Ryan Adams

August 13, 2012
Menconi, a veteran music critic based in Raleigh, North Carolina, had a front row seat for alt-country wunderkind Ryan Adams' rise to prominenceâfrom an array of local bands, to Whiskeytown, and on to a successful and prolific solo career. Here, Menconi enthusiastically revisits those heady days when the mercurial Adams' performances were either transcendent or tantrum-filledâthe author was there for most of them, and he packs his book with tales of magical performances and utterly desperate train wrecks. But throughout it all, Adams put on an air of undeniable confidence and made his intentions clear from the get-goâold acquaintances describe him as "aggravating the shit" out of friends with new song after new song, declaring that "someday he'd be famous," and basically "doing everything a hundred miles an hour." Admittedly a fan (he even goes so far as to confess he was "something like Whiskeytown's unofficial propagandist" at one point), Menconi's bias colors the story, but this interview- and anecdote-laden exposé of the artist's early career will doubtless find a happy home with Adams fans.