Given and Taken in Ink

Ryan Adams, “Empty Room” and “Nutshell”

Ryan Adams has been selling an exclusive tour-only 7" at his recent European gigs, with new song "Empty Room" (a collaboration with wife Mandy Moore) and Alice-in-Chains cover "Nutshell."  Adams has a history of great duets with female singers, including Norah Jones and Catherine Popper, and this new tune continues that tradition.

Being a fan of Adams' music can be a maddening experience, considering he doesn't exactly make it easy to obtain copies of his music.  Class Mythology was a limited Record Store Day exclusive, Digital Singles #1-3 were only available for a limited time, and now this 7" is only available at shows in Europe.  And since all this stuff is produced through Adams' own PAX-AM label, it's not like this exclusivity is someone else's decision.  If he starts releasing stuff on cassette, I think I'm gonna lose it.  Dude, I tossed my Walkman for a reason.  Didn't even donate it to a thrift store - just straight into the garbage.  Please don't make me regret that.

Luckily, though, streams of both songs have leaked on YouTube and are available below.  As always, if anyone connected to Ryan Adams has a problem with it, please let me know and I will take them down.  YouTube should probably be the focus of your attention, but hey, we're an accommodating bunch at Given and Taken in Ink.  (And for my regular readers, yes, I just referred to myself in the plural.  It's been a rough week; please cut me some slack.)

Empty Room:

Nutshell:

A very big thanks to Consequence of Sound for the tip.

Update (7/4/2011): Switched the feeds to Soundcloud.