If you’ve seen Ryan Adams play live during the Cardinology tour you’ve noticed the giant cartoonish looking Fender amp he’s playing with. I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or if that was a real amp, I’d never seen any Fender amp that big. Thanks to some new pictures of it and a little help from the Cardinology blog it turns out he’s playing 4 Fender Princeton amps inside of a custom (fake) Fender case. This is awesome on a Spinal Tap scale, such grand overkill I love it.

Very often I listen to music I love and think, “I wish I could sing like him” or “I wish I wrote this song”. So today I thought I’d start with the top 5 voices I covet.

1. Jeff Buckley – With this voice the sky is the limit. There’s nothing I couldn’t sing, the pinnacle of flexibility and range. His voice has graced us(no pun intended – his greatest album was called Grace) with some of the most beautiful songs ever written, Everybody Here Wants You, Last Goodbye, Morning Theft to name a few.
2. Ryan Adams – Ryan’s voice has matured a lot since his early stuff. His tone is so perfect, like a warm blanket in front of a fire, sippin on a decaf Cafe Mocha with extra chocolate hold the whip cream. Live his voice is just as good if not better than on record. I have a problem with lust after this man, pray for me.
3. Chris Cornell – When I’m feeling quite masculine I imagine I can sing like Chris Cornell. He is my go to shower voice. This guy just embodies rock star, he sings down and dirty, but yet when he sings softly the raspiness comes across very gently and adds a bit of sincerity to his emotional songs. If I could yell like him I’d be screaming my entire life. Can you imagine how effective a father he’ll be disciplining his children? His yell would strike fear into any grown man much less a child.
4. Elvis Costello – This is a bit more fantasy than anything. He has just the coolest, wacky voice, it would be fun to sing like that. If you are in the camp that says Elvis has a terrible voice, then shame on you. All I can say is you have no idea what you’re talking about. Watch this video and get saved.
5. John Legend – When my inner soul, funk, R&B guy comes out and wants to sing about making babies John Legend is the voice I need. I wrote a song for my wife that I played to her on our wedding and it was very much a white man acoustic, John Mayer type thing. Would have been so much more effective if I could have swung behind a piano, shirt unbuttoned, chest hair poppin out(I don’t have any of that either) and sung some sweet soooouuuuuullllllll.

Who’s voice (or chest hair) do you wish you had?

Sometimes when listening to great music I think, man this song would be such an amazing worship song if they knew Jesus. A changed phrase here and there, changed object of worship, of course a changed heart, and what a powerful worship song it would be. One great example of this to me is a song by Ryan Adams called Desire(<- playable audio link), off his amazing album Demolition.

Not just in lyrics, but the whole vibe of the song, the mood, it’s a very worshipful, mindful, passionate song.

Two hearts fading, like a flower.
And all this waiting, for the power.
For some answer, to this fire.
Sinking slowly. The waters higher.
Desire

With no secrets. No obsession.
This time I’m speeding with no direction.
Without a reason. What is this fire?
Burning slowly. My one and only.
Desire

You know me. You don’t mind waiting.
You just can’t show me, but God I’m praying,
That you’ll find me, and that you’ll see me,
That you run and never tire.
Desire

Man that last verse always gets me, intense. Ryan, chicks will tire but God won’t tire brotha, he’s after you.

I had the pleasure of attending my first Ryan Adams concert this last Friday night in Tucson. I’m a huge Ryan Adams fan and have never had the chance to catch him live. He doesn’t tour out west all that often so when I saw he was playing a couple hours away I jumped on it. His latest album “Easy Tiger” is a great album and spotlights everything great about Ryan Adams. He has incredible flexibility and range in his songwriting, vocals and instrumentation. He can arrange pretty hard rocking tunes, to acoustic country and usually settles in some sort of rock-alt-country club, of which I’m a card carrying member.

His band, the Cardinals, are outstanding and I think he’s really found a groove with these guys. On stage Ryan seemed so comfortable and it’s evident in the music. There now seems to be 3 phases to his career. Whiskeytown days, solo period, and now the Cardinals. I love all 3 but am really excited about the current incarnation.

The concert started without any opening band which was cool. Their set was a very understated, just a white background with backlighting colors/patterns and a few cactus props in front of it. Their lighting was very interesting, they chose not to use the theatre’s lighting, instead went with what they brought. They just had some up lighting off the floor and some back/side lighting that hit the background as well. They were perfectly happy to be dark for extended periods of time. It created a very homey feel, there was rarely any motion lighting happening in the middle of songs. At least nothing very prominent. I’ve included a few shots from my iPhone, not the best quality but you get the idea.

Audio wise it was incredible sounding, the mix was fantastic. So much better than the Minus the Bear/Helio Sequence concert I blogged about in Nov. Vocally they were phenomenal. I love Ryan Adams voice, but thought he might fly off the handle a bit live. He definitely stretched himself but he was near flawless. The tone to his voice is just incredible live and he can do so much with it. Neal Casal was amazing on backing vocals, his harmonies were perfect. Everyone played with passion and some songs like “The Sun Also Sets” were incredibly powerful.

The overall vibe of the concert had a “come into our living room” type of feel. There was a lot of banter between songs, there were long downtimes, fun and games. It wasn’t a very tight ship, depending on your taste I guess that could be a good thing or a bad thing. I enjoyed the show but wish there was less down time between songs, I don’t think they ever stringed a few songs together.

With this laid back atmosphere I was increasingly worried Ryan might have one of his “freakouts” and walk off stage. He was throwing em back at a good pace. But he seemed happy and he was enjoying himself, so thankfully the concert wasn’t cut short. I’m stoked I got to see him, it really was musically inspiring and just plain fun. Great show boys, keep it up!

Our church is in the middle of a new building buildout that includes a significantly larger sanctuary. This required some new gear and an entire new set of sound issues. I’ve been in bands, and behind boards since I was a young man and I have what I consider to be a “passing” knowledge of how to mix. I certainly know my limitations, and this project was way out of my league. We needed a professional.

In God’s divine wisdom and grace he planned for my path to cross Jeff. I met Jeff in my smoothie shop while we were bumping some Whiskeytown. He asked if I enjoyed Whiskeytown to which I replied “heck yes I do”, one of my favorite bands and Ryan Adams has to be one of the preeminent songwriters of our day. He let me know he used to run sound for them and Ryan Adams. It’s moments like these that I use as proof of a good and loving God.

I asked(begged) Jeff if he might be willing to help us out and boy has he ever. He came and did things I’ve never seen and certainly have never heard. It sounds amazing in there and I am so grateful for Jeff and others of his ability around the world. God bless you professional sound men and God bless you Jeff! I want to cry I’m so happy…I think I will….excuse me.