Love IS Hell: HOW RYAN ADAMS LOST IT ALL & WHAT IT WILL TAKE FOR HIM TO GET IT BACK

LOVE IS HELL

HOW RYAN ADAMS LOST IT ALL
&
WHAT IT WILL TAKE
 FOR HIM
 TO GET IT BACK

1 
I SEE MONSTERS: 
THE FIRST ALLEGATIONS

           Ryan Adams began this year as he usually does: preparing to promote and enjoy releasing new music, with 2019 promising three new albums planned for release, a feat he attempted in 2005, the year of his critical, artistic and commercial zenith he was now attempting to equal and perhaps top.
          He was on a wave of momentum (or mutilation) that began in late 2014 and had sustained him for the last few years: Adams had been selling his highest numbers of albums since the industry faded, earned Grammy nominations (his first since 2004), participated in joint-interviews with Taylor Swift and had his new record playing on cable news channel MSNBC when the first of the three new albums hadn't even come out. 
          Then in February, his life and the lives of more than a few women changed forever. 
          He woke up one day in February 2019 to his ex-wife and This Is Us star Mandy Moore blasting him all over Marc Maron's podcast. Then, the New York Times contacted him; it wasn't about Mandy, Ryan...this was much more serious. An article was coming out and the reporters were making him aware of the serious, life-altering allegations and only called him to get his side of the story.
          He didn't give them one and instead called them "rats" on Twitter, just as his own profile page (a place he's used to seeing near-universal praise) became a platform for millennial vitriol and cries for him to die or disappear after the news unfolded.
          Whether justified or not: 
           in 2019 the mob rules. 
          From being called the "greatest songwriter of his generation", his approval commanding such influence in the industry, or being considered one of rock and roll's sexier and gentler men, to waking up one day and it's all over. 
          We know now.
          No more asskissing, no more goodwill for being our favorite sober "adulting" music, no more loud-mouthed bravado, no more impressionable women falling for it again...suddenly, after two decades of being top dog, it all ended in a pout of hushed agony. Any thoughts about his current state of mind, health or music faded completely and what a hell of an ego check for someone so infamously self-obsessed...
           Though the basis of the entire story is bizarre and rooted in fog...
           It began with the New York Times getting "an anonymous tip" through their "anonymous tip line".
           According to the New York Times reporters (detailing how they crafted the "Ava" story on a NYTimes podcast), one of their editors had been in touch with some big time "music industry players" who were already swapping rumors for other stories. After a few questions to these industry insiders concerning the "anonymous tip" they received, they seemed to get every indication that this was definitely a hot lead. 
           And they were right. 
          It made the Mandy Moore statements sound like kindergarten fodder.
            These writers then struck up the idea to birth the bombshell article that struck the indie / alternative world harder than anything since the deaths of Prince and David Bowie.
           2016-2019 will be remembered as a time when many men who had used their power to dominate women sexually, professionally and emotionally were getting their share of a hardcore #MeToo ass-kicking. 
          This blitzkriegbop of creeps who were publicly punished, imprisoned or professionally destroyed were from all walks of life and ranged from the worst of the worst in Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump (somehow still unpunished), Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, etc, to the continuous "unwanted advances" or groping and public masturbation of Bill O'Reilly, Charlie Rose, Al Franken, Louie CK etc upon etc, to the trivial public shaming of James Franco and Aziz Ansari (as if you had to date Aziz to know he's a sexual juvenile).
            This was a female-driven revolution against the patriarchy of male power and their thousand years of systematic abuse, with younger generations of men more than willing to fight alongside these women in denouncing and punishing the perpetrators.
             However, like all revolutions, this one has many sides: one looking for the truth, one side looking for someone to blame and another of men hoping they can bury their past sins with current  tweets or posts, ready to hunt down and destroy the men who've been caught perpetrating the same mysoginy they got away with years earlier.
             Because of this, there were men who were railroaded unjustly and then duly thrown away like trash for a vulgar comment or a consensual sexual tryst that women later regretted for various, non-violent reasons. 
             We knew it was only a matter of time before #MeToo led a heart of darkness siege into the Mudshark / pre-teen obsessions of classic rock titans such as Led Zeppelin, but instead we received a litany of indie rock musicians tied up in the fray, as most of these older scoundrels got off completely (Page, Clapton, Townshend). 
          There was an accusation against Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock that nearly damaged the man's reputation, if it had actually been true (which it wasn't) and luckily Isaac hasn't let the lies derail a thing. 
       The original lineup of female-male duo Crystal Castles broke up in 2015, but it took two years for singer Alice Glass's allegations of sexual and physical abuse  against brooding-bearded sampler Ethan Kath (that began when she was only 15)   to come out. But when they did, her words were stone cold truth and it hurt CC's brand, their fan base and empowered a lot of women (many others spoke out about Kath before and after Glass). 

Crystal Castles before the allegations / breakup

        There was Conor Oberst's pre-#MeToo era online destruction which turned out to be a rather nasty false accusation and one that was blindly believed and an experience Conor has likened to "being in a car crash".
       There was Swans' mastermind Michael Gira getting away with anal rape amid the male record collector man's world of indie blogs.
          Isaac Brock, Conor Oberst and actors James Franco and Aziz Ansari are the only obvious cases of men who've been wrongfully or overly steamrolled, often by media members hijacking the image and aim of the #MeToo movement for their own gain. But with a solid rate of accurate accusations so far, it's borderline impossible to call the movement a witch hunt just yet. 
           As of now, we're not factually certain where Ryan Adams falls on that spectrum. 
            Sure, as a self-proclaimed fan of Ryan Adams' music (yes, even now), I will agree that the man has never had it easy with women...not even close.
           In fact, he's been a dick, a manipulator, a needy guy hoping every woman will turn into his mother and a man who seemed perfectly fine cheating on wives or girlfriends. He thought he could write a song for every chick he's ever been around or wanted to be with...
            ...but he's not all bad, right? 
           At the least, Ryan takes full advantage of his prestige as an indie taste maker with subtle predation, preying upon these women just as they are in a confused state as to how they actually feel about the guy ("is he my producer? My collaborator? My mentor or a new lover? Or even the pity-fuck I shouldn't give in to?") and it's a confusion he's fought hard for these women to feel.
           At its worst, his manipulative   behavior around young female musicians Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Jaye, or his short-term engagement with ex-fiancee Megan Butterworth (among others) displays the singer-songwriter openly playing a psychological game of sexual cat and mouse with these women.
           First, it was Ryan tweeting about their music in gushing terms: "you're the grunge version of Linda Ronstadt", "I hear strings on your next record" or (in a case of rather heinous manipulation) calling Phoebe Bridgers "the next Bob Dylan". 
          Second, Ryan extended offers to produce and record their albums in his PAX-AM studios in Los Angeles, potentially to be released through his label (and their distribution deal with Capitol Records) and followed that commitment with verbal commitments to collaborate as well.
          Accordingly, he would begin this arrangement with the planned musical sit-down (unless they weren't that good in his mind, to which he didn't seem interested in music and instead switched plans to "dinner", lying through his teeth about their "talents" just to get laid). 
           But when the time was right, their guard was down and the booze or weed were flowing, Ryan would make his move, usually ending in a rebuffed kiss, a naked photo or even a consensual sexual relationship that these women later regretted once finding out middle-aged Ryan's modus operandi.
          Incredibly, these accusations aren't even from his wild, booze-ridden odyssey as the "bad boy of rock and roll" from the past two decades. 

2. UNDERSTANDING 
THE "BAD BOY" OF ROCK AND ROLL
          Adams desperately cultivated this bad-boy image as he collaborated with Elton John, opened for The Stones and was a rising Billboard force in the early 2000s. And to follow, he was being hailed as "the next Bob Dylan" by Rolling Stone between the releases Gold and Love Is Hell.
          It was an era of unrepentant drugging, public boozing and testy interviews full of manufactured anger, bitterness and a Cobain-esque despondency towards fame. And who could forget his hilariously insecure (though accurate and pointed) calling out of Chicago Tribune critic Jim deRogatis via voicemail  after reading Jim's scathing review of a 2003 Riviera Theater show where Ryan dissed Chi-town boys Wilco. 

         There's the alleged time he burned Courtney Love out of $150,000 in unpaid studio time while recording Rock N Roll (an album recorded without his label's knowledge)...through all of these episodes in the early 2000s (and many others) he was trying to be the lost member of the Replacements, winning his "rock and roll street-cred" one speedball, public feud or magazine diss at a time.            
          Then Ryan went through a brilliant Grateful Dead and Gram Parsons phase for his 2005 trilogy Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights and 29. 
          That prolific year followed a critical and commercial wilderness and a period of uncertainty for the songwriter, with Ryan's record label on his back and at his throat. 
          He'd broken his arm after a scary onstage fall on the Love Is Hell tour in Liverpool, forcing the musician to relearn the guitar for the first time in his life.  Due to these troubling circumstances, he became an opiate addict: mixing painkillers, heroin and smoking opium.
          Was he just a poor man's Paul Westerburg, aping the rain-soaked  Replacements meets Morrissey soliloquys he grew up worshipping?
          Yet his eccentricities (some of them pretentious) and his artistic gambles won out: he had risen once again and reinvented himself. 
          Nobody had taken the blissful, loose guitar of the Dead and shot it up with focused, origami indie riffings, and through the duel guitar and vocal power of Ryan and Neal Casal, The Cardinals became the missing link between the Grateful Dead and the fuzz box. 
           Before the Cardinals, the white collar / faux-intellectualism of the indie world mocked artists who played Black Flag and Gram Parsons covers in the same show, or the excessive hippie ethos of The Dead; after Cold Roses, indie became full-on obsessed with their peculiar sounds and Utopian vibe, due in part to Ryan's influence.
          Once again, it was a brilliant evolution that showed Ryan Adams' knack for musical transcendence and a perfect distillation of heart-on-bloody-sleeve influences that only rarely betrayed him. 
          During this time he wrote obsessively confessional / confrontational lyrics depicting his reckless abandon in and around New York City (his adopted home town) detailing his bar-stool rambling, his cocaine frenzy through the avenues, his all night recording sessions, the many women who's hearts he broke and his longing for family despite his love/hate relationship with his hometown of little ol' Jacksonville, North Carolina.
           Also during this whirlwind era, he had to fight constant wars with his label, Lost Highway, over the content and schedule of his releases. 
          This resulted in mounds of unreleased records (The Suicide Handbook, Destroyer, Darkbreaker etc) ending in missed opportunities and blame on all sides. The resulting rejection and frustration became ingrained in Ryan, coupled with an intense contempt towards those who dared to get in his artistic way.
          After all of this came to a head, he kicked his addictions in 2006 and 2007 and settled for becoming the adult contemporary James Frey in the 2010s: telling tales of addiction and relationship woe as if he were an "edgy Jack Johnson".
          Somehow these later records such as Ashes and Fire, his self titled record, and Prisoner sold like hotcakes for once and the heart breaker himself was back, speaking to an older generation also settling into their own lukewarm, bittersweet contentment. 
         Throughout Adams' songs are the sounds of tortured relationships, isolated existences within and without them and the carnage that lays us all to waste in its aftermath.
         Because of this heartbroken persona, it seems he tried to self sabotage his own life out of concern for his art staying "damaged"...Ryan was already worried he'd lost his edge.
        But losing one's creative edge isn't the same as losing your soul...

3.
 DO YOU STILL LOVE ME? 
/
 LOVE IS HELL

        
           every night I throw you out, leave you stranded on the boulevard, you know how I use you up, I used you like I used them all...and the band's singin "Hallelujah (From Ryan's 2002 song "Hallelujah")        
            Never was there an allegation from Ryan's 20s or early 30s about this type of behavior, whatsoever...
            Was it really a nonstop thing that just finally came to a head (after years of getting away with it)? 
            We take inventory: 
            He was with aforementioned actress Parker Posey for nearly 3 years during his snottiest period (2002-2004) and the two shared an infamous relationship.
          We have strong evidence leading us to believe he had an "on the DL" on-off relationship with original Cardinals bassist Catherine Popper (she can be seen on the cover of Jacksonville City Nights). 

          Her "relationship" with Ryan stopped at some point in 2005 or 2006, straining the original lineup until she was replaced by the late, magical bassist Chris "Spacewolf" Feinstein.

            In the mid 2000s', Ryan had a successful short term relationship with Jessica Joffe, the socialite-journalist who used Valium and copious amounts of weed to help Ryan finally kick heroin and cocaine in 2006, something he gave her credit for in a New York Times piece at the time. 
             His relationship problems are just like any of ours (if we're being honest) and maybe some of us should be out of jobs, careers or the public arena for the things we've done. 
           Although if we're being honest with ourselves, we would feel that Ryan shouldn't have everything destroyed due to his mean-spirited, attention-obsessed egotism regarding Mandy: but he must be held accountable.
            He treated Mandy like garbage and had sharp-tongued mood swings; Ryan also held a barely-veiled contempt at her trying to make more serious music than her bubblegum pop of the late 90s, with Ryan quoted as stating "you're not a musician, you don't play an instrument". 
            ...he's right...vocalists aren't musicians.
            For all we know, that quote could've been taken out of the context of a massive discussion about the merits of her music between the two, with Ryan potentially saying "it's hard to collaborate with you when you can't play an instrument" and perhaps the defeated feeling she felt (after hearing him say that) wasn't noticed or attended to and that line stung deep...or maybe he was as bluntly vicious as she claims.
           In their marriage, you had Ryan on one side: an older music veteran who's played with everyone from Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow and Phil Lesh, produced an album for Willy Nelson and was heavily admired by Elton John; and then on the other side, you had sometime actress / singer Mandy looking up to him for guidance in her career's most fragile moment. 
           With such an inauthentic, unnatural establishment to their relationship in the first place, Mandy using Ryan for career credibility (it worked, just not in music) while Ryan used Mandy as a mother-figure who would take care of his every need (during his own career uncertainty), the relationship was plagued by this cycle of careerist resentment from the beginning and it was no surprise when they divorced...the only surprise was how long their marriage actually lasted. 
           Both parties believed in this marriage at first, especially when Adams abandoned and destroyed his best ever band The Cardinals early in 2009, just so he could marry Mandy, tend to his Meniere's disease by not playing live and producing her albums. 
             But due to her comments as a guest on Marc Maron's WTF podcast, Ryan Adams was immediately blacklisted from the world right as his popularity was rising to its highest ever apex...something Mandy, Courtney Jaye,  Phoebe Bridgers and a young woman named "Ava" weren't going to sit back and stomach.
           He had been clocking the best sales of his career thanks to the Grammy-nominated success of his self titled album, while his covers record of Taylor Swift's 1989 sent him to the infinite mainstream whirlpool, coinciding with the already thorough celebration and appreciation of his 16+ album discography.         
             Adams was automatically selling out places like Red Rocks, The Gorge or Shoreline Amphitheaters and New York's Hammerstein Ballroom and he had booked a U.K tour for the Spring and early Summer that had almost immediately sold out.
            He shouldn't lose everything because of the Mandy Moore statements....
            But he should lose everything if he was going after an underage girl.

4.  
THE SECOND SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS: 
 THE NEW YORK TIMES' "AVA" STORY 

            It's hard to tell if the Mandy Moore story went down first or the New York Times allegations, but it came thick and fast and was as much of a psychological barrage as one human could receive...perhaps just like the one he'd put "Ava" through.
           A New York Times article claimed Ryan Adams responded to direct messages via Twitter from a 15-16 year old aspiring female bassist, only identified as "Ava", beginning in 2014.
        The New York Times is alleging Adams sexually enticed "Ava" into sending naked photos online and then exposed himself to her when she was underage. 

           The Times shared five or six quotes from the correspondence they were given (most likely by "Ava") and all the published quotes were from Ryan, sharing none of "Ava's" responses for context, interestingly enough: "If people knew I was talking to you they'd think I'm R. Kelly LOL!" or "Are you gonna tell me your mom won't kill me if she finds out we've been talking?"
              At first this sounds cut and dry, especially with the investigators (including the FBI) having access to every single message that was sent between the two. 
            While creepy as hell and completely surprising from Ryan to be an alleged sexual predator, some of these interactions make it hard to prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) that Adams knew she was underage. 
            "Do me a paranoid favor and prove you're 18," he's quoted as saying in one direct message on Twitter. 
           "Ava", according to the Times, replied that she was in her 20s then sent nude photos to go along with it. He asked her repeatedly for proof, which she never provided and only continued to engage him.

            The quote that sticks out most and points to the songwriter's guilt is his statement "prove to me you're not underage in the hottest way it's ever been done LOL..." truly damning, pedophilic words from Adams if these quotes are true.
            Ryan is a dumbass for not discontinuing the conversation; instead, like a lot of us these days, Ryan's sexual curiosity, his online laziness, his potentially creeper behavior and his sense of invincibility proved to be his undoing.
            Maybe the sick, sad truth is he didn't really want to know her age. 
Or maybe he thought: surely photos of a girl playing bass in a bar would indicate she was at least 18? 
            Maybe even 21????
            But since that day in February when both stories dropped, Adams hasn't been in the news other than photos and footage the paparazzi captured of him driving away with his new "girlfriend" and a resurgence on social media, including videos of his cats, promoting Fender guitars (who didn't drop his endorsements) and issuing a statement saying "I have a lot to say and will soon."
            However, nothing has come out about the FBI investigation into his online conversations with "Ava". 
             Nothing.
             Which makes me wonder: will there be as much of a reaction if it's reported that the FBI are dropping the investigation, or that they didn't find he was doing anything illegal? 
             Or will the indie blog outlets and their ridiculous hypocrisy continue to act like the songwriter never existed? 
           I mention these blogs due to their acceptance and glamorizing of certain hip hop and indie stars who've had significant allegations, arrests or convictions for violence against women. These blogs, touting their #MeToo credentials constantly, have somehow blatantly dismissed Swans' Michael Gira, Tupac Shakur, R. Kelly among others, especially Pitchfork's gushing of Tupac and Michael Gira.
               Like Adams, Michael Gira claimed to support, produce and promote young female artists, usually with a sexual favors caveat; unlike Adams, Gira was accused of rape (and by a reliable source). 

Tupac and his victim Ayanna Jackson

               Some get away with it while others are punished with the full extent of the social media nuclear button. 
           Or could we just be
 human and realize people have at least a few (or at times many) different sides to them? 
           We can destroy the ugly, we can celebrate the fantastic and the beautiful, but we'll never get away from the truth: there's always a dark side. 
           We don't have to accept that dark side, hell we put people away forever for showing too much of theirs...but when did our desensitization to the 24 hour news cycle confuse us so bad and turn us into judge, jury and executioner? 
           There are many who've absorbed these titles since the #MeToo movement began, equating Mandy Moore to the victims of Bill Cosby or thinking NBC's Chris Hansen should be waiting at a house for Ryan on the next To Catch a Predator.
           Somewhere along the line in 2017, we forgot what innocent until proven guilty meant and decided to believe anything and everything, especially when it fulfilled our own intense examinations of one's character (ex: you thought Ryan Adams was a woman-hating creep before the allegations, so when it was first printed or posted, you believed it all as if you'd seen it with your very own eyes).
            Women should always be taken seriously and listened to just like any other human being, yet when a generation condemns the blind faith of organized religion and then proceeds to believe any accusation against anyone without evidence, you have to wonder what the fuck is going on.
                            
5.    WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?
         LETTER TO RYAN ADAMS

           We're not here to stick up for Ryan Adams' egotistical sex wars over the last two and a half decades, we're not here to defend his obsession with trying to make Mandy Moore his mother or let him get off without legal accountability for his insanely creepy / pedophile behavior towards "Ava" if it's true. 
           As much as we love his checkered past as a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, swashbuckling New York obsessed poet who took his own mythology way too seriously, we realize (if the heavy allegations are true) that we may never look at him in a positive light again, sadly.  
           However, even while the allegations from "Ava" are still unsubstantiated, we look at him just as differently now.
           Even in 2019 when "Gold Mine Gutted" or "Train Under Water" comes on, we still think about the false accusations against Conor Oberst for a split second too...proof of how damaging and cruel the ratrace inaccuracy of modern media can be.
           We're just asking: in 2019, at which point do we assign guilt anymore? 
          Are the search warrants signed by the judge after the stories are posted and the reaction is swift, or is it after the actual corroborating stories are legally revealed to the authorities?

Songwriter Phoebe Bridgers

          And while it's sickening that Ryan Adams would use his power and control in the music industry to take advantage of women, it's quite obvious to anyone (and shamelessly described in the New York Times article) that some of these women were openly using his sexual interest in them as a gatekeeper to his connections, influence and industry resources to further their own musical careers. 
            Let's not kid ourselves, they used their sex appeal as an unspoken trade-off where these women found themselves way in over their heads when Adams became controlling and vindictive. They thought "indie-darling Ryan won't be a creep, right?" 
             Phoebe Bridgers went out with him for two weeks, upon which she explained Ryan "talked about marriage" and was extremely controlling and stifling to her, to which she broke it off understandably. 
             We've spent the last 6 months wondering how Ryan could be such an evil fuck, how he could take advantage of these women, how he could wield his power over them etc upon etc, but we never ask the question: when did this lonely, manipulative and hurting guy realize these women didn't actually care about him and just wanted his industry stamp of approval, creating an avenue for his childish revenge? 
            But more than any of the above faux-adult drama bullshit: did he seriously expose himself to an underage girl?
           Were those messages he sent, in fact, real and if so, will Ryan Adams the once great wizard of millennial-wedding song bliss now be living out the rest of his life in heinous infamy? 
            Or could it be for a few years behind bars? 
           These are serious allegations...even if he dodges prison time, the package deal for the potential plea bargain would include him signing on as a sex offender voluntarily for a certain amount of time, completely up to Ohio's, New York's or the federal prosecutors' discretion.

           We haven't heard much about the FBI investigation, either, though that doesn't mean there isn't an ongoing inquest into the online activities of the songwriter.
            We don't know how this will all shake out...
            But what we do know: we've found ourselves seeing through some of the cliche-humping bullshit of Ryan Adams...we've taken a peek behind the "he's a genius" shield he waves so proudly. 

"Jesus..." someone said in the background.

             I was a gigantic Ryan Adams fan when I started this thing, expecting to find evidence to exonerate and prove Ryan's innocence, pointing to a sloppy piece of "gotcha-journalism" by The New York Times.
             Instead, I'm riveted by the lack of supporting evidence from any women in Ryan's defense.
             I've looked everywhere. But now, this is in the FBI's hands.
            Jenny Lewis was the only female collaborator who said anything even remotely neutral, withstanding the negativity when asked about it on a YouTube interview. She said: "it's good we're having a dialogue..." among other bland platitudes, obviously still trying to process her interactions with the man who's produced her records and sang her praises publicly for some time now.
            However in the wrong Ryan Adams thinks his actions were or weren't, it was & is wrong.
            His behavior has been just as spotty as his discography, going from triumphs to vanity projects, often ruining albums as easily as he's destroyed relationships.
          The duality in his music was also in the man himself and the inherent lack of cohesion wasn't something he left behind in the studio. 

           Ryan Adams is no Jim James; he's been told "what a genius" he is for far too long to stop taking himself this seriously....but it's time for some humility, Ryan.             
           Whatever the truth is about "Ava", Ryan, you've manipulated many women already. You've glorified the womanizing and impulsive heartbreak dramatics of your youth and milked them for all they're worth, capitalizing on your rehab comeback story and "tale of addiction". 
            But more than anything you're in a rut: emotionally, psychologically, musically, etc. 
           You've turned from manipulative sex games into trolling Twitter for underage girls, you've bounced from vehement denial to strident apologies, quickly followed by desperate promotion for your three albums that were temporarily shelved. 
            I don't know what's going to happen to the future of his music, and if he's a creep like "Ava" alleges, I don't really care about his "career" anymore, he'll have to face justice. But as a human being, I want to see Ryan Adams rebound and become more thoughtful, respectful and honest.
            I want Ryan The Human to succeed...compared to that, the bland music he's making now means nothing. 
            For the present, his output from 2000-2009 can remind us all of the vast talents within this man and his many collaborators, meaning nothing more.
            The message, the beauty and the imagery of his lyrics fall away now, transparent to the doom he's laid on our plates: victims foremost and the fans scratching their heads in the wake of his actions.
            You can't just say "I'm Sorry, I Love You"  and everything's forgiven and forgotten, Ryan.
            You have to prove it.