This right here’s off of the Necessary Evils’ first long player. It’s boss. Now dance like a freeq.

Eddie Gale workout out his horn in a buncha free settings. Ghetto Music was his first date as a leader. It’s a Blue Note disc, but wouldn’t have been outta place on BYG.

I dunno what qualifies as classic any loner, but Loop’s pretty decent. Right? Yep.

As “Praises” is wont to make one believe, this effort from Cedric Im Brooks isn’t all roots music. The disc comes in somewhere close to what The Light of Saba would be, but this effort is a bit more ramshackle and less focused despite it being a great deal shorter than the better known album from this JA sax player.

BLOGLOAD: United Africa

For whatever reason, there aren’t any YouTube clips of Elton Dean working out selections from Oh! For the Edge. The video below’s from Just Us, which was released five years prior to that other disc. There’re some differences – mainly Dean and company get wild on that later date in a more impressive way – but the concept’s the same….

BLOGLOAD: Oh! For the Edge

This disc from the Head Shop could be considered top-shelf psych, but the cover’s really cooler than some of the tracks included. Not bad, but not great either.

BLOGLOAD: Self Titled

This slab’s touted only by dudes with money in their pockets to hunt down dusty originals. Not quite tripe, but Gary Higgins turned in some pretty boring stuff.

Frank Frost gets pretty funk for a blues dude.

These guys still rule. The new disc isn’t quite as enduring as the first one, but it still makes me feel alright.

(This originally appeared in Skyscraper)

The only overtly southern aspect to the person that is Jay Reatard, over the phone at-least, is the way in which he pronounces New Orleans. On the tongue of Southerners, it becomes one, lackadaisical, charming word and concept. In the name of this one city is intoned decades of a lifestyle that are as distinct as any other culture in the country. To hear the “Night of Broken Glass” record from Reatard, one gets the impression that he might not consider himself a southerner, but he does.

“You can go further south, but Memphis and New Orleans – it doesn’t get too much more south than that as far as cities go,” he mumbles via cell phone. Sitting outside of his home, the occasional stray notes of birds sporadically lend illustration to his surroundings – no matter how bizarre imagining Reatard amidst nature may seem. But in this one tableau, Reatard sounds relaxed, confident of himself and assured of his career. And even though, it may appear odd to chalk up a career to punk rock, this guy has done so. For about a decade Reatard has created punk in various shades that has been unequivocally devoured by fans.

In a time before electronic connections made discovering any obscurity possible, there was written correspondence. Anyone that grew up listening to punk did mail order and had some sort of correspondence with a musician they looked up to, even if frequently it was only a thank you note to accompany an order. Reatard lucked out, happened to live in the same town as the Oblivians and apparently writes a compelling letter.

The Oblivians – “The Leather”

Reatard begins, “There was this record store called Shang-ri-la, and when I was probably 13, I started going in there. I saw the Oblivians for the first time in probably about ’95. I was 15 and didn’t really know who they were. They actually didn’t even say who they were; they got kicked off stage for being too drunk after three songs.”

“Don’t Let Him Come Back”

The reminiscing continues, “I just went to the record store and asked who they were. This girl sold me all of their records for like 30 bucks. I pretty much got their discography at the time. Before e-mail, there was this mailing address on the back of their records. So, I mailed them a letter and gave them my phone number and Eric, the guitar player, called me. He would come pick me up on weekends and bring me to shows, to barbeques or we’d listen to records. He was my gateway into knowing that there was anything outside of whatever I’d read about in Maximum Rock n Roll or Rolling Stone or something.”

Every musician has some sort of watershed moment: this was Reatard’s. Without the randomness of life providing for a musical guide, he may have continued listening to what he termed “mall punk”. And while that does sound horrifying, he managed to include the Ramones in this category even though Bedroom Disasters, a 2001 Reatards release, boasts a cover of “Listen to My Heart.”

The inadvertent lessons learned from the Oblivians, most likely good and bad, have in some way sent Reatard into a non-stop recording frenzy. Fronting and participating in an endless list of bands has shoved Reatard into a business that at times is nothing more than that. While there obviously have been a number of high water marks, dealing with the time not spent creating or performing music is ostensibly a bummer. Even with Reatard’s underground success, there are still detractors which inevitably necessitate pedantic diatribes on punk, something that probably was never intended to occur.

“I could be signed to Universal Records if I wanted to be,” proclaims a defiant Reatard. But along the way to the deal that never transpired lay innumerable bizarre situations that almost relegated him to a subservient role.

“There’s a lady, that’s roughly around 60 years old, that kinda runs the whole show there – President of Universal Records. The Vice President had already okayed the deal and was ready to fax it over and she said, ‘Well, I’m not so sure about this guy. Before this kid can be signed, he has to fly up to New York….’”

What was then requested of Reatard was a private performance – just for her.

“There’s no way a 60 year old woman…is going to tell me how I’m supposed to make music. That would’ve been the first of many things I wouldn’t have wanted to do,” he figures.

He’s probably right. Punk and other underground musics are often perceived to be spoiled in the light of major label support and greater exposure. Recently, Reatard was featured on an MTv News segment about bands that dwell under the umbrella of lo-fi. Reatard was accompanied by Times New Viking as well as Tyvek in the story. When questioned about a backlash from the underground community and a new, higher profile, Reatard couples his response with a comment regarding his presence on the Matador roster.

“If that’s their mentality, and they’re threatened by these more mainstream media outlets – exposing people to music they like, they’re idiots and I really don’t care about their opinions anyway.”

This lone moment of elevated emotions continues, “Kids just don’t have punk records fall into their lap. It’s a process of discovering music through things that are more accessible. It’s a system of rivers, where it keeps getting smaller and something branches off into something else. Basically, those people can fuck off and die,” Reatard demurs. But he’s right and that’s why being introduced to the Memphis scene by an Oblivian was such an important moment at the dawn of Reatard’s career.

As with any situation, there will be those that are critical and those that are out for a dollar. Musicians are a commodity and all too frequently are treated as such, without consideration for where this marketable talent comes from or how life affects him or her.

“Usually, you just use your gut, you know? In the end, anything business wise, whether it pertains to your art or your business, whatever you’re doing you always have to go with that,” Reatard philosophizes. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work. But as of yet, Reatard apparently hasn’t fallen into any traps.

“You have to be incredibly cautious every step of the way with anything or you might fuck up and sign something that’s going to compromise you.”

Regardless of the deal that he signs, or what imprint is assisting Reatard in disseminating his schlock, this musician relishes opportunities to work within different settings and expand on whatever ideas may occur to him. One of the most far flung experiments that Reatard has been involved in was the Lost Sounds. While maintaining the sheer aggression of his previous work, the Lost Sounds incorporated a synthetic influence into its music. The final recordings of the group occurred in 2004.

Lost Sounds – Live @ VPRO

“That was a really conscious effort to do something completely different – something to never be repeated,” Reatard comments in seemingly negative terms. And even with his previous and subsequent success, this group too had fans as well as a fair share of detractors. Clarifying, Reatard continues, “Oh, I liked it, but it was an experiment that went on for too long.” Some would agree, but what isn’t debatable is the fact that the Lost Sounds raised his visibility within an increasingly diluted independent music scene. As another outlet for Reatard’s ceaseless writing, the Lost Sounds furthered his experience touring and recording while gaining new fans that would most likely bolster the success he would have for his solo projects.

With output ever increasing, and quality never in question, Reatard continues to release an amazing amount of work. To collectors, the countless Reatard related pieces of vinyl floating around point only to a shared obsession, but those geeks would be incorrect.

“I really don’t collect records. Lately, I’ve gotten into it a lot more. I really don’t take care of things so well. If there’s something I really want, I’ll buy it, but if I think that someone else is gonna get it – I don’t know…I stopped collecting records years ago. I just can’t keep up with things,” Reatard laments.

That last statement seems to be a confounding one. It is understandable, to the segment of the population that heedlessly acquires record after record, to propound exhaustion at trying to locate an Italian single by whatever psychedelic godheads are lauded this month in the press. But Reatard is one of those goods that are sought out. Does his output interfere with his ability to enjoy other music? Probably not, but it does keep him more than busy.

“I’ve always been putting out singles. I’ve probably put out six singles a year for the last 10 years. So it’s really nothing different than what I’ve been doing, except that these are all gonna be on the same label as opposed to spreading them across a bunch of obscure international labels,” Reatard figures as he moved seamlessly into a discourse on the relationship he has struck with Matador. “I think they just looked at how I’ve worked in the past. And since the ‘90s the seven inch hasn’t really been a format that they’ve done.”

With the wealth of touring slated for the summer and his recording obligations to labels and to a lesser extent the aforementioned geeks, time might be a fleeting thing.

Reatard continues, “I can make one in a day, ya know,” referring to recording singles. “I can think of an aesthetic that I want to stick to and eight hours later have it finished as opposed to an album where I spend six months.”

The math doesn’t add up. If between 10 and 20 percent of an album can be completed in a single day, a full length disc shouldn’t take too long.

“I guess I’m just harder on myself about ‘em. On a [full length] record, I might re-record every song three or four times and take the best take. It might take a month to record the basic track. I might overdub for a week. Then I get frustrated and move on to another song, and spend another week on another song. Eventually, I just end up with a buncha songs; try to figure out which ones fit, the order, making sure that the cover art works and everything is just cohesive. It’s just a longer process. I think Blood Visions…I recorded that entire album three times before I settled on a version.”

“Blood Visions”

The process that Reatard describes is most likely a good part of why his first solo disc is so consistent. Listening to the entirety of that effort is almost disconcerting. In a seemingly endless barrage of pop hooks filtered through disgust and nervy contemplation, the sheer amount of disparate melodies is somewhat shocking. But again, the vast amount of effort put into this work supplies an ample explanation.

In the past, working on other projects, Reatard used the same recording methods. In these situations his censors weren’t his band-mates or even himself, resulting in frustration and eventually pushing him to venture out on his own. Explaining his frustration with the Reatards, the head retard explains, “With a punk band there’s not a lot of room to expand on anything without losing your audience. Not to sound arrogant, but at some point that band turned out to have the lowest common denominator type audience. People just wanted to see violence and listen to the same song written over and over again.”

Forcing Reatard to self asses, having stated that he wanted, to a degree, to escape from what he had been forced to do, Blood Visions is for all practical purposes a punk record.

“For some reason, all kinds of different people like it. This is a punk record, but it’s not for punk rockers. It might be the token punk record in somebody’s collection that doesn’t even like the good stuff. In that sense it’s not a punk record, but the music is totally punk rock.”

Within the genre of punk, much like any other, a huge portion of the lyrical content seems to focus on girls and relationships. Given a superficial listen to any Reatard lyric, this concept can be applied to his writing. That application would be incorrect – to the writer at least. Obviously, whatever it is that one takes away from music is right to the listener, but not necessarily intended by the man or woman who penned the tune.

“It’s kinda weird, people always think I’m writing about girls in a romantic sense,” he begins, but concludes in a succinct response, “It’s about my views on life.”

If what we can expect from the future releases of Jay Reatard are further ruminations on how life works, how people interact and the social distance that we may feel from others, the next four Matador singles should be as interesting as the first few. But what musical form are they going to take? No one can answer that question as of yet, mostly because Reatard hasn’t had eight hours to work it out. But also because we haven’t sent out that four dollars – including postage, of course.

Uh…this is it. There’re Daptone bands as well as the Truth and Soul stable, but the Breakestra out does those folks…the end.

BLOGLOAD: Dusk Till Dawn

Noel Phillips has been able to work in every genre under the auspices of JA music in just under 30 years. It doesn’t all work, but more succeeds than fails…Sly and Robbie approved.

BLOGLOAD: Youth Man Vibrations

The crazy nonsense that Charles Manson inspired others to do can’t be excused under any circumstance. But some of his music was really pretty incredible. “Ego” and “Arkansas” are as good as anything outta the ’60s and certainly beat out most of the new angled folk stuffs from the last decade.

BLOGLOAD: Lie (The Love and Terror Cult)

Not all country sucks. Like, Lee Hazlewood doesn’t suck, now does he? No.

BLOGLOAD: Cowboy in Sweden

O’Donel Levy has his ups and downs. Simba was/is fantastically funky. And while the rest of his catalog is a mixed bag of soul jazz and awful smooth tripe, some of the better latter day work is stuffed into Windows. Just ignore the man’s singing.

BLOGLOAD: Windows