Social Distortion: Michael Ness (vocals, electric guitar); Dennis Dannell (electric guitar); Brent Liles (bass); Derek O'Brien (drums, percussion).

Additional personnel: Chazz Ramirez (organ).

Producers include: Social Distortion, Chaz Ramirez, Thom Wilson.

Recorded on December 24, 1982.

Personnel: Mike Ness (vocals, guitar, electric guitar); Derek O'Brien (vocals, drums, percussion); Dennis Danell (guitar, electric guitar).

Recording information: Casbah, Fullerton, CA (1983); Casbah; Fullerton (1983).

Seminal Orange County punk band Social Distortion's first full-length album Mommy's Little Monster is the epitome of early-'80s suburban California punk and provided inspiration for many future Californians, including the Offspring and Rancid. Mommy's Little Monster finds the band supplying plenty of attitude and aggression as they rip through nine tracks worth of hard, fast, power chord-filled tracks loaded with snarling anti-establishment lyrics and themes. Songs like "The Creeps (I Just Want to Give You") and "Telling Them" show a young punk group that is very angry, and they were going to let society know it whether they wanted to hear it or not. The title track, "Mommy's Little Monster," with its descriptions of the girl with blue hair and the unemployed young punk who loves to drink and fight, gives you a good idea of the characters Social Distortion was surrounded by in the scene of the day. Although the low budget production gives the album a genuine early genre feel, it tends to hinder some of the potential power of most of the tracks presented here. As frontman Mike Ness matured as a songwriter the band went on to record stronger albums later in their career, but Mommy's Little Monster is a fine document of the raw early stages of a great influential American punk band that would go on to influence countless others in the future. ~ Paul Tinelli

A casual listen to this debut album by the long-running California punkers suggests a band very much of its time, but if you listen carefully you can already hear what ultimately set the group apart from the rest of the hardcore pack. Sure, leader Mike Ness tended to bark out his lyrics rather than sing them, and sure, the rest of the band had learned every move from the Ramones/Pistols/Clash playbook. But even at this stage, the group already had a sense of humor (the title song), a musical palette that went beyond punk (you can hear the early Who here at times, not to mention echoes of the bluesy side of the Stones), and a bit of honest emotion; whether this was a result of Ness's drug dependency demons or not, these songs are never generic punk rants--they're an expression of somebody's actual feelings.