Music Monday: Hard Girls

(click the cover to go to the download page)

San Jose, CA is an urban sprawl that looks like it was mostly built in the 70's and 80's, left to bake in the sun, and forgotten by the freeways that surround it. The streets are lined with pawn shops, adult book stores, gun shops, strip malls and fast food restaurants. There's not a lot of beauty in San Jose, but the songs Hard Girls write paint the city in a rose-colored light.
Hard Girls is made up of Mike (Shinobu), Max, and Morgan (Ptedadon). These dudes make up 3/4 of another band called Classics of Love, fronted by Jesse Michaels (who used to sing in a little band called Operation Ivy). The seven songs here go by fast, leaving you wishing for a  full-lenth. It sounds very much like late-ninties indie rock, Superchunk and Pavement come to mind.