The Litter Box

SATURDAY NIGHT, 10 p.m., and Slim's was wall-to-wall, cooking with a sweaty, sticky heat usually reserved for bathhouse saunas and chain gang flicks. The thermometer had to be pushing 90 degrees, which I'd speculate made the temperature nearly 20 points higher than the collective intelligence of this evening's patrons. In fact, had someone been resourceful enough to chain the doors shut, pour 151-proof rum all over the floor, and strike a match, San Francisco's mean I.Q. would have shot up at least four points by the time the fire department got the blaze under control. Of course, there is only one non-hippie-related event that could bring that many stupid people together under the same roof. Yes, that's right – Social Distortion were back in town.

For clarification purposes, it's not like I consider myself some kind of brainiac. I mean, I get paid to write about music, which, right off the bat, would qualify me as a witless stooge in pretty much every musician's book. I also constantly forget birthdays, deadlines, doctor's appointments, shopping list items, and cousins' names, and I am always the jerk who entirely misses the gist of conversations spoken in code so as not to insult/anger someone else in the room. So, yeah, I'm not the sharpest stick.

But the fans of Social Distortion, and more to the point, the cult of Mike Ness, have always fascinated me. Their idiocy is a special type of idiocy; it's a deeper, more ingrained, never-wavering, blank-eyed ignorance that traverses gender, class, musical genre affiliation, and of course, good taste. The fact that Mike Ness is a third-rate punk rocker, a tepid-at-best "roots" songwriter, and, now that Brian Setzer spends so much time touring Japan, our nation's preeminent phony hipster didn't seem to matter. The dipshits had spoken, and he was their king.

And so there I was, $25 poorer for the ticket and slumped against the back wall, watching the transformation. Normally a pretty OK place to see a rock show, 333 11th St. had become an outright carnival, a cavalcade of tattooed rocker dudes with slicked-back hair, postcollege party girls, Supersuckers-worshipping semi-jocks, retired punk rockers in sandals, and various other morons. They stood around in their little clusters doing regressive things like spilling beer, talking too loudly, hitting on anything with breasts that moved, and in one truly outstanding display of tribal nitwit behavior, waving a sign for and chanting the name of the recently departed Johnny Cash. Because, you know, like, Cash was cool, just like the Reverend Horton Heat is cool, only way more old school, my man. Oh yes, it was quite a special gathering all right, and they made their mark early by doing their best imitation of Pez dispensers during the brilliant set turned in by the Hangmen.

Nearly 20 years into their career and recognized more for their shit luck, dumb mistakes, and lack of output, the Hangmen might be Los Angeles's most criminally overlooked band. On this night, however, they were the fully realized outfit that caused Capitol Records to go into conniption fits all those years ago. They were killing on contact. Three songs, three broken guitar strings. This was followed by another eight songs that pummeled more than they rocked. Dirty, base elemental stuff on a level that Social Distortion have never been able to get down to. It was only natural the Hangmen were received by the audience in much the same way a lab monkey might inspect a bright red rubber ball. Curiosity, mild amusement, and fear could be detected in the crowd's faces. But, man, what a set from the comeback kids.

Then the lights went down, and I was immediately forced to retreat to the bar for physical support as Social Distortion sauntered out onto the stage to the guitar-strum soundtrack of Link Wray's "Rumble." Outside of Pat Boone singing "Tutti Frutti," I can't imagine there has ever been a greater sacrilege performed in rock 'n' roll. Except, of course, the horrible stuff in store, mostly in the form of songs.

Then a funny thing happened about halfway through the set. The Johnny Cash Memorial Brigade started up their chant again, and Ness kind of dismissed them offhandedly. Then he tossed a backhanded insult to another group with a smirk and a well-placed "Daddy-o" in his response to a request. And then he just uttered a whole bunch of clichés like "It's good to be here in San Francisco," and "There sure are some good-looking girls here," and "You better not be pushing a lady around, or you'll end up going through me." He kept spewing this unbelievable cornucopia of predictable junk designed to make audience members – never mind really thick ones – love him. This would be followed by another predictable song, and the cycle would repeat.

That's when it hit me like a bolt from the blue: Ness isn't an idiot. He's a semi-talent and a bit of a pud, sure. Mostly he's just a capitalist trying to keep it simple because he understands his market, and boy, did he have them eating out of the palm of his well-paid hand. By the time the band rolled through some idiotic tale about prison, I had built up a grudging respect for the guy because he was living a philosophy. When life hands you "morons," make "more off" 'em.