Ryan Adams Apology

[Gamecock]

True... But one thing I wish Farrar would take out of Ryan's playbook is not to talk/sing politics so damn much. I wish I had the superpower to build my perfect rock star.

But as is, I can no more expect Jay to shut up about politics or Adams to stop his self-indulgent whining, than I can expect Jay to stop writing songs like "Medicine Hat" and Adams from writing "Sweet Carolina".

You must take the good and the bad... Sadly. And a little banter by Jay at a concert would be nice as well. But whatevah.

[blueinjun]

call me crazy but i admire the guy had the insight and humility to do and say what he did. how many other musicians at his level would have exposed themselves as he did to his fellow band members and fans? i can't say i am an avid fan of his music but i will be the first to state the guy is immensely talented and gifted in penning a song and drafting a melody. the psyche and emotional constitution that is being ridiculed and critiqued is the very creative energy and output that allows him to exorcise his demons thru word and song. maybe the guy feels too much for his own good and maybe that creative angst that haunts him is misdirected on occasion. but, when correctly directed, it flows from within to the ears of those who do not have the same capacity to create yet appreciate it for what it is. i, for one, believe there is credence to the concept of the tortured artist.

I hear what you're saying. But part of me thinks he really needs to take a play out of Farrar's handbook and just shut the fuck up.

[Gamecock]

And Ryan Adams has tons and tons of great stuff post-Whiskeytown. And half of it has never been released, except on Demos.

But his latest efforts have been awful... Just terrible.

[sturgeongeneral]

call me crazy but i admire the guy had the insight and humility to do and say what he did. how many other musicians at his level would have exposed themselves as he did to his fellow band members and fans? i can't say i am an avid fan of his music but i will be the first to state the guy is immensely talented and gifted in penning a song and drafting a melody. the psyche and emotional constitution that is being ridiculed and critiqued is the very creative energy and output that allows him to exorcise his demons thru word and song. maybe the guy feels too much for his own good and maybe that creative angst that haunts him is misdirected on occasion. but, when correctly directed, it flows from within to the ears of those who do not have the same capacity to create yet appreciate it for what it is. i, for one, believe there is credence to the concept of the tortured artist.

[Gamecock]

Is this an apology for his latest album? Cardinalogy? Thank god I didn't buy the album and instead recieved it via internet leak. Because I certainly couldn't accept his apology, were that the case.

[blueinjun]

This is the letter he wrote on his website...the one he is actually apologizing for.

can’t breathe-

was allergic to the “cylins” the doctors were giving me. throat is swollen and i am seeing double. i can’t barely get out of bed and am finally home.

nobody really gave a shit if i was sick. i am unimportant to so many people unless i can produce something. i might say “i am really sick” and the feedback i get is “………..”

i am the dancing monkey.

fuck that,

and fuck being sick

and fuck being 33 and at the mercy of people who don’t understand that. i’m lucky i didn’t fucking die from allergic reactions, THREE times to something i should never take.

how many people asked me if i was okay in the cardinals.

answer= 0

number of albums or amount of ” a fuck” i give right now about any of that

answer= 0

i have fucking walking pneumonia and have to get a tripe dose of cylins (who gives that for the flu????? wtf) and have to get as much rest as possible.

i quit smoking.

i also quit this.

this is stupid and was funny for a minute.

ha ha.

i look forward to finishing my job so i can get back to work. as in, stuff i actually like with people who actually are interested.

meanwhile, i am sorry i ever doubted my home here in manhattan.

what an insult to my own intelligence.

angry

sick

non-smoker

perfectly unafraid of telling it like it is.

to the Atlanta Ga crowd i am very very sorry you had to witness my voice blowing out. i have never had that happen.

i gave it everything i had, and everything i had was not enough.

i heard the “fuck you’s” and stuff shouted at the bus. i hope you don’t get the flu or sick ever at your workplace and your throat starts closing up and your co-workers turn their noses up at you.

i hope you don’t have to wait to fly you are so sick, just to get back to your doctor and home.

i hope you don’t wake up one day to realize what a joke your whole scene is and find yourself boxed in by madness.

choose life.

[derekf]

I still like his music. His last record, Easy Tiger, has some great songs, as do all his other records. But honestly, he can be a twat.

I kept Pearls on a String, a song that I heard he had to be talked into even including on the album. The rest went bye-bye.

[gdavis5446]

I still like his music. His last record, Easy Tiger, has some great songs, as do all his other records. But honestly, he can be a twat.

[derekf]

No dice. I need that apology to my face. Or my $27.50 back. The Whiskeytown stays, but a little while ago, RA albums were picked over for a few songs I really like and were re-labled 'various'. Fuck you Ryan Adams.

[countryfeedback]

I am glad that I never got too attached to his music after he left Whiskeytown. Its been a downword spiral ever since.

I havent listened to a Ryan Adams album since Rock N Roll. I know others here gave up on him long before then.

[gdavis5446]

Who needs attention more, Ryan Adams or TO?

[hardwood floor]

anybody got the Cliff Notes for that?

[half-n-half]

*yawn*

[blueinjun]

This guy really needs to get over himself.

An Open Apology to Cardinals, CardinalFam & Fans

To All,

This is Ryan. It is quite early on Friday and I need to say a few things.

I would like to apologize to my friends in the Cardinals, who are like family to me, to our management and our Wise Elders who have taken great care of us and myself for so many years , to Steve at Nasty who is rational and protective and understanding and knows more about comics than anyone I know (which is a lot) to CardinalCrew who build the dream in real time for all of us, day in and out

and to you, Cardinal Fans,

I owe you an apology an explanation and wish to end the cycle of madness my sickness turned craziness created.

I am deeply sorry for how I reacted to my illness, and the defeat I felt on the last tour and the outrageous way I reacted and blame i placed unnecessarily on others.

I was wrong.

I could not be more filled with regret and humbled at my own inability to be mindful during my time of crisis.

The truth is, I know better and am not naturally inclined to this behavior. It is something I felt like was long past me, but I am obviously still learning how to deal and how to cope with my own misfortunes and the sometimes trying world of trying to please many and maintain my own sense of worth and dignity.

I made an awful mistake.

It is no fun to be away from home and to get sick, and even worse to be a singer and lose the very thing which holds me to the Cardinals as ONE part of a much larger, far more precious dream which has been the integration of myself and my abilities towards the band, and a greater musical and creative endeavor which is sharing my work and my heart and my soul and my mind and also my weakness with those I love and trust and also SO MANY OF YOU who carefully came along to explore this idea with us.

I am sorry I let you down. I let myself down too.

CARDINOLOGY and our band The CARDINALS has been the work of so many years traveling, a dream Brad and I had all the way back to before I even recorded my second ever solo album Gold, a mutual dream Neal Casal and I shared so so many years ago, in fact, before I made Heartbreaker, and the trust established between Chris and Brad which led him from the furthest recesses of space to join our noise machine and Jon Graboff who is, in my opinion, the authority on not only the advancement of Steel Guitar playing into future realms but also now an obvious fashion icon (loud autumn colors- Jon’s socks and sneakers- coincidence??? i think not)….. I apologize to you from the bottom of my heavy metal heart.

I do not deal with defeat well, nor sickness, and in my brief tenure as someone who had a rather upsetting and rough time of it for so long plugging back into the Matrix of Reality has not been as easy or as painless as I imagined. I make a lot of mistakes and my margin for error is widened by senseless pride when I know I am faced with things I so want to change but cannot.

It is obvious to me it is ME to has to learn to adapt. I see the constraints I put on myself and I also see how hard I work and how often I over-work to try and correct my past. It is the good work and it is also humbling in that I am lucky enough that I maintained any sense of purpose as I have let myself down so so many times since I began my journey musically. And I have let others down so often that I am constantly embarrassed of my actions.

I am struggling more often than not to forgive myself for behavior I adopted long ago to “quick fix” whatever is before me in order to just get to a next step where I might improve things, myself, or my relationships not only in the musical world but otherwise and it can be more than exhausting as I sometimes only see the negative- this is not healthy thinking and NOT setting a good example.

I must continue to fight against this notion of ego and pride and feeling attached more to the negative voices from the crowd and not the positive.

Sometimes that voice seems to me simply an echo of my own self-opinion and this will always be “MY” struggle and I must continue to learn from my mistakes and call myself out when I confuse that with my friends or the fans or our team, because I always know at heart we are working together now, and this was something I dreamed of, and something that has nurtured me back to spiritual and musical health as well as mental.

Having said all this, long-winded as I am known to be, I simply dislike letting anyone down ever, and this is inevitable as it is simply impossible to please everyone.

When I lost my voice at the end of the last tour, when I least expected to having felt like I was through the thick of the horrid flu that more or less knocked nearly each of us out on the band bus, I was terrified. I was not prepared for how to handle the situation. I struggled to continue but I also knew that the more I was attempting to overcome the situation by continuing to sing the more in jeopardy I was putting myself and the band as singing with a broken voice can cause irreparable damage to a singing voice- and we had already reluctantly cancelled two shows in the mid-west which we were dying to play.

Long story short-

I have some learning to do, some forgiveness to allow myself and to ask for, and I write this in hope that everyone who has cared for and followed our band knows that I fully was in the wrong,

but that i must continue forward and hope for frogiveness as that is the essence of our work.

In times like these, we all need as much hope as possible and one thing I do know how to do, is offer that-

because if the shared Cardinal dream is anything- it has been shared hope.

With respect to all

and my sincerest apologies,

Ryan Adams.