Waxed: Whiskeytown's Stranger's Almanac

From the opening notes - hell, from the first little hammer-on - of "Inn Town," you just know something special has arrived. Let's not even get into the fiddle strains and sparse guitar. For God's sakes, we've got a classic on our hands before the little shit even starts singing...

That's bound to be your reaction to Stranger's Almanac if you have any good music sense at all. Whiskeytown released this classic alternative country album on the world in 1997, and if you haven't heard it yet, you don't know what you're missing. There is just something, some sound that Ryan Adams, Caitlin Cary, and Phil Wandscher make together, that is priceless, timeless and perfect. Here the trio of singers/songwriters/musicians do their best to break your own heart tonight, and I'll be damned if they don't do it on every song.


















Starting with the instant classic "Inn Town" is a good way to start. The aforementioned beginning doesn't even speak to how incredible this song is - musically, lyrically, totally. How could a kid, a young punk like Ryan Adams was at the time, write a song this good? "Parking lot, movie screen/ I can't feel anything/ Cigarette, beat up t.v./I can't feel anything," he sings, and you feel it. THEN the harmony vocals kick in, and suddenly you're a Whiskeytown fan... for life. If you can find a better tale of broken, lonely small town life, I'd be impressed. But you won't. "I can't say anything without dreaming," Adams casually tosses out, before returning to that perfect harmony chorus - "Now that I'm Inn Town."

It get's better. "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight" is so much more than a broken down country song, and that's before you find out it's a duet with ace Texas singer/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo. Not to mention the incredible steel guitar playing - Adams, Cary, and Wandscher benefitted greatly from the cast of studio musicians that helped record the album, in between bands as the trio that was the backbone of Whiskeytown was. And with lines like, "Well excuse me if I break my own heart tonight/ some things are born too strong, they have to learn how to fight/ the situation keeps me drinking every goddamn day and night," there's a deep maturity to the heartbroken hard country of the song.

It is a shame that most of us didn't catch on to Whiskeytown and their cache of excellent albums until after the band dissolved and Adams went on to do his solo career. Songs like "Yesterday's News," pure Stones-y rock from Wandscher mixed with Adams' pure songteller sensibilities explode with both energy and innocence that frankly is missing from the latter's solo work, at least in such staggering quantity and quality as is found on Whiskeytown's brief, precious output.

"Got sixteen days/ fifteen of those nights/can't sleep when the bedsheet fights/ it's way back to your side," Adams sings on "16 Days." Somehow, the three culprits of this criminally excellent music managed to mix their superb musicianship and warm vocal harmonies around this boy-wonder's songs that are far too good, and far too lived-in, for his age. "Well your ghost has got me runnin' away from you." The album maintains it's strong start right through "Everything I Do," a forlorn lover's tale and an expert mixture of country ballad and soulful rocker. In fact, the way Whiskeytown mixes several genres of music can't be overstated. In some ways, they are as much a Rosetta Stone for the alternative country genre/culture as Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks. And just as deserving of praise.

"Houses on the Hill" is somber and sweet and tired and aching, the three singers voices intertwining in just the right places. It's the sound Ryan would mine almost exclusively for his first so album Heartbreaker, but instead of the intensely personal, this song is a story about somebody else's life, and that what makes it so sad and relatable. We've all known a broken widow, a woman left without because of some other man's war. "Turn Around" starts out gentle enough before churning into a raging storm of a rocker. It's also as good a place as any to sit back and just enjoy guitarist Phil Wandscher's excellent guitar playing, as well as the myriad tones he strangles out of his instrument throughout the record. His playing takes a simple folk song and makes it something extraordinary. Adams hasn't had a sideman or co-contributor as gifted as Wandscher since Whiskeytown, and that's evident here.

"Dancing with the Women at the Bar" is another song Adams should be too young to write, but he does it anyway. He's proven himself an expert at capturing human emotion at it's gritty best and worst, and this song is no exception. Not to be overlooked, either, is Caitlin Cary's solid contribution. I'm waiting for the day that Adams and Cary cut a record together, supporting each other and meeting on common ground. I might be waiting a while, but if it happens, the flashes of brilliance on this record proves it'll be worth the wait.

Stranger's Almanac continues its excellent song cycle on "Waiting to Derail," and open, cascading tune, reminiscent of U2 without being derivative. While Adams solo work frequently gets compared to other artists and he is sometimes called a copycat, it's hard to saddle Whiskeytown with such a claim - they manage to make their songs sound uniquely like Whiskeytown, whether because of the myriad of styles they've mastered or the unique gifts, tones, and sounds each of the three primary members contributes.

Adams refered to "Avenues" as "everyone's favorite Whiskeytown song" in an interview in No Depression magazine, and it's no slouch of a song, for sure. It's sweet and self-assured, a soft tune full of warmth and a bit of innocence that Adams could still convincingly deliver, and contains his trademark haphazard bad language that litters his later work. But "Losering" is the tune I return to time and time again. Whether because of the off-kilter nature of the song, or the harmony vocals, or just the strange way it builds, trickling at first and never becoming a full raging river, it's a favorite. Maybe it's Cary's violin playing, which I can never seem to get enough of. Maybe it's just because there's no such word as "losering." No matter, it sets a great mood for the end of the album, beginning the bookend to an excellent statement by a young, up and coming band.

"Somebody Remembers the Rose" returns to the slow, melodic country-rock burn this band does so well early on, hooky and full of ear candy without overpowering the affecting, simple tune. The atmospheric strains that kick of "Not Home Anymore," the albums closing track, borrow from the eerie mood of "Losering" in a familiar way, and the song wraps up everything great about Stranger's Almanac - the expert violin touches, the tasteful guitar tones and elegant playing, the harmonies to die for, and the finely crafted touches of the studio musicians who helped round out the lineup for the recording of the album. It's not the surefire hit that some of the other songs would be in a perfect world, but it's a competent and fitting album closer, more like an accessory to a great gift than the gift itself. It does speak to some of Ryan's later work, especially the low key moody rock he would explore fully on Love is Hell.

It's rumored that the band recorded over 30 songs for Stranger's Almanac, and I have to wonder, what haven't we heard? What would we have heard had this great band survived to record not one more, but half a dozen more albums? Would the talents and contributions of Cary and Wandscher have been enough to temper the mad genius of Adams, into making more concentrated, fleshed-out and complete songs as are evident here? Looks like we'll never know. But for what it is worth, Stranger's Almanac is one hell of an album, for Whiskeytown, Ryan Adams, alt-country, and/or otherwise. Give it a spin and welcome yourself to a whole world of deep, passionate music you might be missing. You won't regret it.

Waxed: Ryan Adams + The Cardinals' Cardinology

Every once in a while, you'll come across an album that grabs you - not completely, but just enough to tug on you, bring you back, and keep you coming back until it grows on you. These are the albums you learn to love - not immediate successes per se, but the type of albums you want with you on a cold lonely night or a sunny summer drive with the top down.

When your name is Ryan Adams, you aren't afforded much leeway. Your albums are expected to showers, not growers, so to speak. Your career has been littered with hits and misses. Some folks call you a genius, some an idiot, and most a copy-cat artist, a musical con man. With each album you put out, you confuse and delight and annoy and exalt, all at once and all the time. But, for those of us who love you (yes, I love me some Ryan Adams), we love you precisely because you're a nut job, a delightful temper-tantrum tornado that spins out blissfully sounding melodies and heart-wrenching lyrics as often as you spew foul-mouth tirades and (not quite so often) ordinary sounding tunes that are too basic to be memorable.

Cardinology, Adams' latest effort with his superb backing band the Cardinals, is a grower, not a shower. The record does start with an attention grabber, with the hard acoustic riff of "Born into a Light" reaching right out of the speakers and pulling the listener's ear close, and harkening to a return of the excellent sound Adams and crew mined on Cold Roses. But be careful - the song and all it's wonderful steel guitar, driving acoustics, and lazy-casual vocals goes by fast, maybe too fast. "We were born into a light," Adams sings, and this birth is a quick one.

"Go Easy" is pleasant enough, but every time I hear it, I expect to hear "Halloweenhead" from Adams' last record, Easy Tiger. Something about the chords reminds me of that latter song, but the tune is quite listenable regardless of what it calls to mind (again, for a reason I can't explain, the song also reminds of the Eagles, and part of me hopes that they would cover it. Such hopes are baseless and retarded, but hey, it's fun to dream). The song ends with Adams singing, "you gotta go, you gotta go now" repeatedly, and ends almost as quickly as the first track. In fact, the first four songs, and six of the album's twelve, clock in under three minutes.

"Fix It" slides in and continues the Cold Roses vibe, but with a distinct Neil Young feel, complete with ragged chopping guitar and slightly accusatory, revealing lyrics. The albums first real departure from the collective vibe comes next in "Magick," which is... simply bad-ass. Any song about a record just gets my blood going. The Cardinals doing a phenominal job of capturing the nasty sound of Rock N Roll-era Adams. Lyrically, Adams follows suit: "Everything you touch burns, scorched earth," sounds like a perfect line from that garage rock record.

I originally thought that "Cobwebs" was the song that held this release back from being a Shower - the song at first sounds a bit too bland. Even though it reminds me a my favorite Adams album - Love Is Hell - it just seemed... amateur. For Ryan Adams, anyway. But the song is sticky, and gets better with time, especially when you give it a spin listening to headphones. It's not perfect - Adams wailing at the end of the track doesn't really do anything positive for me, and kind of makes me long for the beginning of the song - but it is full of little ear candy, a guitar or steel guitar lick hidden here and there for your listening pleasure.

"Let Us Down Easy" is quintessential Adams and The Cardinals, if such a thing exists, all laziness and melody and a few stretches that keep it from being too samey. But "Crossed Out Name" really jumps out, starting with just Ryan's voice and a dual chugging acoustic guitars. "When I close my eyes, I feel like a page with a crossed out name," he sings, as piano chords fall in. "I wish I could tell you just how I am hurt," and the hits keep on coming. This song is fantastic - all mood and melody, heart on sleeve, scalpel in one hand and guitar pic in the other. It's an instant Adams classic.

The Cold Roses feel continues (which I consider a good thing) on "Natural Ghost," which features a great groove. It's also not the first song where Adams' voice brings to mind Willie Nelson, certainly in tone if not in phrasing (Willie is the coolest jazz cat around who isn't really a jazz cat, after all, and his odd ways of lyrical phrasing are totally unique and pretty hard to cop. the southern wispy drawl, however, lends itself well here to borrowing). The band then settles gently into the groovy "Sink Ships." You might wonder if Ryan is really saying anything here, other than his usual territory of love and growing up and living as a musical genius and misunderstood poet (because, you know, that is so hard), and to be honest, I am not sure he is. Lyrically, the album sounds pleasant without being too confrontational or too thought-provoking - there's enough buzz phrases ("the war is over") to keep it interesting, and the occasional triumph like "Crossed Out Name," but for the most part this is standard fare. And that isn't always a bad thing, especially when it leaves plenty of room for the amazing musicianship of the Cardinals, which is a very good thing.

"Evergreen lopes around at a nice, lazy country-jazz pace, with echoy steel guitar and a few flourishes of honky tonk piano. The easy vibe continues on "Like Yesterday," which gets awfully close to swarmy tripe '70's pop, closer than Adams has come before, as he continues to push his vocals into flowery falsetto ranges - not his best work, for sure. But the song isn't so bad as to bring the album down.

Cardinology ends with the pretty "Stop," a song that starts with just Ryan, singing and playing piano. It sounds all wounded and vulnerable - the way the best Ryan Adams song do. When the cymbals slowly chiming in and the pianos slow, we get typical Adams' lyrics: "Slow down/ you don't have to talk/ lie down/ breathe/ stop/ slow down/ it's not your fault," and what seems pretty simple and basic usually ends up endearing in Adams' hands. Strings creep in and almost overwhelm the last verse and chorus. Is it pretensious? Of course, it's Ryan Adams, but as a whole, Cardinology avoids some of the worst trappings that Adams falls into while staying neatly nestled into the things he does best - namely, solid tunecraft with a little emotional vulnerability and very hummable hooks.

Cardinology probably isn't going to win Ryan Adams any new fans, and it might only give his old ones enough of a taste of his best work to satisfy them for only so long, but it isn't a bad record. I'm not sure it meets the grand expectations that come with any Adams release, but it's a likeable, pleasant listen, with a few grabbers, a few toe-tappers, and a dud or two. And really, that's ok. It's ok to be a grower, not a shower. After all, so many of us can relate.

Primer: Ryan Adams and Demolition

The problem with Ryan Adams is also the best part about Ryan Adams: there is such a wealth of material. For the uninitiated, it can be a daunting task trying to find out where to begin, with multiple online-only songs, secret projects, bootlegged “unreleased” material, and other bands such as Whiskeytown all offering worthy listening experiences. Whiskeytown in and of itself deserves its own separate entries.

Though Adams is not-nearly as prolific and release-happy as Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices, the comparison is mostly just – here lies a brilliant songwriter, who releases a multitude of material that makes diehard fans squeal with joy, casual fans confused, and newcomers scared of where to begin.

Thankfully, Adams provides a great starting point for listening to his solo material with Demolition. Released after Adams’ best-selling and arguably most popular album to date, Gold, the Demolition album is the product of the prolific Adams writing and recording a reported four albums’ worth of material. Though it was originally his plan to release all of this material as a boxed set, the record company execs came in and asked him nicely to pare it down (not the first time the record execs would make a request to change Adams’ plan – the most publicized change having to do with the Love Is Hell and Rock N Roll albums, which we will surely get to later). The result was Demolition.

One might ask why a record of demos, half-finished songs and b-side material that Adams decided not to use (or rather that the record company decided needed to be pared down into a more listenable and commercially viable chunk) would be a great place to start. The primary is because on Demolition, we get a glimpse of the myriad forms Adams’ music can take.

On “Nuclear,” the album’s opening tune, is quintessential Ryan Adams: alt-country overtones, acoustic guitar and electric guitar rhythms, a pissed off and anthemic chorus, great lyrics, Adams’ alternately breathy and snarling vocals, and most of all, a kind of relaxed, lazy detachment that Adams best songs always have.

“Hallelujah” comes next, this time without the punky distorted guitars, but with that passionate-yet-uninterested singing, supported by some of Adams’ most gorgeous lyrics, great background vocals, a comfortably familiar harmonica, and Americana chord structures. It contains one of my favorite Adams’ lyrics: “I’d only trade you in for Mary Magdalene.” I love you sweetie, but hey, you know, she was kind of important, he seems to say – again, passion with a detachment that any 20-something growing up in American can relate to.

While some critics panned the barebones structural nature of some of the songs, the minimal accompaniment of “You Will Always Be The Same” lends it a storyteller’s charm, and lends it familiarity with Adams’ first solo album, Heartbreaker. By contrast, “Starting to Hurt” points directly to the take on modern rock and the garage rock revival that Adams would perfect on Rock N Roll.

To my ears, the first 6 songs are solid gold, some of Adams’ best songwriting. The perfectly capture his irreverent, irresponsible, and completely understandable look at the world, love, and human interaction. A good deal of his material seems to deal with either growing up or breaking up. This compilation seems to capture that without being a lame greatest hits package.

The astute listener will love the interplay between the guitar and piano on “Cry on Demand,” the steel guitar on “Nuclear,” the laid-back vibe of “Tennessee Sucks.” The listener seeking emotional content will likely find something tasteful and relatable on every track. To me, “She Wants to Play Hearts” is a little lacking, and the second half of the album doesn’t capture me as much as the first.

Perhaps the best thing about starting off your Ryan Adams collection with Demolition is that the next album you purchase by Adams should seem familiar, no matter which one it is. It seems like all of his many styles are captured on this one album, from the country of Jacksonville City Nights to the dark introspection and indie rock trappings of Love Is Hell.

With an artist as prolific and polarizing as Adams, there are bound to be those who vehemently disagree with Demolition as a primer to Adams’ music, but for my money it is a worthy addition to any record collection and a great doorway into Adams’ superb solo work. It may be his least consistent-throughout album, but it is a great place to start.

What To Get Next: Love Is Hell is damn-near perfect, but of the newer stuff, Easy Tiger is a great listen, too
Recommended If You Like: The Jayhawks, Whiskeytown, The Strokes, Jeff Buckley (kind of), folk rock, outlaw country