ABOUT RAR: For those of
you new to this site, "RAR" is Rick Alan Rice, the publisher
of the RARWRITER Publishing Group websites.
Use this link to visit the
RAR music page, which features original music
compositions and other.
ATWOOD - "A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliverance"-AVAILABLE
NOW FOR KINDLE (INCLUDING KINDLE COMPUTER APPS) FROM
AMAZON.COM.Use
this link.
CCJ Publisher Rick Alan Rice dissects
the building of America in a trilogy of novels
collectively calledATWOOD. Book One explores
the development of the American West through the
lens of public policy, land planning, municipal
development, and governance as it played out in one
of the new counties of Kansas in the latter half of
the 19th Century. The novel focuses on the religious
and cultural traditions that imbued the American
Midwest with a special character that continues to
have a profound effect on American politics to this
day. Book One creates an understanding about
America's cultural foundations that is further
explored in books two and three that further trace
the historical-cultural-spiritual development of one
isolated county on the Great Plains that stands as
an icon in the development of a certain brand of
American character. That's the serious stuff viewed
from high altitude. The story itself gets down and
dirty with the supernatural, which inATWOOD
- A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliveranceis the
outfall of misfires in human interactions, from the
monumental to the sublime.The
book features the epic poem"The
Toiler"as
well as artwork by New Mexico artist Richard
Padilla.
Elmore Leonard
Meets Larry McMurtry
Western Crime
Novel
I am offering another
novel through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service.
Cooksin is the story of a criminal syndicate that sets its
sights on a ranching/farming community in Weld County, Colorado,
1950. The perpetrators of the criminal enterprise steal farm
equipment, slaughter cattle, and rob the personal property of
individuals whose assets have been inventoried in advance and
distributed through a vast system of illegal commerce.
It is a ripping good yarn, filled
with suspense and intrigue. This was designed intentionally to
pay homage to the type of creative works being produced in 1950,
when the story is set. Richard Padilla
has done his usually brilliant work in capturing the look and feel of
a certain type of crime fiction being produced in that era. The
whole thing has the feel of those black & white films you see on
Turner Movie Classics, and the writing will remind you a little
of Elmore Leonard, whose earliest works were westerns.
Use this link.
EXPLORE THE KINDLE
BOOK LIBRARY
If you have not explored the books
available from Amazon.com's Kindle Publishing
division you would do yourself a favor to do so. You
will find classic literature there, as well as tons
of privately published books of every kind. A lot of
it is awful, like a lot of traditionally published
books are awful, but some are truly classics. You
can get the entire collection of Shakespeare's works
for two bucks.
Amazon is the largest,
but far from the only digital publisher. You can
find similar treasure troves atNOOK
Press(the
Barnes & Noble site),Lulu,
and others.
Imagine Dragons
By RAR
"Dan
Reynolds cites Arcade Fire, Nirvana, Muse, The Beatles, Paul Simon, and
Harry Nilsson as some of his and the band's artistic influences. In
terms of success, Reynolds credits bands like Foster the People and
Mumford & Sons for bringing alternative pop music to a new level of
commercial success in recent years."
That bit of insight in the above paragraph
comes from the band's Wikipedia page, and it presents a weird sense of
who Imagine Dragons must feel they are. Do they think of Foster
the People and Mumford & Sons as alternative pop? Neither of those acts
are very alternative at all, and neither is really of the caliber of the
artistic influences they cite. Well, maybe Nirvana.
Imagine Dragons is a strange, almost
non-musical act. Listen to arguably their best songs in the videos
below. There is almost no music there at all, unless you consider the
cavernous, if not very ambitious, drum sounds.
What Imagine Dragons does have going for
them is some effective visual wordplay. Their tune "Demons" seems
particularly strong, in this regard. "Radioactive" includes some clever
tropes, though the song itself doesn't really seem to make any sense. It
doesn't matter in the alternative pop world that Imagine Dragons has
come to inhabit, because for them it is all about the exploding chorus.
It is the part of the formula that the Imagine Dragons guys have used to
create their radio-friendly sound. It is perfect for an "alternative"
radio market that isn't really very alternative at all. It sounds
modern, like now, and so one must offer a tip of the hat to Reynolds,
the sound designer, for capturing the moment.
That said, one suspects that Imagine Dragons
will have a short shelf-life and that their sound will soon enough seem
as much an historical artifact from a shifting cultural landscape as
everything else that has happened since...hmmm, The Beatles, Paul Simon,
and Harry Nilsson. Arcade Fire is already an idea that just somehow
happens to still be around without having any real current pop-culture
significance. Nirvana clings to the walls of pop culture and
"alternative" rock radio like a mold or bacteria. Muse will likely never
be considered an equal to the pop songwriters of The Beatles, Simon, and
Nilsson, but at least Reynolds and crew have recognized authentic
musical prowess in them. Maybe they could borrow some compositional
insights from Bellamy and company to eventually grow the sound of
Imagine Dragons into something greater than the dull boom of their
lead-heavy repeats.
On the other hand, they did that stupid "I
Bet My Life" song, so perhaps there is no actual, long-term hope for
them once the festival tours turn to a new roster of exploding talent.
Imagine Dragons got their big
break when Pat Monahan of Train became ill and couldn't make
a planned performance at a festival in the Dragons hometown
of Las Vegas. Imagine Dragons took the call on short notice,
played to 26,000 people, and became kind of an over-night
sensation.
Songwriter Dan Reynolds
recently discussed the band's interest in doing some songs
that somehow celebrate Las Vegas culture, if you can use a
word like that to describe Las Vegas. "Viva Las Vegas" was
referenced as an example of what could be done. It seems
like a weird ambition for guys from the campus of Brigham
Young University. Maybe its the radioactivity, or the demons
in their souls?
Selling Out to
Target?
Imagine Dragons may have lived down to
the lowest expectations of their critics by participating in
a Target advertisement timed to this year's Grammy Awards
show. They performed their tune "Shots".
Here is how Billboard Magazine
reported the response:
Put off by the overt,
well, commercialism of the clip (which cost about $8 million
in airtime), critics sniped at the group online. But Imagine
Dragons -- which memorably mashed up "Radioactive," its
breakthrough mega-hit and 2014's best rock performance
Grammy winner, with Kendrick Lamar's "M.a.a.d. City" on the
2014 telecast -- saw "Shots" leap from No. 99 to No. 26 on
iTunes the next day. Interscope Geffen A&M vice chairman
Steve Berman says, "We saw a big spike in preorders and
awareness" for the group's new album, Smoke + Mirrors (out
Feb. 17).
"We're an atypical band,"
says lead singer/ songwriter and founder Dan Reynolds, 27, a
week before the Grammys. "We're not tatted-up, trying to
make a statement. The spirit of rock'n'roll is not that
you're living on the edge, that you're a cokehead -- those
are just lifestyle choices."
Its label's savvy strategy
(Interscope persuaded -- yes -- Target to carry the unproven
band's debut album) and some lucky timing ("EDM was starting
to be big, and 'Radioactive' was an alternative song with
dubstep," says Reynolds) helped fueled an explosive start
for the band. But now Imagine Dragons must strike a balance
between rock and pop while attempting to match an unexpected
smash of a first album. The Grammys-ad gambit could have
triggered backlash (think: U2's ill-fated freebie iTunes
release). The response to, and sales of, Smoke + Mirrors
will prove whether the band can truly help rock forge a new
path.
And then there is
that Mormon Thing
(More excerpts from the
Billboard piece).
After high school,
Reynolds, who was raised Mormon, went on a two-year mission
in Nebraska, proselytizing for the church and helping drug
addicts. He attended Brigham Young University in Provo,
Utah, only to drop out and form Imagine Dragons. "It was an
extremely hard decision for me to make -- I come from a
family where academia is priority one," says Reynolds. After
the lineup solidified, the band relocated to Las Vegas. The
other three members all attended the Berklee School of
Music; until he quit, McKee paid his tuition with financial
assistance from a California state scholarship for talented
chemistry students.
Reynolds acknowledges that
the last couple of years have brought many wonderful things.
But he has been "depressed as hell" for a while, and sees a
therapist. "It's lonely when your life changes like this,"
he says. "I've lost all my friends. It's not like we had
some blowout arguments or that I feel I'm too cool -- the
relationships feel false. Anytime I'm talking to someone, I
feel they're just thinking about Imagine Dragons." He sighs.
"Probably a lot of them aren't treating me differently. I
just can't get over it."
Although he was raised
Mormon, Reynolds doesn't subscribe to all the church's
tenets. "I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the culture
that comes with it, but I still identify as Mormon," he
says. "I like to think of myself more as a spiritual
person." Reynolds has harbored these doubts since childhood;
he used to write songs about them to play for his
conservative parents, letting them know indirectly about his
internal struggles. He comes from a large family, with seven
brothers and one sister. "He suffered from some of the woes
of being the seventh son," says Mac, who now manages Imagine
Dragons. (Another brother, Robert, is the band's lawyer.)
"That brought some insecurities -- it was difficult having
older brothers who were valedictorians in high school."
The religious mission
proved to be the most difficult work Reynolds would ever do.
"I lived in the projects and would help mothers who were
abused to get out of the situation or clean their houses
before child services would come to take away their kids,"
he recalls. "It's super-heavy stuff for a 19-year-old."
While he was never comfortable knocking on strangers' doors,
being onstage has always felt natural to him. "A lot of time
during the day I'll feel nervous, or have anxiety about
talking to people," he says. "On-stage, I just don't."