Jay Reatard (RIP 2010)

I don't know if another Watch Me Fall would have been the ticket, but given all the talent he displayed through all his other projects, it did certainly feel like he had a world-conquering record in him. He had a grasp on pop that very few people have.

I'm reminded of how devastated I was after the Exploding Hearts tragedy.

Sorry for lol Britisher slang - just general purpose term for someone who ingests a lot of drugs

Playing 'Singles 08' now tbh and in the interests of fair and balanced reportage I would like to put forward that His music has truly sucked since the amazing Blood Visions (from up there) is some straight rongness that you will be the better for ignoring

at first i thought the thread title had always been this bah

There's no evidence of it being drug-related so far. It's easy to assume when it's someone so young, but, for example, a friend of mine died in her sleep of an aneurysm. She was only 26.

I'm reminded of how devastated I was after the Exploding Hearts tragedy.

Yeesh, freaky -- prompted by the mention I go to the Exploding Hearts thread and read this:

pretty soon people are gonna realize that jay reatard is power pop

― otm in new york (G00blar), Friday, April 10, 2009 1:46 PM (9 months ago)

He was pretty much power pop at heart!

omg. i thought this was a (bad) joke when i saw the thread title. rip.

"I would like to put forward that His music has truly sucked since the amazing Blood Visions (from up there) is some straight rongness that you will be the better for ignoring"

DJ Mencap OTM

Yeah, I was just ignoring that line.

I never got around listened to his music, but always meant to. I guess Blood Visions is the place to start.

xp dude's name is REATARDS UNITE it shouldnt surprise people that he'll staunchly defend the early material

Wow, I'd been not clicking on this thinking it was some hilarious internet fake rumour. RIP

xp I don't think it should have to be a faceoff but I hear ya

he was definitely power-pop, in fact he reminded me of if jack white did power-pop. he did power-pop the way the buzzcocks did power-pop.

I will be paying tribute to Jay and all his bands and some of his influences on Holy Victrola tonight.
KOPN.org from ten pm to midnight central. It will be archived (eventually) at holyvictrola.blogspot.com
Jesus, been doing too many tribute shows lately.
TBH I'm all tore up about this, too. I had some really good times with Jay but was always a little bit wary of his manic side.
Just sucks.

:(

Good luck with your show Sean.

Now my favorite Jay song, "Death Is Forming," will never sound so joyous and cut-through-all-the-bullshit ID-like again. Or maybe it'll sound even more so. Can't listen right now. RIP, buddy. :(

FUCK.

A year and a half ago I wrote an article about him for the local paper. I had read that he was kind of crazy and an asshole with little patience, so I expected the interview to be a terrible mess, but, and I've said this multiple times ever since, he was by far the nicest, most genuine and most interesting musician I ever interviewed, and later on at the show he was super sweet (oh, and the set was incredible).

This is terrible. Sorry Tripmaker and everyone who knew him. RIP Jay.

Listening to Teenage Hate right now and it is twisting me up.

RIP. He was real good.

As of 7:53 PM eastern time, the #2 google search in America is Jay Reatard

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

"Goner Records" is #3!

man, what? damn, RIP

the #2 google search in America is Jay Reatard

that's not how googletrends works fwiw: hot trends are uncommon search strings that are outliers from the normal search string patterns.

12. "shart"

anyway. this is really sad. dude was always perfectly pleasant to me (he did make fun of one of my friend's dancing tho, justifiably). and he was damn talented. I was really looking forward to watching him mature as a writer/ performer.

good riddance to bad rubbish (idk who this is)

oh yay, cankles

yeah, all the band breakup stuff and the crazy tweets and termbo posts raised some red flags

― 69, Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:04 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah just by reading the internet it really seemed like his life was spiraling out of control - very weird and sobering news anyhow

went to this show last summer in the middle of Stuyvesant Town, with some confused elderly tenants on the fringes. Fun performer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVUZ9ROkoL8&feature=related

A bunch of friends of mine were hosting Liquor Store at a house show and last night they were all complaining about how jay was sending members death threats and I kept saying "oh shit lo-fi drama!" and then today he's dead.

Apparently could be flu-related

in re power pop, i think watch me fall is the first album of his that's really power pop, but you could see him headed there from early on.

shit... this sucks, right when I was just starting to get into his stuff. RIP

Fucking fuck. A friend e-mailed me about this around 2 this afternoon, and I've been bumming ever since. Listening to Lost Sounds and not drinking beer. RIP, Jay.

this is probably the only celebrity/musician death i've ever really cared about, and it fucking SUUUCKS. like yeah michael jackson wrote some good songs a few decades ago, but this guy was on a shit-hot winning streak.

Wow. Damn. Stupid. RIP.

Blood Visions & Singles '06-'07 are my favorites, the perfect synthesis of anger/frustration & catchiness.

Damn, R.I.P. I only have Matador Singles 08 I think (the one with him in the bathtub on the cover, covered in his records) but I really like it and it is a shame for this dude to die. I thought he had bags of potential.

I really enjoyed "Watch Me Fall", and would have liked to have seen him do a show. RIP.

I always wanted to get into him, but the sound clips that I heard never quite squared with what I had expected to hear, based on reviews and shit. Last night though, I watched the clip above with the pitcher throwing and fistfights and thought the band sounded pretty good. R.I.P.

Also, was his last name just pronounced "retard" like normal? Or was it more like Ree-ah-tard?

Jay Ray Tard?

Saw him just before Christmas, playing a staggeringly sparsely attended show in London, part of what was apparently a disastrous UK tour. He was great. Couldn't tell whether it was schtick, or he really did have the personality of an angry teenager. Was hoping I'd get to see him play again

Yeah so, I just compared the link that Morbs posted above with a clip of that song from his album. Once again, the album version sounds so listless to me. I think I'll make my own Jay Reatard album by ripping audio from youtube clips.

not a bad idea. may i suggest pretty much all of the Goner Store - 5/11/2007 clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klv9JLjJ4DI

like yeah michael jackson wrote some good songs a few decades ago, but this guy was on a shit-hot winning streak.

Nothing against either MJ or Jay, but this is backwards.

Saw him just before Christmas, playing a staggeringly sparsely attended show in London, part of what was apparently a disastrous UK tour.

Same here although the show I went to was quite busy. He played about 5 times in London in the space of a week or 2 though, the one I went to was at the Lexington.

RIP, but fuck, you mess with drugs what do you expect?

I played Mainliner on my tribute show last night and considered adding Nanjo's viewpoint that "if you do drugs you better be prepared to die" but since I'm not 100 percent sure that Jay's death was the result of drug use I decided not to.
Here's the playlist (some stuff didn't make it onto the playlist, like another song from Teenage Hate. Really wanted to play "you fucked my dreams" but decided that it wasn't worth the wrath of the station heads for dropping the F-bomb)
1 Reatards Memphis Blues Teenage Hate
2 Lost Sounds 1 + 1 + Nothing 1 + 1 = Nothing
3 Jay Reatard It's So Easy Blood Visions
4 The Lollipop Shoppe You Must Be A Witch Nuggets
5 Jay Reatard Hammer I Miss You Singles 06-07
6 Wire the 15th 154
7 Pink Reason Throw It Away Throw It Away
8 Elastik Band Spazz Nuggets
9 The Dead Boys Not Anymore Young, Loud And Snotty
10 The Lost Sounds Frozen In Time Rats Brains & Microchips
11 Germs Manimal Germs (MIA) - The Complete Anthology
12 The Lost Sounds plastic skin Black Wave
13 Mainliner Last Day Mainliner Sonic
14 Jay Reatard an ugly death Matador Singles '08
15 David Bowie Black Country Rock The Man Who Sold The World
16 Lost Sounds Ship Of Monsters Memphis Is Dead
17 Q65 Cry In The Night Revolution
18 Jay Reatard Fading All Away Blood Visions
19 Devo smart patrol/mr. dna Duty Now for the Future
20 Jay Reatard Searchin/Haunting You/Let It All Go Singles 06-07
21 Pere Ubu Final Solution Terminal Tower
22 Wire From The Nursery Chairs Missing
23 Lost Sounds living in the ice age No One Killer
24 Wipers taking too long Youth of America
25 The Stooges I wanna be your dog The Stooges
26 Memphis Goons sweet love Teenage BBQ
27 Rolling Stones torn and frayed Exile On Main Street
28 Thin Lizzy Fight Or Fall Jailbreak
29 Buddy Holly Rave On From the Original Master Tapes
30 The Nerves hanging on the telephone One Way Ticket
31 Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers gov't center The Modern Lovers
32 The Dovers what am I gonna do Nuggets
33 Jay Reatard oh it's such a shame Blood Visions