Punk's not dead.
But there are some in its ranks that are getting up there in years, and doing so with credibility intact.
For proof of that, look no further than the headlining acts for this year's Vans Warped Tour, which takes over Race City Motorsport Park tomorrow afternoon.
Two of the big names are familiar names, who've carved their own niches while neither burning out nor fading away: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Bad Religion.
Boston's Bosstones are enjoying their third stint on Warped, and celebrating more than 15 years as a band.
"I'm the type of guy, if I stick with it for 15 years, then I start to really get it down," jokes frontman Dickie Barrett.
"I was floundering for 14 years and now I've arrived."
To herald that arrival, the band has just released its latest CD, A Jackknife to a Swan. It's a disc that furthers the band's oft-imitated but rarely duplicated ska-core sound.
"Other people have mixed reggae with rock and ska with punk -- you can talk about The Clash or Bad Brains -- but I think we invented what it is we do," says Barrett, who's married to a former Calgarian.
"It's a musical genre now because we named one of our records Ska-Core, The Devil and More.
"I like to call myself the 'godfather of ska-core' only because no one else would consider calling themselves that."
And, even though he's on a tour where the average fan wasn't even born when The Bosstones began, Barrett's emphatic that it's godfather, not grandfather and he's definitely not finished.
"I caught Joe Strummer the other day and he made me realize that there's life after 35 -- his show was unbelievable.
"I feel more like the elder statesman. The Bosstones are the older brothers -- and I'm fine with that."
California's Bad Religion also represent the old guard of punk.
"I feel like the old guy (of punk)," laughs bassist Jay Bentley, who was 15 when the band formed in the early '80s.
But, like The Bosstones, the band is still getting it done.
They just released their 13th album, The Process of Belief, which saw co-founder and Epitaph label boss Brett Gurewitz return to the fold (although Gurewitz doesn't tour with the band).
Again, the disc finds Bad Religion moving forward, not content to rest on their laurels.
"That's probably the one thing that separates us from most of the quote-unquote older bands is that we keep putting out records ...," he says before taking a poke at bands that are little more than nostalgia acts.
"Someone asked 'Do I think that it's kind of freaky or eerie when we run into other bands that've been around since 1980.' And I was like, actually 'No, I tend to use the word 'cute.'
"I don't really find it anything other than, 'That's nice. I'd like to be on a nostalgia tour, too ... be opening for the puppet show at Magic Mountain.' "
As for the other, younger acts on the Warped Tour, Bentley says most of them give the acts like his and NOFX the proper respect and cite them as influences.
But as gratifying as that is, Bentley says the best part of the success of Vans is to see how far the music and the whole skate punk culture of their California youth as come.
"That's the neat part for me," he says. "Steve Soto, who was the bass player for The Adolescents back in 1980 and is now in Manic Hispanic, we were standing onstage and I just looked at him and said, 'Look how far we've come with this nonsense.'
"I can't believe it, it's great."
