Save that date — May 9 for “Losering: The Songs of Ryan Adams”

So things are coming along quite nicely for “Losering: The Songs of Ryan Adams,” the tribute show happening May 9 at Deep South The Bar in downtown Raleigh. Dave Rose (impressario of Deep South Entertainment and also author of the music-business book “My Cousin Rick”) and John Booker have been busy putting it together and booking acts. And Dave also designed a great-looking poster for it, which you can see here on the right.

Checking the lineup for new additions, I’m quite happy to see a couple of names on there: my best pal Scott Huler’s band the Equivocators (who also played the after-party for the first reading I did last fall); and also Chip Robinson from Whiskeytown’s peers the Backsliders, which gives this shindig some very cool back-in-the-day cred circa the mid-1990s.

I do hope you’ll come on out if you can, because I’m very excited.

Coming May 9 — “Losering: The Songs Of Ryan Adams”

Ryan Adams has a new record due out later this year, and the expectation is that he’ll tour the U.S. after its release. But even if that comes to pass, it’s highly doubtful that his tour schedule will include a date in his former hometown of Raleigh, which Ryan hasn’t played since 2005. And so the fine folks at Deep South Entertainment have taken inspiration from “Losering” the book to put together a tribute show called “Losering: The Songs Of Ryan Adams.” It’s scheduled for Thursday, May 9, at Deep South The Bar in Raleigh, with a very fine lineup of musicians from the local scene playing Ryan and Whiskeytown songs:

Jeff and Keef Debonzo (Debonzo Brothers)
Danny Johnson and George Hage (Jack The Radio)
John Massengil and Danny Johnson (Old Quarter)
John Booker and Rachel Hirsh (I Was Totally Destroying It)
Wylie Hunter (Wylie Hunter & the Cazadores)
Charles Marshall (Balsa Gliders)
David Teeter (Martha Ann Motel)
Adam Lane and Jeff Mullins
Ryan Mullaney and Ashley Gray
Bobby Bryson
Ryan Kennemur
The Equivocators

Another act or two will probably be added to the lineup, and yours truly will serve as host and emcee. Meantime, save the date and please do come on out if you can. There will be songs, and a story or two, I’m sure.

Dave Rose’s Cousin Rick is probably a Ryan Adams fan, too

Raleigh music impressario Dave Rose has never worked with Ryan Adams, but he did have an interesting indirect brush with Whiskeytown greatness way back in 1995. Rose was recording that summer with his band 9811 at the Funny Farm in Apex — the same studio where Whiskeytown was making Faithless Street (Chapter five in “Losering”). And as Rose recounts in his book “Everything I Know About The Music Business I Learned From My Cousin Rick,” studio owner/engineer Greg Woods would start most 9811 sessions by making Rose listen to what he’d been working on with Whiskeytown the night before. Eventually, Rose figured something out:

I should have realized exactly what was going on here. Greg wasn’t playing my songs for Ryan Adams when he came in to record. No. Greg was playing Ryan’s songs for me…Knowing now what I didn’t know then, I should have realized: Okay, Ryan Adams = Brilliant. Dave Rose = Eh, not so much.

Still, Rose has done well for himself over the years, managing acts including Allison Moorer (who wrote the Foreword for “Cousin Rick”), Bruce Hornsby and Little Feat through his Raleigh-based company Deep South Entertainment. His book is a solid music-business primer that repeatedly makes the point that the music must come first and if it’s good enough, the business part will take care of itself. That’s a lesson I wish more musicians would heed.

You’ll find plenty more about Rose’s book in this Q&A interview I did with him in 2013. And here is a 2017 feature about Dave, too.