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Use this link to add your email
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Creative Culture and Revolution
Culture journals,
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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.
Use this link
to visit Rick Alan Rice's publications page, which
features excerpts from novels and other.
RARADIO
(Click here)
"On to the
Next One" by
Jacqueline Van Bierk
"I See You
Tiger" by Via Tania
"Lost the
Plot" by Amoureux"
Bright Eyes,
Black Soul" by The Lovers
Key
"Cool Thing"
by Sassparilla
"These Halls I Dwell"
by Michael Butler
"St. Francis"by
Tom Russell & Gretchen Peters, performance by Gretchen
Peters and Barry Walsh;
"Who Do You
Love?"by Elizabeth Kay;
"Rebirth"by
Caterpillars;
"Monica's
Frock" by
Signel-Z;
"Natural
Disasters" by
Corey Landis;
"1,000
Leather Tassels" by
The Blank Tapes;
"We Are All Stone" and "Those
Machines" by Outer
Minds;
"Another Dream" by MMOSS;
"Susannah" by Woolen
Kits;
Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley,
Michael Jackson and other dead celebrities / news by A
SECRET PARTY;
"I Miss the Day" by My
Secret Island,
"Carriers of Light" by Brendan
James;
"The Last Time" by Model
Stranger;
"Last Call" by Jay;
"Darkness" by Leonard
Cohen;
"Sweetbread" by Simian
Mobile Disco and
"Keep You" fromActress off
the Chronicle movie soundtrack;
"Goodbye to
Love" from October
Dawn;
Trouble in
Mind 2011 label
sampler;
Black Box
Revelation Live
on Minnesota Public Radio;
Apteka "Striking
Violet";
Mikal
Cronin's "Apathy"
and "Get Along";
Dana
deChaby's progressive
rock
_______
MUSIC LINKS
"Music Hot Spots"
LOS ANGELES
SAN FRANCISCO
NEW YORK CITY
NASHVILLE
CHICAGO
AUSTIN
DENVER-BOULDER
MINNESOTA
SEATTLE
NEW ORLEANS
PHILADELPHIA
BOSTON
PORTLAND
DETROIT
MEMPHIS
PACIFIC NORTHWEST
FLORIDA
ARIZONA
INTERNATIONAL LINKS
UNITED KINGDOM
EUROPE
JAPAN
SCANDANAVIA
AUSTRALIA
CANADA
ASIA
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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 in ATWOOD
- 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.
You do not need to buy a Kindle to
take advantage of this low-cost library. Use
this link to go to an Amazon.com page from which you
can download for free a Kindle App for
your computer, tablet, or phone.
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. |
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LOS
ANGELES - Hollywood Weird LINKS
This section of the Links would be called Hollyweird were
that name not already "owned" by Sunset Boulevard Prince Happenin' Harry, who
for years has been presenting shows under that banner on or near the Strip. A tip of
the hat to Harry, he leads off this page of the Links at RARWRITER.
"Weird," on this page, is all about "theatricality" in
presentation. These are the kids at your school who are just a little different,
who stand out with their eccentric wear and posturing. They are the boys who
wear makeup, the girls with tattoos, the body piercers and the brooding Goths.
Their sounds range from classic and metal rock to psychobilly and club romance.
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www.myspace.com/happeninharry
HAPPENIN’
HARRY is one of L.A.'s leading hosts when it comes to hard rock jams. He holds court every Sunday night at
The Cat Club in Hollywood, and every
Wednesday night at The Joint in West Hollywood. There he is joined
by top rock luminaries to jam on cover tunes. You can go to Harry’s MySpace
site (his main site at www.happeninharry.com
is under reconstruction) to read the list of bands whose members have made
Harry’s shows. The ever changing lineup goes by the name THE HAPTONES ALL STAR BAND.
Harry’s
network has really turned out for him at the Rock City News Awards. After
winning in 2005 in the Outstanding Male Vocalist category, and after the Haptones won in
the Outstanding Cover Band
category, Harry scored again in 2006 as Outstanding
Male Vocalist and guitarist Jeff
Duncan won in Outstanding
Guitarist. Anthony Focx and
Michael Kenney of the Haptones
were also nominated in that category, with Jeff Duncan just nosing out his
two bandmates in the fan voting. Imagine a classic rock jam band where the
three guitarist finish first, second and third in the hearts and minds of
rock fans and press.
Haptones' Kenny Burns was awarded Outstanding Drummer.
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Happenin'
Harry & C.C. on stage at The Joint during one of the weekly Wednesday
night events. Harry provides a similar service on Sunday nights at the Cat
Club. |
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Happenin' Harry and Mad
Dog performing at the Cat Club.
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Former
SNL, now big time movie star Jimmy Fallon at Harry's Cat Club jam with
Harry, Dizzy
(Guns n'Roses) and
John
Corabi. |
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www.myspace.com/thefaded
THE FADED
repeated their 2005 success by once again capturing the Rock
City News award for Outstanding
Alternative Band in 2006. Fronted
by the moody and childlike singer Gene Blalock, who also adds guitar and synth programming, The Faded is a guitar
band platform for Steven Damien,
who is rock solid with pop motiffs and technique. Serge on drums and percussion, and Michael on bass give a dynamic center to this sophisticated pop-rock
sound.
The
Faded has been dubbed “the new
darlings of the Sunset Strip," which seems odd because theirs is not a
street appeal. They seem more about teen listening on headphones in a bedroom
surrounded by Panic In the Disco posters. Their catchy melodies and yearning
lyrics may skew younger yet, like a soundtrack for a Scooby Doo movie. This is
not to deter anyone from listening to The Faded, who are great, just locked in
to a certain persona, which is the trade off for having the benefit of a high
definition lead singer.
The
Faded at the Metro in Chicago
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THE
FADED: These guys are great at posing for pictures, though the shot below
reveals that some of them are just tiny little people, while others are
unusually large.
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THE
FADED
MP3s:
Beautiful
Make
Me Stronger
I
Want More
Copyright
© 2006-2007 The Faded, All Rights Reserved
*
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http://www.myspace.com/ottosdaughter
 OTTO'S
DAUGHTER ranks
up there with my new favorite bands. European transplant Jacqueline
van Bierk founded the group in New York City, initially as a
Goth/Industrial act, but since moving the band to L.A. in 2003 the sound
has morphed toward progressive commercial rock that might put some to mind
of Garbage (the band, not the substance).
Whatever
you call it, it’s great. Jacqueline is the real deal as a contemporary
rock vocalist, with enough of that Euro club sensibility to give the band
a true international feel. With Jim
Robbins on guitar, Roman
“RO” on bass, and Gilbert
“G” on drums, Otto’s Daughter is muscular and tight, and the
band is benefiting from some top-end production. Producer Bryan
Carlstrom (Rob Zombie, The Offspring, Filter, Poe, Alice in Chains,
Filter) put together their five-song EP The
Becoming 001 in June 2005, and now the whole team is back in the
studio recording a new full length album, A
New Kind Of Heroine, to be released by the end of this year or the
beginning of 2007.
In
the meantime, Otto’s Daughter has not gone unnoticed in the music press.
“Music Connections” selected their EP to be among the top 25 Demo
Critiques in 2005 and named them among the “Hot 100 Unsigned Artists of
the Year 2005.” The band was also reviewed across the pond in the German
magazines “Zillo” and “Virus Magazine.”
Otto’s
Daughter won two “Rockies” in 2005, with Jacqueline being chosen Outstanding
Female Frontperson and Otto’s Daughter the Outstanding
Hollywood Band of the Year. They were nominated again this year for a
Rock City News Award in the Outstanding Hollywood Band as well as the Outstanding
Songwriting categories.
BOTTOM RIGHT FOUR PANELS:
Otto's Daughter has released three recordings, including 2005's The
Becoming 001, 2003's Void of Course, 2002's Otto's Daughter
Renew, and expects to release A New Kind of Heroine early in
2007. |
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OTTO'S
DAUGHTER
MP3s:
 Mars
Copyright
© 2006-2007 Otto's Daughter, All Rights Reserved
Hear
more Otto's Daughter MP3s at their MySpace site at www.myspace.com/ottosdaughter
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www.POWDERmusic.com
 "Performance
rock" band POWDER
has been
on the LA music
scene 2001, entertaining audiences with visual stunts ranging from
"10-foot aliens" to circus stunts while playing some high energy
rock.
The
focus of Powder's show is classically-trained singer Ninette, who
is also sort of a visual effect in her own right. Her ever-changing
costume image is part of the draw. Fortunately, that's not all she has to
offer. She not only shows you her ass, she sings it off for you. Ninette
sprang to notoriety as Babyface Edmonds' choice to provide live vocal
tracks for the Josie and the Pussycats movie. She ended up
providing consultant services to the actresses in the film, coaching their
staged musical performances. Ninette writes the band's "turbo
pop," as it is referred to on the Powder website.
The
other primary actor in Powder's play is Canadian guitarist Phil X,
who has recorded with Tommy Lee, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper and Andrew W.K.
Powder took off fast, once established. Within six months of
formation they were awarded "Best Rock / Pop Artist" and
"Best Live Show" at the 2001 Los Angeles Music Awards, as well
as The Rock City News awards for "Best Female Fronted Band",
"Guitar Player of the Year", and the NoHo News "Rock Band
of the Year". In 2002, Powder was
awarded "Best Live Act'" and "Best Modern Pop Band".
Last year the band was nominated for
"Best Rock CD", "Best Rock Video", "Best Live
Performance" and "Best Female Vocalist" by the LA Music
Awards.
Powder has appeared on Playboy's pay-per-view program
"Night Calls." The band also has the distinction of being the first unsigned band ever to be included on the A&M Record
compilation Very Special Christmas. (Gads, can you imagine how
special a Christmas with these folks would be?) They sang the Alvin and
the Chipmunk classic "Christmas Don't Be Late (The Chipmunk
Song)," turbo-pop style of course, and the song received national airplay throughout the holiday
season. Powder contributed five tracks to MTV's "Tough Enough" in the summer
of 2002. Powder released an 11-track
LP in 2003, Sonic Machine, which was co-produced by John Vitale,
whose credits include Garbage and Republica. A video for the track "Up Here" aired on MTV2's 120 Minutes, MMUSA's Oven Fresh, and
in 2004 was the MOST REQUESTED VIDEO on KERRANG TV UK. In 2004 Powder's
song "Adore Me" was chosen by
ESPN as the theme song for their coverage of the WNBA and the song was aired on
ABC and TBS and was played at every
game for the entire season.
Powder has taken a few tours of Europe and
in 2005 released singles in the U.K. and Japan. |
All the theatrics might lead you to
suspect that Powder is merely a theatrical entertainment, but that
couldn't be further from the case. Powder offers an intense audio/visual
experience, with the music being the stronger part of the show. From
looking at these pictures you can see that is saying something. |
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POWDER
MP3s:
Listen
to Powder MP3s at their MySpace site at http://www.myspace.com/powder
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www.renfey.com
 I
have sometimes wondered where people like Kate Bush come from. Well,
apparently one of the places is Georgia by way of the Sierra foothills.
That was RENFEY's path and she is about as Kate Bush as
anyone I have ever heard.
Renfey
does a spacious, high energy orchestration-rock that mixes disco and world
beats
with musical thematic to create a sound that would work in either a high
end performance hall or a dance club. Renfey sings beautifully and her
producer Kor is
thick with great ideas spun primarily around sonic effect. (This is my
take, which could be way off. It would be interesting to hear Renfey's
original compositions and then how Kor doctored them. Or maybe that's not
the way it worked. There is this on Renfey's website - "The second day I met
Kor, I was inspired by
a simple piano part he was playing, and in just one vocal take, this song
just flowed out of me. Its called 'Catch My Fall.' I had to put it on the
album. It is the beginning.")
As
you can tell from these pictures, theater is at the center of the Renfey
experience. There is a lot of "positioning" on her website about
Renfey, the "Renaissance Rock Warrior" emerging from "hundreds of years of beauty
sleep" (she does look rested) and choosing "modern day L.A. to bring
us her unique alternative rock music...the
wild realm of their (she and Kor's) musical wonderland."
The
scale of the sound, the marketing of the image, all seems fit for
philharmonic halls (or concept dance clubs) but Renfey has played the
places she could book as a solo artist sometimes backed by a band.
From her website - "Before going into the studio to write and
record the album*, Renfey performed many shows in such venues as The Viper
Room, The Mint and The Key Club....In Los Angeles,
she began performing at the local coffee houses before forming a band and
booking clubs such as The Mint and The Knitting Factory to a growing
audience. Still working solo both writing and orchestrating the band, her
need to expand her music led to the search for a producer. 'There was so
much music swirling in my head, but I needed a musical partner.' And she
found producer Kor whose background as a classical composer and his
passion for world music, instrumentation and wild wizardry of strings and
beats seemed a manifestation of all the strange notions in Renfeys head..."
I might have chosen "ethereal" rather than "strange,"
but you get the picture. Kor and Renfey are a melded presence.
Renfey
is currently performing live shows
with a full band in Los Angeles. "What an amazing time in my life,"
she says, "all
those nights of writing and exploring my mystical side, but the modern
rock warrior in me is loving playing these songs live."
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ABOVE: The Renaissance Rock Warrior in
full flight, and on stage with her producer and co-writer Kor.
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| SOUNDTRACKS:
Oh yeah, there's something else Renfey is right for - soundtracks. From
her website - " Renfey has also been featured in
the award winning Lifetime television series " Strong Medicine," Billy Bob
Thorntons critically acclaimed film The Badge, the end title song for
Salma Hayek's directorial debut The Maldonado Miracle and the upcoming 20th
Century Fox film The Visitation." Her songs "Over
Occupation" and " Right Here" made the soundtrack for the 20th Century Fox film
Hangman's Curse. |
| RENFEY
MP3s:
 Light
Air I Breathe
More
Renfey MP3s can be heard from her MySpace site - www.myspace.com/renfey
*Copyright
© 2006-2007 Renfey, All Rights Reserved
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Renfey
Premieres "Naked with Adornments" on YouTube RARWRITER
favorite RENFEY
has posted a new video on YouTube. As with most things about Renfey, this
video is sort of a head scratcher, but it doesn't matter. She's talented
and lovely and it's fun to watch her cavort about, lecturing on being naked
while posing in extravagance - or "adornments," as she prefers -
and being teased with back lighting.
"The film 'Naked' is about the indelible
truth of our self expression - that what you wear and adorn yourself in
should be as true as the beautiful naked skin you were born with,"
says Renfey. "Naked"
is a "frap" - a video project of music and free verse - and adds
to Renfey's repertoire of dance club and theater-oriented
productions. Renfey
is, of course, the Lesa Hardy/David
Bergeaud (Producer Kor) pastiche that presents a "Renaissance Rock
Warrior" diva mated to throbbing techno-rock and world beats,
metaphysical lyricism, and an upscale sense of fashion. It would be silly
if it weren't so well done. Renfey can sing, Kor can produce, and the two
of them can write. Kor also produced the "Naked" frap,
indicating the depth of his creative well. The duo's album Rise was
released earlier this year and the duo is in design mode for their
"Flash Art" performance art project, "a radical tableau
vivant with music and spoken word on the streets of Los Angeles..." -
from Renfey's site at www.Renfey.com.
One
of RAR's favorite sites, Fashion Designer/Journalist Diane
Pernet's Diane, A Shaded View
on Fashion, has posted "Naked" and offered some comments. You
can click on this link... http://dianepernet.typepad.com/diane/2007/04/renfey_naked.html ...see
Renfey's new frap and introduce yourself to one of the more wonderful
blogs, as Diane refers to it, though the expatriate New Yorker's site is
far more than your standard focused chat. She has been reporting on
fashion from Paris for more than a decade and her site is worth checking
out for its savvy in image creation. Isn't that what fashion is all about?
Plus it's just cool. - RAR Click
on Diane's logo above to go to her site homepage.
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KOR
www.myspace.com/akakor
 KOR
is the talented David Bergeaud, who has made his mark in L.A. as a
composer of scores for film and video games.
Here
is Kor in his own words from his MySpace website - "I am a record
producer and film composer; I am a traveler and an epicurean. I have long
sought the exalted states of music and found that the journey is truly the
music staff on which my life is written. In my career thus far, I have had
the pleasure of working with many gifted artists, musicians and
filmmakers. This space will be dedicated to my music producing, but anyone
interested in my film and game music can visit www.musipolis.com or Imdb
under David Bergeaud (my alter ego). So a little background: I was born in
Paris, born on the stage and surrounded by dancers and musicians - my
father is a choreographer and my mother was a singer. We traveled the
world with our dance and music troupe - Europe, East Africa, the Middle
East - until I found myself in Los Angeles pursuing my music career. And
it is here I have laid my roots, but it is through my travels and fellow
music cohorts that I have filled my studio and my time learning first to
play the piano and guitar, then as many instruments as I could collect
from around the world like the oud, the duduk, the saz, the hurdy gurdy
and many others whose rich sounds find their way into my music; and
finally the instrument of my computer and the electronic wonderland of
programming - such a vast medium that fulfills my love of technology and
the ability to create an ever-changing landscape of sounds. I write
alternative rock music infused with beats and sound design, and electonica
infused with alternative rock."
Kor
goes on to write that, besides working with his musical partner Renfey,
he is "producing tracks for Aya Peard, Dexibel of Popikok and Cyril
Dy's (a French alt rock artist ala Pearl Jam); and launching an
independent record label - Land Factory Music - to promote Renfey,
develop exceptional artists and work with labels and independent artists
on a song by song basis." |
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www.myspace.com/naominektare
 NAOMI
NEKTARE
was all over the L.A. Rock City News Awards in 2006, even playing
the awards show. She was nominated in no less than five categories: Outstanding
Female Vocals, Outstanding Front Woman, Outstanding Solo Artist,
Outstanding Psychedelic Band, and Outstanding Female Fronted Band.
It is quite a success story for a girl who came to L.A. seven years ago
and found herself playing for uninterested patrons in the city’s lowest
dives. She has hung in and worked her way up through the ranks, until now
she is doing a production show with her backup dancers the Butterfly Girls
(they wear wings) at top venues like The Roxy, Whiskey A-Go-Go and the
House of Blues.
Naomi's
songs are anthems to ferociousness, sometimes political, sometimes
personal.
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NAOMI
NEKTARE AND THE BUTTERFLY GIRLS
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| NAOMI
NEKTARE MP3S:
Naomi Nektare MP3s can be heard at her MySpace
site at www.myspace.com/naominektare
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www.punknecks.com
 JASON
AND THE PUNKNECKS is
something of a musical collective combining the cowboy punk talents of lead
singer Jason Price, whose unique neck tattoo apparently gives the band its
name, guitarist Polly Punkneck, a
folk-blues player from L.A., and a rhythm trio from Wichita, Kansas who call
themselves Jonnie Automaton & the
Skumbots (bassist Johnnie, guitarist
Igor and drummer Chode) accept when they are playing with Jason during which time
they become the Scumnecks.
Jason Price and a Richard Nunez got
themselves entered in the strange annals of “Ripley’s Believe It or
Not” by riding through the streets of Las Vegas in a truck with glass
sides as they hung suspended from the ceiling by hooks fished into the skin in
their backs. Their record was for the longest sustained flesh suspension in a
moving vehicle. The stunt was broadcast on the “Ripley’s Believe It or
Not” television show.
The
band pays an amalgam of punk-country, outlaw gospel, and punk rock, spiced up
with their peculiar flesh hanging traveling variety show. (As their website
boasts, they “…perform wild body
modifications on themselves as an extension of their variety show.”)
Unless
I'm missing something here,
this makes Jason and the Punknecks something of a geek act.
They have taken this entertainment throughout Kansas,
Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and California, and plan additional
tours. Imagine if the HBO television show “Carnival” had a house punk-rock
band and you’d have Jason and the Punknecks. Bizarre as it may be, Jason and
the Punknecks are a popular L.A. act, having garnered the most fan votes in the Outstanding
Country Band category of the 2006 Rock City News awards.
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ABOVE: Jason on mandolin.
BELOW: The entire band with Polly Punkneck out front. |
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SAN
FRANCISCO, CA - Feb. 10, 2007 - The San Francisco Chronicle today
ran a cover story in their Datebook section on the continued expansion of
interest in the practice of "human suspension," which typically
involves large fishhooks, designed to snare salmon, hooked through the
skin (usually of a person's back in the thick skin between the shoulders)
so the "suspendee" can be hoisted off the ground. The
Chronicle's interest was sparked by a class in San Francisco, which a
decade ago was considered the "suspension capital of the world,"
being attended by people from as far away as the east coast.
Practitioners' reasons for doing this vary, but the initial purpose was to
achieve a state of awareness beyond the limits of physical pain.
Apparently, though interest in San Francisco for such fare, has waned, the
practice is picking up steam nationally. The Chronicle article indicated
that the pioneers of this practice are chagrined by their sense that the
vast majority of new converts aren't doing it for reasons of spiritual
development, but instead for its ghoulish aspects. |
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www.willowwisp.org
WILLOW
WISP has been performing their macabre rock theater since 1990,
if you can imagine. This act as appeared in
over 300 different magazines (Live Wire, Metal Maniacs, Hit Parader),
fanzines (Low Life-England, Lollypop-France, SlayerZine-Norway), and
television talk shows (The Jenni Jones Show, Fox 11 News) all over the
world.
From their website - "We are one of the most well known and respected underground bands on the
scene today. We blend gothic with black metal, orchestration with techno,
and every other kind of music in between."
Willow
Wisp shares much in common with Powder, profiled above. Both are
theatrical shows, Powder's focused on a kind of rock circus, and Willow
Wisp's focused on things like this (from their website) - "A ritualistic stunt, taken part by
Air-rik (Vocals, Guitar) as he takes a sharp razor and cuts his chest to
shreds (shaving cream included). Other such psychotic antics include
Toe-Knee (reverse drums, tortured screams, poetry, fire breathing), and
his symbolic 'Trash Can Murder Ritual' - where he rhythmically
plays a top its gleaming surface only to bludgeon and beat it to death."
And
there is this statement of purpose - "Willow
Wisp stands for freedom of choice in a Xociety fabricated by complacent
standards and daily mundane toils."
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Air riK - Lead Vocals & Guitar
Karza - Keyboards
RUN,
KIDS!
My first impression on seeing these shocking images is that Air riK is a
really great studio makeup effects man. Then I thought, these poor devils.
How long must they have to sit in the chair to get ready for this look?
And then I thought - what if they don't really have to sit in the chair
for long at all...
Art & Graphic by Air riK (c) 2005
RAR
Note: I would be curious to know if these guys immediately get out
of their makeup in the dressing room right after the show, or if I'm
likely to run into one of them in a 7-Eleven after hours, say in the dead
of night, about 3 a.m.
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WILLOW
WISP
MP3s:
Listen
to Willow Wisp MP3s at their MySpace site at http://www.myspace.com/willowwispband
RAR
NOTE - Check out the Willow Wisp MP3s at MySpace. If you
haven't heard this band before, you might be surprised at how moody and
mellow some of the tunes are, certainly nowhere near as wild as their
stage look, or even as wild as other of the acts profiled on this site.
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Willow
Wisp Retools and Releases
 WILLOW
WISP,
the L.A.-based shock-metal unit, is marshaling on through a tricky
transition: finishing up their long-awaited CD Enmity, while
replacing core band members.
Wisp
drummer/spokesman Toe Knee told RARWRITER - "We are currently
auditioning a new guitarist and bassist." This is quite a challenge
for a band that has been around since 1990 with a fairly stable
lineup. Willow
Wisp, which is literally storied in the annals of dark metal, having been
featured in hundreds of publications devoted to the genre, continues to be
a presence in the field. "We recently appeared on A Tribute From
The Hordes To Bathory," reports Toe Knee, "which is on a
German label www.blackgoatproductions.de where
we cover 'Blood,Fire,Death' by Infamous and now deceased Legends of Black
Metal Quorthon and Bathory!! We are also finishing our new CD Enmity
for Los Angeles based Indie label Quadrivium Records."
Quadrivium
is promoting Enmity as Willow Wisp's "new long playing epic
masterpiece...of some of the most uniquely invigorating metal the world
will hear. If it must be described, Enmity merges the greatest
elements of Akercocke, Bauhaus, Deicide, Nile, Cradle of Filth Opeth, Yes,
Voivod and Rush intermingling with Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Lavey and
various cinematic horror. Dark experimental avantgarde blasphemy."
They
just need a guitarist and bassist who can do that.
From
RARWRITER.com April 15, 2007 edition.
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www.myspace.com/revlonred
REVLON
RED
was among the bands that played the 2006 L.A. Rock City News Music Awards
show, held at B.B. King’s in Universal City in December. It counts as
something of a victory for this unit, which was formed back in the 1990s
as a glam alternative to the Seattle grunge of the era.
Vocalist Marky DeSade leads the unit through
its glam metal explorations. Marky was the winner in the Best Male
Frontperson award at the 2005 Rockies. Richie Dagger handles
the guitar work, Billie Blade the bass, and Seann Scott the
drums.
Revlon Red, once a suspect entity on the L.A. scene,
despite booking early in their history into some of the city’s top
venues (i.e., Whiskey-A-Go-Go and the Roxy Theatre), was awarded the Best
Hollywood Band at the 2005 Rockies.
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From
their website – “Revlon Red is proud to carry the torch for the new generation of
glam rock fans who come to Hollywood from all over the world for exactly
what Revlon Red has to offer. The band has a dark-tinged image of glitz
and glamour that bears strong street influences, as well as being
futuristic in style, and plays songs that are both fun yet powerful.”
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| REVLON
RED MP3S:
Revlon
Red MP3s can be heard
on their MySpace site.
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Revlon Red has
appeared in a nationally syndicated commercial for Net Zero (a still from
which is shown below - the commercial can be viewed from their MySpace site)), as well as the new promotional commercial for VH1 which has been
receiving test airing as of late in random states nationwide.
They have also appeared on various talk shows, local cable shows and in
underground cult films and have had their music, images and flyers appear
on various major network television programs and had their music played
and have been interviewed on countless underground radio shows and in
fanzines worldwide. |
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©Rick
Alan Rice (RAR),
November, 2018
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