Blues folk legend Dave Alvin is all about the past. His future, however, remains uncertain. Alvin feels his band, The Guilty Men, are so good, he may not have them much longer.

“Next year, I may be playing with bag pipes,” Alvin joked.

Alvin’s current touring line-up is so good, he decided to record his first ever live album, Interstate City, to capture the sound.

“When you go out on your own, you lose the sense of camaraderie that you have in a band,” Alvin explained. “What’s nice about these guys is that for the first time, I feel like part of a band again.”

The Guilty Men are composed of steel guitarist Greg Leisz, who has recorded with Matthew Sweet and Smashing Pumpkins among others; drummer Bobby Licks, who is currently touring with Syd Straw; bassist Gregory Boaz, who has been with Alvin since the LA. punk rock scene; and pianist Rick Solem, who’s most commonly compared to Thelonius Monk.

Although most of the band are from Los Angeles, Alvin and The Guilty Men recorded Interstate City, Alvin’s fifth solo record, at the Continental Club in Austin, Texas.

“It’s gotten to be my home away from home,” Alvin said, referring to the large amount of time he has spent as a producer in Austin. “I’ve played there, so I knew it would relieve some of the stress of a live album.

“Most importantly, it was a place where I could control the environment. When I play quiet, I like a venue where I don’t have to listen to talk about a football game,” he said.

There is not much quiet about Interstate City. Alvin, a blues version of Bruce Springsteen, brings together a conglomeration of long-time Blasters’ tunes with some of his new tracks like “Mister Lee,” a bluesy tribute to saxophonist Lee Allen.

Alvin also covers Woody Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi” and Chuck Berry’ s “Promise Land” on the record.

Alvin and his brother Phil formed The Blasters in 1979 and ventured into the L.A. post punk scene, where they played along with The Cramps, Black Flag and X, to name a few.

“Back in those days,” Alvin said, “there were a lot of people feeling like outcasts. They were all supportive of each other. All the bands helped each other out. It was a lot of fun. I still have a warm feeling of that era in my heart.”

Alvin ended his part with The Blasters in 1986 and was asked to play guitar with X an hour later. Alvin had played with X members in other projects he described as an “acoustic/folk/punk thing.”

“When you start a band in your early twenties, you have certain goals,” Alvin said. “We didn’t want to have day jobs, but you couldn’t make a living off music back then, the whole disco thing kind of ended that.”

“When the Sex Pistols put out their first 45″, I found out Johnny Rotten and I were the same age and that inspired me. When you finally reach success, your interests change.”

According to Alvin, his brother is still playing under The Blasters’ name with a revolving door of musicians. “We get along like brothers,” he said. “We fight. We love each other. We fight.”

When Alvin joined X, the L.A. scene they were so much a part of began shrinking into commercial heavy metal.

“When the Go-Go’s, an all girl punk band, became a pop band, things changed,” Alvin said. “When some bands became millionaires and some bands didn’t, things changed.”

Alvin’s musical aspirations also changed.

“Hell, you get older,” he said. “Things change.”

As a child, Alvin’s experiences were much more adult oriented. His father was a union organizer for steel miners and often brought his sons along on organizing missions.

“He took us to see things when we were kids that most people never got to see,” Alvin said about the mining towns.

“It taught me about the have and have-nots. What the dream is and what reality is. The real drama in life is where dreams and reality collide.”

When Alvin was 12, he and his brother literally followed blues artists around L.A. clubs, making a number of what he describes as “lifelong friends.”

“It really colors your life experiences to be 12 and hang around with 50, 60, 70-year-old black men,” he said.

“I think I developed into a very blues kind of guy. It was obvious to me that I couldn’t do what they did, so I took my own variation,” he added.

Dave Alvin and The Guilty Men embark their blues rock variation on the M-Shop tonight at 9 p.m.

Tickets are $5 for students and all ages are always welcome.