Story Of My Life

Dot and I went to see Social Distortion last Thursday at The Pageant.  They released their 1st album back in 1983, but I don't think I knew much about them until at least 10 years after that.  Checking my iTunes Library, I think I first got some of their stuff from Napster back in 2000.  "Ball and Chain" and "Bad Luck" were "acquired" that year.  I bought my 1st CD of theirs in 2003.

Social D (as the kids call them) are led by Mike Ness. He is their lead singer and main song writer, who has suffered through heroin addiction and "self-consciously rebellious behavior" as Allmusic.com puts it.  Some of their songs really struck a "note" with me, both musically and lyrically.  Many paint images of a rough life, and the driving music rails against the hard times.    When I heard they were coming to town, I jumped at the tickets.  After the winter I had, I could use a little "railing."




And I wasn't disappointed.  And the crowd was digging it too.  And the crowd was very colorful too: lots of tatts.  Luckily, as we entered The Pageant we received a complimentary tattoo on the back of our hand.  Cool!  But, did that help us fit in?  After a while, I noticed that every one was fairly young.  If I wasn't the oldest person there, I only missed it by this much (in my best Maxwell Smart voice).

Mike Ness

The highlight of the night was one of my favorite songs, "The Story of My Life."  The kid sitting next to me must have noticed I was really enjoying it, and he tried to get me to sing along, which I did.  When Dottie told me the song reminded her of the the theme song to "Friends," it made me cringe in disgust.  An emotion very fitting to many of the songs Social D did.

Check out the link to the song…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh8zcbC_Dcw