Mike Ness
Under the Influences, Volume One
[Time Bomb]
Rating: 6.3
Though in hindsight a seminal punk band, Social Distortion's work was estimable
but highly derivative. Ness' skills as a performer and songwriter lay largely
in his sharp perception for the relationships between country, rockabilly and
his beloved punk, rather than in the expansion of any of these musical worlds
themselves. Take for an example "Ring of Fire" and "Ball and Chain" from
Social D's eponymous 1990 comeback album. The songs appear back to back on
the album; the former a cover of the Johnny Cash classic, the latter among Ness'
own work-- a song Cash might have written if he were a punk. Nevermind that
punk was perfected ten years before a lot of folks had even heard of Ness; here
he worked a powerful combination merely by setting its context.
Therefore, it's of little wonder that, of his two solo releases in 1999,
the Social Distortion frontman dedicated the entirety of one to his guitar
heroes of yore. Unfortunately, Under the Influences, which features
the songs of Hank Williams, Carl Perkins and Harlan Howard (among others),
mostly lacks the power of his best work. There's something tired in Ness'
faithful hero worship, despite the worthiness of his personal deities and
the gravel in his throat. Constrained by tradition, Ness disallows himself
his greatest abilities. Exploring the relationship between country and punk
merely by resting his punk credentials over a lap steel is banal and beneath
Ness' talent. Nowhere on the album is this more apparent than on Sonny Curtis'
"I Fought the Law," which sputters next to the memory of the Clash's blistering
rendition of the song.
The redeeming quality of the album comes in Ness' obvious labor of love and
in the strength of the songs chosen themselves. Ness rarely blunders in his
arrangements, and given the timelessness of the tracks, he's gifted enough
to find success more than once. When he does, as on Carl Perkins' "Let the
Jukebox Keep On Playing," it's easy to forgive his missteps. Interestingly,
the album finishes with a countrified version of "Ball and Chain," reversing
the dynamic of Ness' original take on it. In the early days, Ness imagined
the country singer a punk; here, he's the imaging the punk a country singer.
But while the former spoke simply to us all, regarding the close quarters
inhabited by supposedly different types of music, the latter speaks mainly
to Ness himself.
-Neil Lieberman