Back from the Tropics...

Well I'm back in the states and I'm tan and semi bearded. I've never been good with facial hair in that I seem capable of growing little more than a few lonely strands that end up looking more like sun shy indie rockers on the first day of Coachella than a cohesive statement of aesthetic style. So for the last 6 days I've done little more than sit on the beach drink beer, talk with strange but nice jewish lawyers from Texas (don't ask), and listen to the iPod. On that last point I realized that I missed the boat on Cold Roses . Maybe it was the borderline annoying prolificness of Ryan Adams this year making the double album format of Cold Roses seem a bit self indulgent. Or maybe it was the homage to the Grateful Dead (a band that I've never really understood) that made it seem a bit of stretch. But in hindsight, after a couple of beer soaked listens, this record is really good. I'm enjoying disc 2 more than disc 1 but both are good. I've been a fan of Adams since Whiskeytown and still think that Heartbreaker is a beautiful sad moving album. Like many I stopped paying close attention to what Ryan was doing after he released his 247th record. It all just seemed, I don't know, impossible to digest? Overwhelming? Cursory? Whatever. My point here is that my own biases prevented me from realizing what a fat bunch of great songs were on Cold Roses. So there you are, Ryan you owe me a beer.

1 song from disc 2 of Ryan Adams Cold Roses a record you should really go back and listen to again if you think it's merely mediocre:

Dance All Night