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.
Multi-instrumentalist
Brian Olive is back with a new
EP Move. Move features four new tracks that showcase
Olive’s firm grasp on soul, psych and garage genres showcasing
clever lyrics, down and dirty rhythms and just enough insanity
to make you want to shake it all out. This is the third release
for Olive, which will be followed by a tour in late summer/early
fall and a full-length release in Spring 2015.
Move skates across the avenues of soul, rock,
jazz and psych in wonderful and exciting ways. Olive serves up a
heady mix of groove and rhythm, galvanized by his tasteful sense
of bridging timeliness and timelessness, punctuated by his
ever-expanding expertise in the studio. This self-produced
release carries forward the eclectic style and singular approach
captured on Olive’s previous two solo endeavors, his self-titled
debut and the sophomore release Two of Everything, co-produced
by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, both of which were met with
glowing reviews in the US and the UK.
George Marinelli on Bruce Hornsby
Charity Tribute
Venerated guitarist and founding member of the
GRAMMY Award-winning group Bruce Hornsby & The Range
George Marinelli has
contributed his unique version of “Barren Ground” to the
charitable album Thick Custard: Celebrating the Music of Bruce
Hornsby. Fans that download the album or its tracks are asked to
make a donation of their choice to The ALS Association, The
Merlin MS Centre or TWLOHA.
“Bruce and I have been friends a long time,”
Marinelli said. “He’s one of the nicest guys I know. If I can
help raise a little money for charity at the same time, that’s a
bonus.” UK-based Bruuuce.com has chronicled the work and music
of Bruce Hornsby since 1998, and Thick Custard is the
centerpiece of its 20 Days of Bruce 2014 charitable fundraising
campaign.
Marinelli just released his new single,
“Everybody’s Packin’,” and its music video, July 1. He also
released his fourth solo album, Wild Onions, this spring.
For more than twenty years, Marinelli has been
Bonnie Raitt’s guitarist and recently played her Slipstream
World Tour, in support of the GRAMMY-winning album (on which he
also co-wrote a track with Raitt). He is an original member of
Bruce Hornsby & The Range, toured with James Taylor, and played
on Ray Charles’ last album, Genius Loves Company.
Signs of Hope!
Austin's Pong to Strike Anew
If you have never heard
of Austin-based funk-rockers Pong, do yourself a favor and watch
the video below, which is just wonderful. They are now with the
Saustex company, which is set to release Gone, the band's
first new studio album in four years. Emerging from the ashes of
seminal Austin band Ed Hall in the
late '90s, guitarist Gary Chester,
drummer Lyman Hardy, and
bassist Larry Strub joined
forces with guitarist Jason Craig
and keyboardist Shane Shelton
to form Pong. Eschewing Ed
Hall's post-punk guitar excesses and turning their collective
ear in a rhythmic, pop direction, Pong emerged as a whole new
musical animal; a mighty retro-futuristic fusion of melody,
beat, lights, and vocal effects. Talk boxes and banks of
keyboards supplanted the traditional rock instruments audiences
had come to expect, and dance floors began to give under the
weight of ass-shaking punk rockers rediscovering their inner
groove, reveling in the mix of electronics, punk, post-punk and
humor. Along the way singer Kerri
Atwood joined the Pong fold, making the band's sound
grow fuller and curvier, and their stage presence more colorful
and freaky. Embracing and paraphrasing classic rock convention
with a side of rave histrionics for a post-rock world, Pong
established themselves as a world of fun.
Caleb Hawley
Soulful
Singer-Songwriter Sets Tour Dates
Harlem's
Caleb Hawley is set to kick
off his next tour in New York City on August 1st and plans to
visit a number of cities in the East and Midwest throughout the
fall with dates in support of his forthcoming EP release, “Side
2” (which comes out September 9, 2014). He has a new look and
new approach. After previously touring solo acoustic, Hawley
hits the road now with a talented full band, multiplying the
energy across the country. “I used to love listening rooms,”
Hawley admits, "but now I pretty much just wanna get a party
started.” Music Without Labels agrees, calling the stocked
setup, “a fantastic show, full of danceable riffs and singalong
choruses all held together by Hawley’s tremendous charisma.”
The American soul singer, songwriter and
performer inhabits a musical space like savvy throwback crooners
Mayer Hawthorne and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, channeling
early Stevie Wonder and other Motown sounds into a complete,
magnetic package. The Chicagoist says, “The New York-based
musician has a flair for soulful songwriting and a voice that
will blow your hair back.”
Raised in Minneapolis by a family of preachers
and therapists, Hawley’s family fueled his on-stage charisma and
perceptive, witty lyrics. Hawley's grandfather hooked him on an
early Ray Charles record, leading him into the fertile soul
music of the ’60s and ’70s. He spent his early 20s touring the
country with only an acoustic guitar and his dog. In those
years, Hawley racked up hundreds of gigs, along with multiple
songwriting awards for the John Lennon Songwriting Contest,
Telluride Troubadour Competition, SongCircle Contest, and more.
This video below is Hawley from four years
ago. It shows the beginnings of an active, percussive sound that
he is now able to present through a full band.
New
Orleans-based Bluesman Spencer Bohren
is currently touring France, principally to participate in the
MNOPerigord Music Festival in Perigueux, France (southwest corner). The
annual festival celebrates the French-culture sounds of New Orleans, and
annually Louisiana Acadian types journey to the town, which still shows
evidence of Roman influence and the Medieval period in its architecture.
In this setting, a festival celebrating New Orleans music has infused
the local culture for fourteen years. It all began with Jean Michel
Colin and his son Stephane Colin. The father is a fan of traditional
jazz, and the son professes a love of all music. Together they have
worked to promote the sounds of New Orleans in an annual festival,
MNOPerigord. While it has morphed throughout the years, one of the
backbones of the festival is bringing a variety of New Orleans artists
to the towns and villages throughout the region for community concerts
with alfresco potluck. This year Spencer Bohren is playing with a band
that includes his friend and frequent New Orleans musical visitor
Herve Fernandez of Perigueux on guitar
and bass and Spencer’s son Andre Bohren
on drums and keyboard.
The Floozies Packed to Go
Electronic-funk duo,
The Floozies have announced their September east
coast tour. The tour will kick off in Fayetteville, AR at
George’s Majestic and will continue eastward, hitting notable
venues along the way including: Georgia Theatre in Athens GA,
The Orange Peel in Asheville NC and the Canal Club in Richmond
VA to name a few, before heading North to Highline Ballroom in
NYC and The Sinclair in Boston. The tour will conclude with the
band’s first ever Red Rocks Amphitheater appearance at Rowdytown
3, supporting Big Gigantic on September 26.
The band has had a jam-packed summer festival
season with performances in the Midwest at Summer Camp,
Wakarusa, Electric Forest and upcoming Summer Set in Wisconsin
and North Coast Festival in Chicago. They band is also venturing
to both coasts for High Sierra in Quincy, CA and the inaugural
Hudson Project in New York. The Floozies also just announced a
special Funk Street hometown show at CrossroadsKC in Kansas City
on July 25. The Funk Street evening will feature special guests,
Manic Focus, ExMag, Late Night Radio and Purusa.
The Floozies are brothers Matt and Mark Hill.
The two share the stage just as easily as they share a musical
brain. Without a setlist, and without a word between them,
Matt’s guitar is in lockstep with the thud of Mark’s kick.
Endless looping and production builds the raw scenery upon which
palm muted chugs, searing solos, and wobbling bass paint their
dazzling array of colors. This brother’s duo is not to be
missed.
The band is also excited to announce support
from friends, Exmag on Sept 6 and Sept 10-16 and Late Night
Radio, and BRANX on Sept 5 and Sept 17-20. For ticketing
information and all other information on The Floozies please
visit their website: www.flooziesduo.com.
Matt Turk Set for New Album
in Fall
Hastings-on-Hudson,
NY-based musician Matt Turk is a seasoned recording artist,
multi-instrumentalist, eternal idealist and compassionate peace
loving realist who has been called "…an artist to be reckoned
with” by web music authority All Music
Guide. He is a veteran performer who has engaged
audiences around the world, both as a rocking bandleader and an
acoustic folk troubadour. Matt has shared the stage with Pete
Seeger and opened for Judy Collins, The
Doobie Brothers, Fiona Apple, The Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart
and more.
Matt’s new collection Cold Revival is
scheduled for an October 7, 2014 release. Musicians on the album
include notables Russ Irwin
(Sting, Aerosmith), Chris Joyner
(Jason Mraz, Ray La Montagne, Sheryl Crow) and
Dean Butterworth (Good
Charlotte, Ben Harper). Matt sings, plays acoustic guitar,
mandolin and lap steel guitar. Cold Revival was produced by
David Dobkin, a filmmaker who is known for directing “Wedding
Crashers” and who has a forthcoming October film called “The
Judge” starring Robert Downey Jr.
The musician’s warm and folksy baritone lends
itself perfectly to the excellent and diverse arrangements on
the album. Opening track “Cracked Egg” draws the listener in
immediately with its catchy and unique mandolin riffs. A few of
the songs featured on Cold Revival are adaptations which were
brought to Matt’s attention by his teacher
Barry Mitterhoff who is in Hot Tuna. “Midnight on
the Water" is a shortened version of the Luke Thomasson classic,
an American gem. This solo mandolin track closes with a classic
New Orleans King Creole type riff while "Battle Song" is adapted
from the instrumental "Tunturisatu” where the sweet vocals
provide an engaging contrast to the twisted lyric "I used to
dream about you, now I just want to kill you." The title track
finds its center around a rhythmic mandolin, an excellent cello/dobro
solo as well as a lyrical nod to our age, "Caught between the
crossfire of extremists, there's no middle anymore."
Paul
Thorn’s new album Too Blessed To Be Stressed stakes
out new territory for the popular roots-rock songwriter and performer.
“In the past, I’ve told stories that were mostly inspired by my own
life,” the former prizefighter and literal son of a preacher man offers.
“This time, I’ve written 10 songs that express more universal truths,
and I’ve done it with a purpose: to make people feel good.”
Which explains numbers like the acoustic-electric charmer “Rob You of
Your Joy,” where Thorn’s warm peaches-and-molasses singing dispenses
advice on avoiding the pitfalls of life. And then there is the title
track which borrows its tag from a familiar saying among the members of
the African-American Baptist churches Thorn frequented in his childhood.
“I’d ask, ‘How you doin’, sister?’ And what I’d often hear back was,
‘I’m too blessed to be stressed.’” In the hands of Thorn and his
faithful band, who’ve been together 20 years, the tune applies its own
funky balm, interlacing a percolating drum and keyboard rhythm with the
slinky guitar lines beneath his playful banter. Thorn’s trademark humor
is abundant throughout the album, which will be released August 19, 2014
on Perpetual Obscurity/Thirty Tigers. “Backslide on Friday” is a
warm-spirited poke at personal foibles. “I promised myself not to write
about me, but I did on ‘Backslide,’” Thorn relates. The chipper pop tune
is a confession about procrastination, sweetened by Bill Hinds’ slide
guitar and Thorn’s gently arching melody. “But,” Thorn protests, “I know
I’m not the only one who says he’s gonna diet and just eat Blue Bell
vanilla ice cream on Sundays, and then ends up eating it every day!”
Posies Re-release Breakthrough LP
The Posies’ 1988 debut is about to work
its magic all over again. Little did Jon Auer
and Ken Stringfellow know that when
they dropped off their cassette to Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., The Minus 5,
Baseball Project), the clerk at their favorite record store (who
happened to do A&R for the indie label PopLlama), that a power-pop
dynasty would begin.
Originally released by the band on homemade, hand-dubbed cassettes, then
issued on LP (with one track removed for the then-current time
constraints), and later on CD, Failure made the indie-rock scene take
notice. On August 19, 2014, Omnivore Recordings will reissue this
landmark album, complete with eight bonus tracks, including one
available for the first time.
The Posies
will shortly announce live dates surrounding the reissue.
Housed in a
digipak, the Failure expanded reissue contains the original 12 songs,
plus bonus material from the highly sought-after out-of-print 2000 box
set At Least At Last, as well tracks from the Spanish only 15th
anniversary edition — plus, one track recently located in The Posies’
extensive archives. The booklet contains press clippings and essays from
1988, as well as updated messages from McCaughey and the band.
Ravi Shankar
On August 6, 1976, to celebrate the 20th anniversary
of his first US concert appearance, Ravi
Shankar organized a dusk ‘til dawn concert at the historic
St. John the Divine cathedral in New York City. The concert, featuring
many acts of the day and virtuosos of the Indian classical world
including Shankar’s longtime collaborator Alla
Rahka, ended at dawn with an extended set from the Maestro.
To mark the 60th anniversary of his first introduction to the West,
EMWMusic is releasing the remastered concert as the fourth installment
of the Nine Decades series.
Use this link to
visit the East Meets West Music site and learn more.
Game Theory Re-Release
Even before
the world lost musician Scott Miller
last year, the work he did with his band Game
Theory had been unavailable for decades.
Omnivore Recordings will remedy the
lack of Game Theory recordings as it launches a series of expanded
reissues featuring the Davis, California band’s classic catalog. Blaze of Glory, originally released in 1982, was the first Game
Theory album; previously the band used the name
Alternate Learning. The LP laid the cornerstone for the layered
power pop for which Game Theory would become known, while foreshadowing
Southern California’s neo-psychedelic Paisley Underground sound (Scott
Miller and Dream Syndicate nucleus Steve Wynn were roommates at UC Davis
in the late 1970s).
Unavailable
in its original form since its initial release (Blaze of Glory
was later re-recorded/remixed for an out-of-print 1993 CD compilation
that now commands top dollar in collector circles), the new Omnivore CD,
out September 2, 2014, contains the original album’s 12 songs,
supplemented with 15 bonus tracks — four from Alternate Learning and 11
previously unissued tracks from Scott Miller’s archive.
The vinyl LP
also sees its first reissue in more than three decades. The first
pressing on translucent pink vinyl (followed by black vinyl in
subsequent pressings) contains a download card for the entire 27-song
program.
The package
was mastered from the original tapes and featuring a 24-page booklet in
the CD (eight pages in the LP) with rare photos, an essay from Game
Theory tour manager (and set co-producer) Dan Vallor, and remembrances
from band members and colleagues, including Wynn.
Caleb Hawley
New
Orleans-based Bluesman Spencer Bohren
is currently touring France, principally to participate in the
MNOPerigord Music Festival in Perigueux, France (southwest corner). The
annual festival celebrates the French-culture sounds of New Orleans, and
annually Louisiana Acadian types journey to the town, which still shows
evidence of Roman influence and the Medieval period in its architecture.
In this setting, a festival celebrating New Orleans music has infused
the local culture for fourteen years. It all began with Jean Michel
Colin and his son Stephane Colin. The father is a fan of traditional
jazz, and the son professes a love of all music. Together they have
worked to promote the sounds of New Orleans in an annual festival,
MNOPerigord. While it has morphed throughout the years, one of the
backbones of the festival is bringing a variety of New Orleans artists
to the towns and villages throughout the region for community concerts
with alfresco potluck. This year Spencer Bohren is playing with a band
that includes his friend and frequent New Orleans musical visitor
Herve Fernandez of Perigueux on guitar
and bass and Spencer’s son Andre Bohren
on drums and keyboard._files/image001.gif){kind=small}
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