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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
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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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Music Reviews
Georgia Rockers CUSSES Offer New
EP in June
 Angel
Bond, Brian Lackey, and Bryan Harder
formed CUSSES in the summer of 2009
and played their first show in February 2010. The band’s debut
self-titled album hit #12 on the sub-modern charts in 2012. Hundreds of
shows later and a bit of a break to make the best rock record they
could, CUSSES announce the release of their first new recordings since.
On June 2, the Savannah, GA based trio
will release a four-song EP Here Comes The
Rat on their own label HA! RECORDS. The appropriately
named album is a hint of what is to come with the band’s new
full-length, Golden Rat.
CUSSES aren’t easy to define. However,
their guitar driven, fuzzed-out brand of music may remind you of the era
of hairspray, leather jackets, spandex, riot grrrl, and arenas full of
smoke. It’s impossible to come away with any other conclusion than this:
CUSSES are bringing real, effortless, speaker-blasting rock & roll. But
at the same time, you can sense they are taking a bit of a jab at what
stereotypical rock looks and sounds like.
This effort is the band’s second
recording helmed by Billy Hume
(producer for Ying Yang Twins) and
Dan Hannon (producer for
Manchester Orchestra). With these two
gentlemen working with the band, the outcome is a gritty yet slick,
loud-sounding machine.
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Here Comes the Rat
The CCJ scores Here Comes the Rat
with 2.5 musical rats out of a possible 4.
Track 1 - "Golden Rat" - The
whole band is cooking on this first track, which is high energy,
old-school, pop-punk. Lackey and Harder are playing their brains out,
and Angel Bond performs the vocal powerfully and with a distinctive
style, albeit it one we've heard before. CUSSES comes across as
something like an homage to long-ago poppers like Josie Cotton, from the
cocaine '80s. A lot of energy here.
Track 2 - "Sally and Her Tassels"
- If "Golden Rat" was Josie Cotton, "Sally and Her Tassels" must be
Missing Persons. Bond seems to love the Dale Bozio squeak style, which
she does pretty well. This song probably plays great in the club. It
starts with more promise than it finishes with. Where maybe one
suspected they were going to get a nuanced melody, it all becomes a
repeated chorus that doesn't seem to mean anything or have any purpose.
This band is good, though. They may be about one move away from having
breakout material, if there is any remaining market for '80s-era pop
punk.
Track 3 - "I'm Gonna Get You" -
Pretty much hair metal with a sassy vocal. Angel Bond is quite a
powerful singer, with some vocal tricks in her bag. She cuts through the
sound effectively with a vocal tool that demonstrates some surgical
precision. This song gets musically more ambitious as it goes, and if
you like big distorted guitar sounds you would probably be good with
"I'm Gonna Get You."
Track 4 - "Teenage Monster" -
This is right out of the same box as "Golden Rat", but it may be the
best track on the EP. It speaks directly to some 19-year old who has a
haunting in his or her future. "What does your life mean?" challenges
Bond. That is sort of the question, isn't it? That has haunted more than
a few head-banging 19-year olds. If this EP had three other tunes with
the clarity and focus of "Teenage Monster" the CCJ would have given it
more musical rats, possibly 3.5 out of 4. This is not a bad piece of
work overall.
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