Pitchfork

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.