The latest Ryan Adams thread V2.0

[Lammycat]

Not surprising at all if true. I stopped being a fan of his in 2005 when he walked offstage early in a show after an incoherent rant. If this is true then he's just a bad person all the way around. And his musical talent doesn't and shouldn't make up for that.

Not to be a dick, but didn't you recently catch a Jerry Lee Lewis show...?

 

Either way, I always thought Ryan Adams was a self-important blowhard douche and disliked whatever amount of emo crap talent he brought to Phil & Friends years ago. The guy sure could slaughter a decent Garcia tune.

 

Sounds like his texting is more prolific and disturbingly pathetic than his mediocre song-writing....

[lost highway]

The question returns:

 

Is it possible to enjoy an artist's output and disregard their abhorrent behavior?

 

I'm not talking about buying concert tickets or new records, but does this mean 'Love is Hell' is no longer fun to listen to?

 

I struggled with this when Louis C.K. got into trouble. I so loved his work, and now I hate him as a dude. Haven't decided if I can keep those things separate, but I can understand both sides of the argument.

[jw harding]

Not to be a dick, but didn't you recently catch a Jerry Lee Lewis show...?

 

Either way, I always thought Ryan Adams was a self-important blowhard douche and disliked whatever amount of emo crap talent he brought to Phil & Friends years ago. The guy sure could slaughter a decent Garcia tune.

 

Sounds like his texting is more prolific and disturbingly pathetic than his mediocre song-writing....

Nail - head. 

 

I understand people like this guy because he reminds them of their other favorite artists. But he never had anything original to say, paint by numbers rock n roll. To me, its just derivative. Artists are always influenced by those that came before, but this guy never found his own voice, probably because he was empty inside. 

 

I gave his music way too many chances. Last time being watching some live performance over ten years ago. Wife walks in the room and asks "who's this douchebag?" The guy is just douche chills come to life. Seeing him go down is kind of vindication of my entire belief system and perspective on life!

[bustedafternoon]

RA is the quite possibly the most overrated songwriter ever. "Strangers Almanac" with Whiskeytown is a great record, but once he lost those great collaborators, it was nothing but formulaic, bland, garbage. People held him up as a songwriter for the generation which is simply hilarious. One or two good moments on "Heartbreaker" followed by an endless flood of utter crapola. And he may have the most grating, self-absorbed personality of anyone in music. Ugh, those tight "metal" t-shirts - what a tool.

[jff]

What is the parallel between Jerry Lee Lewis and Ryan Adams?  I get the underage thing, but that's only one detail among many in the accusations against Adams.  If I recall, Jerry Lee, admittedly a terrible human being for many reasons, didn't lure underage girls into relationships with him in exchange for career services using his name and influence as leverage.

[Jimbo Jones]

FBI has opened an investigation

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/arts/music/ryan-adams-fbi-explicit-communications-underage.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[tinnitus photography]

https://twitter.com/AidanJohnMoffat/status/1096182171692339200

[bustedafternoon]

Good chance he's going to prison.

[Boss_Tweedy]

Not to be a dick, but didn't you recently catch a Jerry Lee Lewis show...?

 

Either way, I always thought Ryan Adams was a self-important blowhard douche and disliked whatever amount of emo crap talent he brought to Phil & Friends years ago. The guy sure could slaughter a decent Garcia tune.

 

Sounds like his texting is more prolific and disturbingly pathetic than his mediocre song-writing....

 

Sure did. Jerry Lee Lewis has certainly been self-destructive and is also a less than stellar person. However, I've never heard of him being a predator. Bad judgment? Yes. Odd? Definitely. I've talked with a couple of people who have been close to him, and I've met a couple of members of his family. They're definitely an odd bunch. But Ryan Adams seems to be a whole different kind of terrible. 

[remphish1]

Good chance he's going to prison.

Wow guess will be hard for him to pass the time there as he already recorded the prisoner album 2 years ago

[nalafej]

Wow guess will be hard for him to pass the time there as he already recorded the prisoner album 2 years ago

 

As long as we're doing jokes about this seriousness...he covers full albums, maybe there is an opportunity to do 'At Folsom Prison' or "Live in Cook County Jail'

[remphish1]

As long as we're doing jokes about this seriousness...he covers full albums, maybe there is an opportunity to do 'At Folsom Prison' or "Live in Cook County Jail'

Sucks he was such an ahole I liked some of his music but what he did was terrible. I am not sure what else to say on the topic so out come the too soon jokes I guess?!

[Lammycat]

Sure did. Jerry Lee Lewis has certainly been self-destructive and is also a less than stellar person. However, I've never heard of him being a predator. Bad judgment? Yes. Odd? Definitely. I've talked with a couple of people who have been close to him, and I've met a couple of members of his family. They're definitely an odd bunch. But Ryan Adams seems to be a whole different kind of terrible. 

Fair enough.

[u2roolz]

I have this weird vibe that he's going to kill himself.

 

I enjoyed his music, but grew sick of his tirades. I hung out with him after his show at Hampton Beach, NH. My friend lent him his demos at the show before and wanted to give him some feedback on it. He even got to open for him a year later. Anyways, we hung around the tour bus and there was some young woman by herself that was only there because she had weed for him. Parker Posey called him & he walked off to talk to her. We were on the tour bus for maybe 5 minutes. He had a gaming system out back and his manager came to tell Ryan to give us the boot because they were heading to Montreal & needed to get "rid" of the weed before they hit the border. So we got the boot and he was left alone. I'm almost positive that the band had their own bus or they were off somewhere. It was in April 2005 early part of the Cold Roses tour. It was a cool experience and 8 months prior I had met Jeff Tweedy after only my 2nd Wilco show.

 

Then all of the crazy stuff started happening at his live shows that my friend told me about, but he kept going to see him. I can't even recall how many shows of his that I skipped. Ryan didn't like the lighting, so he cut the show short etc. I think that happened in Maine & my friend was living in MA.

 

I also hated how he treated Neil Finn & Janis Ian on Songwriters. Something seemed weird. I never really heard Elton John talk about him anymore. He was a big advocate for him around Gold & they even did a Storytellers together.

 

The news about this is horrible for all of the women involved. I haven't listened to him in quite some time, so I don't feel like I've been fooled or anything like that. He just fell way off my radar. Recently, I had caught his social media posts about making an album and I was intrigued.

[remphish1]

I have this weird vibe that he's going to kill himself.

 

Me too I say this because he threatened suicide to women if they didn’t respond immediately to him according to the article. I think must be in the back of his head. I would assume that or he is going to relapse heavily into drugs...wish he’d do the right thing and admit, apologize serve his time and straighten up...

[u2roolz]

Me too I say this because he threatened suicide to women if they didn’t respond immediately to him according to the article.

Yes, not only that, but this will take away all of this power that he was wielding over all of these women. There's no coming back from it.

 

^ This & I also listened to one of the voicemails that he left for a music journalist. He didn't like the review that he gave him & started questioning why he likes other artists' shows. He just sounded like a whiny little bitch.

[calvino]

Yes, not only that, but this will take away all of this power that he was wielding over all of these women. There's no coming back from it.

 

^ This & I also listened to one of the voicemails that he left for a music journalist. He didn't like the review that he gave him & started questioning why he likes other artists' shows. He just sounded like a whiny little bitch.

 

That was a message to Jim DeRogatis - I have listened to that a few times for laughs. God - seriously, it doesn't get any better than that. 

 

I don't know crap about Adams - but,  I am a huge fan Neal Casal and I guess he was in the Cardinals. No wonder he is able to put up with Chris Robinson - Chris must seem like a saint compared to Adams.

[The Inside of Outside]

https://twitter.com/AidanJohnMoffat/status/1096182171692339200

This made me laugh. Or really sad. Or both.

[worldrecordplayer]

I have this weird vibe that he's going to kill himself.

 

Then all of the crazy stuff started happening at his live shows that my friend told me about, but he kept going to see him. I can't even recall how many shows of his that I skipped. Ryan didn't like the lighting, so he cut the show short etc. I think that happened in Maine & my friend was living in MA.

 

Having nothing to do with the Times piece, but I always thought the thing with the lighting is he suffers from Meunière’s Disease.

 

I don’t count myself in the “he’s a crappy songwriter” camp. Prisoner is one of my favorite albums of the last several years. I was looking forward to his 3 releases this year. The one song I heard sounded good to me.

 

I was late to the RA bus and then I often heard what an asshole he is. I didn’t know what that was about, I never saw it and I pretty much just listened to the music. What has been revealed is so beyond the pale. Sickening. Time will tell what this means for my relationship with his music. I have no idea right now.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mountain bed]

 

 

I always thought Ryan Adams was a self-important blowhard douche and disliked whatever amount of emo crap talent he brought to Phil & Friends years ago. The guy sure could slaughter a decent Garcia tune.

 

This is pretty much my view as well. I saw Whiskeytown open for Fogerty around 1997 and I thought that band had something happening for them but by and large what I heard from Adams after that left me less than impressed. But I'm not really well versed in the catalog - it's pretty fucking extensive.

 

His shows with Phil kind of bummed me out from what I've heard.

[uncool2pillow]

About 44 seconds in

 

https://youtu.be/dCdAYU00Hc0

[TCP]

About 44 seconds in

 

https://youtu.be/dCdAYU00Hc0

 

I can't watch this video outside of the US, can anyone recap what the joke was??

[Shug]

The question returns:

 

Is it possible to enjoy an artist's output and disregard their abhorrent behavior?

 

I'm not talking about buying concert tickets or new records, but does this mean 'Love is Hell' is no longer fun to listen to?

 

I struggled with this when Louis C.K. got into trouble. I so loved his work, and now I hate him as a dude. Haven't decided if I can keep those things separate, but I can understand both sides of the argument.

This is a good question.  I struggle most with it or am most successful in separating reprehensible behavior from great music with Led Zeppelin.  Page was pretty much a pedophile with the age of the groupies he went after but musically they are always in the top 3 greatest rock bands of all time for me, somedays they are #1.  I don't know how I reconcile that in my mind, but I do.

 

With someone like Chris Robinson, its been easier for me to despise him because of his horrible treatment of his bandmates because his music, in my opinion, has sucked balls since Before The Frost and CRB is straight up unlistenably terrible to me.  My opinion of his greedy arrogance is so low that I really don't like listening to even the good old stuff from the Black Crowes anymore and they were my favorite touring band for quite a few years (2005 - 2010).

[calvino]

I can't watch this video outside of the US, can anyone recap what the joke was??

 

Talked about the whole Adams and 14 year girl thing, then said it was yet another example of a white musician doing something that black musician did first - then the showed a picture of R Kelly. It was pretty funny.

[Plumplechook]

I see Ryan Adams current band members are now starting to speak out, with guitarist Todd Wisenbaker calling Adam's a 'monster' on an Instagram posting today and saying he is 'actively afraid for the safety of my family' for speaking out.

 

https://www.instagram.com/totally_tod/p/BuB6cGJhhmb/

I feel bad for cutting this guy so much slack over the years, putting up with his temper tantrums and ranting at concerts on the grounds he was some sort of troubled genius.  The truth was always there in plain sight - he's just an asshole.