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.
Brooklyn's Stereo Off
came together in 2012 around the talents of lead singer
Sebastian Marciano. Marciano
grew his band to a quintet that worked top venues, including the Knitting Factory and Glasslands.
Some of their music was used in short films, aired at festivals
around the country, and in 2014 they released their first EP.
Marciano expanded his band's success with a second EP in 2015
and they played the CMJ Festival. Now Marciano is preparing a
new EP, expected to be released in February 2017, and he has
turned his five-piece into a trio featuring his songwriting
partner/bassist Niall Madden
and Julliard Masters alumni Bridget
Fitzgerald, who brings strings and analog synth to
the proceedings. This is had quite a dramatic impact on
the nature of the Stereo Off sound, which based on this first
single "Sunsetting" is rich and dark, like the Cowboy Junkies on
Disco. It's a cool sound.
STARLIGHT GIRLS
On their Facebook page,
the Starlight Girls describe
themselves as "Brooklyn-based genre-undefining hyper weirdos
making music to swim dangerously to. While drawing from eclectic
influences that reflect the varied musical background of the
five members, the band is always playing the perfect soundtrack
for surfer spies who like to rock out."
Their sound is synth-based and the female
voices give it an ethereal quality, which makes the Starlight
Girls seem right for the Halloween season. They have a single
from their upcoming Fantasm LP being released in October.
Founder and lead singer Christina B
played keyboards and sang as part of her family’s mega-church in
Ohio before she escaped to Brooklyn disguised as an airline
stewardess at the behest of guitarist
Shaw Walters, a California transplant who had
recently arrived in New York with a suitcase full of Bay Area
weirdo noise rock sensibility. Sara
Mundy signed on to sing and play keyboards and
Tysen Arveson became the
band’s resident bass player and tattoo artist. With the group
taking shape, they later added vagabonds
Josh Davis on drums and
Isabel Alvarez on keyboards and backup vocals to fill
out the sound.
Produced by Christina B and Shaw Walters,
Fantasm will satisfy fans and newcomers with tracks such as “La
La Lune” or the percussive album opener “Intrigue.” Thumping
track “$9,000,000” is a thrill ride, while “Fancy”
caps off the album on a high note, hooking you with an upbeat
disco vibe before taking you on an epic journey. The result is
hauntingly gothic, yet without plodding gloom; riveting without
artifice.
JD & THE STRAIGHT SHOT
Is
it fair to say that one is well connected if one actually is
the connection?
You
don't get a lot of stories coming out of the music industry in
which some heavyweight businessman is also a touring
singer-songwriter. The worlds of business and the creative arts
do about as well as anything to illustrate the concept of
right-brain/left-brain orientations. Running big enterprises is
a left-brain function, if you buy the science, and left-brain
people don't typically color outside the lines.
Jim Dolan does. In fact, this
guy who runs Cablevision and Madison Square Garden, tours the
country and shows up on bills with The Eagles, Keith Urban, and
many other big name acts.
Dolan has been producing original music for the last fifteen
years, working with such luminaries as Joe
Walsh (produced Dolan's first album) and Nashville legend
Rodney Crowell. Dolan's current
lineup for his band JD & The Straight
Shot produces music that has been described
as “steeped in the quiet fire of Americana with
distinctive elements of the blues and rustic New Orleans
flavoured roots music.”
Their new album, Ballyhoo!,
was recorded in Nashville and New York and produced by Grammy®
Award winner Chuck Ainlay
(Mark Knopfler, Miranda Lambert, Randall Bramblett, Jewel).
The
video for the first focus track from Ballyhoo! “Better
Find a Church,” originally produced by Rodney Crowell, was shot
in a 100-plus-year-old church. A new version was later recorded
for the album. As Dolan recently told The Nottingham Post
about the transformative theme of the track, “It's a song of
contrition.” The song features vocals by Jim Dolan and violinist
Erin Slaver, and features
guitarist Marc Copely
performing a shimmering Spanish guitar solo.” Dolan’s son
Aidan Dolan also performs on
the track, co-authored by all four band members along with
bassist Byron House.
For
Ballyhoo!, the group’s fifth full-length record, Dolan made a
conscious decision to make the entire album acoustic. The songs
were almost all written by the core band in various
configurations with additional contributions by actor-musician
Chris Carmack (ABC’s Nashville) and
guitarist/singer-songwriter Adam Levy
(Norah Jones, Tracy Chapman). The lone cover is an inspired,
string-laden version of the Spirit
hit “Nature’s Way,” written by the late
Randy California.
Visit the band's
website.
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