Email Author Brian Smith

2000 Stories by Brian Smith

• Go to Sea

  published December 28, 2000

  In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, the aged Cuban fisherman, redeemed himself through long-in-tooth courage in the face of... More >>

• Graceland

  published December 21, 2000

  At a downtown car wash, the pastor's pimp-daddy Caddy is getting a final once-over by the Latino buff crew. The chestnut-colored 1977 El... More >>

• Desolation Angel

  published December 14, 2000

  Desolation is available in bulk around much of Riggs Road, that stretch of two-lane highway south of Phoenix that cuts a path through the Gila... More >>

• Hanging On to Something

  published November 16, 2000

  The template quality of the Pistoleros' story thus far resembles the first half of nearly any episode of the increasingly irritating Behind the... More >>

• Teenage Lobotomy

  published November 9, 2000

  Dee Dee Ramone is lucky as all hell to be alive. The rickety timbre of his voice over the telephone bespeaks a man who has repeatedly cheated... More >>

• Instant Karma

  published October 26, 2000

  On West Peoria Avenue, a proliferation of "Going Out of Business" and "For Rent" signs dangles on drab storefronts like so many dusty postscripts... More >>

• Balls to the Wall

  published October 19, 2000

  Phone ringing. Jesus, I've come to hate phone ringing. After three rings, I pick up, and the raspy, almost timid-sounding voice of Balls shouter... More >>

• Old Testament

  published October 5, 2000

  Rob Withem sits cross-legged on his living room floor in the Phoenix apartment he shares with his wife. On the couch are two of Withem's bandmates... More >>

• "You Are Growing Retro..."

  published September 28, 2000

  Garage rock was not about taking rock 'n' roll and handing it to creepy label guys with shaky checkbooks. Nor was it about having your parents,... More >>

• Coyote Lovely

  published September 21, 2000

  If Phoenix is a place where gun shops outnumber bookstores, where your neighbor's house could suddenly explode because a junior chemist bungled... More >>

• Kind of Blue-Collar

  published September 7, 2000

  "We didn't expect to sell out the [Madison Square] Garden; we didn't expect to do it in two hours," says Bruce Dickinson, the erudite front man... More >>

• Sonny Outlook

  published August 31, 2000

  The timbre of Sonny Vincent's voice carries a genuine been-there-barely-survived-it tinge, like some grizzled conspiracy theorist you'd find... More >>

• Unholy Union

  published August 24, 2000

  "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: PANTERA TEAMS UP WITH VIVID GIRLS FOR IN-STORE APPEARANCES DURING OZZFEST."So says the press release issued by Vivid... More >>

• I, Claudia

  published August 17, 2000

  TVK-TV's Claudia DiFolco reaches for my hand and gently brings it to her face. Sliding my forefinger under wisps of hair, she says with a coy... More >>

• American Dream

  published July 27, 2000

  If you stop and think about it, 10 good rock 'n' roll records released in a single year is about all you can expect. And if you're lucky, if it's... More >>

• Ace Venture

  published July 20, 2000

  We're standing around in the airy Tiffany's Cabaret parking lot, doing very little. Just shooting the shit, really. Johnny Ace's resident lackey,... More >>

• The Sunny Side of Goth

  published July 13, 2000

  Scaling cemetery walls and aching beneath dark skies in October rain. And brooding; always brooding. The odor of rotting fruit mingling with sod... More >>

• The Lying Game

  published July 6, 2000

  Members of the Liar's Club sit and stare plaintively into their drinks. You'd think they were contemplating some recent run of emotional trauma... More >>

• The Impossible Dream

  published June 29, 2000

  Beer arches gracefully through the night like Silly String. Hair mats together in clammy clumps. Shirts already smell like Sunday morning's... More >>

• The Wanderers

  published June 29, 2000

  Stiv Bators once joked that John Lennon's last hit was the sidewalk. Bators' last hit, you'll recall, was the bumper of a Parisian cab, a smash... More >>

• Rod Fellows

  published June 22, 2000

  Howard Greenfield is hunkered down in the casket-like coupe, hurtling forth at 110 miles per hour in a hot rod whose suspension was made the same... More >>

• School's Out

  published June 15, 2000

  Twenty-year-old aspiring guitar maker Allen Pegues recalls his high school days. "I was all about buyin' me some beer," he says. "That's what I... More >>

• Chick Cashman Offs Himself

  published June 1, 2000

  Wig-sporting, cosmetic-caked Chick Cashman saunters onto the Club Congress stage with the Countrypolitans looking like a cross between some Warhol... More >>

• Tsar Power

  published May 25, 2000

  Because a girl tossed a drink in his face, punched him and left him stranded in Hollywood into the wee hours, Jeff Whalen's first moments on the... More >>

• Veruca Salt

  published May 25, 2000

  Resolver's best cut, "Yeah Man," finds Louise Post informing her submissive male that "I'd know you in the dark/By the way your hands pull... More >>