Blank Label
Time: 1991
Personnel: Shane Duhe (guitar, vocals); Ryan Adams (drums); Michelle Horn (bass);  Jere McIlwean (guitar)
Notes: Ryan Adams interview:  "I didn’t really want to play guitar until I got run out of my band project that I did then, this band called  Blank Label when I was fourteen and I played drums for.  We practiced like once a week."
See also this informative note from Shane Duhe.   Thanks Shane.
Music: Blank Label 7"

 

The Lazy Stars
Time: 1993
Personnel:

Ryan Adams (guitar, vocals); Tom Cushman (bass); John Douglas (drums).

Notes: "Before Whiskeytown, and somewhere between one of the Patty Duke Syndrome's break up/make ups, there was Lazy Stars. Bassist Tom Cushman recorded them on a tape he stole from a car, and it has magically been transferred to digital. Anguished post-punk power drone rock, like Crazy Horse, Wipers, Galaxie 500. 11 Songs. Rare, raw, nice. Yes, this is Ryan on all vocals and guitar."
Ryan Adams post on Ryan-Adams Message Board:  
"the lazy stars were fucking awesome. thom cushman and the guy from sockeye on drums. now can you find a bootleg of the band tom and i were in before that? we were called ASS and far better than patty duke, i d fucking kill for a copy"
Music: Exile On Daisy Street.

 

American Rock Highway

Cotton

 T.V. Land

Ass

Knife

U.S. Tobacco Company

Freakout In Space
Time: 1991 - 1993
Notes: Ryan Adams interview on Losering.Com:  "[I've been in a bunch of bands]:  American Rock Highway, Patty Duke Syndrome, Cotton, T.V. Land, I was also in this band Ass, I played drums for Blank Label, it was the only band that I was in that put out a record, and that's it.  I'm sure I left out some others . . . . Fucking Lazy Stars . . . you saw us Mike.  That's when you said "Hey, it's Paul Westerberg!"  Inteviewer:  "That was just like Patty Duke with different people!"
Ryan Adams post on Ryan-Adams Message Board:  
"the lazy stars were fucking awesome. thom cushman and the guy from sockeye on drums. now can you find a bootleg of the band tom and i were in before that? we were called ASS and far better than patty duke, i d fucking kill for a copy"
Russell De Sena to AnsweringBell.com:  

Ass was Ryan, Tom Cushman/bass, and John Reigh/drums.  There is a tape, Tom has it, you probably don't need to hear it.  Atonal, vaguelly Saccharine Trust-ish, maybe?  

As for the Lazy Stars, Ryan kinda gets things confused, the "Sockeye drummer," was Daryl Martin, and he played the show at the Fallout Shelter with Robot and
Tinsel (Cushman has a ridicilous and huge Ryan designed flier for this show, has a drawing of a gun).  Tom insists John Douglas was the "real" Lazy Stars drummer, and is on the tape.   No one knows what happened to that guy.  Tom later formed the Chickens, which originally featured William MacAlwean (Patty Duke's Jere's younger brother), and later, me, Russ De Sena.  We played with Whiskeytown a few times at the Brewery.  

Hmm, I can think of some other short lived Ryan things, he and Tom made a a tape of feedback under the name Knife which William turned into a video.  I think that's been lost, too bad.  

TV Land was probably an early Lazy Stars, Tom had a bunch of broken TVs in the back room of the Daisy Street house (AKA Disgraceland), they would jam to the light of these things turned on to static.  

There was some thing called (I think) U.S. Tobacco Company, with Ryan, Stephen Wrenn (?)/gtr, and Joseph Osterneck on drums.  They would write their "set" the afternoon of a show, then go play it down at the Fallout.  John Spencerish blues punk, if you can believe.  

Ryan's the first person I played music with, Patty Duke practiced in the garage in my house, and we got to jamming on the side, me on guitar, Ryan on drums (he was good, hard hitter).  Played for maybe 4 weeks, he would give me assignments like, "write a song called 'Chris Bell'."  Also had a nifty tune called "I am Blind."  Never played out, he called us Freakout in Space.  Really.  (Come to think of
it, Space Madness was shortly afterwards, I was at that show.  Yeah, I know it's a Renn and Stimpy episode).  I remember picking him up for practice once, he was living in a closet (really) in a house on Bloodworth, when I got there he was writing songs on a SG with 2 strings on it.  I could tell you a million things about Patty Duke Syndrome, they were great, but could be terrible, hope the full tape comes out some day.  Jere passed away, Brian Walsby went on to work with Polvo,
the Shames, Daddy, and now Night Moose, with  me.

 

The Patty Duke Syndrome
Time: 1993-1994
Personnel: Ryan Adams; Brian Walsby; Jere McIlwean.
Notes: From http://www.ibiblio.org: "The members of Patty Duke Syndrome came from utterly different circumstances--drummer Brian Walsby from the hectic West Coast punk scene, singer/guitarist Ryan Adams and bassist Jere McIlwean from the rural splendor of downstate NC--and the resulting music documented the tension between those two worlds in every note. During their short existence, they broke up at least a half-dozen times, but while they were together, they recorded some of the tightest postpunk around. Thanks to both the interpersonal tension and the music, it's easy and tempting to raise the specter of Husker Du -- but the songs never dive into the depths of anguish that Bob Mould always seemed to be in. Patty Duke Syndrome are no more, but the members are still around--look for 'em."
Music: The only official release by this project is the Texas/History Split 7".  One known concert is ciruclating, 02/04/94.  Many studio songs were recorded, but have yet to surface.

 

Spawn
Time: 1993
Personnel: Tristan Andreas; Ryan Adams (drums); others.
Notes: Tristan Andreas to AnsweringBell.com:  "I met Ryan in 1993 at the Fallout Shelter.  Soon he was playing drums (temporarily) in my band Spawn.  PDS was still active.  Soon Spawn and PDS both broke up. "

 

Space Madness
Time: 1994
Personnel: Ryan Adams; Tristan Andreas; Thompson King 
Notes: Tristan Andreas to AnsweringBell.com:  "Ryan and I goofed around with a 4 track, recording many songs under the band name "Space Madness."  This was with Thompson King on bass.  We played one show as Space Madness, an outdoor concert in the parking lot behind Sadlack's Deli.  Ryan and I would switch back and forth between vox/gtr and drums." 

 

The Skylarks
Time: March 1994
Personnel: Ryan Adams; Tristan Andreas; Caspar Lee
Notes: Tristan Andreas to AnsweringBell.com:  "I think it was around March 1994 that Thompson moved to Colorado, so Ryan and I started jamming with our friend Caspar [Lee] on drums . . . . Ryan called it "the skylarks" 'cuz that's the car that his girlfriend drove.  Don't ask me about her, I just want to set the record straight about the bands and songs.  Skylarks played a couple of shows, including one at the Brewery." 
Music: Two songs on Drunken Confessions.  Tristan Andreas reports that two other studio recordings exist, "Death On The Road" and "Public Static".

 

 

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