To the last drop

>> Garage punk luminary Jay Reatard
is fed up with fisticuffs

SHINER TIME STATION: Jay Reatard

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

When Memphis, Tennessee’s Jay Reatard released the incredible Blood Visions last year, no one could gauge the waves it would create in the underground—least of all Reatard himself. The record continues in the vein of his previous bands, the garage punk of the Reatards and the analog synth-rock of Lost Sounds, but Reatard also manages to dig deep into the early punk of Wire, Devo and the Rezillos, while narrowly avoiding cliché at every turn.

“I actually was really surprised that so many different kinds of people liked the record,” says Reatard, “because when I was making it, I just thought of it as another record or maybe just a transitional record. The plan was to record it and then move on to the next thing, but it looks like I’ll be living with it for awhile.”

Reatard bursts farther out of the garage ghetto with his confessional, confrontational lyrics. The throwaway staples of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll are nowhere to be found, while Reatard’s penchant for violence and death is all over the record. Reatard says he hardly spends every waking moment pondering mortality, but will admit that violence has always played a large part in his life.

The last time he was in Montreal, as a guitarist for the Angry Angels at l’Escogriffe, the set only lasted two songs before Reatard punched a member of the audience in the face and left the stage. The night before I spoke to Reatard over the phone, he ended his show at Memphis’s Goner Fest by punching a drunk in the audience for continually splashing vodka in the singer’s eyes.

Despite this, Reatard says, “Frankly, I am really bored of the violence thing. I would much rather just show up and play the songs than wonder if I’m going to have to spend the whole night dodging beer bottles. I guess I’ve created this reputation for being out of control, and all of these assholes show up to the shows to just start up shit. Now that I’m not that out of control, the audience tries to pick up the slack, and they just ruin the show for everyone else. It’s just annoying.”

With Career Suicide and the
Nymphets at Club Lambi on
Saturday, Oct. 6, midnight