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Recent Articles
Recent Articles by William Michael Smith
National Features >
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
For Florida's sole remaining sex surrogate, love is a many splintered thing.
By Michael J. Mooney
City Pages
It's not just giant companies cashing in on America's defense industry.
By Jeff Severns Guntzel
The Pitch
How a throwaway idea at the Barkley ad agency became the "Sonic Guys."
By Justin Kendall
Houston Press
A diner's guide to Texas's oldest Mexican restaurants.
By Robb Walsh
Big Smith
Published on December 13, 2007
Get over the Deliverance bib overalls and the Ozark ax-killer faces. The five guys in Springfield, Missouri, outfit Big Smith have long cultivated the Ozark hillbilly look, and further it with a tear-ass musical style that puts them in the company of groups like the Gourds and Avett Brothers. They usually look like they've just arrived from a turkey shoot or pig roast, but Big Smith can play high-energy, bluegrass-influenced roots music with anybody on the planet, and everyone in the band can sing like a cherub in a small country church choir. They list their influences as "Grandma and Led Zeppelin," and songs like "Trash," "Burn Down the House" and "12 Inch 3 Speed Oscillating Fan" have all the attention-grabbing, in-your-face energy of a feral hog with a bellyful of loco weed loose in your outhouse. These guys are as feel-good as it gets, so bring your shrink along. They'll cure him, too. — William Michael Smith