On another note, I got my website address straightened out once more. Took some finagling, but it is once again www.rickybushbooks.com It's basically just a one page thing that puts out relative information about my books and myself.
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Author Speaking Gig Coming Up
I'll be headed to Houston in a couple of hours to speak at Mystery Writers of America Houston chapter's monthly luncheon. I feel totally honored by the invitation that came from chapter president, Kay Kendall. We met on an author panel at Left Coast Crime in Vancouver last year and had a wonderful time discussing rural settings in crime novels. I so appreciate Kay for extending the invitation to share my story. Looking forward to meeting some fine authors from Houston.
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Time to Gig
Getting primed up for my gig with Rob Moorman and Company tonight at 6:30 at The Whitehorse Tavern in Burton, Texas. It's a lovely old country type beer joint, that also serves up country style food (for lunch for the most part). It's run by an ex-student of mine, who eventually became my boss as an assistant principal. Allison Crowson is a heckuva musician herself; superb vocalist, piano player and accordion squeezer. We always enjoy the place.
We'll wrap up our Labor Day tour at Home Sweet Farm in Brenham at 4pm. We love the venue and Brad Stufflebean and his wife Jenny have brought in some stupendous musical talent since they opened their doors. Always a good time.
On the subject of talent, The 4Star Concert venue, which has been open a little over a year, brings in some of the best regional talent around. Spent last Saturday night, after our Home Sweet Farm gig, being blown away by guitarist Van Wilks. Back in the day, when I attended college in San Marcos in the early 70's, Wilks would blow into town and blow everyone away. Forty years down the road, his chops have done nothing but become more stupendous.
For anyone who still pulls up my blog for some reason, I'll use my Harp Train 10 amp at the tavern. It's a lower volume gig, so the amp needs to kept a the lowest volume setting, which tends to rob its tone. To compensate, I run through my Lone Wolf delay, Lone Wolf reverb, and Lone Wolf octave pedal. It gives back what the low volume takes away.
I always use my Fender Custom Princeton Reverb at Home Sweet Farm (no pedals) for a bit more volume. It matches up perfect to the venue. I blow through both amps with a vintage Shure green bullet (actually it's more of a Robin's egg blue) w/controlled reluctance element, which is my favorite mic. 'Nuff for now.
We'll wrap up our Labor Day tour at Home Sweet Farm in Brenham at 4pm. We love the venue and Brad Stufflebean and his wife Jenny have brought in some stupendous musical talent since they opened their doors. Always a good time.
On the subject of talent, The 4Star Concert venue, which has been open a little over a year, brings in some of the best regional talent around. Spent last Saturday night, after our Home Sweet Farm gig, being blown away by guitarist Van Wilks. Back in the day, when I attended college in San Marcos in the early 70's, Wilks would blow into town and blow everyone away. Forty years down the road, his chops have done nothing but become more stupendous.
For anyone who still pulls up my blog for some reason, I'll use my Harp Train 10 amp at the tavern. It's a lower volume gig, so the amp needs to kept a the lowest volume setting, which tends to rob its tone. To compensate, I run through my Lone Wolf delay, Lone Wolf reverb, and Lone Wolf octave pedal. It gives back what the low volume takes away.
I always use my Fender Custom Princeton Reverb at Home Sweet Farm (no pedals) for a bit more volume. It matches up perfect to the venue. I blow through both amps with a vintage Shure green bullet (actually it's more of a Robin's egg blue) w/controlled reluctance element, which is my favorite mic. 'Nuff for now.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
The Crime Fighting Bluesmen Are Orphans
My crime fighting bluesmen series of crime novels are officially out of print due to my publisher closing up shop. I doubt anyone reading this also read some of my 'woe is me' blog stories about my knack for choosing publishers who chose to go out of business shortly after getting the manuscript for my first novel accepted, so I won't go into great detail. Just that it happened twice in the past and this one makes three. So, I went from being an author with four published novels, down to one. River Bottom Blues, The Devil's Blues and Howling Mountain Blues became orphans overnight and just when I put the finishing touches on my WiP (work in progress).
The good news is that Fahrenheit Press, publisher of The Oaxacan Kid, has my latest submission and they have an interest in the orphans. Whether they get re-published or not remains to be seen, but I have high hopes that they see the light of day once again. I actually opened up my blog today to remove the links of those books to Amazon and realized I failed on my goal to enter blog posts more frequently.
So, those readers who planned to grab one or more of the first three books, but never got around to it will be out of luck until a reprint happens. In the mean time, The Oaxacan Kid is still alive and well and available at Amazon (link is in sidebar of blog) and Fahrenheit Press. BTW, they are running a buy two/get a third one free thought the month of August 2019--just in case you see something else you like their.
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Long Time Coming
Been over a year since I last posted. No excuses. None. I plan on getting things going again beginning with this post. Gonna spit out this and that revolving around both my writing and musical activities. Sort of just updating what's happening with me and around me as things pop into my head. I'll plan to keep posts short and sweet. Once upon a time blogs were 'the thing' but it seems that Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram platforms have eclipsed this format and those social media formats slap updates out short, sharp and to the point.
I begin with mentioning that I lost my website domain due to my credit card going out of date. I update my payment, but somehow that fell through the cracks. Didn't know it was gone until a fellow author told me when he pulled it up that all he saw was some random Vietnamese writing. I was told after three months that the domain may be available again. I typed in rickybushbooks and it looked like I was back in business because my website re-appeared. Then I saw that the URL read-http://rickybushbookscom.coffeecup.com Made no sense, but I haven't researched into the why and what. So since it is my website I leave things be for now.
On the book writing end of things I'm 55,000 words into my latest novel. This one has been pretty much similar to rolling a big rock up a hill. It'll roll back down and I'll roll it up again. There is a light at the end of the gopher tunnel. My first three books were published my Barking Rain Press and the last one by Fahrenheit Press. They've both done well by me. The latter focuses on crime stories.
I've mentioned playing harmonica with Rob Moorman and Company. He's kept us darned busy with booking around the town of Brenham which has several more great venues available than when I started playing with him eight years ago. We are a lot better now and Rob's made me a better harp player. We draw well enough that venues re-book us. I'll mention more in future posts. I don't think I mentioned that I bought a 68 Custom Princeton Reverb amp for gigs that need a bit more volume. I'll discuss it at some point.
I did mention before that I'm more or less done with reviewing recordings. I loved writing those, but it just takes too much time to do it right. I will let readers know about new blues that I've purchased, which is quite a few since I last mentioned such.
I'll wrap up by saying that I took my daughter and her best friend to see ZZ Top courtesy of a fantastic brother-n-law's third row tickets at the Cynthia Mitchell Pavilion. Cheap Trick and Bad Company opened and the show was stupendous. Tonight I'm taking my wife to listen to David Lee Holt at the 4 Star Concert venue here. He's Joe Ely's guitar player and slings strings with Tommy Shannon's Blues Band. Back in the day, he joined Shannon, Chris Layton, Malford Milligan and David Grissom in forming the critically acclaimed Storyville. Speedy Sparks, of Doug Sahm's band, will join him on bass. Should be a helluva show.--'Nuff for Now.
I begin with mentioning that I lost my website domain due to my credit card going out of date. I update my payment, but somehow that fell through the cracks. Didn't know it was gone until a fellow author told me when he pulled it up that all he saw was some random Vietnamese writing. I was told after three months that the domain may be available again. I typed in rickybushbooks and it looked like I was back in business because my website re-appeared. Then I saw that the URL read-http://rickybushbookscom.coffeecup.com Made no sense, but I haven't researched into the why and what. So since it is my website I leave things be for now.
On the book writing end of things I'm 55,000 words into my latest novel. This one has been pretty much similar to rolling a big rock up a hill. It'll roll back down and I'll roll it up again. There is a light at the end of the gopher tunnel. My first three books were published my Barking Rain Press and the last one by Fahrenheit Press. They've both done well by me. The latter focuses on crime stories.
I've mentioned playing harmonica with Rob Moorman and Company. He's kept us darned busy with booking around the town of Brenham which has several more great venues available than when I started playing with him eight years ago. We are a lot better now and Rob's made me a better harp player. We draw well enough that venues re-book us. I'll mention more in future posts. I don't think I mentioned that I bought a 68 Custom Princeton Reverb amp for gigs that need a bit more volume. I'll discuss it at some point.
I did mention before that I'm more or less done with reviewing recordings. I loved writing those, but it just takes too much time to do it right. I will let readers know about new blues that I've purchased, which is quite a few since I last mentioned such.
I'll wrap up by saying that I took my daughter and her best friend to see ZZ Top courtesy of a fantastic brother-n-law's third row tickets at the Cynthia Mitchell Pavilion. Cheap Trick and Bad Company opened and the show was stupendous. Tonight I'm taking my wife to listen to David Lee Holt at the 4 Star Concert venue here. He's Joe Ely's guitar player and slings strings with Tommy Shannon's Blues Band. Back in the day, he joined Shannon, Chris Layton, Malford Milligan and David Grissom in forming the critically acclaimed Storyville. Speedy Sparks, of Doug Sahm's band, will join him on bass. Should be a helluva show.--'Nuff for Now.
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