Getting Reatarded

Driving with my two youngest boys and no one else in the car means SUBVERSION TIME. I can play whatever I want, and they always seem to like it, or at least they humor me. Last week we had a long way between Point A and Point B and I needed to give the Goner Records reissue of The Reatards “Teenage Hate” another listen.

In 1998, while post-alternative, post-grunge record industry was signing any mook that could grunt into a mike while incorporating a strategically-placed vinyl scratch (thereby unknowingly time-stamping their sonic piles-o-shit 4EVAR) the late Jimmy “Jay Reatard” Lindsey was flinging handfuls of high-velocity Oblivians-inspired punk-and-roll against a wall in Memphis to see what stuck. My boys, their eyes went wide with surprise and excitement, for “Teenage Hate” is a raw document, an artifact, proof of mutant life in a city where music had mutated in several different directions many lifetimes ago. These songs, these friendly slaps in the face, they are not advertisements, they don’t go well with shopping for useless shit, and they do not fade into the background. These songs that comprise “Teenage Hate” are pure human expression, as essential as the primitive cave paintings of our prehistoric ancestors, and in their own way, they are every bit as beautiful.

And that is exactly how I explained The Reatards to my two lovely youngest sons, who will someday grow up to be thoughtful and strong young men. I have no doubt about it.