RYAN ADAMS, 'Career Ender' [imagined LP]

 

RYAN ADAMS 

Career Ender [unreleased 2000-18]

01. Your Love is an Impossible Dream

02. Black Myrtle

03. Parts of Me

04. Ghost

05. Sad What We Do to Feel Love

06. It Won't Heal

07. Juliette

08. Like the Lies She Tells to Me

09. In the Shadows

10. Walls

11. Perfect and True

12. The Last Dance

Mastered in 432 Hz. from the best possible sources with additional touches where needed. Several songs were sourced from Ryan's IG. This might be considered too short by die-hard fans like I used to be. I don't give a shit about hearsay---but if you know, you know. After serious Ryan music fatigue from years of close analysis, listening, etc.---I have found this short collection (it's normal for the glory days of LPs---the 60s---and attention spans these days is about there) to be something that still feels kinda fresh and reinforces why the hell we gave this guy so much attention in the first place! If you feel like I do---that this guy peaked back in 2006? Yeah, this is for you. Everybody has an opinion---just like everyone has a mouth and an asshole. What you do with either is none of my concern. 

That being said---let's get to the goddamned music (haha). "Your Love is an Impossible Dream" sounds like an updated "To Be Young" to the listener maybe familiar with his past works. I know a lot of folks only like that one song by him. It's a damn good live sounding (with overdubs, probably) jam with my favourite period of The Cardinals (2005). I believe this one and a few others you can find on YouTube (TheGraciousFew) are from sessions at Sear Sound Studios. Feel free to check my earlier posts related to DRA for more insight. I don't do these as often---because I don't think about the guy except to see what crazy shit he's done now (like a distant cousin that doesn't talk to you). But ill-fated tribute albums aside (see Whether We Make It Or Not: A Tribute to David Ryan Adams from 2021), this is the stuff that used to inspire me. The fearlessness he had going into the studio with some of the coolest players around...just a list of song titles and probably ideas he pretended to 'come up with on the spot' still laying around, hehe (see the interview he did a few years ago where he plays "Sad What We Do to Feel Love" and says it's a 'new song' to the interviewer...I know that trick).

The second song we go into is, "Black Myrtle" from the Easy Tiger sessions from 2006 to early 2007. This song was on a promotional disc with other tunes Ryan did with the backing of the next Cardinals iteration (including the late Neal Casal). I personally find the album itself to be Ryan's move into Starbucks music territory. Your results may vary. To me, he started going right for the middle of the fucking road. Still some good songs to be found. This is one of them. It's not like my opinion should stop you! You might ask, what about "Song X"? (fill in the blank on what song you think I should've also included)---well, variety and being concise are key factors to listening engagement. This is not necessarily for the converted---but the people who never tried to interact with him and/or don't know his music for more than just radio friendly shit. He does know his way around a melody and the strings.

"Parts of Me" (AKA "Number 3") is taken from the Blackhole 2006 promotional disc I hope you heard before the badly sourced compilation of the same name RA put out last year! Maybe Ryan should do like YE and ask his fans to contribute files since he seems to be almost in the same boat with the bootleggers on who has the best sourced unreleased stuff! Good luck with that interaction, folks. Now, this song definitely encapsulates the raw, unhinged rocker side that he 'cultivated' on 2003's Rock N' Roll (and then he just turned into Petty Springsteen lite somewhere a decade down the line). The re-done vocals and the poorly sourced MP3 mastered files just ruin what was already a great record by 2010 (the second time he said 'It's ready!'). 

Next, we revisit the DRA's probably most fertile writing and recording period between the Heartbreaker and Love is Hell albums (2000-03). "Ghost" sounds like it would have been on the radio somewhere in that time. There's a lot of good material from this time, but it all is based on the same subject matter (so to speak). I'd recommend seeking out the 48 Hours, Suicide Handbook, etc. unreleased albums that his old label Lost Highway essentially bootlegged for us, haha. For the sake of sticking to the script, we must move on to the previously mentioned "Sad What We Do to Feel Love" (also taken from the Sear Sound Sessions with The Cardinals in 2005).

I first heard a clip of this track on a bootlegged promo of the Jacksonville City Nights album sessions (when it was still called September). Again, just a raw sounding awesome and gritty little jam that for me is a highlight whether you are looking for Cardinals-era stuff you haven't heard or not. Perhaps Ryan will re-do the song for his 3xLP Self Portrait record of leftovers he's mentioned recently? I'll read about it. This is the version. I haven't been able to get excited about anything this man's done since I heard how awful Cardinology turned out. Some good songs to be found...but it's really hard to make even a compilation of his stuff without it feeling same-y. That's not just him. It's also a matter of taste and like I've said---you may feel differently. But to the wandering or casual listener, there is good stuff to get your attention and if its varied enough....maybe keep your attention, too. 

Moving on to the era that really bored the shit out of me---we have a track that could've been a radio single (maybe I'm wrong)---to fan the flames of the adult contemporary shit and the 'haven't I heard this already' feeling of the 'Self-Titled / Prisoner era'. "It Won't Heal" was shared on RA's Instagram page in 2024 to acknowledge the 10th anniversary of the s/t album. It's believed to be from the scrapped 2nd album sessions produced with Glyn Johns in 2013. In order to hear a whole sounding song, I looped a section from the shared clip and extended it instrumentally to fill it out. 'Good ears!' to the guy who picked that detail out on Gracious Few's YT page. You're welcome, folks.

"Juliette" (AKA "Color Bars") is the title track of the promo disc of the same name from 2006 featuring tracks from the Cardinals' rejected third album (which eventually evolved into a solo billed album, Easy Tiger). Sounds like a re-purposed riff from the also then-cancelled (this is how you spell that word...enough of this single 'L' shit---stop trying to change facts...same goes for words like judgement and likeable) 2006 release of Blackhole. The song seems to continue RA's descent from alt-country genius into dumb rock song territory. If you like that kind of thing, the 2010 compilation of Cardinals pre-ET leftovers, III-IV, is for you.

"Like the Lies She Tells to Me" dates back to pre-Heartbreaker era (a recording in a small, possibly home studio set up somewhere with Gillian Welch, earlier in 2000). The DRA shared it on his IG back in 2023 (I think)---something to do with material that wasn't on the Heartbreaker 15th anniversary (like they didn't ask him? Dunno). Nice rootsy tune that sounds more like the Ryan Adams we started out listening to. It's a shame he's abandoned this sound and style for the more derivative schtick cosplaying of Tom Petty, Springsteen, Dylan and Morrissey. Also, burning bridges with his old producer Ethan Johns? Fix that shit, bud. Make that record you claimed you were making back in 2003 with him, Norah and the gang?

I originally included "Orange Rinds (Who is Gonna Save Me Now)"--a song that dates back to Ryan's last creative gasp and recording in a major studio in 2018. Taken from the 'Summer of 69 Demos' sessions---which yielded some 48 tracks that later appeared on albums like Big Colors, Wednesdays, and Romeo & Juliet between the end of 2020 and into early 2022. There was supposedly going to be a trilogy of albums released in 2019 including the former two albums and a scrapped double album dedicated to his late brother, Chris. I will say that 'Wednesdays' was probably his last real album. The material is heavy but it's what I expected Prisoner should've sounded more like when it was first hyped in 2015 as his 'divorce album' and 'as Heartbreaker as it gets'---the original 17-track version would've been a better album to look back on then the forgettable '80's rock' of Big Colors or what became the Chris album (a bunch of S/T and Prisoner leftovers). This song is raw and just voice and piano. It was shared on RA's IG a year or so back 'as a new song' ---but it's from the 2018 sessions for Wednesdays. The abridged version of the album is good but missing songs like "Take Me Home" , "Like a Heatwave" and "Red and Orange Special" that would've been on the original and made it a late period classic, possibly* (by the margin the old fans used to measure his best work at). However, the song doesn't stand up to repeated listens---so I replaced it with something more innaresting.

I added "In the Shadows" in its place---because it seems more sincere, haha. You know what I'm talkin' about. The song was recorded with Glyn Johns producing what would've been the 2013 follow-up to Ashes and Fire. Features some mean slide work from ex-Cardinals bandmate Cindy Cashdollar. I think she could have been around briefly (end of 2004 / beginning of 2005?) for some of the JCN demos---as I believe this song is a new recording of the same "Shadows" on that list of song titles from right after Cold Roses was finished. I heard she left the group after the 2004 tour--since she had other projects and didn't want to commit to another record, etc. Perhaps the 'Sear Sound' disc contains songs recorded before and after Graboff came in to replace Cashdollar? 

Pedal steel would become an integral part of the record. Bob Hoffnar (spelling ?) played with the band on their version of "Always on My Mind" (Norah Jones also sang and played on it). I read Graboff was already in the band--but had a prior commitment on that day. Graboff is (paraphrased) heard saying "Ryan had a bunch of song titles written down before he had songs..." in the awesome September documentary that we all wish was longer. Ryan's (in recent years) teasing about another Cardinals album with 'the original line-up' begs the question---is it that list of songs RE: JCN ("Shadows", "We're Doomed", "Liar's Eve", "Dust and Alcohol", "Like the Lies She Tells to Me", "Give Up?", "On My Way to Jacksonville", "Rosewood Cemetery", "The Howling", etc.)---at least some of them--from before the proper album sessions started? The electric 'Demonstration Versions' is another curious thread. Ryan wrote 'think like the JCN demos' in his songwriting notes for more songs we never heard in 2017 (Wednesdays demos, probably).    

BUT anyways---let's talk about "Walls" from the 2001 sessions that has been bootlegged for years as the 48 Hours disc. Probably one of the best damn songs that never got put out. Why the fuck is that? That's the real 'Ryan Adams sound' or at least what we were sold back in the day, heh. Another reason why Ethan Johns was the best producer he had. The best studio backing group (besides The Cardinals) he had was from this time (in my opinion), as well. I do dig the Replacements tribute band he had called the Pinkhearts, though. "Mega Superior Gold" is a banger. I didn't include it because I think you should go check out the whole Pinkhearts or 'Let It B-Minus' disc that's also out there (2000-01 era). 

"Perfect and True" is one of the best ballads and prettiest damn songs you could sing for somebody. It's just voice and guitars (the late great, Bucky Baxter accompanies RA with harmony and slide). This is part of a collection of stripped back tunes called The Suicide Handbook. The album was apparently intended to be the follow-up to Heartbreaker, but was deemed "too sad", etc. Well, they're not wrong about that, haha. Ballads and heartbreak and some fine songwriting and vocals. This was all scrapped for Gold. The 9-11 album. You know if he hadn't filmed that video where he did---we probably wouldn't have had to see that Gap ad he did (Bwahahhahhaha). That's nothing to do with him, though. Leviathans stick together, don't they? 

"The Last Dance"  is a perfect closer for this little introductory sampler to RA's unreleased works. No, this doesn't even probably cover it for completists! But for the rest of us, it shows the guy still has at least one solid album of stuff that hasn't been commercially released. I've tried to make it a nicely rounded musical affair for the discerning ear. This one is originally from the Exile on Franklin Street bootleg that supposedly contains a compilation of home recorded works RA did before signing to Lost Highway. I believe it was the name he gave folks as his first solo album 'he was working on' back before and after Whiskeytown, hehe. I believe it's probably recorded sometime after Whiskeytown ended (since it includes a  re-make of a song they didn't use for their final album, Pneumonia) and the sessions for Heartbreaker. This version of the song has been pitched down to a more natural tone---as several songs on the disc were 'pitched up' for whatever reasons---hiding how old the recordings are, etc. It was one of the first tunes I got into when I did a deep dive into his vast 'unreleased recordings' discography over twenty something years ago, now. Anyways, I hope you enjoy. This is the first thing I listen to and haven't got bored by him in years!  Maybe you'll find something there, too.

Cheers.