I don't know that I'd go so far as to call Whiskeytown boring, and if I did just say that then for about the millionth time in life, hyperbole has gotten the better of me. Some of this stuff, esp. Stranger's Almanac, I really love. Pneumonia I need to hear again, as homogenized slickness wasn't what I recall annoying me. What I remember is a lot of it had a heroin-dirge quality to it that left me feeling as sick and fever-dreamy as the condition it's named for.

Well any misperception is probably just me misinterpreting your words or relating them too closely to my own personal experiences. Because I certainly found Whiskeytown somewhat boring at first. But I really think you should give Pneumonia another chance (which we'll get to soon) because I think it is wonderfully varied and not dirgelike at all...

I actually think 48 Hours is his best work, but of the released stuff, CR gets my vote. Love that album. Gold has died down a bit in my estimation over the years, but I'll get to talk more about that when the thread reaches that point.

Holy crap I never thought I would find someone who agrees with me on that! But yeah, that's for later in the thread.

If you're still taking votes put me down for doing the whole thing chronologically...boots, official albums, finished unreleased albums, website anomolies the lot.
It should make for an interesting journey for the casual fan as well as the RA nuts among us.

For what it's worth, Pneumoniae will always be numero uno in the WT catalogue for me with Strangers... coming second
I know! Shoot me. Faithless street always sounds like I should be (more) drunk and I'll always have a beer before I get to the end of it...probably explains why I stopped listening to it in the car.

Thanks for Drunken Confessions boot...just finished the download now. From your list I think I have most of the upcoming WT boots. I'll have a looksee if I have anything additional that I can pass on.

do it however YOU want campaigner; it's your thread. and by the time you finish there's bound be a new album out! and probably that book.

also can't believe no-one's listed heartbreaker as their fave ryan moment yet. that one gets my vote of the official stuff.

Haha, thanks Andrew - but it ain't my thread! I'm just along for the ride on this one...

it's all relative, it's all relative; ryan is this generation's shakey, no?

i meant heretix of course.

I'm not the most technologically savvy person I know. I downloaded Faithless, but I can't seem to open it. Do I need something special to do that?

Yes. You need winRAR - an archiving application. It's available free for the first 40 days, and still works after that, more or less. EDIT: Ths should get you where you need to go.

www.soft32.com/Download/free-trial/WinRAR/4-175-1.html - 67k -

Go in order of released. Mix in the unofficial releases.

Throw up the Bedhead Anthology if you got it, i know i dont have all of those discs

Thank you!

I've been a little hesitant to jump in this thread, because I fear it might ignite some kind of obsessive compulsive mania within me. I love love love Ryan Adams, but I haven't yet gotten through all the bootlegs. Between the official releases and the more widely traded unreleased albums (Suicide Handbook and 48 Hours), I still feel like it's a lot to process. That said, I can no longer resist.

To join the discussion, "Faithless Street" is one of my favorite Ryan Adams albums. I love the raw, shoddy drunkenness of it all, and I think it's charming in a way the other Whiskeytown albums aren't. I do think it runs on a little too long, but if you take out the Baseball Park sessions (which - save for 'Factory Girl' - I could do without), it is a concise, VERY solid album with maybe one weak track. Never been too big on 'Top Dollar'.

Overall, I think in many ways it is Ryan's most endearing record, even if it is decidedly tongue-in-cheek in tone. The faux-redneckisms are done with affection and a sense of humor, and the songs are simple but chock full of hooks. It is not the refined alt-country statement that "Stranger's Almanac" would become, but as for listening value, I prefer "Faithless Street" and its ramshackle charm.

Favorite tracks: Midway Park, Tennessee Square, Faithless Street, Desperate Ain't Lonely Lo-Fi Tennessee Mountain Angel

True Story:

i was playing "Call Me On Your Way Back Home" in my car and this girl mocked him and laughed about the harmonica part.

i wish i could say i kicked her outta my car, but i no longer speak to her

I'm looking forward to catching up with this thread as soon as I get out of the #'s.

I know I said I would slow down but I just want to get this one out of the way:

Those Weren't The Days
(bootleg, unreleased album recorded inbetween Faithless Street and Strangers Almanac -- sorry about the chrono mess-up)


A Stranger Is Born
(bootleg, an unmastered tape of the sessions for TWTD, including songs that would end up appearing on Stranger's Almanac


You can just download to find the tracklists.

CAVEAT EMPTOR: These releases overlap heavily with each other, and furthermore overlap heavily with the bonus disc of the Stranger's Almanac deluxe edition, so those who aren't really hardcore fans can just skip this post.

The music here is a perfect bridge between the dirty drunkeness of Faithless Street and the clean but dirgey Stranger's Almanac -- interesting to hear the band transition so smoothly.

Here's what Ryan said about Those Weren't The Days:

"Plus there's another record that is called Those
Weren't The Days, that's what I'm calling it now, I don't know if
that will change. But when they re-issue Faithless Street, that will
come as well. I don't know if it will all come on one cd or if
it will come as two cds, but its coming out. It was done about 6
months after Faithless Street. It's fairly similar."

Obviously it never came out.

The story behind A Stranger Is Born is just that it was a tape found of the session for the Double 7" EP Theme for A Trucker (which we will get to later). Unlike Those Weren't The Days it is not a sequenced, coherent album but it's also somewhat interesting because it's an unedited session -- false starts and so forth -- and contains some tracks recorded at this session that would later be re-recorded for Strangers' Almanac. Like I said, recommended for hardcore fans.

I'm very sorry for the slight mixup with chronology here, and the fact that these two albums are so confusing and messy; but I assure you from here on it is smooth sailing.

Some of the notable tracks on these releases that didn't appear on the SA deluxe edition:

Hipshake, a fun little country rocker.
All You Can Feel, a super quiet dirge with whispered vocals... very experimental for Whiskeytown
New York Angel/Only To Lose two solo ryan demos that close Those Weren't The Days.. very eerie and beautiful, totally essential.

Digging the thread but Adams like many other alt-country acts is so inconsistent. Songs are either brilliant or boring. Only alt country bands that were/are constantly great are Tupelo and Handsome Family.

Ahhh... you're one of those people. You have two levels 1. It's Awesome! 2. It Sucks!

there are plenty of Ryan songs which are good or alright. I don't doubt he has a few that are boring, but c'mon

Moving on to "Stranger's Almanac."

"Stranger's Almanac" is widely considered Whiskeytown's seminal album, and for good reason. It's a massive refinement of the groundwork that Ryan and the gang laid with "Faithless Street." It's shorter, cleaner, more focused, and more radio-friendly. It also, for these reasons, lacks some of the charm of its predecessor. But while one can't help but miss the quirky imperfections that made FS so endearing, the songs here are by and large superior.

For me, "Stranger's Almanac" is the quintessential alt-country album. Sure, "No Depression" may be the trailblazer, but I feel like early Whiskeytown and this album in particular are just great representations of the genre as a whole. From the opening notes of 'Inn Town' to the last seconds of the haunting "Not Home Anymore," the album is just this side of perfect. To this day it remains one of Adams' most cohesive statements as a songwriter.

Best tracks: Yesterday's News, 16 Days, Houses on the Hill, Turn Around, Dancing With the Women at the Bar

PS...Cannot wait to check out that deluxe edition. Many thanks to heretix for posting all this stuff.

Anyone have the Exit Inn show that was floating around the internets a ton right before Gold came out? There was some real nice duets with Gilian Welch and one song, Statuettes With Wounds?, that was especialy haunting. This was always a favorite of mine from the "humble" Ryan period. Before he started reading his own press and acting the part.

Heretix: My thread is going to be at Ryan Adams after the weekend. Can you give me a chronological listing of what order I should listen to all this non-album stuff?

I only have 6 bands left, although...one of them is AC/DC.

Most of Ryan's gigs are up over at the Live Music Archive if you need it (not sure if you do or not).
That particular show is a favourite of mine from the early days.

I'm surprised that the Archive doesn't get more mentions around here.

Check this link for a full listing of available bands/shows Live Music Archive By Creator
Ryan Adams collection features 302 shows. The latest is from 31-1-2008. The earliest is from 04-02-1994! Patty Duke Syndrome. Everything else is post 1998

I'm not that familiar with Whiskeytown, but I just stumbled across a listing for a bootleg called Forever Valentine.

It features Ed from Ohio on guitar! WTF!

That's next in line; posting it tomorrow morning. Great album. Recorded at the very end of 1997.

FOREVER VALENTINE
(bootleg, unreleased album, recorded late 1997)


1. Anyone But Me (a/k/a Dial Tone)
2. Don't Wanna Know Why
3. Easy Hearts
4. Sittin' Around
5. Rays Of Burning Light (a/k/a Rays Of Light)
6. Ghost Without Memory
7. Runnin' Out Of Road
8. Can't Take A Lover (a/k/a Talkin' In My Sleep)
9. Think About Me (a/k/a (What You) Think About Me)
10. Crazy Lonesome (a/k/a A Memory Away)
11. Caroline

Chris Stamey -- "Skillet played drums,
I played bass. Recorded in Raleigh at Scores/Slackmates,
and at Modern, my place." "Addendum: I forgot to add
that the piano player on the Forever Valentine
Whiskeytown sessions was Ben Folds. My memory was
jogged by his smashing show this Saturday at the Cradle."

Skillet Gilmore -- "Forever Valentine was recorded
around Xmas '97. The band at the time (for the purposes
of recording) was Ryan, Caitlin, Mike Daly, Ed Crawford
on guitar, Chris Stamey on bass and me." "Although the
record was made in about a week, the challenge was actually
that Ryan wanted to make a record without the label knowing
about it. And so we did."


This is a nice little gem. It's basically the band further refining it's Strangers' Almanac sound, presenting lean, muscular songs that are both more interesting lyrically, and less droney/samey musically (i.e. there's no Turn Around or Waiting To Derail on this disc). It's somewhat evenly divided between the mournful country dirges and upbeat rock tracks; the latter, always a bit of a chore for Ryan, are probably the best he's ever sounded in rock mode. Songs like Rays of Burning Light have Ryan, for once, doing "rock" gracefully and serviceably.

But the slow acoustic dirges are the heart of this disc; Anyone But Me and (finally) a studio version of Think About Me, perhaps Whiskeytown's best song; a propulsive song with a chorus almost as great as the similarly titled Fleetwood Mac song. Highly recommended, oft-forgotten Whiskeytown album. Better than SA.

Love is Hell is the 80's "New wavey" record RA put out. Jesus Fucking christ, you'd think someone would have corrected this a long time ago.

Rock N' Roll has maybe 2 tracks that hint at the direction of "Love is Hell". And yes, Love is Hell was written by Adams as an entire album, then scrapped by the label because it wasn't the Adams they'd grown accustomed to. So he broke it up into 2EP's and put them out at the same time. It was later combined into one album... Fantastic album. I can't remember what magazine it was ("Paste" maybe?) but they did a word association thing with Adams and when they said "Love is Hell" he simply said "Beautiful".

And yes, I think Love is Hell is the best Adams, WT album, hands-down.

I wouldn't call Love Is Hell new wave. It's more like 80s brit indie, i.e. Smiths... Rock & Roll is much more in the vein of new wave...

I think Love is Hell is what simakos is looking for... Maybe I'm wrong. It stands alone as being completely different from anything else Adams has done. And yes, I'd say it's more Smiths influenced, but I think someone who's looking for one particularly different Adams record is probably looking for Love is Hell. Could be wrong. There's a loooooong ways to go before you get there. We still have the Suicide Handbook, Franklin St, a couple proper studio albums, and the god-awful "Demolition" first...

Demolition godawful? I'd rather hear most of it than either of the Love is Hell EPs.

Rock 'n' Roll is the closest thing Ryan Adams has ever done to a "'80s New Wavey" album. Love is Hell isn't "80s New Wavey" at all. What's new-wave about "Political Scientist" or the "Wonderwall" cover or anything on from LIH?

thanks useless, been meaning to comment on that one for a while. LIH is hardly 80s new wavey.

love is hell is dreamy.

Sorry about letting the thread get buried like that, first week of school and was way too busy/tired to even think of this. Will have Pneumonia up later.

haha I lied...

FUCKER
(1998-9, unreleased Whiskeytown album)


This circulates in two versions, two versions with varying sound quality and exclusive AND overlapping tracks. What I've uploaded is a compilation of the two versions, using the best sounding version for each; I did this on my own and then downloaded a better one from what.cd So tracklist on this one can vary a bit.

01 In My Time Of Need (alt. demo version)
02 Bar Lights
03 Win
04 Comfortable Only At Night
05 Out Of Time
06 Sit And Listen To The Rain
07 Leave The Lights Off
08 Bound To Happen
09 What Makes The World Like This
10 Hurts Sometimes
11 Tearing Me Up Inside
12 Medicine
13 Today
14 Clearly Destroyed
15 Breathe
16 Fool

This is basically Pneumonia MK I. It shares some of the same songs, but also has a rockist side (very much a la Forever Valentine, which also had the mix of country dirge and flat-out rock). These are by and far the tightest Whiskeytown songs, making for the tightest Whiskeytown album (Strangers' Almanac and Pneumonia both have some long songs that disqualify them for this). It makes for an enjoyable pop album, with great little gems like the early-70s-country-Stones vibe of Leave The Lights Off (one of the best Whiskeytown songs to be sure), or effortless rockers like Win and a KILLER, sped-up version of Breathe (a slower, original version of which is on the SA deluxe). This album is most similar to Faithless Street in that it blends together ,with a bunch of fun, short country songs, but it's definitely worth investigating further. Sound quality varies but is wholly listenable. Highly recommended.

P.S. sorry for almost letting this thread die.. getting used to managing my time now. hopefully it can continue regularly now. next up is Pneumonia (for real this time). P.S. only two more Whiskeytown releases to go, then we can go right to Ryan solo and maybe this thread will take off.

Heretix: not to jump ahead, but what do you think about what I've said in my thread?

I actually disagree with almost everything you said, interestingly enough. I agree 100% with what you said about Demolition, even the details. Yeah, She Wants To Play Hearts is a great song, but it just kills the momentum of that album. I think the closing tracks of Rock & Roll are its best part, and I think Love Is Hell and Jacksonville City Nights are among the best RA albums. And you're right about Mix Tapes, it's one of those Ryan songs that has a familiar melody taht probably ended up in another song. (i.e. One By One, a LiH b-side, shares much of its chorus melody with I See Monstes)..

Interesting to disagree 100%.

I'm at a brief impass, trying to get the first Werewolph album right now.

Wiki says the new album "Cardinology" comes out Oct 28th

Well, that's an awful album title but I'm still looking forward to this one. I wasn't big on Easy Tiger but Jacksonville City Nights, 29, and Cold Roses all did me right.

did u get the Follow the Lights EP?
very enjoyable stuff

Cardinology has been confirmed by the label for that date! Yes!

Oh, and thread hasn't been getting much attention so I've not been worrying about updating it recently, but don't worry, it will continue (unless you guys think I should just let it die). If not, Pneumonia will be up tomorrow (I promise)

See, I could just never get into 29. Tried. And failed.

Jacksonville City Nights is like a great throwback concept album, down to the cover font.

Cold Roses is very solid.

And, for whatever reason, Easy Tiger worked for me. I think b/c it stuck to melody wherever possible and said things succinctly, which can be a chore for ol' Ryan sometimes. "Rip Off" and "Everybody Knows" are beautiful tunes.

Yeah, similar take on all regards.
Thanks for fucker...fucker.

Tom Schick back behind the desk on this one - great news.

Vinyl release comes with bonus 7", a comic book (!) and digital download code;

http://www.musicdirect.com/product/83811

I'm very excited for the new album and all, but I heard "Magick" and it's pretty terrible.

29 is EASILY Ryan's weakest and overall most dull full length

it's the only one of his i don't ever plan on buying. 2-3 great songs, but overall just a snoozer.

i only bought 29 cos i had all his other ones

i own the rest on vinyl even, haha

actually i think i got a promo CD of 29 a while back, not positive