We are currently in the middle of a pretty incredible couple of weeks for fans of the early San Francisco punk scene. Flipper just played a show last Friday at Cafe du Nord and The Avengers have one coming up at Bottom of the Hill on October 10th as they kick off their latest national tour. In my opinion, though, the best of the SF punk bands was Crime, the police uniform-donning quartet known–to themselves, at least–as “San Francisco’s First and Only Rock & Roll Band.” It’s exciting news to report that Crime is back with a show this Friday and a brand new album.

Existing from 1976-1982, the band mixed a lo-fi garage-rock sound with a confrontational image to become one of the most popular local punk groups. They put out a number of singles (good luck finding them), but became more widely heard after their demise through bootlegs and the release of the terrific collection San Francisco’s Still Doomed by Swami Records.

Friday night at 7pm, Crime is back, playing a free show at Amoeba in San Francisco to celebrate the release of a brand new vinyl-only album entitled Exalted Masters. The new lineup conists of guitarist-vocalist Johnny Strike and drummer Hank Rank alongside two new members on bass and guitar. We’re very excited to hear what the band has in store.

For more, you can head on over to Crime’s official web site, which has this great article, but currently not much else. There are a couple of MySpace pages (here and here) that don’t seem official, but are still a good place to hear some songs by this incredible band.