"We're in Cleveland this evening," says the pay-phone clear voice of Dennis Danell, founding guitarist of Social Distortion. "Columbus last night, Detroit the night before and Chicago before that. ... We're just rolling right along."
Social D. (as their friends call them) has been rolling right along since the punk-rock "keg and garage parties" of 1979 Orange County, Calif., up through its latest release, "Between Heaven and Hell" (Epic). "Our audience has always been diverse -- in the beginning we'd have high school cheerleaders, jocks, surfers ... a big melting pot. I think the punk scene in general just kind of crossed over into all different forms of music," says Danell.
Though the band's I-think-I-can success has kept Danell, co-founder and singer Mike Ness, guitar and bass player John Maurer and drummer Christopher Reece out of the straight working world for years -- "Thank God, man. But we've done our share of the blue-collar stuff" -- they still spend plenty of time on the road. "I'm still real into it," Danell says. "I go home and nothing's changed. I feel grateful to be able to travel and make friends on the road. ... We still really enjoy it."
But what really fuels this band? "Taco Bell, man. Bean and cheese burrito, green sauce. I've lost my appetite for meat. I'll kill it and I'll wear it, but I have a hard time eating it, you know? At Taco Bell I always know what to expect, and it's cheap. John and I wanted to get a corporate sponsorship from them. ... Why not? We eat there so much, man."
Social Distortion plays at the Lee District Park Recreation Center in Alexandria tomorrow night at 9. Tickets are $15 and are available by calling 202-432-SEAT. For more information call 202-638-2008. ORGAN PIPE DREAM
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a lot of music for organ, and if you don't believe it, ask Marvin Mills. He's playing all of it. The music director of All Souls Church is in the midst of a 14-recital series that will total more than 20 hours of the master composer's music. "I do 50 recitals a year, but I have nothing to compare this to. I thought I did, but I don't," sighs Mills.
Suffering from an overdose of Bach, perhaps? Not so, says Mills. "I'm always learning. His music is so linear, and each line has so much integrity and such an independent voice that one has to expend a great deal of energy and concentration. I find I'm always getting closer to the music."
But an organ in need of donors is at the heart of this unusual venture, specifically the 23-year-old Rieger that inhabits All Souls and is badly in need of costly maintenance work. "It's a very special organ, the first really large one Rieger installed in this country {the firm is based in Austria}. It sounds very close to what Bach would have heard in his time," Mills says. "I've always wanted to set up an endowment fund for it, and I thought this program could generate excitement and interest in the organ. Most of the handful of people who have played Bach's organ music have taken a year to do it. My playing it in 14 weeks is right on the edge. Performing all of it any quicker, well ... time to call the men in the white coats."
Marvin Mills performs at All Souls Church Saturday afternoons at 4 through June 20. Admission is free, though donations are requested. For more information call 202-332-5266. A POEM IN HIS HEART
"A lot of times an idea for a poem will just be in my head. It's like a grain of sand that's an irritation for an oyster. You just work on it and eventually it becomes a pearl and you give it to someone." If that sounds like a poetic statement, it should -- it comes from the lips of a poet named David Levine.
He has lived in the Washington area for 23 of his 26 years, and, as his new chapbook, Sidereal Journal (Celestial Press, P.O. Box 50363, Washington D.C., 20091), reveals, he's been writing for much of that time. "The journal is something I finally put together to cleanse my palate," Levine says. "The most recent poem is almost a year old, but one is a note I passed to a girl I was madly in love with in the fifth grade."
Though he's also a guitarist and lyricist for local band Senator Flux, Levine's heart lies with the poem. "I always looked at the band as a literary endeavor, and tried to invest songs with literary meanings. It worked up to a point, but I had to get beyond the band and dedicate myself to my prose and poetry."
And as with rock-and-roll, he works live. "There's a real intimacy at readings you don't get onstage with bands. You can communicate ideas that people don't say in casual conversation. To me it's a real communion."
David Levine will read with Sylvana Straw and Cookie Lupton at 15 Mins. club tomorrow night at 8. Admission is free. For more information call 202-408-1855. TRANSATLANTIC GAELIC
Scots Gaelic folk group Mac-talla is trying to put its language where your mouth is. "Though it's still spoken in the Highlands of Scotland and in Nova Scotia, it's a fragile language and was officially repressed in Scotland in this century," says group leader Joan McWilliams Weiss. "A lot of people don't realize it exists, even though it may be part of their background. We try and help people to reclaim their heritage."
Mac-talla (that's "echo" to you and me) is "a pretty typical group of Washingtonians," though what bonds them is their love of Gaelic and the traditional folk songs they sing. Since none is a fluent speaker of the tongue, they "were lucky enough to have the most incredible tutor, Donald F. MacLeod from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. He was stationed at the embassy here, and our paths crossed at just the right time. We try to be as accurate as we can with everything, and he just helped us so much."
The group will be playing host to and performing with the Cape Breton Gaelic Choir (more than half of whom are native speakers of the ancient language) from the remote island of Nova Scotia. "A fantastic group," gushes Weiss. "The language and traditions have survived authentically because of the isolation there. We're so thrilled they're coming. ... They're just as nutty about their music as we are."
Mac-talla and the Cape Breton Gaelic Choir will perform tonight at 7 at St. Columba's Episcopal Church. Doors open at 6:30. Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for children under 12. For more information call 202-364-8744.