When I embarked on my second journey through the magical land of student-run radio, as the supervising adult instead of one of the rabble-rousing kids, I was all too aware that I had a lot of catching up to do. Despite my desire to stay current on music, to avoid being the guy who was calling up the college radio station requesting the songs and artists I’d been listening to for twenty-five years or more when the deejay really wanted to play that brand new thing on the shelf, I had done poorly. This was in part attributable to putting my faith in local commercial radio stations that simply weren’t up to the task, staffed as they were with contentedly atrophying music fans. And it was in part because my resources were still fairly limited around the turn of the millennium, with the burgeoning World Wide Web not quite settled into its role as the greatest outlet for discovering new music–new anything, really–that I’d ever known. In some instances, I knew exactly where my metaphorical blind spots were. I had a little mental list of artists who I’d been hearing about for a while but hadn’t discovered the opportunity to hear what they could do. Near the top of that list was Ryan Adams.

Realistically, the list probably had Whiskeytown towards the top with Adams written next to in faint pencil scratching, protected by parentheses. I had a whole crew of friends who were devoted to alt-country (or y’allternative, or the No Depression movement, or Americana, or whatever you want to call it), so I was a little more attuned to the artists who make their name amongst those melodic byways. As I recall, Whiskeytown wasn’t really one of their bands, though, even as the group’s various albums were drawing exalted reviews and their lead singer and chief songwriter was getting singled out as a performer to watch. By the time I settled in under my new transmitter tower, Whiskeytown was officially no more, and Adams has started out, somewhat gingerly, on his solo career. There wasn’t that much to sample. Not yet, anyway. Adams would become one of those problematically prolific artists, releasing music at such a hyperactive clip (he had three new albums come out in 2005, for example) that he had no time or maybe inclination to edit himself to ensure quality went hand in hand with quantity. In the summer of 2001, that wasn’t yet a problem.

I listened to some of the Whiskeytown material, which was good, but it truly was Adams’s solo debut, Heartbreaker, that made me understand who he was, the good and the bad of it. His ability to simultaneously inspire such devotion and stir up so much chagrin recalls another gutter poetry songwriter from a generations earlier, one with whom I was all too familiar. And with my discovery of Adams, I hatched the theory that every generation gets the Paul Westerberg it deserves. Adams may have owed more to George Jones than Joey Ramone, but the romanticism of failure and misery unmistakably made him an heir to the the scruffy Minneapolis bard of the broken ashtray. When I listened to a song like “Come Pick Me Up,” I knew for certain (and with a pang of mortification) that were I a decade younger, it was exactly the sort of song I would have listening to alone at 3:00a.m., pissed off at the lovelorn disappointments of the prior day and steeling myself against the dread of the day to come. I don’t do that sort of thing any more, but I’m glad to have a track like this in my collection to remind me of where I’ve been.

Listen or download –> Ryan Adams, “Come Pick Me Up”

(Disclaimer: As noted above, Adams puts out a lot of records, most of which are still in porint and presumably available at your favorite local, independently-owned record store. I’d like to recommend one, but they’re such a mish-mashed grab bag of material, with Adams pottery-wheeling every inkling of a song into a finished product, some beautiful and some lopsided, that I wouldn’t know where to begin. As for Heartbreaker, it seems to be out of print, and may not even be available as a digitally downloadable release. Maybe that’s in anticipation of a 15th anniversary rerelease next year? I’m not sure why else it would be one of the only items in the Adams catalog that can’t be ordered. Regardless, I’m sharing this song here with the belief and understanding that it can’t be purchased in a manner that duly compensates the artist and an independent record-seller. No harm is meant to anyone’s bottom line. That noted, I will gladly remove the track if asked to do so by any individual or entity with due authority to make such a request.)