So Mosh Staying Power : O.C.’s Social D Shows the Value of Continuity

A decade ago, being loaded in the worst way nearly turned Social Distortion into an obscure footnote in punk rock’s history. Now, loaded in the best way--with more top-grade material than the band could fit into an 80-minute set Thursday night at the Hollywood Palladium--leader Mike Ness and his mates are mounting a strong bid to secure a penthouse suite on punk Olympus.

Ness’ mid-80s heroin addiction, its antecedents in a wild and painful youth, and its aftermath of recovery, acceptance and self-knowledge form the thematic core of Social Distortion’s five-album songbook. The new “White Light White Heat White Trash” is the most insightful and consistently catchy collection yet in this ongoing song-of-self.

Few punk bands have lasted longer than SD, which has been running continuously since 1979. Thursday’s show, the first in a sold-out, two-night stand, highlighted just how much continuity the Orange County band has had.

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Never a hard-core thrash band, SD was about pop-melodic punk long before Nirvana made it fashionable. So there was no great disjunction between new material and songs like the 1979-vintage “1945,” a megaton-force rocker that got an explosive response from the moshing loyalists.

Pairing “Mommy’s Little Monster,” the raucously received title track of SD’s 1983 debut album, with “I Was Wrong,” the band’s current single, encapsulated Ness’ growth from hell-bound punk kid to a responsible adult able to look back and admit that being hell-bound was pretty hellish. That seamless 13-year leap also underscored how little discontinuity there has been in the band’s basic approach.

SD’s unchanging tack could be taken as a sign of obstinacy, limited reach or lack of venturesomeness. But it also is evidence of an effective rock ‘n’ roll machine whose simple design gives it a straightforward, enduring appeal.

SD’s show didn’t fall into the Ramones’ trap of numbing repetition--the band’s interest in roots-rock allowed for departures into stomping country beats (excellent versions of “Sick Boy” and “Ball and Chain”), and some of its most powerful songs--”Prison Bound,” “When the Angels Sing,” “Dear Lover”--were elegiac mid-tempo numbers with a density and intensity that brought Neil Young & Crazy Horse to mind. Ness’ lead-guitar style mixed Young’s cutting, tuneful throb with some Billy Zoom-like rockabilly careening.

Despite the memorable melodies that lift his songs, Ness’ deep, chesty bark can fall into sameness--SD’s sets would profit if a few more songs could leap into the expressive high range of “Dear Lover.” Along with the next single, “When the Angels Sing,” “Dear Lover” represents one of SD’s best trump cards as it bids for a career jackpot that would raise it from a sales level of about 300,000 per album to the platinum promised land.

SD’s 18-song set included eight of the dozen tracks from “White Light,” and it would have been even better had it included two omitted new-album gems, the hammering rocker “Down on the World Again” and the fierce-but-sympathetic, slow-marching anthem “Down Here (With the Rest of Us).”

Continuity clearly was on Ness’ mind. He’s back to wearing raccoon rings of mascara around his eyes--just like he did in “Another State of Mind,” the video documentary of SD’s maiden (and hilariously, poignantly disastrous) national tour in 1982.

The show opened with a charging cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb”--a song SD first recorded on its debut EP in 1981, now reprised in a freshly recorded version as a bonus track on the “White Light” CD.

Ness’ sense of history led him to dedicate “Another State of Mind” to old-school punk fans who were on hand when SD first played the Palladium in 1983; “Prison Bound” was played in honor of Gary Tovar, founder of Goldenvoice, the company that invented large-scale punk and alternative-rock promotion in Southern California in the early 1980s. Tovar recently was released from federal prison, where he served 5 1/2 years for marijuana trafficking.

Introducing “Ring of Fire,” the June Carter-penned country song made famous by her husband, Johnny Cash, Ness noted that punk itself is part of a tradition of honest, tough-minded expression “that’s been going on for a long time.” Played as a blazing finale, this revamped chestnut was certainly punk enough for moshing fans who formed several swirling rings of humanity.

Amid all this celebration of what remains unchanged, the show wouldn’t have been as powerful without one vital, new-and-improved ingredient: drummer Chuck Biscuits, who joined in August. He was a mighty engine, keeping a hard, machine-like beat, yet spinning off into garage-rock accelerations and unpredictable, instinctive syncopation that gave the music a palpable jolt.

With his whiplash performing style, Biscuits commanded visual as well as sonic attention; he was a useful foil for Ness, who otherwise dominated the musical and performing space, while his longtime sidekicks, rhythm guitarist Dennis Danell and bassist John Maurer, fell into their customary supporting roles.