Even if the Los Angeles-bred punk-rock group Social Distortion released a

tell-all autobiography, it couldn't be more revealing than the quartet's

latest album, Live at The Roxy.

The album -- set for release June 30 -- provides a history of the band's

eventful, 20-year career as recorded on the stage of Hollywood's Roxy

theater.

It's Social Distortion from point A to well past Z.

"It's just a little bit from each record to document our career so far,"

vocalist/guitarist Mike Ness said from his home in Costa Mesa, Calif. "Our

selling point has always been our live performance as opposed to our studio

performances, so it's really great to finally have a live record. There's

just something about it, 'cause you're not really thinking. You're just

going on pure feeling and reaction to the crowd and adrenaline. And to be

able to capture that on tape is neat."

Ness, who is currently working on his first solo album (which he described

as "like Woody Guthrie sitting in with the Dead Boys"), said Social

Distortion always wanted to do a live album. But the opportunity didn't

present itself until last April, when the band was in the midst of a hiatus

from touring.

Choosing a longtime haunt as a good place to record, Social Distortion

performed three consecutive nights at The Roxy in Los Angeles. "We picked

The Roxy because it's small and intimate, but also where a lot of those

formidable years happened -- on the Sunset Strip, clashing with society on

a daily basis, drinking behind Tower Records before we went into The

Whiskey or The Roxy, roaming the streets of Hollywood," Ness said. "For a

young kid, 17 years old, that was really neat."

Drawn from the best of the three Roxy performances, the album proceeds in

random

order -- neither by performance sequence nor by original chronology -- as

Social

Distortion deliver pieces of their prestigious, punk-rock past.

Appropriately kicking off with "Story of My Life," Live at The Roxy

is a riveting -- and potentially rousing -- listen. While it supplies

versions of such early classics as "The Creeps" and "Another State of

Mind," it also offers the mid-career power-pop of "Ball & Chain" and "Let

It Be Me" and such recent exploits as "I Was Wrong." Covers also find their

way in. They include Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and the Rolling Stones'

"Under My Thumb," the latter of which was an early Social D. B-side.

"I think the record, as a chronicle of their whole career, showing all the

different styles and influences that they have, proves how enduring and

vital they still are today," said Jim Guerinot, who has managed Social

Distortion for 16 years and is president of the group's current label, Time

Bomb Recordings.

"I don't know any bands that had a top-five single on their last record

[and] that have been around for 18 years," Guerinot continued. "On Live

at The Roxy, you get a sense that this band has a real relevance today."

Ness said he hopes that the album will serve as a reference guide to younger fans, as

well as

veteran fans. "We started this band when this kind of music wasn't accepted

by [the] mainstream," he said. "I think it's important for a 16-year-old

kid buying this CD to realize that we helped shape things for what they are

now, for newer bands -- that it was a movement, that it wasn't just a style

or a look or a fashion thing."