BuffettNews.com

From Billboard.com:
http://tinylink.com/?ltz3FkY1lG

As tipped here last month, singer/songwriter Ryan Adams will release three separate albums in 2005. The first, the double-disc "Cold Roses," is credited to Ryan Adams and the Cardinals and is due Tuesday (May 3) via Lost Highway. The band consists of guitarists J.P. Bowersock and Cindy Cashdollar, drummer Brad Pemberton and bassist Catherine Popper; Rachael Yamagata contributes vocals and piano to three tunes.

Adams has firmed up plans for the next two projects, details of which he revealed to Billboard.com earlier this week at the Jammy Awards in New York. On Aug. 9, Lost Highway will unveil "Jacksonville City Nights," which was formerly titled "September." Says Adams of the set, "It's very, very honkytonk."

The last album, "29," is due Nov. 2. "It's myself and people like J.P. Bowersock in one room together," Adams says. "They're all story songs; it will be nine songs long."

Adams utilized the Jammys stage to unveil a new song, "Beautiful Sorta," from "Cold Roses," as well as team with the Dead's Phil Lesh for a sprawling cover of that band's "Wharf Rat."

The artist began a North American tour last night (April 27) in Northampton, Mass., and has dates on tap through May 21 in Washington, D.C.

-- Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

Both discs of Cold Roses are streaming
http://scenestars.net/radio.ej/index.php?autoplay=1

I'm not really feeling it right now, though I do like it better than RnR

I've only heard "Let It Ride" so far and I liked it.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living ... s_dead_aim

Ryan Adams takes Dead aim

By Steve Morse, Globe Staff

Ryan Adams has approached many of his records with a snide wink and a
snarl, but not his new release, a double CD called ''Cold Roses."
Boasting original songs that pay homage to the dreamy, folk-country
psychedelia of the Grateful Dead and Neil Young, it's a capable
effort that exudes honesty, not satire.

It's almost as if Adams deliberately designed a mix of the
Dead's ''American Beauty" and Young's ''Harvest." That's a lofty
goal -- and Adams is not totally up to the task -- but his project is
surprisingly convincing.

He makes his case with his new band the Cardinals, guiding them
through a generous work that is generally mellow but far from
somnolent. The tip-off comes on the first song, ''Magnolia Mountain,"
which suggests a cross between the Dead's ''Sugar Magnolia" and
Young's ''Sugar Mountain." Even the CD's title is flush with hippie
imagery, evoking song titles by Dead lyricist Robert Hunter
including ''It Must Have Been the Roses" and ''Run for the Roses."

Adams, who plays the Orpheum Theatre on May 17, must be in an
optimistic mood -- judging from his new tracks. The notes sent out by
his label, Lost Highway Records, describe Ryan as ''currently looking
for the deeper meaning in things, trying to belong to the light and
not give into meaningless ego drivel."

Mission accomplished here. On the spacey ''Mockingbird," Adams
advises, ''Love her in the ways you want to be loved.Elsewhere, he
sings, ''Love is a beautiful thing . . . Don't waste it." Some songs
reflect suffering, but most are joyful and are also aided at times by
the wonderful backup harmonies of Rachael Yamagata.

Adams's melodies, supported by the pedal steel guitar of Cindy
Cashdollar, convey a genuine feel for the Dead/Young heyday.
In ''Easy Plateau," where Adams sounds uncannily like a young Jerry
Garcia, he intones, ''My head ain't filled with nothing but cats and
rocking chairs." No wonder Dead bassist Phil Lesh just played with
Adams at the recent Jammy Awards (they did the Dead's ''Wharf Rat").
Adams seems like a willing disciple. This is the first of three album
projects that he'll release this year -- and makes you wonder what
other musical eras he will visit.

Ryan and the Cardinals are on WXPN's World Cafe now. More info here:

Ryan & The Cardinals World Cafe session will be broadcast today
at 2pm or 1am EST.

For station information, visit: www.worldcafe.org or visit: www.xpn.org/listen.php to listen online.

---------------------------------------------

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals will perform on
The Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday, May 25th.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)

BOY WONDER AT 30
EVER-PROLIFIC RYAN ADAMS EASES DOWN THE ROAD WITH DEAD-LIKE 'ROSES'

BY Scott Mervis
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If you came to know and love Ryan Adams as the brilliant but oh-so-
cocky frontman for Whiskeytown, there's a good chance the last six
years of his output have been both exhilarating and frustrating.

It's not for lack of productivity. The boy wonder of alt-country has
been churning out material at an unprecedented pace, seemingly
without always stopping to think about what to do with it.

Since going solo in 2000, he has committed 92 songs to disc over six
solo records, and there are countless more in the Lost Highway vaults
and on the way to stores.

All the while, Adams, who performs at Mr. Small's Friday night, has
remained a restless spirit and a musical chameleon, sometimes to a
fault. The new two-CD set, "Cold Roses," adds another surprising
twist as Adams sounds like he's been road-tripping with the Grateful
Dead.

It's a long reach from his roots as a teen-age punk rocker trying to
sound like Husker Du in the Patty Duke Syndrome. With Whiskeytown,
formed in 1994 and inspired by Uncle Tupelo, the Raleigh, N.C.,
native would sing, "I started this damn country band ... 'cause punk
rock is too hard to sing."

Whiskeytown peaked and bowed with 1997's "Strangers' Almanac," a
warm, exquisite record that stands as one of the hallmarks of the
decade's healthy alt-country movement.

"That record," says Kathleen Edwards, who also performs this
weekend, "kind of broke the ice for me in terms of bringing country
elements into songs and not necessarily making them country songs but
having the instrumentation be present."

In 1997, in an interview with the PG, Adams dismissed the notion that
Whiskeytown was the "Nirvana of alt-country." "That's fine," he
said, "but I'd like to think we're the Nirvana of [bleepin'] anybody,
not just alt-country-nerdy-chewin'-tobacco types with David Allan Coe
records and a college degree."

Yes, there is a cantankerous side to Mr. Adams that has made him a
regular in Rolling Stone's Random Notes for firing band members,
dating actresses like Winona Ryder and Parker Posey, anonymously
fronting punk rock band Finger and, most amusing of all, lashing out
at hecklers requesting Bryan Adams songs at his concerts. At one of
his Whiskeytown shows at Rosebud, he apparently hit the bottle too
many times and briefly left the stage, to, um, lose some of that
before returning to finish an amazing set.

The snottiness he's known for -- shades of young Dylan -- seldom
shows up on the records.

The solo career began promisingly with "Heartbreaker," a stripped-
down, occasionally raucous affair that paid his debt to Dylan,
blaring harmonica and all. "To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be
high)" was a trip down "Highway 61," while the stabbing
rocker "Shakedown on 9th Street" became one of the most memorable
songs from his opening set for the Rolling Stones in 2003 (the only
time he's ever played here as Ryan Adams).

Some fans swear by "Gold," his sophomore outing, while others swear
at it. Adams seemed to be trying on different voices, some of them
belonging to Van Morrison and Neil Young. It also came with a pop
sheen designed to make him a rock star.

The follow-up, "Demolition," never felt complete, probably because it
was pared down to 13 songs from the 60 he reportedly recorded. It had
some keepers on it, the rockers "Nuclear" (echoes of the
Replacements) and "Starting to Hurt" (echoes of U2) and a few tear-
stained ballads ("Cry on Demand" and "You Will Always Be the Same"),
but "Demolition" seemed to be the scattered remains of something
bigger and better.

It only got stranger in 2003 with Ryan's muse running amok over three
releases. On "Rock N Roll," he found his inner T-Rex, with some
additional flashes of Stones, Strokes, Kiss, Replacements and U2. At
the same time, his label, Lost Highway, delivered "Love Is Hell,"
first as a separate EP, then as one full record, sending his faithful
to the record store three times. "Love Is Hell" sounded like the work
of a different person than "Rock N Roll," with Adams pouring out sad,
delicate story songs that owed something to British art-pop.

On the liner notes to "Gold," under the banner of "Ryan loves
everybody including ..." he listed "The Grateful Dead and Black Flag
at the same time."

He wasn't kidding, because four years later, he comes out of the
closet as a Deadhead on "Cold Roses," billed as Ryan Adams & the
Cardinals -- the Cardinals obviously being a band well-versed
in "Workingman's Dead" and the more psychedelic "Wake of the Flood."
The rose on the cover is the first giveaway, the second being an
opening track called "Magnolia Mountain." Although the Cardinals seem
to be channeling Jerry Garcia at times, they're also reviving the
warm, country twang of Whiskeytown, with acoustic, electric and pedal
steel guitars all sounding pure and earthy. Adams' singing is sweeter
than ever, hitting those beautiful falsetto tones we associate with
Chris Isaak and Roy Orbison, especially on the gem of a single, "Let
it Ride."

What's more, at 30, Adams sounds like he's been off with monks
meditating on the joy of love. Do we take it at face value? It sounds
too sincere and too pretty to be another role-playing exercise.

There's no word of this from Adams himself. He's releasing two more
records this year -- "Jacksonville City Lights" in the summer
and "29" in the fall -- and his management is declining interviews
during this phase. "It's just Ryan out there doing what he loves,"
said a member of his management team.

The press notes that came with the record were mostly gibberish but
included one line that may or may not be revealing: "He is currently
looking for the deeper meaning in things, trying to belong to the
light and not give into meaningless ego drivel. He really hopes for
the best."

From Durham, NC's Independent Weekly:
http://indyweek.com/durham/2005-05-11/s ... #soundbite

"Cold Roses"
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
(Lost Highway)

B Y G R A Y S O N C U R R I N

It's true that Cold Roses, Ryan Adams' debut with The Cardinals of Cindy Cashdollar, J.P. Bowersock, Brad Pemberton and Catherine Popper, continues his tradition of mining--if not ripping--every concept he learned from his vinyl heroes. Gold did it by mining a '70s greatest hits collection of Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the lot, while its abysmal, self-aggrandized follow-up, Rock n' Roll, ultimately said, "So, yeah, I like punk bands X, Y and Z, too." Cold Roses nods hard to the cover of American Beauty and even plays with the Dead's bouncy bears in a centerfold picture of a grizzly bear handing a young boy a rose. But this Ryan Adams album is different, at least musically: This is the closest thing to Whiskeytown he's released since Pneumonia, and the best thing he's been involved in since Heartbreaker and perhaps the Jesse Malin debut he produced. Cold Roses is not as much Adams revived as it is Adams remembering what he does best, laying his heart on the line and his ego on the chopping block, exposing his neurotic tendencies and preternaturally romantic dispositions in that delicate sweetness. He doesn't sound imitative as much as he does exposed, intelligent, intimate and eclectic, and--for fans of classic Adams--that's important news. And, for the record, "Meadowlake Street" is one of the best things I've heard in a while.

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/alb ... on=triple1

At its best, Cold Roses lives between the twin blooms of the Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers" and the Grateful Dead's American Beauty, each of which turned to country music at the start of the Seventies to sustain a counterculture rapidly running out of gas.

That sound -- exhaustion and transcendence chasing each other round and round -- gives Cold Roses its peculiar charge, and it is peculiar. Because in many ways this is just another Ryan Adams record: eighteen songs where twelve would have done (stretched across two CDs, no less), snatches of lyrics so lazy you want to slap them awake and, as always, broken hearts piled up like cigarette butts in an ashtray. But a Ryan Adams record with Jerry Garcia-like guitar trying to snake its way skyward? That's something new.

Adams made Cold Roses with the outfit he toured with last year, the Cardinals, and much of it feels like real road music: detailed arrangements, built up night after night, that still leave room for finding new details in the moment. So the songs seem tossed off and carefully constructed at the exact same moment, a trick that works perfectly on "Magnolia Mountain" and "Easy Plateau," each graced by guitar solos that spread out like morning light, or the literary honky-tonk of "Cherry Lane." Images of houses (all empty) and promises (all broken) abound; but you also get Seventies-dude poesy and, ahem, evocations of the mythos of the American landscape. Adams promises two more albums later this year. Is it too much to hope that he'll do with those what anyone with an iPod can do with Cold Roses: edit out the sleepy stuff for a truly killer playlist?

Ryan Adams plays a "decent" show
Avalon, Boston, May 17, 2005
By Jeffrey B. Remz
BOSTON - The ever prolific Ryan Adams probably would have been expected to play a good chunk of songs from his strong, brand new double-CD disc, "Cold Roses," released only two weeks ago.

But the sold-out crowd would have been sorely disappointed because not only did Adams shied away from current material, he didn't even play songs that had seen the light of day.

Who knows? Maybe by now the material on "Cold Roses" is golden oldies for Adams, who proceeded to play songs from two (yes, two!) forthcoming albums out later this year.

And while that could have been exceedingly challenging for an audience (it definitely was for one person), chalk it up to Adams to quite capably deliver the new songs easily and confidently and achieve a very good response.

Adams emphasized his country leanings quite clearly, starting off with a slow country song. He also delved into more of a rock sound ("Love Is Hell") with a rootsy edge, but Adams' love of country never was far away.

"Jacksonville City Nights," the second song of the night and title track of his August release, was a slower country song with Adams' vocals right upfront.

"I know I'm supposed to playing the (music) that came out last week, but I have digressed into the future," Adams joked, explaining that he was dishing out unknown songs.

Adams tolerated a heckler who urged him to play songs that were already out there, saying he had paid $30 for his ticket.

Adams seemed more amused than anything else.

The fan was escorted out of the club, and Adams later made several references to him, saying he missed his presence. With that, Adams, who acknowledged charges of narcissism against him, jokingly played a song on piano with words "play that song that I want to hear."

Adams was pretty much in fine form regarding his stage presence. He mumbled on purpose at times, but was very engaged with the crowd. On a previous visit to Boston, Adams was a total dud, turning his back to the audience for most of the night and being guilty of the negativity towards him.

Aside from that, Adams seemed to honestly enjoy his evening and made sure to thank concert goers, particularly at the end when a 1 a.m. club curfew ended his evening.

Perhaps the one knock against Adams on this night is that he went on too long. He played a good 2 1/2 hours and by the time he left the stage for a quick "medicinal" break, Adams lost a sizable chunk of the crowd.

And what proved to be a three-song encore also wasn't Adams' most exciting work of the evening.

But make no mistake about. Whether Adams is playing new songs or even newer songs doesn't matter. On this evening, Adams knew how to entertain and did so quite well.

During the show, he commented how, "I never seem to play a decent show when I come to Boston." After this evening, he could no longer make that claim.

Rachel Yamagata of Chicago opened with a less than satisfying 40-minute set. Yamagata has achieved some positive response and turned in a good performance at the Paradise not to many months ago.

But here, she drifted into slow tempo songs á la Norah Jones with a dash of Sarah McLachlan thrown in. Unfortunately, she also did not make for very exciting music.

For those interested, Ryan and the Cardinals will be performing on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight.

From the New York Post: http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/24373.htm

SHUT UP, SIT DOWN & ROCK OUT

By MARY HUHN

SHUT THE !@#$ UP! -Bruce Springsteen

May 26, 2005 -- ROCK fans, welcome to the spring of our discontent.
Artists everywhere are screaming at roadies, shushing talkers and
storming off-stage when fans are insufficiently reverent.

Last week, even the Boss turned belligerent when Bruce Springsteen
cursed chattering fans during his solo Meadowlands set.

"Hey, man, shut the f - - - up," he growled. "If there's a problem,
your money's at the door."

Just days earlier, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails winged a bottle at
a Hammerstein Ballroom soundman after a mix glitch. "Some mother f - -
- er isn't going to have a job after tonight," Reznor growled.

And at Coldplay's Beacon Theatre show last Tuesday, frontman Chris
Martin went on a tirade about the cameras capturing the band for an
AOL Webcast.

"With all these cameras and bulls - - -, it makes us feel like we're
on 'The Apprentice,'" he whined. "This isn't 'The Apprentice;' we're f
- - - in' Coldplay."

Musical drama queens aren't anything new. Notorious local meltdowns
include Chan Marshall of Cat Power's disintegration at Irving Plaza
two years ago, when she began cussing, sobbing and playing songs in
stops and starts, and Fionna Apple's tantrum at Roseland in 2000, when
the singer screamed, "F - - - you, put away your notebooks," at
critics after whining about poor sound.

Such musical malaise is rampant lately.

"I gave you everything, now give it back," pleaded Casey Spooner of
Fischerspooner at the Canal Room earlier this month. The campy crooner
just wasn't getting enough love.

But the reigning drama king is Ryan Adams, who was up to old tricks in
Philly last Friday.

With his band off-stage, Adams attempted a solo set. He complained
about a loud air conditioner, then threw a fit when fans in the
balcony wouldn't shush.

He gave up in a huff, saying, "The customer's always right." Later, he
used Bruce's exact words, then explained, "It's not about ego. I'm
just trying to play something I feel."

So at the end of his set, he made up a new song: "I just came here to
sing you a song, but you talked through the whole f - - - ing thing."

It was brilliant. Then he walked off.

According to this article the last time Ryan played Raleigh was in 2001. To the best of my recollection it was actually September of 2000 when he played his last gig with Whiskeytown at the Lakeside Lounge in Raleigh when he was in town for the Heartbreaker tour.

--------------------------------------

From Durham, NC's Independent Weekly:
http://indyweek.com/durham/current/music.html

Underhill over it

By Grayson Currin

"Is No Depression still around?" Kurt Underhill asks, devoid of sarcasm or irony. It's an indication of what Underhill--the founder of Mood Food Records, the mid-'90s label he began just to sign Whiskeytown--means when he says, "That's just a chapter I've closed in my life, and I don't really try to reopen it."

Underhill, criticized by the alt.country media after Whiskeytown was forced to sell the masters that became Rural Free Delivery to him to move to Geffen Records affiliate Outpost, is past music now. He works as a financial planner and lives with his wife and children in Fuquay-Varina.

"I deal with stable people everyday for a change, and that suits my personality," he says.

That Whiskeytown is still an essential band in the ragtag coterie of alternative country goes without saying. Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke has called the band the genre's Nirvana. That said, Ryan Adams--the Jacksonville High School dropout-turned-Raleigh renegade-turned-complete rock star on late-night television--may not be its Cobain or Cornell.

He's a rare combination of it all: at 30, a survivor with a bent for self-indulgence and one of the most prolific, exhausting catalogues of any modern songwriter. He returns to Raleigh for the first time since 2001 on Wednesday, June 8 at Meymandi Hall, several magazine covers, albums and Grammy nominations later.

Underhill remembers hearing Adams for the first time as a Schoolkids Records employee in 1995. A coworker knew the band and played a demo at work.

"I knew right away there was something there," he recalls. "As soon as I heard the songs I knew there was something with his talent."

Underhill headed to Local 506 that week to see Whiskeytown, and soon began negotiating a record deal. The relationship was constantly tumultuous--from Adams' request that some members' songs not be recorded on the band's debut to his demands to be released from his Mood Food contract.

"I still have all the original masters," Underhill says, adding that they are always for sale. "I haven't listened to them in years, and I don't suspect I will."

Another article from Durham's Independent Weekly:
http://indyweek.com/durham/current/music2.html

The record you may never hear

What happened to the Patty Duke Syndrome album?

By Grayson Currin

Patty Duke Syndrome is perhaps the most written-about trio whose only official output amounts to one side of a 7". But there is more.

In a 2003 Spin exposé dubbed "Who the ***** is Ryan Adams?" James Barber, Geffen Records A&R guy-turned-record producer, said: "In every interview you read with Ryan, he talks about growing up on hardcore and Black Flag and punk rock. It's like, 'Where's that in your music?'"

Ask former Patty Duke Syndrome drummer Brian Walsby or perhaps the ghost of Jere McIlwean, the late bass player of that legendary, oft whispered-of trio and you might find the answer.

Patty Duke Syndrome--Adams' band that followed a series of short-lived acts and Sadlacks-era experiments--is where that is in Ryan Adams' music. Barber produced Rock 'N' Roll, Adams' appropriately named attempt to show the world that he had rock 'n' roll built into his balls, if not his brain. But the unreleased Syndrome is that real rock 'n' roll of Adams' unheard back catalogue--earnest, eager, youthful, honest and at least somewhat spontaneous.

The 11 tracks recorded by Jerry Kee on Aug. 28, 1993 deliver on rock music's promised lack of easy compromise. On the stabbing, crunchy, Replacements-friendly "What's Your Name?" Adams sings "You were a little girl/this is a f**** up world" with a natural ease; a decade later on Rock 'N' Roll's "Wish You Were Here," he barrels, "It's totally f**** up/I'm totally f**** up/Wish you were here" with less eloquence and the strained sense that, if it's going to be rock 'n' roll, it's going to have "*****" in the chorus.

Surely, Adams' influences are written all over every track, as they have been for most everything he has ever recorded. But that's what makes this still-unreleased album so alluring: The distilled lessons of Dinosaur Jr., Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Superchunk (Walsby and Mac McCaughan were apparently at the Cradle together when Walsby and Adams met) and countless others are easily recognizable. That's why it's so good. Much more so at 18 than at 28, Adams sounds genuinely affected and inspired by his idols, playing his own games with their lessons because it is fun, not potentially profitable. "Song for Sara Bell," the result of Adams' crush on the Dish siren, isn't his lyrical highpoint, but its undeterred affection shines through as Adams follows the chant of "Your Eyes" with "Hypnotize" half-a-dozen times. That's followed by an ode to Erectus Monotone and preceded by a nod to Honor Role's Bob Schick. Elsewhere, the songwriting predicts what have since become Adams' hallmarks: the need to leave, the fight to stay, the pains of romance, the brink of self-destruction and the beer-bottle path to the edge.

There are flaws recorded into the cracks: Walsby rushes headlong on the bass drum during "What's Your Name?" and Adams seems to forget what he's playing on "Crow's Nest" coming out of the second chorus. Again, it's those miscues adding much of the charm here, spotlighting the uncorrupted, first-take nature of this one-day session. Rock 'n' roll, dude.

From the Fayetteville Observer:
http://tinylink.com/?hzkBvvNNBj

By Stacy Peterson
Staff writer

Ryan Adams, one of Raleigh's most infamous and celebrated former
musicians, returns Wednesday, June 8 for his first area concert in
five years.

And fans of his former band Whiskeytown and of Adams' solo work can't
wait to see what happens when he takes the stage at the Meymandi
concert hall in downtown Raleigh.

Since Adams left Whiskeytown and started his solo career, he has won
accolades from critics and musicians alike. Elton John once said the
young Adams inspired him to write better music. Other bands have
covered his songs as if they were gems to be relished.

Critics pushed his name into the fabled territory of the "next Dylan"
upon the release of his first solo album, "Heartbreaker," in 2000,
and his song "New York, New York" became a staple after the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001.

On his personal side, Adams often creates his own drama with erratic
behavior, rants at critics and relationships with such people as
Winona Ryder, Beth Orton and his current love, Parker Posey. He has
been the subject of the most hardened music critic and of Gap
commercials at the same time.

Over the years, Adams has also formed a love-hate relationship with
Raleigh, the city where he formed Patty Duke Syndrome and then
Whiskeytown in the mid 1990s. Thanks to an early story by rock critic
David Menconi in Billboard Magazine, Whiskeytown soon exploded on the
local Raleigh scene. By the time Adams and Whiskeytown
released "Faithless Street" and "Stranger's Almanac," the band had a
nationwide following, thanks in no small part to Adams' songs and
sometimes dangerous stage antics.

So what music will he play and what will he say when he finally
returns Wednesday?

Adams isn't doing interviews for his current tour with the Cardinals.
In fact, he hasn't talked with journalists here since the release of
his album "Gold" in 2001.

But past behavior and performances here suggest we are in for a
treat. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals just released the album "Cold
Roses," a Grateful Dead-influenced double-disc set of music more akin
to Adams' Whiskeytown days than previous solo albums. He also plans
to release two more albums by year's end on Lost Highway records.

Skillet Gilmore, the original drummer of Whiskeytown and the husband
of former Whiskeytown co-singer and violinist Caitlin Cary, said he
can't wait to see what happens.

Gilmore said the last time Adams played in Raleigh was in September
2000 at an unannounced show at the former Lakeside Lounge.

Adams' last official show was a New Year's Eve concert at the Cat's
Cradle in Carrboro on Dec. 31, 1999. That was also the last show with
the original members of Whiskeytown.

Gilmore said Adams' distance from Raleigh since then was a way for
Adams to move away a little from his past.

It was at a bar where Gilmore once worked that Adams first discussed
forming a country band. Before that, Gilmore knew of Adams only
through his roommate. Adams, from time to time, would crash at his
house. Adams was only 17 or so.

"I just thought he was an annoying little brat then," Gilmore
remembered.

But when the idea of a country band came about, Gilmore and the
others knew it was something special.

Gilmore said he was surprised that Whiskeytown grew into such a
success. But he wasn't surprised that Adams became famous.

"I think pretty quickly people knew Ryan was going to be famous," he
said. "It was his only chance. He couldn't hold down a job."

One of the big questions for Wednesday is whether Adams will invite
Cary, who is now a member of Tres Chicas and has her own solo music
career, up on stage for a long-awaited duet. For that matter, Adams
may also invite other former musicians on stage to jam. No one but
Adams knows.

Gilmore said he stays in contact with Adams via e-mail and phone.

While he remembers all of Adams' tantrums on stage and the crazy
world of Whiskeytown, Gilmore said his favorite memory was of a show
at an outdoor festival early in the band's career.

It was a show in the middle of the day on the back of a tractor
trailer. A girl near the front of the stage sat on a man's shoulders
and pulled up her shirt toward the band.

Gilmore said Adams turned around and couldn't seem to believe it.

"We thought 'We've made it,'" Gilmore remembered.

And if there is a quintessential Whiskeytown song for Gilmore, it
was "The Battle."

In fact, that is the song he hopes Adams will sing with Cary on
stage, June 8, if a duet happens.

Cary just returned from a tour of Europe with her band, Tres Chicas.

For many, Wednesday, June 8 will be like old times again.

"We were all in on the joke," Gilmore said.

-------------------------------------------------
RYAN ADAMS AND THE CARDINALS

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 8

Where: BTI Center's Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh

Tickets: $23-$26. Visit www.ticketmaster.com, or call 223-2900

From the Raleigh, NC News and Observer:
http://newsobserver.com/lifestyles/stor ... 8999c.html

He Who Shall Not Be Named returns

Ryan Adams' first Raleigh show in years could reunite old pals and fans, or not



Ryan Adams' latest album, 'Cold Roses,' echoes his Triangle days with Whiskeytown.

By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer

Soon after promoters announced a homecoming concert by Raleigh's most famous rock star, a tongue-in-cheek poll appeared on the local music discussion group Guitartown (www.guitartown.org):
"Who's going to see Ryan Adams in Raleigh June 8th at the BTI Center?"

Answers ranged from positive ("I will be there wearing his concert T-shirt") to negative ("I would not go see that $%*^()&($(#(#(@@# if my life, and yours, depended on it"), with lots in between.

"I may stumble in drunk," said one.

"I talk a lot of [expletive] about him on a regular basis, but will probably be hangin' backstage with him," went another.

"He still owes me 20.00," came a third.

The concert will be Adams' first Triangle appearance since a Whiskeytown reunion in September 2000. Given his uneasy relationship with Raleigh even before he left in the late '90s, it's not surprising that he has stayed away for so long. Often as not, local opinion has less to do with his music than the person behind it.

For much of the Raleigh era, Adams wore the mantle of stardom even when he was playing the Brewery with Whiskeytown a couple of times a month and scrambling to get by. Ten years ago, in his first interview with The Independent, Adams was brash enough to declare, "I don't have time to be unclear -- I'm going to die someday."

Probably so, but for the past few years, Adams has lived it up. He scored multiple Grammy nominations, became friends with Elton John and dated indie film queen Parker Posey, among others.

His return to Raleigh coincides with the release of "Cold Roses" (Lost Highway Records), and it sounds more like Whiskeytown than any of his other solo albums. Even if it suffers from his chronic inability to edit himself, "Cold Roses" might also be Adams' best post-Whiskeytown effort.

Leaving Carolina every night

For someone whose music is so steeped in the verities of old-school rock, Adams is a perfect artist for the pick-and-choose iPod era because all his albums cry out for pruning. He has put out almost 100 songs on six solo albums since 2000, and the pace is picking up this year. On top of the 18-song "Cold Roses," he has two more albums coming in 2005, "Jacksonville City Nights" in August and "29" in November. Cherry-pick the best 12 songs from all three albums and we'd probably be talking about the Hall of Fame.

Nevertheless, even the lesser songs on "Cold Roses" are better than just about anything from Adams' overrated 2001 commercial breakthrough, "Gold." The new album also calls to mind a line from the "Gold" liner notes: "Ryan loves ... The Grateful Dead and Black Flag at the same time."

Adams seems to be all about the Dead right now, even if there's little trace of Black Flag-style punk. The album-opening "Magnolia Mountain" evokes the Dead's "Sugar Magnolia" in vibe as well as title. And when he played "Late Night With David Letterman" last month, he sported a scruffy beard that made him look like the late Jerry Garcia's long lost nephew. Sonically, "Cold Roses" fits comfortably alongside the Dead's two country-rock classics from 1970, "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead" (and if you're going to cop from the Dead, that's definitely the right period to pick).

The album's 18 songs would fit on a single disc, but they're split on two CDs for no immediately obvious reason. Disc one is a bit more downcast than disc two, although neither is exactly cheery. The very first line on the album sets a tone of shell-shocked exhaustion: "I want to go to Magnolia Mountain and lay my weary head down / Down on the rocks on the mountain my savior made."

The sound throughout is spare and relaxed without falling into laziness, although some of the obvious Garcia quotes on guitar could go. As for the lyrics, they're among the least personal and specific that Adams has ever written. Spotting his current and former paramours in songs such as "Dear Chicago" and "Nobody Girl" used to be a favorite parlor game for Adams fans, but you'd have trouble attaching anybody's name to most of these songs.

Instead, "Cold Roses" finds him getting in touch with his inner naturalist by dropping in numerous mentions of dawn, sunset, night and flowers. Bodies of water and empty houses recur, and "Magnolia Mountain" isn't the only song that refers to the Almighty. Meanwhile, there are no mentions of booze or drugs to speak of.

You'll also find traces of Adams' home state. "When Will You Come Back Home" opens with an echo of James Taylor ("Something in the way she eases my mind") and flashes back to Adams' salad days in the Old North State, dreaming of big things then and now: "I leave Carolina every night in my dreams / Like the girls that try to love me that I only leave."

But one way or another, Adams apparently plans to end up back where he started. On "Let It Ride," the album's first single, Adams sings, "Tennessee's a brother to my sister Carolina / Where they're gonna bury me."

At least he didn't wait for his funeral to pay the Triangle a return visit.

Coming home one day?

The subject of Adams comes up frequently on Guitartown, where some locals refer to him as HWSNBN (an acronym for He Who Shall Not Be Named). Becoming a celebrity seems to have made things touchier between Adams and the people who knew him when.

Thomas O'Keefe was Whiskeytown's tour manager in the late '90s. He used to be close enough to Adams to have him in his wedding. But O'Keefe hasn't spoken to Adams in four years, and he isn't sure why. (Adams declined an interview request.)

"He could call while he's here, but I'm not holding my breath," O'Keefe says. "Just as an artist, he's one of the most talented and prolific guys out there. But just because somebody can write a million records doesn't mean he knows how to maintain friendships with people."

Meanwhile, Whiskeytown's old drummer Skillet Gilmore is going to the show. Gilmore says it's possible that his wife, Whiskeytown fiddler Caitlin Cary, will turn up onstage to do a song or two with Adams.

As for the fan perspective, Leigh Ferracane has her tickets for the show and can't wait -- although she pronounces herself "completely shocked" that Adams is coming back to play his former stomping grounds.

"You know that saying about being a prophet without honor in your hometown?" says Ferracane, who teaches at Raleigh's Leesville Road Elementary School. "I think Ryan feels like he's unappreciated for all the things he's accomplished because people here know him on a personal level. Think about your own high school reunion. Who honestly wants to go back and revisit what you were doing when you were young and stupid? I wonder if he'll curse us out, or just play. Maybe if nobody throws tomatoes at him, he'll come back."

------------------------------------------------------------

WHO: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Wednesday.

WHERE: Meymandi Hall, BTI Center, 2 E. South St., Raleigh.

TICKETS: $23 and $26 at Ticketmaster, Schoolkids Records and CD Alley.

CONTACT: 834-4000, www.ticketmaster.com.

It's not mentioned in this article but not long after Ryan's performance at Meymandi Hall in Raleigh there was a Whiskeytown reunion show just up the street at Slim's (formerly the Lakeside Lounge, site of Whiskeytown's last show in 2000).

From the Raleigh News and Observer:

CONCERT REVIEW
Published: Jun 9, 2005
Modified: Jun 9, 2005 8:17 AM

Adams takes his time before hometown crowd

By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer

RALEIGH -- Here's a theory about Ryan Adams that explains almost everything: The guy just can't help himself. Whether it's putting out three albums a year when one would do or running a bad joke into the ground, he gives voice to every thought that pops into his head, seemingly incapable of editing himself. That attention-deficit-disorder paradigm goes for Adams' live show as well as his recording career.

Wednesday night, Adams and his new band the Cardinals played a homecoming show at Meymandi Hall, the former Whiskeytown leader's first show in his old hometown in nearly five years. There was some tension in the air, but most of the crowd was with him. When someone yelled out "I love you" after the first song, Adams replied, "Then I apologize in advance."

Throughout the evening, Adams spent his time between songs pacing and flitting around the stage, taking drags from a couple of different smoldering cigarettes and gulps from multiple bottles and cups. He fussed endlessly with his guitar tuning, the height of his microphone, his glasses. He hovered around bassist Catherine Popper so much that she lectured him to stay out of her space. And he babbled endlessly, frequently off the microphone, as his bandmates stood around waiting him out. More than once, drummer Brad Pemberton cut him off by starting another song.

"Where's that clown I ordered?" Adams muttered at one point. "Wait a minute, I'm already here." Later, he cracked to guitarist J.P. Bowersock that they were playing for "an audience hologram" rather than actual people.

A friend likened it to watching Dennis Hopper coming unhinged in "Apocalypse Now." While Adams played a generous set of 26 songs in a bit less than three hours, his between-song self-indulgences kept the show from building up any momentum and flow. And that was a shame, because there were many spectacular moments.

The opening stretch included most of the high points from Adams' new double-album, "Cold Roses" (Lost Highway Records), in rocked-up arrangements. The more forceful onstage versions served as cool counterpoints to the mellower studio versions, more like the Allman Brothers than the Grateful Dead on the jam-band continuum. Adams also threw in a bunch of songs from the other two albums he's putting out this year, which were fine as far as they went. But the unreleased songs had no context, and none registered as anything stronger than pleasant.

While the sold-out crowd was generally well-behaved, its frustration at all the unfamiliar songs grew palpable. People began to yell for songs they wanted to hear, and Adams got a little testy.

"I'll get you there," he said. "You get three hours, I can have two seconds to be a narcissistic bastard ... Hey, I'm three frets away from working at a gas station here."

Fortunately, Adams and his band finally hit their stride the second half of the show with four songs from his 2000 solo debut, "Heartbreaker." "My Winding Wheel" was almost unrecognizable, closer to a sprint than a shuffle. "To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high)" had some of Adams' and Bowersock's best guitar interplay of the night. "Oh My Sweet Carolina," Adams' love letter to his home state, was almost too pretty for words. And Adams jacked up "Shakedown on 9th Street" with the Bo Diddley backbeat from Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," thrashing the bejesus out of his guitar and doing everything but setting it on fire.

Then came the perfect capper, a cameo appearance by Adams' old Whiskeytown bandmate Caitlin Cary. They did five songs together, all in the key of ragged but right. They clearly hadn't rehearsed, yet it was genuinely moving to see them together again after so long. It felt just like those old Whiskeytown shows at the Brewery way back when, right down to the mistakes. It's been so long since Adams and Cary have sang together that they needed a prompt from someone in the crowd to remember the last verse of "The Battle."

After that, a voice rang out from the crowd: "Same as it ever was!"

From the New Musical Express:

http://www.nme.com/news/113221.htm

RYAN'S 'SEPTEMBER' SONGS

RYAN ADAMS & THE CARDINALS will release their new album ’SEPTEMBER’ on September 26.

The LP will be the second of three releases from the band in 2005, and follows on from May’s double LP ’Cold Roses’. It had previously been announced the album would be titled ’Jacksonville’

Produced by Tom Schick, the album will feature 15 tracks including ’Dear John’ - a duet with Norah Jones.

The full tracklisting for September is:

‘A Kiss Before I Go’
‘The End’
‘What Sin Replaces Love’
‘Hard Way To Fall’
‘Dear John’
‘The Hardest Part’
‘Games’
‘Silver Bullets’
‘Peaceful Valley’
‘September’
‘My Heart Is Broken’
‘Trains’
‘Pa’
‘Withering Heights’
‘Don’t Fail Me Now’

To add to the confusion of the actual title of the next Ryan and the Cardinals record here's artwork for both Jacksonville City Nights and September:

How about Ryan Adams cancelling U.S. tour claiming lingering flu bug (?!?!)
when rumors are flying that The Cardinals are breaking up?

Lightning Bolt wrote:How about Ryan Adams cancelling U.S. tour claiming lingering flu bug (?!?!)
when rumors are flying that The Cardinals are breaking up?

I have no idea what to think of it but Ryan's response to the rumors is posted on his web site:

http://www.ryan-adams.com