After spending much of the year mourning founding member and guitarist Dennis Danell, who died of a brain aneurysm in February, Social Distortion are picking up the pieces and getting back to playing live, announcing a round of SoCal and Las Vegas-area shows in January. Though the longtime SoCal punk band played a May benefit concert for Danell's family in Irvine, Calif., this handful of shows are the band's first real tour dates since April, 1998.

Helping to inaugurate a new hometown venue, Social Distortion will be playing a round of five shows Jan. 23-27 at the House of Blues in Anaheim, which will hold its grand opening Jan. 11, as well as a one-off date in Vegas Jan. 20 (three other dates elsewhere remain to be announced).

"They were planning on recording a record, but it was hard with Dennis passing," says manager Jim Guerinot. "Everyone was kind of blasé about it. There was never a question whether they would continue, but thinking about it and doing it are two different things. They needed some motivation. And nothing kick-starts this band like playing live, so they're doing the shows to rev themselves up."

Social D had previously planned to head back into the studio this month with producer James Saez (who worked on frontman Mike Ness's two solo albums and Social D's live album) to finish up the band's eighth album, their first album of new material since 1996's White Light, White Heat, White Trash.

JENNIFER VINEYARD
(November 10, 2000)