The Formative Years – Social Distortion
Despite having been formed in 1978, Social Distortion did not really enter my musical cosmos until the early 1990s via a taped version of their Mommy's Little Monster and Prison Bound LPs. Especially their debut album coloured me intrigued and sent me down a rabbit hole to track down a dubbed VHS version from Urs Völlmin (Apocalypse Now fanzine-fame) of the Another State of Mind tour documentary.
Mommy’s Little Monster captured essentially the DNA of adolescent punk rock, i.e. fast paced tempi, omnipresent teenage angst and timeless melodies that eventually became a trademark for Orange County based punk bands.
However, the Prison Bound LP with its country / western flavours and the band entering of what was to become classified as honky tonk influenced “cowpunk” did not manage to ignite my imagination, to put it mildly, and I was pretty sure that the band had peaked early on until, well, until I was taken by surprise by the release of the album White Light, White, Heat, White Trash in 1996.
The album saw Social Distortion return to a harder sound, let go of country influences and as the cherry on top, they managed to recruit former Danzig drummer Chuck Biscuits, who propelled the band forward in a live environment with his idiosyncratic drumming that is reminiscent of him beating up his drum kit.
Apart from powerful, passionate and personal lyrics dealing with personal demons and an underlying darkness and sinister feeling all songs seem to be informed by, the album harbours the song Don’t Drag Me Down, which is easily one of the hardest songs Social Distortion has written, both in terms of the subject matter as well as musically.
It was fantastic to catch them on tour in 1996 and witness them in a small venue packed to the rafters transition from the Rolling Stones cover Under my Thumb into Don’t Drag Me Down.
