I’ve been told that punk rock is a young man’s game. That she is animal that eats her offspring and sustains herself on the souls of the stupid and tragic. Many of the genre’s brightest and most mesmerizing stars lost battles with fame when they were barely out of their 20’s. Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders, Darby Crash to name just a few; they battled punk for supremacy and lost.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the rare bird rises above the norm.

Mike Ness, founder of rockabilly punks Social Distortion, has beaten the odds with a crowbar; not only has he survived the genre’s dog eat dog world but he has thrived and kept the fire burning, cranking out music and melting amplifiers for the better part of three decades.

The summer of 2009 was a good one for me as a lover of music and old school punk fan. I had the privilege of seeing Bad Religion repeatedly kick Hot Topic spawned “punk” bands in the teeth at Warped Tour and on Saturday, September 26th I finally got a chance to see the genre’s “Man in Black”, the punk rock greaser Godfather Mike Ness and his 30 year-old brass knuckles-sporting baby Social Distortion. Yes my friends, life is good.

Many have tried to copy Social D.’s brand of hard edged, Hank Williams Sr.-influenced punk rock with little or no success. After seeing Ness and the latest round of Social D. players (bassist Brent Harding, guitarist Johnny “2 Bags” Wickersham and former Rocket From The Crypt drummer Atom Willard ) take the stage as the PA blasted Billie Holliday’s haunting anti-lynching classic “Strange Fruit”, then blow directly into the gem “1945” Ramones style, I will say this: all who try to be Social D. and are not actually Social D. are complete talentless morons and should be cast off as such.

Just before the band took the stage I used a few moments to look around at the fans that were happily joining me at The Beaumont on that crisp late September night; what I saw was strange indeed. The crowd was not the group of clones I had seen at so many shows over the years, something was different about this scene. Then I happened to notice the 10 year old girl next to me with her Dad and the little boy near the back of the club sitting on his father’s shoulders.

That’s it, that’s what’s different. Over my many concert attending years I have been to a ton of all ages shows but I’m certain that this was one of the first “true” all ages shows I had been to. Hell, it was more like a punk rock family reunion and it was about to explode with forty-seven different kinds of craziness. How cool is it that people ranging from 10 to 50 years old can come together in appreciation of a generation gap-hopping punk band from California? That snot nosed kids that believe they are truly and absolutely punks can stand next to punk rock holdouts from the 1976 original wave and have no problems with one another. You don’t see that shit everyday.

The power generated within the crowd by only their second tune ( “Reach For The Sky” from 2004’s Sex, Love And Rock ‘N Roll ) was absolutely outstanding, shocking even, equaled by no other band I had ever seen; by the time they broke out “Sick Boy” the crowd was no longer made up of individuals but had become one living, breathing, sweaty entity that pushed on the front barricade (and me) like a pounding heart. People crowd surfed, dancers slammed, heads were cracked and “the creature” sang along with Mr. Ness when he dug out Johnny Cash’s country classic and apparent fan favorite“ Ring Of Fire.”

Even during the tempo drop of the music in the middle of the set I looked around from my perch in front of the stage and I saw people of all colors, creeds, ethnicities and age sing along with Ness words of lament and woe; eyes transfixed on the band that was, for some of them, the soundtrack to their lives and a youth long gone.

Mike and the boys played classics about addiction ("Ball And Chain"), blowing your chances and change and youth ("Strained In Bakersfield") and their disgust and repugnance of racism and hate ( "White Light, White Heat, White Trash’s Don’t Drag Me Down") and seemingly sent a message of regret and of a life misspent. There was a darkness to the stories Ness told between songs. When Mike told the crowd, “Material things don’t mean anything. It’s your friends and family that count, homie” I got the feeling that he was talking to himself as much as he was us.

It has been a hard row to hoe for Mike Ness. Addiction, jail time, record deals won and lost and the loss of his best friend and original Social D. guitarist Dennis Dannell in 2000 to a heart attack have shaped the man and his music. He is an original punk rock renegade and when he sings “Born To Lose” you get the sense that’s it’s as honest for him as “I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive” was for Hank Sr.

The night was a great one and the show slid into one of my top ten ever, but that’s not what matters, really. What was most important about the night is that it was one of only a handful of times when I’ve seen a crowd and a band truly come together. I know it’s corny and you can burn me at the stake for writing these words but I felt like I was part of something even bigger then myself.

But hey, isn’t that how great music is supposed to make you feel?

-Danny R. Phillips

Social Distortion
September 26, 2009
The Beaumont Club
Kansas City, Missouri

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