LINER NOTES: New Barry Ryan CD

I recently penned the extensive liner notes contained in the booklet of Rockats guitarist Barry Ryan's first solo disc, "And God Said: 'Let There Be Rockabilly.'" It is available on New Jersey's Blues Leaf label.

Here's an excerpt:

"This dynamic solo disc is infused with the same distinctive styling Barry made so crucial to the Rockats's oeuvre, styling that drew on American popular music's blues and country roots and crafted a glorious pastiche at once familiar and excitingly new. (Should you need further testimony to his inimitable fretboard skill check with singer Robert Gordon, who often selects Barry to back him live.)

"Heady, rollicking passages spotlighting his infectious soloing and bubbling with the effervescent fun we all need in our lives are amply represented. They alone would win attention. And for the first time he handles all vocals, demonstrating muscular flair and enhancing the material's uniqueness...

"The electrifying sum is one of articulation as much as instinct, nuance as much as fury...

"Barry's hard-earned experience -- the global touring, the midnight stages, the simultaneous uncertainty and exhilaration of the rock'n'roll life -- informs each twanged, thrashed or elegantly touched-off note."

- DC Larson

SHAKE, RATTLE & ROCKET!

(This is a flyer for my soon-to-be self-published first novella.)


SHAKE, RATTLE & ROCKET!
Tomorrow, The Way It Used To Be
by DC Larson

WITH THE SAME INDEPENDENT ADVENTURE SPIRIT AS VINTAGE MATINEE SERIALS AND DRIVE-IN MOVIES, DARING COMIC BOOKS AND RAGING ROCK'N'ROLL COMES A NEW RETRO SCIENCE FICTION THRILL-TALE THAT WILL HAVE YOU MARVELING AT ITS MELODRAMA, LAUGHING AT ITS LIGHTER MOMENTS, AND IN THE PAGE-TURNING GRIP OF BEYOND-THE-STARS ACTION SUSPENSE!

What happens when a two-fisted Earth scientist, a brainy glamour-girl robot and a curve-crazy kid saucer jockey blast off into outer space?

Plenty, brother! Plenty!

Journey with Captain Eddie Atomic, Kioshi-Tron and Spunky as they take the X-9 saucer-rocket on a rip-roaring astral course, battling alien dangers, encountering a flying saucer hot -rodding teenage gang and defeating an intergalactic takeover plot that imperils Earth.


ADVANCE PRAISE FOR SHAKE, RATTLE & ROCKET!

"This would be a very good movie serial, like they had back in the 40s!"
- Conrad Brooks, Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space

"Has everything a B-movie fan would want in a novel: space zombies, hot rod saucers and a
sexy female robot."
- Eric Callero, indie film Flying Saucers Rock'n'Roll

"More fun than a zombie-filled '57 Chevy racing from the graveyard with a rockabilly
soundtrack!"
- Wolfman Nick Falcon, The Young Werewolves

"DC's retro-based vision of the future is much cooler and more fun than the real thing will
ever be."
- Jimmy Tremor, The Tremors



Since 1981, DC LARSON's rock'n'roll writings have appeared in such publications as Goldmine, Rockabilly Magazine, No Depression, Blue Suede News, Rock & Rap Confidential, Counterpunch and Crackerjack.

CHARITY MUSIC ANNOUNCES IOWA CHAPTER
National Organization Seeks State Volunteers, Donated Instruments
by
DC Larson
(Feb. '08 press release disseminated to Iowa media)



Charity Music has come to Iowa.

The nationally-recognized group's new Iowa chapter seeks donations of musical instruments, regardless of condition.

Also needed are volunteers for instrument drop-off sites and pick ups, Charity concert performers and Internet Marketing and Concert Promotion personnel. Donations of concert and sporting events tickets also are sought.

"We are not here to compete with the existing businesses or nonprofit organizations, but here to support them in their current efforts," says founder Roger Fachini.

Charity Music works closely with music stores who volunteer to act as musical instrument donation drop off locations. Other volunteers pick up the donated instruments and provide them to existing nonprofits, as well as to youths in their community who don't have the resources to purchase an instrument.

A past Macomb Symphony Orchestra of Michigan President, Fachini started Charity Music in 1996. Initially a pilot program, it offered donated and recycled instruments free of charge to children and others wishing to pursue musical talents.

The group is an all volunteer 501 (c) (3) Nonprofit Public Charity, EIN 20-2155382. All contributions are tax deductable. It accepts donations not only of any and all musical instruments, but also any other materials that pertain to music, such as sheet music, music books, etc.

The Michigan-based organization is currently establishing chapters in states across the nation, including Texas, Indiana, California, New York, Rhode Island, Florida, and Hawaii.

Charity Music, Inc:

* operates drop-off sites for donated musical instruments in many states,
assisting students, Seniors, and others to discover and cultivate hidden
creative abilities.

* organizes charity concerts and related fundraisers, such as Ebay Store
auctions, Super Bowl parties and Ryder Cup raffles.

* provides through its "Notes of Appreciation" program musical instruments at
no charge to Spouses and Dependants of active duty military personnel.
When US troops in Trebil, Iraq sent a 2006 request for guitars to the
organization, instruments were dispatched, immediately. (Fachini fondly
recalls "We were told that from the time the guitars arrived, they were played
72 hours straight. The guitars passed from soldier to soldier. They waited
their turn to be able to play")

* was saluted in the September, 2007 issue of The Environmental Magazine
for its role in helping restore the New Orleans musical community
through recycled donated instruments.

* was in 2006 awarded the President's Volunteer Service Award, a
prestigious national honor in recognition of volunteer commitment.

Charity Music of Iowa's DC Larson notes, "Iowans have a tremendous heritage of musical talent and appreciation -- Blues, Classical, Jazz, Country, Rock'n'Roll. Even Polka. We value learning, including about the arts.
And Iowans can always be depended on to help neighbors."


Volunteers should contact launchvolunteers@charitymusic.org.

Donors are asked to contact Charity Music's main office in Michigan:

Charity Music Inc
14975 Congress Drive
Sterling Heights MI 48313-4420
Director@CharityMusic.org
ph: 586-808-7445


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Roger Fachini, Sr.,
President/Founder, Charity Music
Director@CharityMusic.org
cell: 586-808-7445
home/office: 586-247-7444
fax: 586-247-7443

EVERY HATE OLD SEEMS NEW AGAIN:
MSNBC and Mike Huckabee bring back the Outsider Myth
by DC Larson

(While only about a month has passed since I wrote the below essay, much has changed in the ongoing presidential nomination campaign. Still, this piece contains much of enduring relevance.)

My 1/18 email to MSNBC was succinct.

Dear MSNBC:

On this morning's Morning Joe program, host Joe Scarborough and political analyst Pat Buchanan cited Mike Huckabee's recent remarks re the Confederate flag.

Both Scarborough and Buchanan cited as if logically legitimate Huckabee's charge that "outsiders," "people from other states," have no moral right to call for the flag of Slavery's removal from government display in South Carolina.

Scarborough and Buchanan's outsiders argument is the same one advanced by those 1960s voices opposing Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights movement and the Freedom Riders. Referencing those 1960s criticisms, King wrote:

"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

Sincerely,

DC Larson
Waterloo, Iowa

I'd recognized that MSNBC's chosen analyst Buchanan was hardly an objective commentator. A 1996 Washington Post piece on his then-bid for the Republican Party's presidential nomination had cited his longtime embrace of the Outsider Myth. "He once called Martin Luther King Jr. 'immoral, evil and a demogogue.' While working in the Nixon White House, Buchanan urged the president to 'hold off' on integration, permitting communities 'freedom of choice.' "("Buchanan's Coded Rhetoric Attracts Level of Name Calling, Criticism Rarely Seen," 2/22/96)

So, I did not expect my cyber-missive to in any way imprint MSNBC's tone. And I was proven correct in that expectation.

The next morning's program featured a cottony interview with candidate Huckabee. Far from pushing him to account for his offensive and opportunistic position (one in earlier years advocated by George Wallace, Richard Nixon, David Duke and Ronald Reagan), co-hosts Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski chummed it up with him, allowing him to "bless" the fleetingly and ineffectually critical Brzezinski.

Huckabee continued to evoke the Outsider Myth on rare occasions when he was called to explain his catering to racist voters. During a 1/18 appearence on the Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes, he refused to claim a definitional stance, saying of the Confederate Flag controversy, "It is not an issue for me because I don't live in South Carolina."

As of this post-Nevada/South Carolina writing, Huckabee's nomination fortunes appear to be on the wane. And that is good. But his resurrection of the Outsider Myth and the favor with which some audiences hailed it illustrate the enduring popularity of racially-divisive, anti-democratic regional religiosity.

And should Huckabee ultimately assume a place on the Republican Party's 2008 ticket or within its national hierarchy, the Outsider Myth will doubtless enjoy new currency.

Of course, there is the possibility that the politicking preacher who wears fundamentalism's old rugged cross on his tailored suit's jacket-sleeve may also be courting an even more discriminating choir.

This was lent additional plausibility by the candidate's insistence to South Carolinians that the Constitution be amended so as to be brought into conformity with his/their conception of "the living God." (All of which, surely, was hoped to result in the candidate's being bouyed office-ward atop the shoulders of Stars and Bars-hefting Dominionists.)

In his recent, "American Facists," author Chris Hedges gives an acidic portrayal of the 'insider/outsider' fantasy encouraged upon pew-crowding fundamentalists: "[T]here are godly men and women who advance Christian values, and there are nonbelievers -- many of them liberal Christians -- who peddle the filth and evil of secular humanism. This dividing line is nothing other than the distinction between human and nonhuman, between the worthy and those unworthy of life, between saved and unsaved, between friend and foe."

One recalls that much of the 1960s opposition to the civil rights movement was stoked by old ways pulpit-pounders, who in their moment (like Huckabee in his, today) testified to the soundness of the Outsider Myth.
A supporter of racial segregation as a 'divine mandate,' Jerry Falwell in a 1958 sermon assured his Thomas Road Baptist Church flock: "If Chief Justice Earl Warren and his associates had known God's word, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision [Brown v Board of Education] would never have been made...The true negro does not want integration. He realizes his potential is far better among his own race." ("The Light and Dark of Jerry Falwell," Shanna Flowers/Roanoke.com 5/17/07)

Wikipedia's Falwell entry notes that during his mid-60s Old Time Gospel Hour broadcasts, he regularly featured segrgationist politicians Lester Maddox and George Wallace -- themselves early electoral advocates of the Outsider Myth recently useful for Mike Huckabee.

(And, while the civil rights movement was itself partly based in religious faith, it is of more than passing irony that some persons who once labored to advance the laudable cause of racial civil rights are themselves similarly pro-discrimination and observant of "old ways" in their own contemporary calls that social and legal clampdowns be maintained against women, gays and lesbians.)

Even should Huckabee never again voice the Outsider Myth, it has been reasserted into the national dialogue. His choice to respect and pander to those seeking refuge from the democratic imperative constitutes an assertion that old lines can be officially redrawn -- and deserve freedom from national-scale comment.

Tellingly, none of Huckabee's Republican competitors have taken issue with the Outsider Myth.

The usual reaction to witnessing one major party's offensiveness is knee-jerk support for the "opposing" team's ballot offerings. Except then you consider how truly wretched those also are. And you end up wishing the Elephant and the Donkey were wrestling on a roof top and would both fall over the side.


END

GREATNESS AT THE MARGIN
by
DC Larson

A guitar is buried in Marshalltown, Iowa. This is why.

A flash point is possible in grassroots-level live music. An organic, vital moment in which emotional and sensory phenomena coalesce in a connected soloist's muse articulation. The spark surges through the crowd, electrifying the atmosphere and leaving listeners viscerally touched.

Skin crawls. Grins erupt. Shouts ring out. And all is right with the world. At least for that moment.

Marshalltown's Rick Larson found his way into that magical moment of greatness -- more than once, if truth be told -- as had so many unsung beat champions before him.

My brother, he knew his life's purpose from an early age. He got his first guitar when 12, and devoted himself to single-minded pursuit of earthly calling.

The demands of post-teen life typically compel would-be players to pursue 9-to-5 careers, relegating live music to weekend sideline status, if even that. But Rick never stopped.

Because he and music were of a piece. And to him, no other pursuits mattered.

He never cut an album, shot a video or graced a magazine cover. What he did was infinitely more important. A veteran of the bar band culture, he helped to keep blues and rock and roll alive before average people every night.

For them, plagued by trials throughout the work week, the release and revelry offered by live bands is positively salvational. A person can be put down by a boss during the day, but they can be ten feet tall on the midnight dance floor.

Songs to which grassroots, blue collar crowds today shout and thrill have roots in America's rich cultural mosaic and wonderfully diverse heritage. Tempos, melodic inclinations, and engaging rhythms from a score of shores met here and became new and as one.

American songs derive from the Appalachian Mountain country, and humming streets of Chicago. They hail from the highways that crisscross the land, and from the farmlands. From the cities, swamps, and suburbs. And they are born from common experiences, telling of human struggles, aspirations, pains, and triumphs.

It is through the efforts of anonymous players that folk stories and voices survive from generation to generation. A country's music serves as both popular record and expression of singular character.

Rick was professionally active in Central Iowa from the 70s through the mid-90s। Indeed, the area live music circuit was richer for his indefatigable participation.

He co-founded numerous Central Iowa groups: Amo, Armed and Dangerous, Party House, Ice Age, the Vipers, Commotion. And too many more to mention. Accompanying players came and went, too, though singer/harp player Mark Goodman and drummer Frank McDowell were usually in the mix.

Of course, sometimes, formal names or line-ups were not even needed। If a sudden gig opened up or a last-minute party jam presented itself, Rick would be there. Guitar in hand, amplifier on.

No prisoner of stylistic convention, he was as likely to rock the house as finesse a melody. He made all the right stops, from red-hot jumpin' to cool-blue orating. His intoxicating soloing interpreted heartache, passion and kick-out-the-jams exuberance. Lesser players were made conscious of their limitations.

Stevie Ray Vaughn, Keith Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Guy - these were his influences. He played the music that spoke to him, and it became important to his audiences.

Rick had something crucial to worthwhile musicianship: an absolute and unfeigned direct line between his heart and his art. He believed in each note he touched.

True, a few of the better chart songs sometimes crept into the late night sets. But only the better ones. For Rick, ignoring his instincts and selling out his musical integrity were simply not options. The gold ring mattered less than the music. The moment.

Devoted grassroots musicians like Rick who realize that all-important moment are infinitely more significant to real world listeners than is the trendy WRIT LARGE corporate music-product industry that takes them for granted.

For every transient and fabricated chart sensation, there are innumerable unsung authentics. And greatness belongs to them, too. Probably most of all.

For, it is indeed possible to reach greatness in isolation from the 'big picture,' without the whole world's being aware.

Rick did।

His guitar fell silent in 1998. We laid to earth with him the cherry wood-grain, Gibson SG Standard that had been his earliest performing guitar. It was only right that they remain together into perpetuity. Together, they had realized the moment.

That is how I know that greatness can indeed flourish at the margin.

And that is why a guitar is buried in Marshalltown, Iowa.
END