my careless contagion

I don't know when I first started listening to punk rock. Sometime during high school. It is such an expansive genre. My preference was hardcore, notably melodic hardcore. I was drawn to Bad Religion because they were unique and intelligent but also listened to Nitro bands like Guttermouth and AFI. I knew all the Fat Wreck Chords bands. Greatly appreciated Gorilla Biscuits and, later, CIV. I loved Fugazi (I think they were my first show; tickets were $5 plus a Ticketmaster service charge of $1). Later, I got into Social Distortion, Face to Face, Samiam, and others too numerous to list. I had tapes. I had CDs. I had vinyl. Gigabytes of mp3s. Rare stuff, covers, bootlegs, live shows, stuff that was never released anywhere but Japan (why always Japan?). I recall seeing Sick of It All open for AFI and was more impressed with the opening band (even though I wanted to see AFI for about 15 years at that point). I was ready to go home after that. It was ridiculously good. I saw a ton of He...

Social Distortion's album White Light, White Heat, White Trash was released in 1996. I wrote previously about a track (I was wrong), which I recall seeing on MTV's 120 Minutes in probably late 1996 when I was home from college some weekend. I didn't know I'd later see the band play many times or that they would become a major influence in my life.  Crown of Thorns was released 25 years ago on the same album and remains relevant. Though it didn't mean anything to me for years, today it does. It's clear the singer/songwriter, Mike Ness, went through "the program," meaning some sort of mind-control protocols. The marks are all over his music, his life, and his body. (Once you know what to look for, you spot it right away.) Mass media, in turn, uses these programmed individuals to program the rest of us. I was thinking about a song on the radio the other day (Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar, who I also saw perform) and how it was blatant programming, ...

Written in 1987 and released in 1990, the song Ball and Chain is found on Social Distortion's self-titled album. Some of the timeless themes this song deals with are addiction, hopelessness, heartbreak, poverty, failure, and suicide — all themes I am intimately familiar with — and all made life feel like a ball and chain and not worth living. I know what it's like to think, "I can't take any more pain." This is a song I know by heart but heard yesterday on the radio, which isn't entirely strange, except I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Social Distortion in South Dakota or how many of them are listening to the radio on a Sunday afternoon. That's okay; we don't have to know what we're listening to in order to enjoy it, right? Well, except Social Distortion sings a lot of "hard luck" songs, which are an acquired taste. As Social Distortion's singer, Mike Ness, has been known to say, "We don't sing no happ...

  Love has been likened to many things. How many songs have been penned with love in mind? Too many to count. I didn't know what this song was truly about until I fell in love with a certain woman while I was separated. For me, Ring of Fire finally makes sense.  There are many versions of this song. I've chosen to post a cover by Social Distortion (1990). Of course, no one can argue with the power of the original (1952, 1963) by June Carter and Johnny Cash. There is some disagreement about who wrote this song, but most agree it was June Carter and Merle Kilgore. The popular explanation is that the song is about June Carter and Johnny Cash's love affair. I think that's an acceptable story. Cash's first wife said Johnny wrote it while hopped up on pills about a certain female body part, but, hey, let's keep this as clean as possible. In any case, June and Johnny had a long marriage, affair or no affair, and regardless o...

Making Believe is a cover song by Social Distortion (formed in 1978) on their Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell album (1992). It was written by Jimmy Work and was originally recorded by Kitty Wells and released in 1955. This song has been covered many times over the years. I liken music to a living thing, and living things have DNA. If you could look at Social Distortion's DNA, you'd see a lot of country music in there. Country music is basically folk music, so this further cements my theory that punk rock or hardcore is folk music as well. A lot of themes pop up in folk music. There are the murder ballads. There are the lost loves. There are the drinking songs. This song is about a lost love.  Mike Ness, Social Distortion singer, revealed a lot of his influences not only through his principal band but also through his solo work. His two solo albums, Cheating at Solitaire and Under the Influences, both released in 1999, show a rich body of influence on his punk rock mus...

I've let you go, but the memories remain like the smell after the rain. In every bad thing, there's something good to be found.  I remember the first time you met my parents, when I drove that angry old Jeep out to South Dakota and we drove through the Badlands. It was so hot my rearview mirror melted right off the windshield. We didn't have any reason to look back, though, did we?  You would sneak into my room and sleep on the floor next to me just to be close. We weren't married so we couldn't sleep together, but you couldn't help yourself.  There are so many memories; I'm sorting them now. Some are good and some are bad, but they're all us. We made them, for better or for worse.  How about the night I rolled up to your mom's house for the first time. It was December, but it wasn't cold. I saw you in the flesh for the first time. We talked until the wee hours of the morning. And the next day was Christmas Eve Day. I said I d...

*I first heard this song when I was home one weekend from my freshman year of college (according to online archives, it would have been between September and late December of 1996). I tuned in late to 120 minutes on MTV to find this ... spectacle. I had never seen anyone who looked like Mike Ness playing music. Never heard anything like his voice. I thought, "Who is this old guy playing punk rock?" Anyway, he had my attention. I never imagined in my parents' living room that weekend that I would someday be at Social Distortion's concerts someday. And I would still be asking myself, "Who is this old guy playing punk rock?" The sentiment echoes in my life today. I've made so many damn mistakes. I've run people out of my life. I've hurt those close to me. For all of those who I have hurt, I'm truly sorry. I was wrong.* When I was young, I was so full of fear I hid behind anger, held back the tears It was me against the world, I w...