As a teenager in the early 90s, I had the good fortune to land a job in the second-hand record shop I spent all of my Saturdays - and all of my money - in. I was there anyway, so it was great to be paid for it, even if most of my wages went back to the shop as I staggered home each weekend with armfuls of vinyl and the occasional CD.
The owner was an old (ok, he would have been around thirty, but that was old to me then) punk, and it was through him that I became aquatinted with most of the punk bands I still dig now: Slaughter and the Dogs, X-Ray Spex, Adverts, The Ramones, The Dead Kennedys, The Dead Boys... I could go on. Anyway, I recall a Social Distortion album - 1992's 'Somewhere between Heaven and Hell,' if memory serves - getting played a fair bit for a while. I can't remember if the boss got fed up of it after a time or what, but it dropped off the unwritten playlist and I wasn't too fussed. I thought it was ok but nothing special, to the degree that I never blagged a copy, but I have a good memory and the name stuck with me.
Here we are, it's 2011 and I'm still getting paid in music, even if it is CDs and downloads rather than vinyl these days, and I'm writing about it rather than flogging it and lugging it round in crates on and off vans at record fairs, and Social Distortion have another album out. It isn't very good.
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It's a pity: the instrumental that starts it off is promising enough, but after that... no. Just no. It's not punk. It's not even cowpunk. It's just mediocre country-infused rock, like Bon Jovi only rough around the edges. Crap rock with big choruses and guitar licks an' all that cal. The better songs sound like late-era Psychedelic Furs outtakes, only not as good. Strained, uninspired and frankly painful. Not recommended.
Listen to ‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’ on the Social Distortion Website.
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