This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Can you believe that Social Distortion frontman Mike Ness is 50 years old? Ness can, and he's happy about it."[50] is the new 30," Ness said in an interview. "I box four to five times a week. I'm in a better place than when I was 30, spiritually and emotionally. It's like a fresh start. What can I do over the next 50 years?"Let's hope his next 50 years is anything like his last. The hell-raiser began the southern California rock band when he was only 16. While the nascent band tried to thrash as much as its punk idols in the latter part of the 1970s, childhood influences of listening to country and rockabilly on the radio always crept up into his music until he gave up trying to resist them.It was on the pompadoured band's seminal 1990 self-titled album that the band debuted its revved-up rendition of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." And over the course of the four albums that followed, Ness essentially had "punk" tattooed on one hand and "Buck" (as in Owens) on the other, working together to create alt-country before the genre had a label.The guitars will be as loud as ever at Social D's two sold-out shows at The Depot, but for those two nights the venue will be a honky tonk.
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Social Distortion with Lindi Ortega.When » Friday, May 11, and Saturday, May 12, at 8 p.m.Where » The Depot, 400 W. South Temple, Salt Lake CityTickets » Sold out
Here's some "Machine Gun Blues": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otZ1SfwbE64