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.”

Some relationships drag on for years, never really going anywhere, before unceremoniously sputtering out. Though it’s impossible to say exactly what the future holds for San Jose indie quartet Get Married, things are certainly looking up.

Formed just last year, the band is already taking things to the next level, inking a one-year deal with Wiretap Records. The L.A.-based label will help Get Married reissue and distribute their excellent debut EP, Four Songs.

The aptly titled four-song set showcases Get Married’s potent synthesis of classic sounds plucked from the recent—and distant—past. Recorded last January at Panda Studios in Fremont, Four Songs is fueled by a nostalgia for early rock & roll and doo-wop, as well as first-wave emo and shoegaze.

Influenced by the likes of late-’80s and early-’90s acts, such Galaxie 500 and Sunny Day Real Estate, the members of Get Married are equally enthralled with the work of Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys. In fact, frontman Jaake Margo started Get Married as an Elvis cover band, before the group started writing their own songs.

Merging a no-frills aesthetic with bright, catchy chord progressions and vocal arrangements, Get Married build songs that ride high on waves of fuzzy guitar tones, shoot the curl through a compendium of doo-wop, swing and rockabilly flourishes, and come out the other end in a glistening mist of Sun Records-style harmonies.

“Grenadine,” which follows a story of unrequited love, feels like a Grace Kelly-starring, malt-shop romance—only punctuated with revved-up guitars and snotty, punk melodies.

This summer Get Married are taking their show on the road, playing a string of dates in the Pacific Northwest before returning home to play the Art Boutiki on July 28. After that, plans are in the works for a national tour and a new EP, currently titled Into the Cosmos.

While San Jose certainly holds a special place in their hearts, looking forward, Get Married have their sights set beyond their hometown.

“We’ve been talking as a band about moving to L.A.” Margo says. “We’re all in our 20s and if we’re going to do this, then we need to be closer to the action.”

Get Married
‘Four Songs’
Various Digital Outlets

You know that stereotypical vision of a German you have in your head? Straight-laced, ultra conformist, following rules to the letter? Well, according to Dave Laney, founder and frontman of the Hamburg-by-way-of-Chicago punk band Auxes, you’ve got it all backwards.

“That is one thing that is pretty strong in the German psyche,” Laney says, calling from his home in his adopted country’s second largest city. “It’s not so critical about how somebody looks or what they’re doing all the time. It lends itself to a kind of freedom. People don’t have to turn 30 and have a job at a bank. It’s more open to alternative ways of living.”

It’s perfect for Laney. He’s been playing music for the better part of 20 years now, and he says he feels no pressure to be living “the so-called adult life.”

Laney says that the non-judgemental nature of German society has helped the European nation become a bastion for artists, noting that his new home not only boasts a world-renowned electronic music scene, but also a thriving punk circuit.

Upon moving to Germany, Laney—who made the leap to be closer to the woman he eventually married—fell in with a collective of like-minded punk rock devotees. They regularly threw DIY shows and worked together to keep the scene alive.

Through the connections he made in the collective he eventually met musicians to play in his project Auxes—which he had started in 2007 with the goal of creating a “band that couldn’t be broken up.”

“The idea with the band name, Auxes—it’s short for auxiliary, and it’s also the name for a special component on a mixing console,” he says. “It would always be a band where the members could revolve. As egomaniacal as that sounds, I wanted to start the band in a way that challenged the ideas of what a band could be.”

And for the first four years of Auxes, that’s exactly how it worked. All told, some 15 to 20 people have helped Laney perform his jagged, post-punk tunes, which recall the gruffness and ferocity of Titus Andronicus crossed with the bright indie-punk bounce of Modest Mouse and shimmering melodic sensibility of early Built to Spill and Dinosaur Jr.

These days, though, Laney has firmed up Auxes lineup, which he is bringing to the Caravan Lounge this Monday. The trio is currently touring behind their August 2014 release, the energetic Boys In My Head. They share the bill with White Lies from L.A., Helen Blood, Oxygen Destroyer and VWLS.

Listen to Boys In My Head:

Auxes play Caravan Lounge on May 30 at 9pm. More info.

It can be hard to believe now, but two decades ago ska had a pretty big moment. It was a time before Gwen Stefani’s solo debut and Bradley Nowell’s overdose, when alternative radio stations were spinning bands like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger and Less Than Jake with regularity. And then there were the Voodoo Glow Skulls.

The Riverside, Calif.-based six-piece ska-core band wrote hyper-fast street-punk tunes with distorted guitar upstrokes, and punctuated with bright horns, dark lyrics and hardcore-style shouting vocals—in English and occasionally in Spanish. They even released an all-Spanish version of their Epitaph debut (1995’s Firme) well before groups like Ozomatli carved out a substantial American market for rock en Español.

The Glow Skulls never got heavy rotation, but they toured hard and packed clubs. When the ska boom busted, a lot of the bands from that era broke up, changed their sound or altered their marketing strategy, but not the Voodoo Glow Skulls. They just continued doing what they did best: playing the distinct and kinetic fusion of ska and punk they’d been playing since the late ’80s. And they haven’t stopped.

“I don’t feel like we’re part of any scene. We’ve always been floating in our own little bubble,” says Glow Skulls guitarist Eddie Casillas, whose band comes to The Blank Club this coming Monday.

Even during the ska boom, it came as a surprise to the band when they MTV would play their videos. They never saw themselves as having any commercial appeal, according to Casillas, who says getting signed to Epitaph was equally as surreal.

“We’ve never tried to be commercial, or tried to be poppy,” Casillas says. “I like pop-punk. I grew up on the stuff. There will always be some Voodoo songs that have a little bit of Descendents in them or Green Day. Ours is just a little different sound. It’s not positive. It’s not poppy, or uplifting.”

Casillas and his two brothers, Frank and Jorge, founded the band in 1988. They released four albums on Epitaph, then three more on Victory Records. Their ninth was on the smaller Smelvis Records, and they are undecided for their 10th, which they are currently in the middle of recording. They are considering self-releasing a series of EPs and seven inches like they used to do in the early days, before they released their debut, Who Is, This Is.

“It feels like we’ve come full circle. Casillas says. “We went through this whole thing where we were on a couple successful labels, had full support. Now we’re back to square one. It’s like 1993 all over again. But the thing is, the band is known now, there’s a name behind it.”

The band’s writing and recording process has changed a great deal since those early days. The last three Voodoo albums were recorded by Casillas in his ever-expanding home studio. The band now record bits and pieces at their leisure, instead of on some executive’s clock.

The group have always been DIY advocates. Even in the early years, they opened their own record store and live music venue in Riverside. That not only gave them better footing in the scene, but also provided them an extra source of income—always welcomed by professional touring musicians. Ever business savvy, the band recently started a label of their own, called California Street Music, and have released a few albums of friends’ bands so far.

The Voodoo Glow Skulls’ touring schedule isn’t as jam-packed as it was back in the ’90s, but they stay busy, doing mostly short tours. Casillas continues to find motivation and inspiration in working on making better recordings. And the band keep an eye out for better gigs and festival shows that will expand their audience, but at this point that isn’t really what keeps them playing.

“Our goals have never been financial,” Casillas says. “We want to have fun and play music. I still just want to make that one next level record. I know people think we probably already made it. But there’s always more. I still think I can top it.”

The Voodoo Glow Skulls play The Blank Club, Monday, Oct. 6. More info.

Two years ago, in September of 2012, Pennsylvania emo-punks Spraynard broke up, seemingly out of nowhere. Not only were the three members long-time best friends, but the band was just starting to take off. Then, just as suddenly as they had disbanded, they became a band again. They played their first reunion show—if you could call it that—in May, and started touring again as if their messy breakup had never happened.

“The shows have been really awesome,” says Patrick Graham, the group’s guitarist and vocalist, speaking about a recent two-week tour. “I’d say our worst show on this tour was one of our best shows on past tours.” They come to the San Jose Rock Shop on Aug. 1, with Colossal Wrecks

The timing of their reunion could hardly have been better. The group has returned to find that their following has grown tremendously. In the short time since their breakup, Spraynard’s flavor of emo has been gathering steam, as bands like Joyce Manor, The Hotelier and The World Is Beautiful and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, have released a string of great records, which recall emo’s first wave—replete with endearingly tangled, spiraling guitar lines, bitingly honest lyrics and cathartic sing-shout-along choruses.

Credit for the group’s reunion belongs in part to Mike Park and his esteemed San Jose punk label, Asian Man Records. Park, who also released the group’s pre-breakup 2011 record, Funtitled, released a collection of Spraynard B-sides in May—The Mark, Tom, and Patrick Show—which featured one new song and served as an impetus for the band to begin playing together again.

“More than anything I was trying to get them to be friends again,” Park says of his motivations in reuniting the trio.

The band are seeing bigger crowds than before they broke up, and want to continue to build a following more naturally this time. Members of Spraynard have said in interviews that the initial surge in popularity put a great deal of pressure on the group to make music their job, which ultimately led to their disbandment.

Graham says he feels good about being a band again—especially when he hears how important his music has been in the lives of Spraynard’s fans.

Since his group’s reunion, Graham says he has even come to feel a certain responsibility to the band’s fanbase—many of whom are young, suburban kids, according to the guitarist. Reflecting on his own adolescence, Graham notes that punk bands, especially Green Day, helped him cope with the anger, sadness and other difficult feelings he had.

While he never intended to play the same role in the lives of others, Graham says he has found himself doing just that.

“It’s not something we set out to be, but kids told me that I saved their lives. The fact that I was voluntarily taking that away from kids was something that we had to come to terms with. I think all three of us felt guilty,” Graham says. “At the end of the day, I think it was more important for us to sort out our shit. It was definitely worth the wait.”

Spraynard play the San Jose Rock Shop with Colossal Wrecks on August 1 at 6:30pm. More info.

The members of Las Kumbia Queers didn’t start off liking cumbia—punk was their first love. Maybe that’s why this all-female six-piece band from Argentina approaches cumbia as if it were punk rock. Their instrumentation is raw, the energy is intense and they’re totally irreverent, playing covers of Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Madonna and the Cure, just being wild and silly on stage.

In fact, they are punk rockers—at least they were when they formed the band seven years ago. None of them had any experience with cumbia, but they were surprised to find out just how fun it could be.

“We were used to making abrasive music, and when we started doing music that was danceable, everyone starting to have fun,” says singer and charango player, Juana Chang. “Punk rock is really liberating. You shout out your miseries and the things you want to say. When we play cumbia, it’s like, ‘Okay, we are together, let’s have fun and dance it all out.’”

The band was also shocked at how quickly they got popular. Because they were so unfamiliar with the genre, they were unaware that there was a worldwide resurgence of interest in the music. In fact, in 2009, the first time Las Kumbia Queers played the states, Chang recalls seeing 200 people outside of the club in New York waiting to see them.

The whole reason their debut album, Kumbia Nena!, is packed with covers is because they didn’t even know any cumbia songs. The women came from a couple different punk bands, the most popular being Las Ultrasónicas (Mexico) and She Devils (Argentina). They all loved each other’s music, and wanted to work on a new project together, but wanted to do something they’d never done before. On a whim, singer Ali Gua Gua suggested cumbia.

“Our first conversations were, ‘What cumbia songs do we know?’ ‘No, I don’t know any. But I know some Cure songs, maybe we should try doing it as cumbia.’ We picked songs we liked, and we are all rock & roll fans,” Chang says. “The idea was having fun and playing together. There was not another idea.”

They’ve since been writing originals, too, and have mastered traditional cumbia grooves like old pros. Yet, they also have a rawness and aggression atypical to the genre, and even mix in some electronic elements. In Latin America, cumbia is very well respected. Bands typically have a serious, romantic flair, and very slick musicianship, with 14-15 members apiece.

“You can notice in our live shows we are kind of rock. Cumbia is really quiet and slow, and we are really energetic—fast for cumbia,” Chang says.

There are some serious lyrics in Las Kumbia Queers’ songs, mostly about female empowerment, and they’re usually tempered with a healthy dose of humor. However, even if they aren’t overtly attempting to be political, by the very nature of being an all-female cumbia band, they kind of are.

“In cumbia, most of the women’s job is to dance or maybe sing. Women don’t really play instruments. So far, the people we’ve met are really fascinated and open to listen to us,” says Chang.

Back in the ’90s, when the members of Las Kumbia Queers were in their respective all-girl punk bands, fewer people were actually open to listening to them because they were women. All-female rock and punk bands in Latin America at the time were few and far between.

They even named themselves Las Kumbia Queers as a joke for being an unusual all-female cumbia band. It’s a parody of a popular Miami cumbia group called the Kumbia Kings. Rather than do a direct spoof and call themselves the Kumbia Queens, they went with “queer,” to show that they are oddballs—and the name made them laugh.

“We are not really talented musicians, but you can do it yourself. We’re really into this punk rock philosophy. It’s the way we’ve been and the way we are. I think that every musical project that we will have from now on will be this way, too—for fun and for just playing together,” Chang says.

Las Kumbia Queers play Blackbird Tavern on Monday March 17th at 8:30pm. Tickets are $10

For 17 years Mike Park has run Asian Man Records, one of the most successful (if not the most successful) DIY ska-punk record labels in the country, from a garage in Los Gatos.

Over the years, he’s discovered Less Than Jake, Alkaline Trio, Andrew Jackson Jihad and numerous other bands. He’s also a prolific musician on his own, first with Skankin’ Pickle, who were early third-wave ska favorites, before moving on to ska bands the Bruce Lee Band, the Chinkees and a handful of solo records (he even released a children’s album, Smile, two years ago). Here are Park’s favorite albums for 2013 in no particular order.

Laura Stevenson – Wheel
Laura hails from Brooklyn and is one of the most underrated singer/songwriters of our time. She should be massively huge and successful. Her vocal and guitar chops are insane. I get chills every time I see her perform live. All her records rule, and this one is no different.

Somehow Dash Rip Rock just isn’t one of those bands that everyone knows about. Back in the 80s, they were one of the early purveyors of the emerging cowpunk subgenre—wild, high-octane county/rockabilly-influenced rock n roll. They perform at the Blank Club tomorrow.

Other bands like the Meat Puppets, Reverend Horton Heat, Social Distortion and even X, got a lot more recognition, however Dash Rip Rock were one of the earliest bands to hit the road and show people this hybrid sound. In 2005, they got signed to Alternative Tentacles, which has reissued several old records, as well as several new ones, and Dash Rip Rock are starting to get the credit they always deserved. We spoke with guitarist Bill Davis for an interview.

You are cited as being an influential band with the origins of cowpunk back in the 80s, but it seems like only recently in the past 5-10 years, have you been getting the accolades you deserve: Getting signed to Alternative Tentacles and getting inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. Why do you suppose that is?

I think it’s really because of the Internet, because of the sort of sub-genre explosion that’s happened in cowpunk and psychobilly. For example, there is Farmageddon and also Muddy Roots—some of these festivals that have been popping up. They have hundreds of bands that are very similar to Dash Rip Rock. We definitely blazed the trail for a lot of those bands.

I don’t take credit for founding cowpunk or punkabilly, but I do acknowledge that we were one of the first bands to tour and to base our show primarily on that form of music, which is really just revved up, fast punk-rock country songs. I think the first band that really broke ground in this whole movement was Jason and the Scorchers from Nashville. They had a record called Fervor, which was pretty much the beginning of it all for me. We played with Social Distortion and Revered Horton Heat years ago. In both cases—Social Distortion and Revered Horton Heat—after having played with Dash, their styles changed. Social Distortion started pulling out Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan and punking out country music, and Horton Heat went from straight blues to punk rock speed rockabilly. It was something Dash was doing from the beginning. Jim Heath acknowledged that we helped form his sound. I’m not bragging, but that’s what I saw happen after we played with those bands. They sort of melded more in our direction.

Could you tell me a little bit about how you got signed to Alternative Tentacles? Did you already know label head Jello Biafra for years, or did you come to meet him later in your career?

I met Jello through Mojo Nixon at South By South West probably back in the early 90s. We just kind of became friends through Mojo and mutual admirers. Obviously our politics are sort of the same. In the middle of 2004 or 2005, I wanted to put out a Greatest Hits, and I asked him to put it out through his label and he said, “Why don’t we do four or five records together?” That’s sort of how we ended up with him. I know when you look at Alternative Tentacles, they have such a strange, eclectic roster of bands. Nobody really seems to fit, but they all kind of fit because it’s Jello, which comes stuff like Wesley Willis and the Yuppie Pricks and then Dash Rip Rock. In some weird way, we fit in.

Your newest album, Black Liquor, which is also on Alternative Tentacles, has a much more serious, straight-forward roots-rock sound than anything you guys have put out in the past. What inspired the shift in sound?

Our whole career we’ve been fighting the joke band stigma that came from having that huge hit “Let’s go smoke some pot.” It elevated us to places we never expected to go. But at the same time, it’s a novelty song. I love bands that make humor the basis for their music, but that’s not all that Dash Rip Rock is. I think as we’ve changed and matured, and also being accepted into Louisiana Hall of Fame, it’s been a chance for me to sort of redirect our brand, try to realign ourselves with bands that we love like Creedence and some cool swamp rock bands.

I guess that’s what the new record is an attempt to do; it’s just a different phase. Black Liquor is most definitely our most serious effort. The Americana movement is exploding. There’s 200 Americana stations around the country. I would love to be a part of Americana but we’ve been so punk and so novelty that Americana sort of looks down their nose at us. I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to repair that. That’s just their attitude towards Dash Rip Rock. I believe there’s a part of Americana that loves Hank 3 and loves Shooter Jennings and loves Horton Heat and loves Southern Culture on the Skids. That part would take to Dash Rip Rock. Hopefully this album will help us get our foot in the door.

“Let’s Go Smoke Some Pot” was actually a satire of the neo-hippie bands and jam bands that were becoming really popular at the time, in the 90s. Even as you were poking fun at those bands and pot culture, the song was actually embraced by their fans. Did you find the irony funny?

I think they kind of thought it was funny. These jam bands were sucking all the people out of the clubs. It was really affecting our scene. We went to see a couple of shows of these bands. Their songs lasted really long. We just found it really boring and meaningless and it didn’t resonate with our tastes. One of the biggest draws in the South was this band called Dave Mathews Cover Band. They were simply a Dave Mathews cover band. They were selling out 1,000 seaters.

Everything on the radio at that time was grunge mostly. Most of these bands that we were making fun of weren’t on the radio. It was Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. That’s when we had the hit. I think the tongue and cheek goofiness of “Let’s go Smoke some Pot” was a perfect anti-song for the grunge movement cause everything was so deep and dark. It really caught on with pot culture. And High Times to this day, even though our song is taking a piss on a lot of their favorite bands, they recognize it as a big song in the pot movement. They play it every day at 4:20 at KROQ in Los Angeles. It’s still getting the pot cavalcade.

One of your more recent albums, Hee Haw Hell (2007), is perhaps the weirdest record you’ve ever released. I’m curious to learn more about the concept behind it.

Hee Haw Hell was initially the brain child of Lou Brutus who is a syndicated FM DJ with a show called Hard Drive, which has been on the air for years. He’s interviewed every rock star you can imagine: Ozzy, Steven Tyler, Jimmy Page. He came up with doing a rock opera based off Dante’s Inferno, and then having all his big rock star buddies read these cantars between the the songs, which would be Dante-esc. He ran the idea by Gene Simmons from Kiss and Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick. They both said, “Fuck no. I’m not getting involved with anything like that.” So plan B, we just decided to get all our punk rock buddies to be on it, like Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra.

I suggested we make it a trip through the South where Hee Haw Hell could be a bunch of stupid redneck humor and jokes about the South. And Mojo was perfect to get involved with that because he’s a scholar of the Dirty South, so the levels they go through in Hee Haw Hell are just places in the south, like they go to Knoxville, Nashville, New Orleans, so we’re just saying that the South is hell. I had a batch of songs that I gave to Lou, and he wrote the cantars around the songs. That’s how that came together. It’s only been embraced by a real sick counter-culture of artists, writers and musicians that sort of get it. But as far as the people of the South, I think they take their culture very seriously, and they hate anything that mocks it. Like, it’s when Borat went to the South, that was the funniest part of the whole movie, but you can see how people reacted to that. It’s like, “How dare you come into our culture and make fun of it.” That’s sort of the reaction to Hee Haw Hell. I’m really happy with it though. I think in the history of music, it’ll stand as one of the weirder Dr. Demento kind of records.

Dash Rip Rock plays the Blank Club on Friday April 5th. Doors open at 9pm. Tickets are $10.

Punk rock provocateurs Guttermouth won’t be coming to San Jose on March 9, after all, thanks to a booking error with the band. Before the announcement we checked in with singer Mark Adkins to discuss new music in the works, and why he’ll never perform in San Francisco or on the Warped Tour again.

I like the fact that your website says “10 albums later…we’re still punk.” I think it sums up what you do and that you don’t necessarily care what the trend is.

I think when bands change styles, they usually lose more fans than they gain. Bands are known for a certain thing and when they go the opposite direction or a different direction, they’re almost betraying their core fans who they started with.

You did have a brief period in the 2000s where you went a little poppy.

Record labels were throwing around a lot of money so we were taking that. We were catering a little bit, which wasn’t the right thing to do. It was the wrong thing to do. We were so sick of watered down pop-punk stuff that we were just made a trippy record that made no sense. We got a ton of backlash for that, but fans are starting to appreciate it. It’s the whole “10 year later” thing.

That record (2002’s Gusto) just didn’t work and it took a little while to rebuild some faith. It just seemed like at the time that there was so many bands doing the same thing that it was boring to us that we decided to make something a little kookie. We paid the price.

You have a new track called “Together.” Are you working on a new record?

We just want to put out singles. The record industry is what it is, which isn’t much. To release a full record is such a monetary out of pocket thing, I just want to record singles here and there and start releasing those. You can’t even buy hard copies anymore, practically, CDs and whatnot. Kids don’t even know what they are.

We have several more singles planned—just give them away for free and just pop them out on occasion. We are thinking of releasing a song a month. … We’re more a live band than anything. That’s what we do best, play live, so we focus on that more than anything.

Have you been playing a lot of shows in the past five years?

Yeah. We did Japan, Australia and Canada. The Bay Area isn’t too far for us, but it’s a little too politically wound up in the wrong direction. The last time we played San Francisco, we got our tires slashed, all four of them. San Francisco blows. I will never go back there.

What happened?

The mayor had just declared San Francisco a sanctuary city for all illegal aliens. I made a comment about that, criticizing it and they snapped. It’s just too wound up, I don’t understand it. It’s hard to comprehend.

This whole thing about you guys having a reputation for getting banned and offending people, is that exaggerated at all?

There’s been a few incidents, but we don’t try and make things happen. One thing about us is every show is different. We have played with some bands that go through the motions, play the same thing every night, make the same comments every night. It’s just so boring.

We don’t even write a set list. We go on stage and just play off each other, so every night’s different. Sometimes things are said and happen and people get a little uppity. It’s just lots of sarcasm—tongue and cheek sarcasm. Some people take it the wrong way. It’s hard to remember cause I’m drunk, too. Some people take it really serious.

The things that offend people, are they, like the immigration thing, sometimes political?

I got into it for a short time, and just realized, it’s hopeless and there’s nothing I can do single-handedly. It was just hot air and getting me nowhere. Singing in a punk band is not the best way to affect change. It’s not going to work at all. Crass never changed the world did they?

Can I ask about the 2004 Warped Tour? Did you guys get kicked off or did you guys leave on your own?

It was a mutual agreement. There were nine bands who were complaining about us [Yellowcard and My Chemical Romance were two of them] We were mocking them on a regular basis. They would go cry to the boss. That was the Punk Voter year, when all of that was going on, and we didn’t agree with all that. [Guttermouth made pro George W Bush shirts to mock the uniformity of the politics of the other bands] All those complaints and all that political crap going on, we just decided, it was a mutual thing between Kevin Lyman, the owner of Warped Tour, and myself that it would be best if we left. Warped Tour used to work really well for us. Now I don’t even know what’s going on. I read the roster, I don’t recognize one band. We were on the inaugural one in 95.

Few local bands have married musical sophistication with sweaty garage punk quite as seamlessly as San Jose’s Hard Girls. Their new album Isn’t it Worse, available for download and cassette, but not vinyl until early next year, is their best recording to date. It’s 28 minutes of unique and accessible punk rock.

We caught up with Mike Huguenor (guitar/vocals) to find out his favorite releases of 2012.

Swans – The Seer
Not since Pharoah Sanders’ heyday has a record sounded quite as cosmic or so specifically designed to reach out toward the infinite. But where Pharoah and others did so in the hope of something reaching back, the fundamental lack of the returned gesture is essential to this record. It is a testament to the creation of music as supplanting religion or religiousity: pure ecstatic creation that is its own end, devoid of ideology. Also note that the vinyl track order for this record is vastly superior to the CD/Digital version (in case you needed a reason to buy the vinyl beyond the profoundly haunting artwork). Get this record and be glad that you did, even if it sometimes frightens you.

Sebadoh – Secret EP
Unbelievably, not only did Swans write and release the best album of their entire 30 year career in 2012, but Sebahoh, completely under the radar, released their first new set of songs in 13 years. It’s an extremely good EP that not only features a couple great Barlow songs, but also has what are (to my ears) Jake Loewenstein’s best songs of all time—n particular the uncharacteristically composed “I Don’t Mind.”

The Intelligence – Everybody’s Got it Easy But Me
Few bands sound inspired by The Fall. They either sound like they want to be The Fall, or like The Fall is the absolute last thing they would ever want to sound. Seattle’s The Intelligence is one of the few bands to take clear influence from them, and their new album is full of disparate, motivated and determined urgency. The “trick,” which occurs toward the end of opener “I Like LA” is one of the most inspired bits of proof that punk lives—it just doesn’t call itself punk anymore.

Julia Holter – Ekstasis
It bothers me when people feel the need to say “female-fronted” or “chanteuse” when describing a female singer. No one ever describes a regular guy-rock band as “male-fronted,” or “chanteur” do they? Holter’s Ekstasis is a bizarre and inspiring mix of modern composition, digital-experimental and reverb heavy pop. Like “Everybody’s Got it Easy But Me” it is a record that is packed full of interesting ideas. Also, a fantastic album title.

Spiritualized – Sweet Heart, Sweet Light
Unlike the record-of-ideas, this album would be on my year end list even if it only consisted of “Hey Jane” and “Little Girl.” Sometimes you’re sick of “IDEAS” and really friggin great songs are all you want. Those are two really great songs from this male-fronted rock band.

Tearjerker – Hiding
It being 2012 and all, a little bit of “Chill Wave” is impossible to avoid (better than “Vapor Wave,” right?). Tearjerker’s 2011 single “So Dead” is one of my favorite rock songs of the past few years, and this EP is the Toronto band’s strongest release yet. All four songs carry themselves with a great self-assurance, and match the intensity of “So Dead” with their earlier work’s chiiiiiiiiill.

Raime – Quarter Turns Over a Living Line
If you are familiar with the work of Bohren und der Club of Gore (you are familiar with the work of Bohren und der Club of Gore, right?), then this record may sound a touch familiar to you, albeit in a good way. Akira Yamaoka and Nurse With Wound also spring to mind when listening to this vastly-empty-pitch-dark-hallway of an album. Raime takes goth to its logical extreme by devoiding the record of all human touches, like the animate-inanimate quarter of the album’s title.

Liars – Wixiw
Not sure if this is a “Hey, it’s the Iinternet!” kind of thing to purposefully transition from rock(ish) instrumentation to full electronic, but even thought it is more subdued, this is definitely Liars’ most interesting record since the double-whammy of “They Were Wrong, So We Drowned” and “Drum’s Not Dead.” The videos from this album are also consistently haunting and great.