When David Grossman came to on the hospital bed, he thought he’d suffered a heart attack. That’s what it felt like, that pain and shortness of breath. If it weren’t for the cabby, he never would have made it to the hospital. Most likely he’d be dead. Things are messed…
When retired safecracker Andrew Forkes first did lock-down time, bathtub gin was the libation of choice. By his 18th birthday in 1925, he had five years of reform school under his belt, the consequence of a childhood in Ohio spent burglarizing and running away from home. “Never thought I’d make…
The fact that the Korean War-era ambulance is lumbering along well below the posted speed limit is causing the motorist behind us to become irate as all hell. You can always tell when a driver’s tweaked: His head is invariably tipped back and askew, his mouth works out all the…
New Year’s Eve, the night of the dive bar tour at The House art studios, painter Steven Yazzie sports a bike helmet decorated with a fluffy boa wrap and three naked dolls with out-scissored legs. The dolls are attached to thin rods, which come to a teepee-like point two and…
In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, the aged Cuban fisherman, redeemed himself through long-in-tooth courage in the face of defeat. A triumphant allegory, sure, but Ernest Hemingway had it wrong about one thing: No one lives long enough on the sea to become an old man. You just…
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 Dorado gleams with an optimistic glint that suggests its owner is up-to-the-moment, a person who views himself as better at setting fashion than following it. The pastor…
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 Indian Reservation. Too long on a desolate road can do something to you. Objects start to look inconsequential and hollow. Polished cars become rushing blurs…
The template quality of the Pistoleros’ story thus far resembles the first half of nearly any episode of the increasingly irritating Behind the Music specials seen on VH1. Band forms and pays dues playing myriad local gigs. A loyal following blossoms. A founding member quits and later commits suicide. Band…
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 death. His is a sort of Bronx junkie mumble crossed with the confounded drawl of Tennessee Tuxedo’s Chumley, a disquieting mix of stubborn…
On West Peoria Avenue, a proliferation of “Going Out of Business” and “For Rent” signs dangles on drab storefronts like so many dusty postscripts to corporate will. The mom-and-pop shops that once were the lifeblood of retail sales in Phoenix are falling piecemeal, replaced by chain outlets and beasts called…
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 Tricie Soulos comes from the other end. “If I gave you a copy of our record, would you listen to it?” What a joy it is…
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 from Fine China, bassist Greg Markov and drummer Thom Walsh. Missing from the quartet is keyboardist Joshua Block. “Morrisey and Marr were, like, it…
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, teachers, priests and rabbis giving it the thumbs up. It was none of that. It was all about your own, about breathing some kind…
If Phoenix is a place where gun shops outnumber bookstores, where your neighbor’s house could suddenly explode because a junior chemist bungled his meth lab starter kit and mixed too much Coleman 7 fuel with acetone, then, on likeness alone, the White Trash Debutantes should be huge here.They could be…
“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 for long-in-the-tooth sorcery ‘n’ riff masters Iron Maiden. The Maiden, it seems, is back, and, according to Dickinson, is in rare form and at…
The timbre of Sonny Vincent’s voice carries a genuine been-there-barely-survived-it tinge, like some grizzled conspiracy theorist you’d find seated next to you at the counter of a Denny’s. Vincent chooses words carefully, often pausing mid-sentence, and you can almost hear him shaking his head as he recalls bits of his…
“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: PANTERA TEAMS UP WITH VIVID GIRLS FOR IN-STORE APPEARANCES DURING OZZFEST.”So says the press release issued by Vivid Video, a porn purveyor. Oh, joy. Porn star Raylene will add zing to a Thunderbird Zia in-store appearance by Grammy-nominated metal goobs Pantera. This will precede the band’s co-headlining…
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 smile, “I’ve got something for your story.” She blinks her eyes and they reveal a bright, mirthful innocence. Her cameraman, standing off to the…
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 been an above-average year, a few of those records might even be great. Considering the hundreds of thousands of releases…
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, Eugene Haugen, a bony kid with Social Distortion hair and thick eyeliner, is videotaping the scene with a hand-held. He says he’s making a documentary of his favorite…
Scaling cemetery walls and aching beneath dark skies in October rain. And brooding; always brooding. The odor of rotting fruit mingling with sod on moist ground. Celebratory funeral processions. Voices coming only in echoes, pale faces and eyes thick with coal-black eyeliner. Short days, long nights and inward journeys into…
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 and bad luck, the death of a loved one, the witnessing of a car crash. Or you’d guess, perhaps, that they are stoned. Couldn’t they say something?…
