Social Distortion, more than a review.

When I sat down to write this I originally wanted to write a concert review for Social Distortion following their august 5th concert at the Medley in Montreal… Now I’m not exactly sure exactly sure what I’m going to write about. It’s hard for me to explain exactly what Social Ds music has done for me over the years, or Mike Ness’ songwriting.

In all periods of my life it seems to me that SxDx has always been there. It’s where I got my long standing alias of Sickboy and/or Muchacho Enfermo… I remember back in 1998 in my first restaurant, I was in the kitchen (as I always was) two of my line cooks had called in sick and I was training three cooks on my own while trying to keeps myself out of the weeds that come with running a kitchen in the Gayborhood in Montreal during Gay Pride week. The owner of the restaurant, let’s call him Dan, came into the kitchen in his black t-shirt, his army style haircut, holding his spittoon (a cup to spit out chewing tobacco) that had a skull and crossbones it. I remember him coming to take over the pasta and presentation station without saying a word; he rolled up his sleeves and started singing Ball and Chain from Social D… So here we were, a French Quebecker, a Mexican and a restaurant filled with drag queens that wanted their food NOW and we cooked and sang Social D songs for the next two hours, never stopping once, never uttering a word of conversation. Once the rush was done and the trainees had long since left the restaurant business (an hour after starting); Dan looks at me puts a chunk of tobacco in his mouth, I light a cigarette, we shake hands congratulating each other on a job well done… “Fucking A, he says, you really are a Sick Boy…”

So I’ve lost track of Dan over the years… Last I heard he was in South-America somewhere, but somehow the name stuck and so did Social D.

So I’m not reviewing the concert… because in effect the concert and the music have really been a mirror of my life and I fucking hate introspection.