all photos: Sexy Fitsum
I was all set to write a review of Jay Reatard’s show Saturday night, but when I arrived at what is the usual start time of 11:30 to see his set, wearing a lai and googly-eyed on rum from the Beach Party I had been schmoozing at since 8, I was shocked to hear that he had already finished playing.
I was incensed!
What kind of self-respecting punk rocker finishes playing before the busy professional like me, who would rather not see any opening bands, pops in to check out a couple songs because we got in for free and wants to slag him off on the internet the next day?
But as luck would have it, as I was storming out to ask for my money back, I stumbled over an I-phone open to an email that contained a review of the show written by what I can only surmise is a teenager of unspecified gender and in some sort of code.
I’ve done my best to interpret it, correcting some incessant misspellings and insistence on not capitalizing “I’, but please see notes as the bottom as to possible interpretations if it still seems like gibberish to you.
I’m just glad there is some kind of record of the show to go with Fitsum’s hard-won shots of the bands.
Maybe next time Jay will consider the hipsters that don’t want to be a part of any kind of all night rocking experience and would rather sample his music à la carte.
Here’s the email:
Hay sarah! ZOMG so lucky my sister made me come early to this show I almost missed The Shirks and I would have been all WTFHAX! LOL, sr bz they were l337 as sh1t, the guitar player was so dirty he looked like a mean version of like shaggy on scooby doo [1] but he played really fast and loud like the ramones or that one band that that goth guy who used to like me always played the damned. They rocked so hard I spilled the mouthwash bottle full of gin that I stole from my dads desk drawer onto my new jeanjacket omg :cry:
I couldnt decide which player in the HOTTEST BAND ON THE EARF CALLED CHEAP TIME was cutest but my sister thot it was the bassplayer cuz he scrunched his face up and sung thru his teeth like a frankenstein but it was obv the drummer cuz he had soft eyes and stuck his tongue out sometimes when he played a really fast beat. But w/e id totally make out with all of them if they captured me in a scary castle haha rolflerskates. Their songs sounded hard to play cuz they were so fast but they still were really fun to sing along too tho some songs had so many lyrics that it would be hard. I bot their only album and im going to listen to it over and over. They made me feel like jumping around and doing old swing dances from the 70s or sumthin but also like a computer was writing the songs and he was angry at everyone on earth and would kill all of us unless we promised to throw all of our ugly work shoes in the dump.[2] NEway they rocked ldo.
I wuz gonna go downstairs and try to bum a cig from that one old lady who is always at the bar downstairs but before I cld finish my pepsi jay reatard jumped on stage suddenly and was all HAI GUIZ WATS GOING ON IN THS KLUB LAWL????!!!11? and started playing right away.It wuz kinda awesome cuz a bunch of pepple had to cum rushing back upstairs when they heard it lol. His band was 1 giant Viking dude with long hair wearing a tanktop with Boo Berry [3] onnit playing drums SO hard, 1 chubby bass-guy with a pedo-stache and a big old jewfro, and him (j) who I realized is way cuter than even the drummer from cheap time when you can see his face thru his hair which is like, never. His voice sound sooo good live all highup and scared sounding like a bug or woody allen on helium and when hed shreddd on his big white AXE hed stomp the pedals BAM and then flip his hair around going WEAH WAEHAHHH WEERER BEWBEWBEW it was fabgeardoubleplusawesome. I was dancing like a dork and my sister made out with some guy with a mullet and everyone was hopping around but no-one was moshing til the last song which came so quick I barely had time to get all sweaty wich is good since I had a lotta gel on the ‘do IMO. He didnt stop between songs and he didnt play an encore and that was so perfect cuz I hate all the dum bullshit most bands go thru lieing to us and using boring games and tricks to make it seem like yr having such a great time when guess what u probably are just going thru the motions. Jay reatard says FUCK THE LIES STR8 UP RNR FTW. ^_^
I wanted to stay and go to the bliss party downstairs because I peeked into it and the cheap time guys were all on the stage pranging out with a bunch of hotties and a weird bald dude [4] but my sister says we gotta get home before midnight or stepmonster will be verklempt. TTYL <3 <3 <3 xOxO dChC4Lyfe!
[1] I presume this was because he was wearing a beret, so maybe the author mixed Shaggy up with Fred, a known beret aficionado. The Shirks sound like Teengenrate also, which is so rare these days but is the wave of the future according to the interview I did with Jay R. last week.
[2] Coincidentally this is the theme to the unreleased concept album by the Buzzcocks “Nostalgic Futurity Machines” a band which Cheap Time resembles greatly. Serendipitous fantasy!
[3] Does anyone still eat Boo Berry? This drummer is like the perfect analogy for Jay Reatard’s music; huge and delicate, deftly aggressive, nostalgic yet timeless like the commercial jingle of a long discarded product line that still makes you want to buy buy buy…
[4] That was me, yikes! Only Jay refused to come out and dance to the crisp B-more beats, but I saw him on the way back from the club with his bass player in the Chinese food place and I had a conversation with him that ended up at this impasse: “Man you should get some fried chicken, Jay!”
“I don’t think they have any, this is a Chinese place…”
“Man, every Chinese place in DC has fried chicken, man.” Glaring at menu, which has no fried chicken on it, “How ’bout some fried chicken dude?”
Chinese guy: “No fried chicken! No!”
Me: “Man, Jay, you guys should get fried chicken!”
Jay: “Help!”
Total success. Stranger, you did a fine job covering the show, it was almost like I was there. If you want your I-phone back, write me c/o BYT and I’ll send it back no questions asked.
i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again:
peter is a genius.
so very, very true.
April 29, 2008 at 3:36 pm‘am wowed.
April 29, 2008 at 5:14 pmDidn’t like it. Seriously. People hate my stuff too, so it works out.
April 29, 2008 at 5:32 pmwhat did you not like, Michael? the show, or the review? personally i don’t much care for the review. but that’s only because it doesn’t make any sense to me.
April 29, 2008 at 5:51 pmJay Reatard is that garage jerk who you’re supposed to throw bottles at while he’s playing, right?
April 29, 2008 at 5:53 pmI’m not sure if this was serious, or if you (peter) thought it would be funny to write like that. I had a very hard time reading it, though, I’m also the type of person that feels the need to correct all slang, even Jim in “Huck Finn” - ridiculous, I know.
You also probably don’t need to worry about getting that phone to her, anyone who writes like that and has an iPhone can get another from mummy and daddy.
I also thought the set was much too short, and the band is make up of “vikings” - all three of them were huge dudes. I was behind the drummer during Cheap Time’s set, and Jay was about five feet to my left. I was too chicken to say anything though, I’m such a wuss.
During the set (I was up front) I got beer spilled on me by some kid who was obviously underage (I also overheard the bouncers, and saw the fake ID when I came in, and to quote one, “I don’t want to deal with this shit tonight,” and the other,”just give it back to him.” This kid almost fell on me and my friend several times. We also got sprayed, by water? at least twice. I have no idea where it came from.
Suprisingly the “mosh pit” (it was no more than ten people) didn’t get started until the set was almost over, and thankfully they weren’t horrible and were easy to avoid.
I also don’t understand why you’re supposed to throw stuff at them, or get them smashed. I saw a couple people offering them drinks, and they were turned down repeatedly. Jay seems like a pretty down to earth guy, what am I not getting?
I thought they were great, I hope to see them again in the future.
April 29, 2008 at 10:12 pmanyone else think Al Bud looks like Zoot from the Electric Mayhem when he’s in SHIRKS-garb?
April 29, 2008 at 10:24 pmactually he’s the guy punches you in the head when you try to do dumb shit like throw bottles at him.
pretty awesome - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zOA8i9UnEQ
and the show was good too.
April 30, 2008 at 12:58 amThe show was super boring.
April 30, 2008 at 8:25 amI was camping, so didn’t see this show. I saw him last year at the Cat though and enjoyed it.
I think the review had a lot of promise and for a brief moment I thought he really did find someone’s phone and was copying it, but it went on for far too long. So I think it had a good start, but was a bit overkill going on with it. Probably would have liked it a lot better if it had started off with a brief teen-written text message of a few sentences, then broke off into a regular review.
My thoughts and worth what you paid for them.
April 30, 2008 at 8:55 amthe reason you go see Jay Reatard is to throw bottles at him and fuck with him.
That’s why this show was so boring. DC is so out of the loop, people here don’t even know that’s what you’re supposed to do at this guy’s shows.
April 30, 2008 at 12:58 pmi’m sorry that i wasn’t bored, and was very much entertained by their musicianship.
i personally find that when people are being assholes at shows that those are the bad shows.
but then we are all entitled to our opinions.
john and kate are boring.
April 30, 2008 at 3:38 pmthe music’s so-so. Jay Reatard is no genius. Other bands do his thing better, the Black Lips write a lot more standout songs.
he’s getting big because he has a crazy live show. You’re supposed to fuck with him, that’s his thing.
April 30, 2008 at 4:08 pmnot getting my review is understandable, but there is some serious retardation going on in these comments about Jay.
1. There are asshole internet trolls who go around posting the same comments on every article about him.
2. These comments indicate that he likes getting shit thrown at him.
3. This is obviously untrue.
4. They do this to enact some kind of childish revenge on him for stopping a show early in toronto where the crowd got out of hand.
5. They will fail because his music is great and he’s a bone fide rock star btw
6. ffs diagf EAD + stfu imho
if you like JR, you’ll probably like Lost Sounds
thanks a lot to the expensive drinks and camera man who ruined what the stale dc / black cat experience somehow couldn’t on its own
May 1, 2008 at 1:42 pmJay Reatard is just average musically. He’s popular because of his rowdy live show. He should be paying people to throw bottles at him at every show, because that’s what people are really coming out to see.
May 3, 2008 at 1:30 pmAre you ALL total dickheads?
May 3, 2008 at 7:03 pmjay reatard has pulled so much fucked up and/or seriously lame shit over the years, I’m amazed he can still get anyone to play with him or book shows for him.
he has a little bit of talent, sure. he writes above average (but not much better) songs. for garage he’s a little less cliche than the rest.
but the reason he’s really popular is that his live shows are rowdy. it’s the audience and the expectations for how they’re going to freak out that brings people out, not Jay and his band.
for his own sake, he better learn how to piss in his bandmates’ mouths quick on demand or else he’s going to lose these people.
May 4, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Best review ever .
April 29, 2008 at 3:23 pm