Pitchfork

During the mid-to-late 90s, Whiskeytown made a name for themselves by combining the alt-country sensibilities of Uncle Tupelo with the stumbling public drunkenness of the second encore at a Guided by Voices show. Since the band broke up, Ryan Adams has been pushing into higher realms of fame as that guy on VH1 with the artfully mussed hair singing in front of the Twin Towers. But his former bandmates have also been hard at work on new projects.

Caitlin Cary, who, in addition to a mean fiddle, played Emmylou to Adams' Gram, will be releasing her full-length solo debut, While You Weren't Looking, on the Yep Roc label on February 26th. Cary's EP, Waltzie, was one of the stronger alt-country efforts of last year, and she's responsible for writing or co-writing some of Whiskeytown's best material ("Matrimony" and "Faithless Street," in particular), so her upcoming disc holds out a lot more promise than, say, Steve West's new band. She's also put together a pretty strong set of collaborators for the album, including former Whiskeytown multi-instrumentalist Mike Daly, ex-Jayhawks keyboardist Jen Gunderman, and producers, dB's, and former REM-consorts Mitch Easter and Chris Stamey. Oh, and Ryan Adams sings a little, too. 'Cause he's like that.

Speaking of Mike Daly, he too has already cut several tracks for a solo project which he's currently shopping to labels. The new songs already include Cary on backing vocals, and he's also attempting to reel in James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins, Dave Bryson of Counting Crows, and various and sundry Pernice Brothers to play on the album.

And then, of course, there's that Ryan Adams guy. Mr. Prolific, who has already released three albums since last fall (two solo, one Whiskeytown), has two more finished products in the can and ready for release next year: one with his new punk band the Pinkhearts, and the other a solo album entitled 48 Hours, which apparently denotes the time in which the album was recorded rather than being the sly nod to the Nolte/Murphy films we'd initially hoped. Hey, where is Nick Nolte, anyway?