Jay Reatard is playing Black Cat (”back to backstage” edition) tonight. Yes, we know the high heel race is on, but here is 5 reasons to hustle over afterwards:

1.

July 27th, 2007, Alexandra writes:

I believe in rock and roll again, and its name is Jay Reatard.I swear to God the band played everything twice as fast as they did on the album, but everything was perfect and tight. Everyone in the band has a compelling stage presence, but it’s Reatard who is the star. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. And neither could the rest of the crowd. The typical DC audience might resemble a still life, but this crowd was going bonkers. The show is already being referred to as a legend, right up there with Beck’s secret backstage performance. The next time Jay Reatard comes to town, do whatever you have to do to see him.

This photo follows:

2.

Listen to this song. How mothereffin-jesus-christ-good is this song? Seriously. I want to die every time I hear it, that’s how fast my heart beats at its goodness.

3.

Then check out Peter’s (always classic) interview with Jay from last April

It starts out like this:

If you ask Jay Reatard what he’d be doing if he wasn’t playing music, you get the verbal equivalent of a blank stare.
“There is no back-up plan,” is something you hear from a lot of teenagers with single-minded ambitions, but not from too many 28 year olds. Plenty of kids think that they can fuck around playing music or poker or basketball for their entire lives, but what most don’t realize is that talent isn’t enough to make you successful. It takes a whole shitload of hard work and nearly literal torture for years and years, especially if you’re as unwilling to compromise as Jay.

click here to continue

then

4.

Check out this seriously sassy hairwork courtesy of Josh

and finally

5.

If you are still not persuaded read Peter’s text message of a review (along with Fitsum’s photos) which is so genius we are copying and pasting that shit in:

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.

You definitely know you’re going now, right?

RIGHT.