Social Distortion
Live At The Roxy
[Time Bomb]
Rating: 7.9
It was the summer of 1990. I'd heard Social Distortion's Mommy's
Little Monster playing as house music before the Danzig show at Fort
Lauderdale's Button South. It was good, oh yes. Back then, Social D's
catalog was on California's Triple X Records, so I decided to try mail
order. After a number of attempts (my envelopes were invariably returned
with "no such addressee" stamped on the front), and innumerable indie
record stores searches in vain, I came to the sad conclusion that
Mommy's Little Monster would forever remain my musical nemesis. I
borrowed a friend's second- generation recording and tried to ignore the
crackle and hiss.
Time Bomb Records has reissued the lesser- known Social Distortion
recordings this year, which means you can even find Mommy's Little
Monster at the local Sam Greedy. The boys have also released a
live recording. Progress, you ask? Progress, I reply.
When I mentioned Live At The Roxy to a friend of mine, he spat, "Aw
shit, they fuckin' suck live!" I asked why, and he said, "I've seen 'em twice
man, and they're in the habit of taking one track and squeezing 20
minutes of bullshit riffs and jerkoff audience participation out of it."
I grew red with alarm. Would this be the record that would put the final
nail in the coffin of my love for the band that I had searched so far and
wide for? Could this be the end? I grew slightly purple with fear.
Looking at the playlist, I was hopeful. The track selections span the band's
career, from "The Creeps" and "1945" to such crowd- pleasers as "Ball And
Chain" and "Mommy's Little Monster." Promising, yes? Then I listened.
First as party- music with the friends, then as shower- music, then
listening carefully while paging through the insert, and it was then
that the intent of this disc became clear.
Live At The Roxy is an extremely competent and clean live recording
with none of the navel- gazing fuckabout B.S. that I'd been warned about.
Sure, you get Mike Ness' moments of philosophical stage banter ("You guys
wanna hear a happy song? Sorry, homey, we don't do no happy songs."), but
otherwise, The Roxy proves to be tight, straight- forward, and
clearly recorded with the single intent of being packaged as a live
album. This is no afterthought spliced from jams or live tape--
this is an album that was constructed from three days of careful
recording at what happened to be a live venue.
I appreciate the
attention to quality here, and I suspect you will too. The high production
value makes The Roxy closer to a best- of compilation than your
average "live" recording and should be treated as such. The track
selections are excellent, including a decent cover of the Rolling Stones'
"Under My Thumb."
Live At The Roxy sounds an awful lot like the curtain call for Social
Distortion, but while listening to it, one can't help but respect the band's
work and want to throw a drop- kick in the pit for these rockabilly- punk
pioneers.
-James P. Wisdom