Katy Perry shattered many a teenage dream when she and Russell Brand tied the knot in India this past weekend. In doing so, our Halloween costume inspiration has officially joined the ranks of some of pop music’s oddest romantic pairings. While many of the marriages didn’t last—some even a week (we’re looking at you, Britney Spears)— we’re sure that Katy and Russell have what it takes to make it work. Now, a look back at the strangest pop star couples all thanks to Cupid’s misguided arrow.

Our friends at The Awl have debuted Ryan Adams’ video-game column, and it is a delight, looking back on the old-school console game Gorf while mulling over the possibility of Danzig and Whitesnake squaring off at an arcade. There’s also a video co-directed by Adams and his wife, noted Jandek enthusiast Amanda Adams (a.k.a. Mandy Moore). [The Awl]

Norah Jones has a new album coming out in November, and it’ll feature contributions from chameleonic musician/famous type Ryan Adams, Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff, and avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot, as well as songs that she worked on with the co-writer of her breakout hit “Don’t Know Why,” Jesse Harris. (Am I the only person who thought of “Don’t Know Why” as more of a slightly more mannered indiepop song than anything “jazzy”? No? OK.) [Billboard]

Nic Harcourt, who may be the most influential radio DJ in America not named Ryan Seacrest, will step down from his post as music director and morning show host at Santa Monica’s KCRW on Nov. 30, so he can spend more time with his family and on other projects like his music-supervision gig for the CW’s remake of 90210.

Harcourt took over the Morning Becomes Eclectic post from Chris Douridas in 2000 and since has been credited with bringing a number of adult alternative acts–among them Dido, David Gray, Travis and Norah Jones–to the American mainstream. My personal suspicion was always that Harcourt had a unique ability to be in the right place at the right time more than an exceptional ear for talent (he’s frequently given credit for the success of Franz Ferdinand and Coldplay, but I’m pretty sure both acts would have broken here eventually). Still, the fact that in 2008, any radio show host in America has as much influence over music-consumption habits as Harcourt is amazing–one of his recommendations will send discs flying off record store shelves and quickly sell out showcases and concerts.

Vampire Weekend, “Ladies of Cambridge” (live on Morning Becomes Eclectic)

Ryan Adams, “Come Pick Me Up” (live on Morning Becomes Eclectic)

A successor to Harcourt’s position has not yet been announced, but in true KCRW fashion, the job will be given to the seventh subscriber to call in, as long as they have not won a prize from the station in the last ninety days.

KCRW’s Harcourt To Step Down [FMQB]

Our look at the closing lines of the biggest new-music reviews continues with a roundup of reactions to Ryan Adams and the Cardinals’ Cardinology, which lands in Stateside stores today:

• “Cardinology‘s riveting finale is ‘Stop,’ a fragile piano ballad sung in a shaky voice that slowly gains strength and takes flight. It’s clearly about rehab, and while rehab rock may be a bit of an oxymoron, Adams—who has reportedly cleaned up—defines a genre here. If it helps undermine some of the bogus junkie myths about hard drugs and creativity, all the better. ” [RS]

• “Adams today is clearly not the man he used to be—the impetuous bad-boy who thrived on excess and impulse. For all the noble soul-searching and recovery he has gone through, he should be congratulated. But ultimately most of his words here feel like common poems, platitudes and prayers, and most of Cardinology makes me miss the old Ryan Adams.” [Kansas City Star]

• “But if this album is a misstep, it’s a minor one with more than a few 
moments of redemption—the latest missive from a talented group of musicians likely to find their way back to the path before long.” [Paste]

• “Like a sip of Maker’s Mark, it’s dark, rich, grainy, if factory-produced. One could say ‘all right if you like that sort of thing,’ were it not the case that Adams makes music for people who don’t. ” [Independent]

Ryan Adams has posted 18 updates to his blog in the past hour! Eighteen! That’s, like, a whole day of posts around these parts! OK, so one of them is just a shot of him reading an X-Men, but still! Ryan, if you get bored on your upcoming tour, please do give me a shout. [Foggy]

… and, by extension, causes me to actually care about his blog for the first time in a while. (Seriously, even those of you who aren’t fans of his other stuff but who do enjoy hypercaffeinated takes on super-distorted indie rock would do well to take 1:27 out of your day and sample the track.) [Vimeo via Foggy HT MTS]

So Ryan Adams has sort of responded to Courtney Love’s accusation that his album Rock N Roll was recorded with $868,000 of Francis Bean Cobain’s money, posting a “personal statement of clarity” on his Web site that talks about how he’s working hard to become a better person, how he regrets his past mistakes, etc., etc. (There’s also a peace card linked in the source code of the page, but it’s not visible.) At the very end of the statement, he pretty much takes Courtney head-on, saying that he never meant anyone any harm intentionally, especially anyone who goes airing dirty laundry about him online; sure, he doesn’t name any names, but the descriptions “possibly reality-challenged,” “unreliable” and “outlandish” make the target of his ire pretty obvious. Full statement after the jump

these days i find myself working harder than ever at being at my best, overcoming my fears and pushing myself creatively in my every endeavor. my only wish after the work is completed is that it may prove further evidence that no matter how isolated we all may all feel at times, as sad or misrepresented, we are not alone. there’s hope for and within each of us.

I’ve been dealing with the truth that i have at times been a bad example and/or glorified self destructive behavior. this was never intentional, but rather a consequence of leading a public life in plain sight and never expecting any sort of preferential treatment, isolation or protection.

Regardless of varied judgments as to my cultural relevance, i am thankfully alive and exercising my joy in creating. i only hope anyone who hears, reads or sees any of my contributions will permit the work to speak where i cannot.

i’ve realized and accepted that if people decide to dislike me, they’re going to find reasons to justify disliking me. there’s nothing i can do about that. that said, it still does pain me to be accused of fictional crimes against innocents or to be implicated in romantic gossip involving the possibly reality-challenged–however unreliable the source or outlandish the accusations. in the end, however, i know that i have never done or even meant anyone any harm.

anyway, the lives of public figures are so much more boring than anyone can imagine. honestly.

and also i like metal. A LOT. (even more than last time).

It kind of reads like one of Courtney’s chant-filled blogs doesn’t it? Except with fewer typos.

A Personal Statement of Clarity for Anyone in Doubt [Ryan Adams]

Over the weekend, Courtney Love took to her MySpace page for the purposes of calling out fellow blogger Ryan Adams, thanks to some mysterious American Express bills from 2003 that she believes are evidence that some $858,000 that went into the making of his 2003 album Rock N Roll was funded by Frances Bean Cobain’s inheritance. (I guess that’s why Frances is trying her hand at journalism-type stuff this summer.) Not only is she appalled by the theft, which was apparently part of the identity-theft issues she’s been blogging about and facilitated by her ex-boyfriend/Rock N Roll producer James Barber, she’s irritated that her funds were used to make such a crappy, poorly named album: “Ryan Adams worst record and one of the worst records i can think of in rock and roll history ironically called’Riock and Roll ‘… yeah you listen to this shit im listening to my i tunes on right now who names a record ‘Rock n Roll’ what assholes do that? … with these trebled up guitars my bandmate said sounded like ‘really horrific rem on steroids’ all treble and compresssion and shit wirtten songs – but so what?”

Love’s post concluded with a call for Adams to pay back said $858k and let her know how his heroin habit was holding up. The post was picked up by the likes of Gawker over the weekend, and after deleting it she got into a bit of a back-and-forth with the commenters on that site and others who were so quick to defend Adams’ music (why??) and write her off as drug-addled, crazy, etc. Which, you know, sure she’s kind of nutty–most people who blog even semi-regularly are! But I also think that she has a bit of a point here, at the end of her latest missive:

I’m making a resolution to do a two hour tozo a day, every day somehow and yoga FIVE times this week. I want to be in-flow but the only flow that I know is when I chant and that just makes everything so much better- I perceive things and even receive shocks, like the Ryan one… I get them daily but I don’t care as long as it stops. I just want to move on into the future and forget this financial shit – As Marie Antoinette said, “let them eat (their stale) cake. I cant blog a trial, it’s something only lawyers can work out, so it’s just something that I have to suck up. One thing that DOES enrage me is when urban sophisticates with great breeding and cynical cognition of life make FUN of being robbed blind. I wasn’t raised to understand wealth, or even a fico score , or entities or be a forensic accountant and if I don’t do most of it myself it won’t get done, and so I’ve learned a lot and I share a 100000th of it occasionally, if it can help anyone that’s great. But to make fun of stealing and to imagine that lawyers and cops and loan officers are these fucking saints who don’t steal from uneducated rock musicians rap musicians and athletes is just plain fucking stupid? Got it?

Okay , now I don’t have to mention it again, ignorance will do your ass in , so when the media members who subscribe to my blog revive them they need to think really hard before stating I’m “crazy” or “high” because I didn’t major in English or Medieval History at Brown or Yale. I never said I did, nether do I eat fine food with my fingers or not have my own personalised stationery. I’m rather ….errr…gracious, I guess, in how I like to l.ive, and the people i like to be around. I like to learn from and I like to be ethical and simply not a thief or liar or denier or obstructer. Just let’s all get the fuck on with it, life is too short, i chose to continue working on this record for a lot of complex but very easy reasons, i fell into the luck of being in a truly monstrously great band, for the first time in my life although Hole was great on occasion there’s an innocence to this and a beastliness to this that I’m honoured to have the shamanistic moments o have ive been ripped apart and orgasmic at the things we come up with and I’m far more musical than any other thing. In fact, i care more for music than for anything else except my child. Music is all there is to me when the fire has died and you’ve got a nickel a tin cup and a pencil there’s always music , and that’s all I care about in the end in the beginning in the alpha and the omega, if you want to know me know my music and draw your conclusions from that- the rest is dross. That’s hard to say when I’m not exactly prolific, but i hope when i do rise up with new songs that are sonically the way i want them – then fuck it. judge me on that and that alone, I’m a musician first and foremost and I’m enormously slow but that’s just too bad cause i won’t go through another record that doesn’t t slake me slay me and i know is my voice. i have far too much to say in fact we have 34 songs and i have to [part with some , none are shit, and its l.ike losing a child, ii went for about 5 years without writing a real song and 3 years without writing one at all, the other 2 just struggling to care enough then a gush went off and im like a waterfall of mojo, and thats just the reality of my life given that statement its past midnight and i need to read write and make lyrics that will astound, spin em around and rub em in my skin like cobwebs.

I'm not saying she's not flawed, but that bit about the "urban sophisticates" who were so quick to just write her off without going into the lengthy backstory of what happened really rang true to me. Especially since most of those "sophisticated" comments are basically wordier equivalents of "RYAN ADAMS ROOLS U R A DUM," which, no matter how you might feel about Love or her music, is just wrong.

The raven himself is hoarse [Courtney Love's MySpace Blog]
Dante’s Inferno [Courtney Love's MySpace Blog]
Courtney Love Would Like Her Money Back, Ryan Adams [Gawker]

Ryan Adams is turned into an “emo rocker.” Note to the gossipmongerers over there: Having a blog does not make a musician “emo,” even if said blog has ridiculous tendencies. It just greases the wheels for the inevitable book deal a little better than your average lyric sheet. [Page Six]

The social conscience and strident voice of Bono has influenced many a singer over the last few decades. The U2 frontman successfully melded the earnest social conscience of Bruce Springsteen with the self-glorifying pomp of European arena acts, realizing that both the Common Man and King Dick were below Jesus on the food chain. Sure there was precedent, but Sting is handicapped by his ego (and jazz bass), while Ian McCullough wanted to be a romantic poet/sex object more than the messiah. Here are ten singers who, at their best (or worst), have aspired to the Almighty’s throne.

1. Chris Martin (Coldplay)

Will he fail the music industry or will the music industry fail him?

2. Stuart Adamson (Big Country)

Dude thought he could be Bono and The Edge. Rest in peace, Icarus.

3. Brandon Flowers (Killers)

Bono took arena rock from the Boss. Tonight, we’re taking it back!

4. Mike Peters (The Alarm)

National Lampoon made this, right?

5. Jim Kerr (Simple Minds)

Ok, he still makes the top ten. Christ, does he ever.

6. Thom Yorke (Radiohead)

Bravo for all the bleeps’n'creeps that have cloaked the origin of Thom Yorke’s reaching voice and political outspokenness, but you can still see the holy one lurking behind those abstractions. And all those bands that have tried to rip Yorke off wind up aping Bono eventually.

7. Cinjun Tate (Remy Zero)

Once upon a time, kids, someone actually bothered to rip off Pop.

8. Ryan Adams

Damn, Ryan, why didn’t you stick with this? If more people had bought your Bono move, would you have still made 18 albums about Jackson City Nights In Tennessee With Mary Lee or would you have chilled for a year before calling up Eno and Lanois? Who am I kidding, you would have done both.

9. Mike Scott (The Waterboys)

The missing link between Bon-Bon and the Arcade Fire.

10. Win Butler (Arcade Fire)

See?

Ryan Adams: So Alive [The Late Show] [YouTube]
The Alarm – Spirit Of ’76 [YouTube]
Arcade Fire – Rebellion [YouTube]
Big Country – Where the Rose is Sown [YouTube]
Coldplay – Speed Of Sound [YouTube]
Read My Mind – Killers [YouTube]
Anyone Can Play Guitar [YouTube]
Remy Zero – Save Me [YouTube]
Simple Minds – Alive And Kicking [YouTube]
Waterboys – The Whole Of The Moon [Youtube]

Did Ryan Adams write a new, interesting song that isn’t named “Oklahoma Sunset” or “I Love You, Lullabelle Of The Freeway?” Yeah, right! He made a ridiculous blog post with shocking revelations! For instance, did you know that Ryan Adams has only dated five women in his life? That he never drinks when he’s writing? That he hates country music? That he never wanted to be a songwriter? That he just want to make things? Meaningful beautiful things before his time here is done and hopefully encourage people to express themselves, not to clutter the world with art, but so because he thinks people learn about themselves and find deeper meaning when they create things? That Ryan Adams needs to shut his crazy ass up if he doesn’t want people to seek “a few extra dollars and some exposure” by writing lies (lies!) about his love life and heckler fiascos? Such is the wisdom gained from his latest (and dare I say, greatest) blog post.

Notable quotables!

2. I never dated Winona Ryder, but she is my friend and I will always love her. She is so fucking smart and so fucking under the micro-scope I can’t imagine how she pulled through, but no, I was never her boyfriend. I was and am her friend. She is as hot as the sun in a hot tub on itself though and everybody knows that. Also, who she is as an actress totally inspired me and helped me form what kind of artist I wanted to be.

3. I never KICKED OUT anyone from a concert. The Ryman Auditorium (a shit hole in Nashville) has the balls to charge you for security when you play there but if some college kid, and I mean SOUTHERN college kid decides to get wasted and scream through 7 songs of a solo acoustic performance, they could give a fuck. I went into the audience and handed him what I thought the ticket price was (40 bucks) and asked him to leave. I said “you have successfully ruined this concert so here is your money, now will you go home now so I can at least try and give the rest of this audience what they paid for. It did not work as the woman who runs that shit-hole re-seated him and BELIEVE IT OR NOT people CHEERED when he was ushered to a new seat. As most of that concert were people telling him to “shut up” There was NO BAND just myself, and I was joined by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings (heroic figures to me) to sing a few tunes and still the man screamed over it. In fact, “Summer of 69″ was not shouted when I went to ask him to leave. It was in fact something else. He was so drunk, so very very drunk he did not even know he was there

The writer who wrote it up the next morning submitted it to AP (the Associated Press) in hopes it would bring him a few extra dollars and some exposure. I have suffered since…

9. I hate HATE country music. I always have. I “reference” it when I make music that sounds like that, the way a director would use water as a backdrop for a scene with a shark in it. But I cannot stand country music one bit. unless the Grateful Dead are messin round with it. Then it is tolerable. But they were much more than their single parts- we all know they were a machine.

No word on when his next 18 albums will be released.

Dr. Adams’ Films [Ry-Ry's Blog via NME]

“After 70 minutes he’d had enough. [Ryan] Adams announced ‘the last song,’ played it and didn’t return for an encore. Many fans stood and booed” at a recent show. Yes, how dare he give his fans over an hour’s worth of entertainment. Still, given that we’re talking about Ryan Adams, I say boo away, Minneapolis. [AP]

“After 70 minutes he’d had enough. [Ryan] Adams announced ‘the last song,’ played it and didn’t return for an encore. Many fans stood and booed” at a recent show. Yes, how dare he give his fans over an hour’s worth of entertainment. Still, given that we’re talking about Ryan Adams, I say boo away, Minneapolis. [AP]

As Consumer Guide creator Robert Christgau once noted, there is so much recorded media coming forth every day, the idea that one would be able to listen to all of it is physically impossible. So we’ve taken the sage advice of gonzo rock writer Richard Meltzer to heart. Meltzer, ever the curmudgeon, considered promo albums precious commodities–provided you didn’t break the shrinkwrap on ‘em, as doing so reduced their resale value. After the click-through, Andy Beta judges four new albums without even cracking open their covers.

PICK–Artanker Convoy: Cozy Endings (The Social Registry)
Embrace of blue-collar trappings like trucker hats, countrypolitan records, and Pabst Blue Ribbon is tired by this point. Yet only this Brooklyn band had the vision and foresight to resurrect that neglected musical sub-genre of red state culture, the convoy. So while their insistence on being jazzy with 10/4 time signatures is certainly forced, Artanker Convoy truly do get inside the sex-starved, gonzo-obsessed, mini-thinned minds of our nation’s truckers. What truck driver wouldn’t pick this CD up at Love’s truck stop, what with the band putting some sweet thing’s panty-clad nummy-nums front and center, thus guaranteeing they’ll be up all night? A+

PICK–Cherryholmes Cherryholmes II: Black and White (Skaggs Family Records)
Pissed that another color-blind family (a genetic defect from in-breeding, natch) stole their black-and-white rhinestone getup, Ma and Pa Cherryholmes round up kin for this affair. Never mind that they’re locked down in a maximum-security government penitentiary (replete with 30 foot walls and charged razor-wire fences) for plying their illegal white lightning-fueled strain of newgrass–there’s no way that four walls or Blackjack County chain can keep vengeance from being served. The Whites best watch out for the family-style thumping that’s a-coming. A+

Von Sudenfed: Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino)
Embittered one-hit wonders from the eighties (see their synth ballad “Sex Induction Hour” from ’86) turned aged Dockers models for the 35-50 demographic, Von Sudenfed suddenly jettisoned their JCPenney catalog careers to show they still have an acerbic tongue, which gets shoved down our throats on these twinkling slow jams. Deep down in their Oxford-clad hearts ($55, available in Sailor Blue and Classic Limey White), they know they’re better than the next generation of synth-pop bands, brazenly calling out chart-toppers like Radiohead (“The Rhinohead”) and Damon Albarn’s latest bag of wankers (“The Young The Faceless And The Codes”). A-

Ryan Adams: Easy Tiger (Lost Highway)
We all know by now that “no depressants” drug cow Ryan Adams told the Times how he had the saco de toro to brag to Steve Earle (Steve Earle!) about shooting up speedballs, but while the PR folks want to spin that this album shows Adams kicking the monkey (or is it dragon?) off of his back for good, there’s reason for pause. Apparently no one told Adams that marijuana is still contraband (and that you cannot communicate with dogs). But there he is, smoking a doob on the cover of Easy Tiger, his greasy hair thickening into dreads, while his watch highlights that time of day any trustafarian would recognize: “4:20 p.m.” B

Ryan Adams has taken all the steps necessary to ensure that his 326th album, Easy Tiger, is a full-fledged comeback hit: He’s partnered with Starbucks. He’s recruited Sheryl Crow for a duet. And he’s spilled his guts to the New York Times, letting fans know that his erratic behavior of the last few years were due in part to his crazy-even-for-a-rocker drug abuse:

ONE afternoon, as Ryan Adams was recording his new album, “Easy Tiger” (Lost Highway), at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, the singer-songwriter Steve Earle dropped by to visit. Jimi Hendrix had built Electric Lady in the late 1960s, and Mr. Earle pointed out that “there are some good ghosts here.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Adams blithely responded. “There are the ghosts of about 45 speedballs from when I was recording here a year or two ago,” referring to a mixture of heroin and cocaine.

At once self-deprecating and self-mythologizing, the remark is characteristic of Mr. Adams, who is in the process of shoring up a career — and a life — that he had done his best to blow up. “There was intense loneliness, end-of-the-world stuff going on in my mind, bottomless depression,” he said, describing an extended period of substance abuse that ended a little over a year ago. “Without exaggerating, it is a miracle I did not die.

“I snorted heroin a lot — with coke. I did speedballs every day for years. And took pills. And then drank. And I don’t mean a little bit. I always outdid everybody.”

Adams says he went through self-administered detox, and that he’s occasionally going to AA meetings; he also claims that the drugs had nothing to do with the fact that he’s released a new record seemingly every third Wednesday. Such timed-to-release “redemption” stories tend to make one of your Idolators a bit queasy–especially with someone like Adams, who’s always seemed eager to play up his bad-boyness–but here’s hoping that his speedball days are behind him, and he can now get around to reuniting Whiskeytown and/or making a record as good as Heartbreaker.

Ryan Adams Didn’t Die. Now the Work Begins. [NYTimes]

- The Game has been charged with three felonies–including possession of a firearm in a school zone–as a result of February incident in Los Angeles. All jokes aside, he’s basically just a big asshole, right? Are we missing something? Nope? Okay, then: Asshole. [TMZ]
- Ryan Adams is set to release a multi-disc set of rare and unreleased material, including an eleven-minute song about his favorite soap dispenser, and several phone conversations with a dispatcher from Fresh Direct. [Billboard]
- Jarvis Cocker and Simon Cowell are about to kick off the snippiest, limiest celebrity feud in years. [NME]

Farewell Typewriter

has an MP3 of “Halloween Head,” another song to emerge from Ryan Adams’ forthcoming Easy Tiger, a.k.a. Comeback Album No. 341. It’s one of Adams’ more power-chord-powered songs in a while, but we’re pretty sure that the so-called “guitar solo” is actually a synthesizer. Or maybe bagpipes!

By the way, you guys should really be excited for Leak Of The Day, Part IV: The Leakening, opening sometime this afternoon.

Ryan Adams – Halloween Head [MP3, link expired]

It would appear that alt-country really is out of style, which has left Ryan Adams with nothing to do but hit the streets. Yes, that’s right: he’s recorded a Kevin Bacon-shouting out hip-hop track, and it’s streaming from his Web site as we speak. Adams’ flow is what you might call a little rough, but props for him to trying to start a beef with the critic who gave him the 1 1/2-star review that led to his record going “balsa wood” in India.

Ryan Adams:: Home [ryan-adams.com, via
Stereogum]