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Month: June 2007

Review – Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger

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Alt.country/rock enfant terrible Ryan Adams once threw a hissy fit and attempted to toss a fan out of the Nashville Ryman Auditorium when during an Adams concert a member of the audience yelled “play ‘Summer Of ’69,'” referencing the hit by Canadian superstar Bryan Adams.

With his new release Easy Tiger (Lost Highway), Ryan is finally making peace with his inner Bryan.

This is most mainstream release Ryan Adams has ever done. That not to say it’s mainstream, we are still talking about the guy that channeled Beck and posted dozens of faux hip-hop and punk tracks like “Awww Shit, Look Who Got a Web Site”
Is he brilliant or nuts? Who cares?

Recorded with his Cardinals but billed as a solo effort, Easy Tiger is a taunt release with the longest track clocking in at 4:11 and most are two or three minutes this focusing and freeing Adams to create some of his best work.

Things kick off with “Goodnight Rose”, a stunning country-rock tune that is as straight forward as it is surprising in its composition and excellent guitar work. “Two” is a sweetly heart-wrenching song with barley discernable vocals by Sheryl Crow.

Halloween Head is a rave up with a free-jam feel and “Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.”, brings to mind Sufjan Stevens with its hushed vocal and delicate piano and softly plucked banjo. But it ends up all Adams
The frustrating thing about Ryan Adams is that much of the gushing ink spilled on his musical genius is sometimes very often, true. When he’s good he’s approached legend, and when he’s just okay he’s still pretty fucking great!

Ryan Adams – Two

MTV Urge Interviews Porter Wagoner

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Country music’s legend, Porter Wagoner, sits down with MTV Urge for an interview and discusses his start as well as serious health problems he had to overcome to record his new album, Wagonmaster.

You can find the interview here. You’ll need to download the Urge software first, but it”s worth it.

An excerpt: URGE: Your first big break came on Red Foley’s “Ozark Jubilee” show, the first nationally televised country music program. How did you develop your trademark flashy, Nudie-suit image there?

Porter Wagoner: Nudie [Cohn] came to the Ozark Jubilee one day, and I didn’t know who he was. It was in the real early ’50s. He said he made suits for cowboys and people in the movies. And he had a new idea for suits that included rhinestones and sequins … people hadn’t seen anything like that. My answer was, “It’ll probably cost so much I can’t afford it,” because I was barely getting by then. He said, “If this don’t work, they won’t cost you anything. If it does, then I’ll make some money off of making clothes for you throughout your career.” About three or four weeks later I got a big package that had a suit of clothes in it, and a shirt to match it and a pair of boots. It was a peach-colored suit, and it had a big covered wagon across the back of it. It was just unbelievably beautiful. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. That weekend I wore it onstage, and boy, people just went “wow.” That was the first one he’d made for anybody. He had made a lot of different clothes for cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, but they didn’t have the sparkle or the glitz.

URGE: You had a life-threatening illness shortly before recording Wagonmaster. How did you bounce back?

Wagoner: I had surgery this past year, July the 14th. I had an aneurysm I had to have taken care of. It got into my kidney. We was talkin’ about doin’ an album at that time, and of course that stopped everything. I started healin’ up, but it took me a long time to get my strength back. Marty [Stuart, album producer] talked to me in the hospital several times [saying], “Let’s get together with a couple of guitars and we’ll sit down and pick some together, and I’d like it if you sang some for me, too.” That really gave me a lot of encouragement, knowing that he was still interested. On the first day, I think we worked 30 to 45 minutes, maybe. He said, “Let’s don’t do too much the first few times here.” And that’s the way we did it. I got to singing and pretty much got my voice back. I was so thrilled to be able to sing again that it really just gave me new inspiration. I was just very fortunate to have somebody like him. Marty loves me like a brother. I had no idea how brilliant he was in the studio. I produced a lot of records, and produced Dolly’s records all the time when she was with me, but he knew new things that I didn’t know. He made a believer out of me. If you could imagine how proud I am of the project. I feel like it’s a touch of brilliance, I really do.

Porter Wagoner – Committed To Parkview

There’s no earthly way of knowing / Which direction we are going

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I never thought about it before, but once I got notice that Lost Highway was giving away two golden tickets in select copies of Ryan Adams new release Easy Tiger (6/25) in copies sold around the New York area (winners get to attend a concert the Ryan Adams show that night at the Hiro Ballroom) I now see the remarkable similarities between Willy Wonka and Ryan Adams.

No word yet on if the Oompa-Loompas will be opening the show.

New Yorkers try your luck at either Vintage Vinyl in Fords, NJ or Looney Tunes in West Babylon, Long Island.

Hey, you never know….

Lost Along The Way

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Recently I posted that music industry gadfly Bob Lefsetz has recently discovered mainstream country radio on satellite radio. And he’s been posting them a big sloppy one ever since (Ooooo little Big Town , how like a poor man’s Fleetwood Mac you are!),but he’s dead on in his latest post about Bon Jovi’s recent excursion to the wrong side of the cultural tracks, put on some $1000. boots and tried their hand at country music. Bad idea!

Bon Jovi has had a much longer shelf-life than most of their big-haired brethren (hear that Poison?!) and it helps that Jon Bon Jovi has aged well enough that middle age women all over the nation want to still jump his bones. But good ass genes does not good music make.

Bon Jovi has been brilliant at keeping himself on the public eye. How many times have they played the Today show in the last few years? I bet it rivals Steve Martin’s record for hosting SNL (14). But just like with genes, exposure does not a great band make.

So now Bon Jovi goes where other metal bands have gone before. ”, Warrant’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Poison’s “Something to Believe In” both were pop-metal forays into Southern-fried sounds and it succeeded about well as might think. If you suck at metal why wouldn’t you suck at country?

The mistake that these bands make is looking at the money and demographics of mainstream country and calculating that it’s a smart business decision. Business, not passion. When Michael Ness of Social Distortion covers Ring Of Fire it’s not because he thinks “There sure are a lot of Cash fans that will buy this.” He does it because he respects what Johnny did and HAS to pay tribute.

Will I listen to Bob Jovi new release “Lost Highway”? Probably not, I’ve heard it before. Pop-country is like mosquitoes in Nashville. Everywhere and sucking.

Steve Earle To Host Sirius Radio Show

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From Harp.com – SIRIUS satellite radio has just announced that country-rock legend Steve Earle will host a weekly show on the Outlaw Country station, channel 63.

The Steve Earle Show: Hard Core Troubadour Radio will be a one hour program featuring Earle’s personal music selections as well as on-air interviews with special guests. In more than thirty years of music-making, Earle has been nominated 11 times for a Grammy award, and has one win for The Revolution Starts Now in 2005. Earle has recently been in the studio recording his upcoming album on New West Records, with producer John King of The Dust Brothers, and also had a weekly show on Air America which he is leaving for his new gig at SIRIUS.

Outlaw Country was created by Little Steven Van Zandt and is home to the equally maverick likes of Shooter Jennings and Cowboy Jack Clement. Earle’s program will be broadcast Saturdays at 8pm ET and can also be heard Sundays at 1am and 9am and Monday nights at midnight.

I wonder if Sirius will give Earle the long leash that Air America did when he goes off on the powers that be. They will if they’re smart. Steve Earle’s politics are as much a part of what results in his extraordinary talent as his heroin use and obnoxious attitude. Let Earle be Earle. Let him rant and rave about the carpetbagger boy-king W and play some of the best music ever to travel the galaxy.

Austin’s Mean Eyed Cat needs your help

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Thanks to the 9513 for putting this on my radar. Inspired by the Johnny Cash song of the same name, Austin’s one-of-a-kind Mean Eyed Cat bar is facing possible closure.

The property that the bar occupies is zoned as a retail space and thus is required to earn 51 percent of its revenue from food sales – The space has no kitchen so that’spretty much out of the question.

Owner Chris Marsh has taken the issue to the city council to ask that the property be rezoned. The council is set to vote on June 21.

Go to the Mean Eyed Cat and spend your hard-earned cash.

Go here to support the rezoning.

Ryan Adams in the New York Times

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The New York Times has a nice piece on Ryan Adams, his ending contract and sometimes tumultuous relationship with Lost Highway records, getting back with his old manager, John Silva, and the road ahead. This article contains this great story when one outlaw of country meets another:

One afternoon, as Ryan Adams was recording his new album, “Easy Tiger” (Lost Highway), at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, the singer-songwriter Steve Earle dropped by to visit. Jimi Hendrix had built Electric Lady in the late 1960s, and Mr. Earle pointed out that “there are some good ghosts here.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Adams blithely responded. “There are the ghosts of about 45 speedballs from when I was recording here a year or two ago,” referring to a mixture of heroin and cocaine.

Like Earle, Adams is working on containing his demons and is producing some of the best work of his life. Horror-meister and former addict himself, Stephen King wrote the record company bio that will accompany Easy Tiger’s release on June 26. Mr. King calls it “maybe the best Ryan Adams CD ever.”

Porter Wagoner Opens for White Stripes at the Garden

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From Country Standard Time – Wednesday, June 6, 2007 – Fresh off his just released brand new CD, “Wagonmaster,” Porter Wagoner can look forward to playing Madison Square Garden in July. With a band featuring Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, Wagoner will open for White Stripes July 24.

Stuart produced Wagoner’s new release for L.A.s Anti-label. His video for the Johnny Cash-penned “Committed To Parkview” is getting some play on CMT. He also recently celebrated his 50th anniversary as a member of the Grand Ole Opry with Dolly Parton and Patty Loveless participating.