| Social Distortion are a hell of a lot of fun. Before the band stopped drinking (I've heard they have) they played my club at my university.
Warning: Anecdote
...we'd had the Feelies the night before and they were really, really, really annoying; making ludicrous demands, acting as if we were the seventh pit of hell, etc. So I (as house manager) wasn't in a great mood the next day when I got a phone call.
Me: "Yo."
Voice: "Uh, hi, this is Mike Ness, from Social D...we're in Philly, and we're wondering how to get there."
Me: "Sure." (gives directions)
Mike: "Say, we've been on the road a bit and are wondering if it's okay if we get there early and chill out?"
Me: "Absolutely. Anytime."
Mike: "Cool. Say, you guys have beer?"
Me: (wide grin spreading over face) "Oh sure. We're on tap. C'mon up."
...and so they did, arriving maybe 90 minutes later, with a gaggle of latex-clad gum-chewing groupies, who were happy enough to giggle and sit on my lap because we'd hired their boys. The band comes in, sizes the place up, grins, and Mike offers a hand. "Hey! Which way to the beer?"
...and a splendid time was had by all. I was asked later in the week to describe the band to someone who'd missed the party; I thought about it a moment, and said: "You know how if you're in the forest and you pick up a flat rock, there might be a lizard or two underneath it? Okay, well, if you were in some incredibly stuck-in-the-70s part of L.A. and you picked up a greasy old hulk of a wrecked car, you'd probably find Social Distortion under it."
They were without doubt the best show we had that year, and were a blast to hang with besides. Later on (early 1990s) somebody tried to package them into being an Arena Rock Band(tm), but they couldn't do that, it being fundamentally against the nature of their music. So they went back to playing big clubs and small dives, and (I hear) were happier for it. | 
