"Dead rock stars are singin' for me and the boys on the Rivet Line tonight. Hendrix. Morrison. Zeppelin. The Dead Rock Star catalogue churnin' outa Hogjaw's homemade boom box. There's Joplin and Brian Jones and plenty of Lynyrd Skynyrd Dead Rock Stars full of malice and sweet confusion. Tonight and every night they bawl. The Dead Rock Stars yowling at us as we kick out the quota."

This is how Ben Hamper's Rivethead. opens. This is as fine a piece of writing as you'll find anywhere.

Here's another opening (with slight apologies to the writer for not asking) that grabs your ear and imagination right away:

"Like spirits they came, over the hills. They came in pairs, always in pairs.... They still come now, somewhere in the part [of] my mind that takes reality and stores it and replays it. They were light and diaphanous. Each a star, a pair of stars, holding hands."

Good writing's good writing, whether it's Alana Nash's wonderful reviews in Stereo Review during the 70s or Thoreau or LeGuin or wherever.

The title of the story quoted above is "March of the Dead." Check it out. Or ask.