That Sinking Feeling

   More than one Ryan Adams fan lamented the May, 2009 disintegration of his band the Cardinals. The Cardinals, a great jam band, managed to follow Adams through blind alleys, over cliffs and into the thickets of instantaneous song reinterpretation with easy elan.
   One of my favorite Cardinals tunes, from their last record, Cardinology, is the heart-wrenching "Sink Ships." It's played full electric on the album. But, true to form, Adams and the band--guitarist Neal Casal, pedal steel guitarist Jon Graboff, drummer Brad Pemberton, and the late and much lamented bassist Chris "Spacewolf" Feinstein--found all sorts of new versions of the piece as that last tour wore on.

   Here, the band performs a melancholy acoustic version November 6, 2008, at the Desmet Studios in Amsterdam:

   And here, Ryan and Neal perform a tender, aching reading in the back of a London cab (!) for "The Black Cab Sessions":