Why some people despise Ryan Adams
Kervo
location: Sterling, VA
listening to: Spotify
registered: 2001.02.19
posts: 133
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Copied the below email off the POSTCARD mailing list (Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt/Jeff Tweedy/Jay Farrar et al.)If you ever wondered why people can absolutely hate certain recording artists here's an expose. Adams is despised by a good number of the Postcard digesters. He generates more discussion sometimes than the artists the mailing list is for. I posted some positive comments about him on the list about a year ago, but I'll never buy another of his CDs. What an ass.
------------------------------Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 08:53:50 -0400
From: Kevin Kozak
Subject: now seems like the right timeWhat follows is an e-mail exchange that Ryan and I had back in October of
2000 (I've always wanted to share this). My opinion on him has swung a
lot
more negatively since these messages, and I can't say I'm sorry that he's
either quitting or spending so much time enjoying the crank and/or
morrocan
hash...
Enjoy.
Kevin
Let me start off by saying that I have a great amount of respect for you as
a songwriter and have always enjoyed Whiskeytown wheneer I have seen them
play. The first time I saw Whiskeytown was back was Phil was still in the
band, you guys were playing a bar up in Boston with Hazledine opening up.
The name of the place escapes me, but you guys were on fire that night.
It was a solid performance that reaffirmed my faith in great rock bands who
could translate kick ass studio material into a kick ass live show.Since that time I've seen Whiskeytown three more times. And although the
shows didn't always match the consistent greatness of that first show, each
performance had stellar moments that showed the audience just how great a
band Whiskeytown is/was/whatever. And as a solo performer, I had high hopes
of seeing you in State College. Heartbreaker is good album. Bartering
Lines, Oh My Sweet Carolina, To Be Young, and Come Pick Me Up are excellant
fucking songs. And I've heard recordings of the Exit/In Show you played
with Gillian Welch that prove just how good a solo performer you can be.But what I witnessed at Zeno's in State College was just pure shit. I'm
sorry the venue wasn't up to your exacting standards, or that the sound guy
was sitting around with his thumb up his ass, or that the majority of the
baseball cap wearing $5 assholes couldn't give a flying fuck about the great
songs you wrote. There were still people there who did care enough to come
down and see a talented performer in an intimate setting. It's not like
Penn State is the alt-country capital of the world. Most of the time I'm
travelling three or four hours to see someone like Steve Earle or Grant Lee
Phillips instead of partaking in the dreck that is the State College local music scene.So imagine my dismay after you threw your first hissy fit and stormed
offstage. Although concerned, I had see you do the same thing previously
when the Whiskeytown sound wasn't up to par. So I figured after a brief
cooling down you'd return for more. After seeing what the show deteriorated
into, I'm sorry that you came back. Fuck you and your Whiskeytown karoke.
If you're sick of singing the songs, don't sing them. You're prolific
enough that you had an ample reserve of songs to fall back on aside instead
of letting Ken and Barbie sing "16 Days". And if you're that interested in
covers, I'll send you the Backstreet Boys CD so you can learn the whole
thing and sernade the crowd at MerleFest. I feel bad for people who did
drive more than an hour to take part in the farce that was your set. I'm
also pissed at myself for convincing friends to come see you that night, as
now I look like an ass.I'm not sure if I'll ever see Ryan Adams live again, at $5 or any price.
Quite frankly I'll probably stick to listening to whatever solo albums come
out, and maybe checking out a bootleg or two. For such a mature songwrite
you are, I'm amazed at the childish self-centeredness that you displayed on
stage. I'd expect Elton John to behave like this, but someone with the
talent and potential for greatness that you posess.im really pretty fed up with people telling me how to do my job. if you didnt
like the show, i suggest you call your venue, talk to the promoter and get
your moeny back. hell, ill refund it. your local club is a dump. it was
impossible to play with feeding back monitors. sorry dude. your local club
was horrible. i dont intended to play there again.
every show on my tour was amazing. every place was just packed and the
sound was beautiful and people payed to see a show.
that just wasnt the case at Penn state. your local Promoter, i.e. the guy
that booked me in that club, was so apologetic and said that he had really
fucked up by booking me there.
it was the wrong place for me to play. how was i to know. i came there ready
to do my job.
it would be interesting to see what you would have done given the situation.
would have stood up there feeling like a fucking whore letting your ears get
rung out by quick and painful blasts of feedback. would you have just put
your hands in your pockets and blushed?
who cares what the fuck you would have done. you werent playing. god bless
you that you werent.
if you dont like what you see you can go and find some "safe" artist who
sits there and takes blows to the head by morons to prove some artistic
point for your own ends. mabye you can pick and artist less opinionated, or maybe
somebody 6that doesnt have enough self-respect to walk out when he cant do his fucking job.
until then, keep your uneducated opinions to yourself, okay?
you want your five bucks back, send me your address. I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, I'm just asking you to do it.
And I could ask Ted for my money back, but I'm guessing that he's already
taken a bath on your "performance". Look, I don't question the fact that
Zeno's is a dump with shitty sound. And I'm sorry that Ted couldn't come up
with a better venue for you. But look, fucking adapt to the situation. Not
every club is gonna be an adoring Nashville audience hanging on you every
word. That still doesn't change the fact that some of us were there to hang
on your every word.
Do I know what you were going through? Fuck no, I can't pretend to. And
I'm glad to hear that you didn't feel like a whore up there, I guess I was
to busy feeling like your bitch to take into account your feelings. Like an
idiot, I keep supporting someone who obviously doesn't give a shit about his
fans. Ever wonder why commercial success seems to be elluding you? Maybe
it's because you've ostricized too many supporters who have seen you in
pissy moods, been too drunk to put on a good show, or been too self involved
to sustain a consistant Whiskeytown lineup.
And don't worry Ryan, you're the "safest" artist I've ever seen. If a
roomful of morons isn't there to fawn over your greatness, why bother taking
a chance on winning them over with your music? It's so much easire to get
their attention by storming off the stage, only to return to bait them into
more antagonism. You're not opinionated, or dangerous, or overflowing with
self respect. You're a self-centered, immature ingenue who doesn't have the
courage to try and make the best out of a bad situation. My opinions on you
are far from uneducated, I've seen and read enough about your exploits to
form my own opinion (an opinion which I'm sorry that you don't recognize as
valid). My address is as follows:Kevin Kozak
405 Electric Ave
Lewistown, PA 17044And while your opening that pocketbook, make it $10. My girlfriend was
equally as embarresed for you as I was.KevinPS-And I'll make you a deal, I'll take your money and pick up another copy of
Heartbreaker to send to the friend who saw you for the first time and
thought you sucked ass.
you can go and fuck yourself asshole if you think i give a fuck about you or
any of your idiotic opinions on art or otherwise.
take your address and shove it up your ass.
Ryan.
p.s. dont bother e-maling, ive blocked you. i hope you sell my record back to
the store so somebody who isnt a fuck head can buy it.
thanks for being such a good bitch.------------------------------End of POSTCARD-DIGEST V2 #5156
*******************************
K
Kervo
(view)
Copied the below email off the POSTCARD mailing list (Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt/Jeff Tweedy/Jay Farrar et al.)If you ever wondered why people can absolutely hate certain recording artists here's an expose. Adams is despised by a good number of the Postcard digesters. He generates more discussion sometimes than the artists the mailing list is for. I posted some positive comments about him on the list about a year ago, but I'll never buy another of his CDs. What an ass.
------------------------------Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 08:53:50 -0400
From: Kevin Kozak
Subject: now seems like the right timeWhat follows is an e-mail exchange that Ryan and I had back in October of
2000 (I've always wanted to share this). My opinion on him has swung a
lot
more negatively since these messages, and I can't say I'm sorry that he's
either quitting or spending so much time enjoying the crank and/or
morrocan
hash...
Enjoy.
Kevin
Let me start off by saying that I have a great amount of respect for you as
a songwriter and have always enjoyed Whiskeytown wheneer I have seen them
play. The first time I saw Whiskeytown was back was Phil was still in the
band, you guys were playing a bar up in Boston with Hazledine opening up.
The name of the place escapes me, but you guys were on fire that night.
It was a solid performance that reaffirmed my faith in great rock bands who
could translate kick ass studio material into a kick ass live show.Since that time I've seen Whiskeytown three more times. And although the
shows didn't always match the consistent greatness of that first show, each
performance had stellar moments that showed the audience just how great a
band Whiskeytown is/was/whatever. And as a solo performer, I had high hopes
of seeing you in State College. Heartbreaker is good album. Bartering
Lines, Oh My Sweet Carolina, To Be Young, and Come Pick Me Up are excellant
fucking songs. And I've heard recordings of the Exit/In Show you played
with Gillian Welch that prove just how good a solo performer you can be.But what I witnessed at Zeno's in State College was just pure shit. I'm
sorry the venue wasn't up to your exacting standards, or that the sound guy
was sitting around with his thumb up his ass, or that the majority of the
baseball cap wearing $5 assholes couldn't give a flying fuck about the great
songs you wrote. There were still people there who did care enough to come
down and see a talented performer in an intimate setting. It's not like
Penn State is the alt-country capital of the world. Most of the time I'm
travelling three or four hours to see someone like Steve Earle or Grant Lee
Phillips instead of partaking in the dreck that is the State College local music scene.So imagine my dismay after you threw your first hissy fit and stormed
offstage. Although concerned, I had see you do the same thing previously
when the Whiskeytown sound wasn't up to par. So I figured after a brief
cooling down you'd return for more. After seeing what the show deteriorated
into, I'm sorry that you came back. Fuck you and your Whiskeytown karoke.
If you're sick of singing the songs, don't sing them. You're prolific
enough that you had an ample reserve of songs to fall back on aside instead
of letting Ken and Barbie sing "16 Days". And if you're that interested in
covers, I'll send you the Backstreet Boys CD so you can learn the whole
thing and sernade the crowd at MerleFest. I feel bad for people who did
drive more than an hour to take part in the farce that was your set. I'm
also pissed at myself for convincing friends to come see you that night, as
now I look like an ass.I'm not sure if I'll ever see Ryan Adams live again, at $5 or any price.
Quite frankly I'll probably stick to listening to whatever solo albums come
out, and maybe checking out a bootleg or two. For such a mature songwrite
you are, I'm amazed at the childish self-centeredness that you displayed on
stage. I'd expect Elton John to behave like this, but someone with the
talent and potential for greatness that you posess.im really pretty fed up with people telling me how to do my job. if you didnt
like the show, i suggest you call your venue, talk to the promoter and get
your moeny back. hell, ill refund it. your local club is a dump. it was
impossible to play with feeding back monitors. sorry dude. your local club
was horrible. i dont intended to play there again.
every show on my tour was amazing. every place was just packed and the
sound was beautiful and people payed to see a show.
that just wasnt the case at Penn state. your local Promoter, i.e. the guy
that booked me in that club, was so apologetic and said that he had really
fucked up by booking me there.
it was the wrong place for me to play. how was i to know. i came there ready
to do my job.
it would be interesting to see what you would have done given the situation.
would have stood up there feeling like a fucking whore letting your ears get
rung out by quick and painful blasts of feedback. would you have just put
your hands in your pockets and blushed?
who cares what the fuck you would have done. you werent playing. god bless
you that you werent.
if you dont like what you see you can go and find some "safe" artist who
sits there and takes blows to the head by morons to prove some artistic
point for your own ends. mabye you can pick and artist less opinionated, or maybe
somebody 6that doesnt have enough self-respect to walk out when he cant do his fucking job.
until then, keep your uneducated opinions to yourself, okay?
you want your five bucks back, send me your address. I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, I'm just asking you to do it.
And I could ask Ted for my money back, but I'm guessing that he's already
taken a bath on your "performance". Look, I don't question the fact that
Zeno's is a dump with shitty sound. And I'm sorry that Ted couldn't come up
with a better venue for you. But look, fucking adapt to the situation. Not
every club is gonna be an adoring Nashville audience hanging on you every
word. That still doesn't change the fact that some of us were there to hang
on your every word.
Do I know what you were going through? Fuck no, I can't pretend to. And
I'm glad to hear that you didn't feel like a whore up there, I guess I was
to busy feeling like your bitch to take into account your feelings. Like an
idiot, I keep supporting someone who obviously doesn't give a shit about his
fans. Ever wonder why commercial success seems to be elluding you? Maybe
it's because you've ostricized too many supporters who have seen you in
pissy moods, been too drunk to put on a good show, or been too self involved
to sustain a consistant Whiskeytown lineup.
And don't worry Ryan, you're the "safest" artist I've ever seen. If a
roomful of morons isn't there to fawn over your greatness, why bother taking
a chance on winning them over with your music? It's so much easire to get
their attention by storming off the stage, only to return to bait them into
more antagonism. You're not opinionated, or dangerous, or overflowing with
self respect. You're a self-centered, immature ingenue who doesn't have the
courage to try and make the best out of a bad situation. My opinions on you
are far from uneducated, I've seen and read enough about your exploits to
form my own opinion (an opinion which I'm sorry that you don't recognize as
valid). My address is as follows:Kevin Kozak
405 Electric Ave
Lewistown, PA 17044And while your opening that pocketbook, make it $10. My girlfriend was
equally as embarresed for you as I was.KevinPS-And I'll make you a deal, I'll take your money and pick up another copy of
Heartbreaker to send to the friend who saw you for the first time and
thought you sucked ass.
you can go and fuck yourself asshole if you think i give a fuck about you or
any of your idiotic opinions on art or otherwise.
take your address and shove it up your ass.
Ryan.
p.s. dont bother e-maling, ive blocked you. i hope you sell my record back to
the store so somebody who isnt a fuck head can buy it.
thanks for being such a good bitch.------------------------------End of POSTCARD-DIGEST V2 #5156
*******************************
