Tag Archives: Sad Dracula

Ryan Adams “Lost” Album Blackhole Finally Released – 11/15/2024 – A Deeper Dive

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Mockup of vinyl packaging for Ryan Adams Blackhole

Announced unexpectedly today from Ryan Adams‘s camp is the long-awaited (or long-delayed) release of Blackhole. From the description in the webstore:

Ryan Adams’ infamous cult classic album “Blackhole” will be released on classic black vinyl and CD for the very first time.

The album’s contents and final track listing have been widely speculated since its conception in the early 00’s. After nearly two decades of anticipation, Adams is now ready to unveil the official release of Blackhole. Featuring “Catherine”, heard only in live performances, alongside previously unheard material, Blackhole captures the raw, unfiltered emotion that defines Adam’s songwriting.

The shelved album, first demoed in 2006, became heavily bootlegged, with fans circulating low-quality recordings and snippets from live performances, fueling a demand for the album’s official release. This long-awaited, full-length album not only satisfies years of fan speculation, but also reclaims a crucial moment in Ryan Adam’s history.

I made an article back in 2014 collecting everything I could find about Blackhole when he started performing two tracks from it during the self-titled album tour. Here is the link to that article:

The Blackhole Album Story – What We Know (and Ultimately Don’t) About Ryan Adams’s Unreleased Masterpiece

I had been following Ryan’s career really closely for about ten years at that point and the Blackhole album was talked about a lot in the various forums online. The interesting part about the album was that it really hadn’t leaked up until that point and the only information about it was from Ryan himself.

The short version is that he recorded most of the album over Christmas 2005 with Jamie Candiloro and spent four years working on it adding guitar parts, mixing and other work. In 2010 he had the masters completed and showed a picture of the test pressing which marked the long journey of announcements of Blackhole releases with one of the most recent announcements in 2018. The 11-track album confirms some of the tracks that have leaked over the years and there seems to be some new titles, that I’ve never heard, but based on the general tone of the album, which Adams once described as “Love Is Hell Pt. 3” I’m sure they’ll be more of the same Smiths-influenced guitar rock.

Here is the confirmed tracklist from the order page along with my notes about where these have leaked or debuted previously. Some of these songs have leaked in different versions and presumably mixes a few times over the years. It really is some of his best work in my opinion.

  1. The Door (debuted on World Cafe here is the 2023 studio version from YouTube)
  2. Call Me Back
  3. Help Us
  4. Likening Love to War (Here is the 2010 version leaked to YouTube)
  5. Starfire (leaked in the 24-album dump to his website as part of Fasterpiece credited to Sad Dracula – Here is the 2023 version)
  6. Just You Wait
  7. For The Sun (studio version leaked to YouTube)
  8. Catherine (debuted on World Cafe and Newport Folk Fest Here is the 2023 version leaked to YouTube)
  9. Tomorrowland (debuted in the 2006 Pax Am Digital Series)
  10. Runaway
  11. When I Smile (leaked to YouTube)

You can pre-order Blackhole in either CD or vinyl versions from his webstore:

The LP: https://paxam.shop/products/blackhole-lp
The CD: https://paxam.shop/products/blackhole-cd
The T-Shirt: https://paxam.shop/products/blackhole-t-shirt

Ryan Adams – Pax-Am Digital Single No. 1 “Lost and Found” b/w “Go Ahead and Rain” (Review)

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This week had the ‘Net a flutter with news of Ryan Adams’s re-launching his website and re-launching his Pax Americana (PaxAm) record label with a downloadable “Digital Single.” Pre-orders went up mid-week with a promise of the songs shipping on Friday, September 11th.

What you got for $1.49 was a .zip file with the advertised two songs “Lost and Found” and “Go Ahead and Rain” (which is mislabeled “Sunflower Rain”) in both FLAC (YAY!) and 128Kbps mp3’s plus a so-called “Free Jam” of the demo to the Cardinology song “Sink Ships” in 160Kbps mp3 format. Plus “cover art” (shown above) and what appears to be considered the label art.

“Lost and Found” is an official release of what had surfaced in November 2006 along with 11 albums of other unreleased songs under a bunch of pseudonyms including DJ Reggie, The Shit, WereWolph, Warren Peace, Rhoda Ro, Ghetto Birds and Sad Dracula. Most of the albums seemed like Ryan recording every possible inspiration– listenable or not. However, the most compelling of these releases seemed to fall under Sad Dracula and Warren Peace. “Lost and Found” was a song on Fasterpiece. The version released as part of this single doesn’t seem very much different from that track which would lead me to believe that this song was actually recorded for release.

According to threads on the ryanadamsarchive.com boards “Go Ahead and Rain” surfaced as a demo and video a while back. Ryan (posting as Wolfhunter) said that he had recorded four versions of “Go Ahead and Rain” including one which was considered for the Cardinology album. He says that Jamie (Candiloro?) plays drums on this take. Jamie Candiloro worked on the hotly-debated Rock N Roll album. He says that “Johnny T. (Yerington) played drums on ‘Oblivion’ and I played drums on the rest. ” Oblivion” is a track on Fasterpiece as well. So, probably we will see some kind of Sad Dracula release in the near future!

Ryan also says this:

Thanks for supporting Pax-Am. Though I know many of you have lot’s of tracks from over the years many don’t. The glitches and kinks are being figured out and soon enough it will be time for some bigger projects. Also with new work there will be a whole new slab of folks trying to tear down the whole thing but, fuck em- this is gonna be great, I am excited for all this shit yall never heard to come around AND I am happy to get some really badass stuff out there once and for all.

The plans for Pax-Am at the moment is to continue to release some of these “lost” albums and songs in digital and vinyl formats! There will also be other things for purchase like t-shirts. I think if any artist can make a go of this, it would be Ryan as he has the right formula– a rabid fanbase who will purchase just about anything and the fact that he’s very prolific would provide a lot of material to choose from.

I became a fan of Ryan’s because of Rock N Roll and the two Love is Hell EP’s. Rock N Roll was very much a departure from the Americana-leanings of his other releases and really the one that my wife prefers out of his catalog. I hadn’t really gotten into the three Cardinals releases from 2006 until I heard about the eleven albums he posted to his site. I found a suitable bit torrent from someone who snagged the tracks and made mp3’s of them. When I heard the Sad Dracula tracks, I was hooked– where had these songs been? These were more songs in the vein of Rock N Roll. Was this the Rock N Roll 2 that was rumored? Certainly based on what Ryan said on the board, these were the same session players.

Both tracks are of the same kind of guitar rock established on Rock N Roll. Kind of the slighty ramshackle, slightly unpolished guitar pop established by bands like The Replacements and their predecessor Big Star. I welcome more of these releases for sure!

I guess I prefer this approach of pumping stuff out on a number of releases– digital or vinyl rather than going the Neil Young Archives approach. Well, for a number of reasons– I would hate to wait 20 years for a compilation to come out of this stuff for one thing. But, also not making this a $300 purchase by releasing this a decade at a time makes it easier to budget.

Click Here to get you some rawk Ryan Adams.

Here is Ryan at the record mastering plant:

Record Testing Day from Ryan Adams on Vimeo.