded itself around hyperreal techno-capitalism, not that long ago, the sound of San Francisco used to be similar.

“There’s such a rich heritage,” Koehler says, poignantly, on the music of San Francisco. “From the garage guys, down to the punk ’80s scene, to the Dead and Big Brother, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Canned Heat, Sly Stone, and all that stuff …”

The sounds of San Francisco’s Summer of Love can be heard all over Twelve Spells. Keyboardist Elliott Peltzman channels gone-electric Dylan with tremulous, “Like A Rolling Stone” organ and stabbing metallic Rhodes chords. Lead guitarist Ben Andrews strangles his axe with Hendrix-ian aplomb and occasionally picks up a fiddle along with bassist Brian Bakalian. And when the Foxes are quiet enough, you can almost hear the casters of the speaker cabinets rattling in harmony with the amplifier tubes.

With these elements in place, they have all the touchstones of a classic San Francisco lineup. Though they’re based only an hour away, the Stone Foxes have rarely played in San Jose.

“It’s kind of bizarre,” Koehler says. “It’s like Santa Cruz, you know, they’re both great spots, but for whatever reason we don’t get down there very much.”

For years there was not a single mid-sized venue downtown. But with the recent opening of the Ritz, more national acts—like our neighbors, the Stone Foxes—are finally coming to San Jose.

“We’re excited,” Koehler says. “Its cool to be able to stay close to home on a weekend and just party as hard as we can.”

The Stone Foxes
Apr 1, 8pm, $10-$13
The Ritz, San Jose

Buzz Osborne swears that he isn’t an ordinary dude, but talking to him on the phone it would be easy to mistake him as such. Sure, the guy sounds a bit high strung; but not tweaker high strung—more like quirky science professor after too many cups of coffee.

In fact, after more than 30 minutes in conversation with the man better known as King Buzzo, the frizzy-haired frontman of Melvins—those highly experimental, super-sludgy, Nirvana-influencing weirdos—one gets the distinct impression that the co-founder of one of Generation-X’s most influential, and ostensibly out-there acts, might actually be the band’s eccentric lawyer. He talks fast and authoritatively and seems well versed in the finer details of artist management, booking and promoting tours and the history of rock & roll.

But yes. This is Buzzo. And though he admits to leading “a relatively conservative life,” he is adamant that there is nothing run-of-the-mill about him, or his band.

“We’re Abby Normal,” Osborne quips, borrowing a joke from the Mel Brooks creature feature spoof, Young Frankenstein.

Indeed. Since 1983, Osborne and Co. have released 21 full-length studio records, seven live albums and six EPs—many of them boundary pushing, some of them trendsetting, and all of them far from anything anybody might consider “mainstream.”

He knows so much about the business side of his trade because Melvins only briefly worked with a manager and have been booking their own tours since the ’90s. And if he sounds like a fast-talking attorney, it’s because he only seeks legal counsel when it’s absolutely necessary, like when he and his band inked a deal with Atlantic Records, back at the height of Washington’s grunge wave—without the help of a manager to sweet talk the label’s A&R team.

“I don’t take orders very well from people,” he says, explaining why he prefers to do everything himself.

But that doesn’t mean Buzzo is a Billy Corgan-esque control freak. While he admits that he’s played bass on plenty of Melvins albums, on the band’s forthcoming LP, Osborne welcomed collaborators—specifically those who specialized in playing four strings at a time.

Basses Loaded, due out June 3 on Mike Patton’s label, Ipecac, features a rotating cast of bassists, including Krist Novoselic of Nirvana, Steve McDonald from Redd Kross, the Butthole Surfers’ J.D. Pinkus, Jared Warren of Big Business and Trevor Dunn of both Mr. Bungle and Fantomas. On a few tracks Crover even puts down his sticks and picks up the bass, while the Melvins’ original drummer, Mike Dillard, takes a seat at the kit.

The album’s title serves not only as a pun, but as an acknowledgement of Osborne and Crover’s interest in baseball. A recent press release detailing the new album, notes the two are “often spotted at games across the country” and that the record features a cover of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

These facts, combined with Osborne’s apparent pride in his happy and stable marriage—and the fact that he does not flinch at my mentioning once spotting him at Disneyland—might, once again, lead one to conclude he is some kind of old-fashioned gentleman. But the way Osborne tells it, it’s the opposite, especially when it comes to music.

“I’m not a ‘good old days’ type of guy,” he says. “I kind of feel like, ‘What have you done lately?’” Osborne feels a duty to push the limits of his craft. “I believe my job is to write songs and play music and be an entertainer and be an artist. And I work at it as hard as anybody works at any job.”

It just so happens, that in Osborne’s line of work, weirdness is often rewarded.

“I let my weirdness come out in my music,” he says. And considering that the band are nearing 40 official releases in a little over 30 years of performing together, it all starts to make sense. King Buzzo’s life is a lot like a devil’s food cake with white frosting. Through Melvins, he gets to discharge his dark and sludgy thoughts without disturbing the vanilla facade. In this way, it seems, Osborne is able to have his cake and eat it, too.

Melvins
Sat, 8pm, $15-$20
The Ritz, San Jose

It’s doubtful that any of us ’80s babies realized it at the time, but we soaked up a lot more than words like “shoryuken” and meme-worthy phrases, like “all your base are belong to us,” while we sat cross-legged on the floor, frantically tapping our plastic Nintendo and Sega controllers.

It would seem that our tiny, developing brains—hyped up on sugar-laden cereal—were absorbing the soundtracks to our favorite video game titles. And now, fully grown men and women all over the country are picking up guitars, keyboards, drum kits, and, in some cases, Game Boys, to pay homage to these iconic melodies from the Reagan and Bush I years.

The Rockage 5.0 festival, slated to take place March 11-13 at venues all over San Jose, corrals a cohort of musical groups that specialize in either reproducing the music of Zelda, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros. and the like—or else take cues from those crunchy, 8-bit synth sounds.

There are 17 bands performing over the course of three days at The Ritz, Café Stritch, SoFA Market, AFK Gamer Lounge and the lobby of Metro’s downtown headquarters. That’s a lot of music in a very short period of time—it’s enough to vex even the most seasoned music festivalgoer. But instead of throwing your Wiimote at the nearest screen, or punching your neighbor in the arm, like you used to do when your younger brother beat you at NBA Jam, take a deep breath. We’re here to help you prioritize.

Here are six bands you’ll definitely want to check out at this year’s Rockage.

Bit Brigade
This quartet is so serious about replicating the experience of their favorite video game titles that they’re actually a quintet. Which is to say, that in addition to drums, bass and two guitarists, Bit Brigade also have a full time game-player in their lineup. Noah McCarthy blasts through levels of Metroid and Mega-Man while the band “meticulously replicates every musical cue, cutscene and boss battle in perfect synchronization.”

COLA
In addition to all the chiptune groups at this year’s Rockage, there are also a few straightforward rock & roll groups. And few San Jose bands do straightforward rock & roll like Cola.

Fartbarf
With a name like Fartbarf, it’s pretty apparent what you’re gonna get. Except not. Rather than being a group of greasy-faced adolescents who ran out of good ideas for what to name their band, Fartbarf is a trio of Cro-Magnon mask-wearing analog modular synth enthusiasts who sound a lot like a drunker (a much, much drunker) Tobacco—with live drumming and an obsession for chiptune flourishes.

Vector Hold
The genre known as chiptune, is also commonly called 8-bit music and sometimes “Nintendocore.” But for Vector Hold—a.k.a. Pete Rice, bassist for local stoner metal trio, Forgotten Gods, it’s all about the 16-bit sounds of the Sega Genesis … and the buzzy, lo-fi synths of John Carpenter films.

Hawk Jones
Given their traditional rock instrumentation—guitar, bass and drums—and their tendency to lapse into spacy, feedback-and-delay squalls, it would at first seem that Hawk Jones, like Cola, are outliers in a festival stacked to the brim with bands who take so much inspiration from the world of early console game soundtracks. But when you consider the Tera Melos-esque angularity of their rhythms and guitar lines, it makes sense. The limitations of 8- and 16-bit chips is precisely what gave the music that crystalline feel. These local boys simply replicate that ping-ponging sharpness with strings, membranophones and the chips inside their effects pedals.

Nick Reinhart
This guitarist and bandleader also produces music that recalls the wild and spastic sounds of Tera Melos—probably because he co-founded the group. The Sacramento band’s frontman gets far noisier and stranger than he ever did with Tera Melos. His cracked-out attempts at free jazz run parallel to the tunes of fellow Sacto psychos, Hella. And, like Hawk Jones, the music he creates may not have a direct connection to video games, though he certainly makes a valiant effort at sonically representing the explosive, synaptic bursts so many of us experienced as children—zonked on Lucky Charms, staring at the cathode ray tube and rubbing our thumbs raw on those tiny, red A and B buttons and black D-pad.

Rockage 5.0 plays on Mar 11-13, Various Times, $30 at Multiple Venues, San Jose.