Jay Reatard - Waiting For Something

In this short doco Jay Reatard talks about everything from dropping out of school and embarking on his very first recordings, right through to growing up in Memphis surrounded by all things Elvis.

Jay Reatard's latest album Watch Me Fall is out now through Matador/Remote Control.

New Jay Reatard video It Ain't Gonna Save Me

Only one more week til Jay Reatard's new album Watch Me Fall is out! We blogged the first single It Ain't Gonna Save Me back in June, and now here's the clip.


The other day Jay twittered about breaking a rib but didn't mention how. Maybe it was one of these tough little kids?

Watch Me Fall is out Aug 14 through Matador/ Remote Control.

Another new Jay Reatard mp3 Wounded

Yet another new track from the forthcoming Watch Me Fall album by Jay Reatard, due out in August!

Here is Wounded, which Matador say "wraps layers of Tall Dwarfs-ish acoustic guitar around a typically complex Jay song structure. In two and a half minutes it builds to an ironically celebratory refrain. We challenge you to get this one out of your head after listening to it a couple of times."

Wounded [mp3]

Watch Me Fall is out Aug 15 through Matador/ Remote Control.

Jay Reatard live on The Daily Habit

Last week we told you about Jay Reatard's upcoming album Watch Me Fall, due out Aug 15.

Jay performed two tracks from the album recently on Fuel TV's The Daily Habit. First up was the single It Ain't Gonna Save Me (we blogged the mp3 last week too), plus another newie, My Shadow.





Watch Me Fall is due out August 15 through Matador/ Remote Control.

New Jay Reatard mp3 It Ain't Gonna Save Me from new forthcoming album

My does time fly! It seems like only yesterday when Jay Reatard graced our shores earlier this year for the St Jerome's Laneway Festival. Since then Jay has been working away on a new album titled Watch Me Fall and already new tracks are floating around the bloggosphere.

Matador will be releasing ‘Watch Me Fall’ in August. Excepting last year’s pair of singles comps for Matador and In The Red, this is Jay’s first album since 2006’s ‘Blood Visions’, and it’s a self-produced full-length that more than lives up to the sky-high standards previously set. Earlier this year, Jay described the making of ‘Watch Me Fall’ to labelmate Andrew Earles:

“This new album has been challenging. It’s the first time I’ve written and recorded an album specifically because a label wants to release it. I’ve never made a record for a record label. I’ve always finished my recordings and then a label is decided on. When I made ’Blood Visions’ I had no idea that it was going to see the light of day. And I’ve never made a record in which the label heard the songs, or anyone heard the songs, before the album was finished, so that’s kind of intense. That’s what singles are for; I always considered my singles as a glimpse between the albums. Labels always had the previous single as an example of where I was going at the time, or of what the next album might sound like. In this situation, people at the label are hearing the songs before the album has been finished, but I try not to let it distract me, I’m trying to go about this process in a way that’s the closest to how I would have done an album in the past. A lot of bands these days, they approach the making of an album like it’s collecting songs, they don’t think about how all of the songs are going to work together. They sequence their albums on iTunes, wondering what songs sound best next to each other rather than putting them together as they were written. That’s not an album.”

It Ain’t Gonna Save Me [mp3]
is the first MP3 from ‘Watch Me Fall’, and provides only the slightest hint of the album’s depth.

It Ain't Gonna Save Me was featured on Pitchfork's 'Best New Music' scoring an impressive 8 out of 10.

Have a read of the full review on Pitchfork's website.

Watch Me Fall is due out August through Matador/ Remote Control.

New Jay Reatard video - DOA

That's right kids -

DEAD ON ARRIVAL
IS NO FUN

Got that?

DOA is the latest clip from Jay Reatard's Matador Singles '08.

Jay Reatard free Sydney in-store today

Memphis boywonder Jay Reatard will be performing live (and FREE!) at Red Eye's King St store today at 4:30pm.

Touring for the national Laneway Festivals that kick off in Brisbane this Saturday, Jay Reatard will be playing some of the pop-punk gems off his latest release Matador Singles '08, funnily enough, a collection of singles he released through Matador last year.

You may even hear some new material as Jay is currently working on his album proper for Matador, due out later this year.

TOUR DATES
Thu 29 Jan – Sydney, Gaelic Theatre w/ No Age
Fri 30 Jan – Melbourne, Corner Hotel w/ No Age
Sat 31 Jan - Brisbane, Laneway Festival
Sun 1 Feb - Melbourne, Laneway Festival
Fri 6 Feb - Perth, Laneway Festival
Sat 7 Feb - Adelaide, Laneway Festival
Sun 8 Feb - Sydney, Laneway Festival

Jay Reatard and No Age double bill

Jay Reatard will be teaming up with fellow Laneway Festivaler No Age to put on a couple of double headline shows in January. Tickets on sales this Friday. Dates after the vid.

Jay Reatard blew away audiences during his first Australian tour earlier this year, which pre-empted his debut releases for US indie label Matador. Over the year, Jay released 6 limited edition 7"s that were then put together on the recently released album Matador Singles '08.

The first single released in the series was critically acclaimed album was See/Saw. He has now made his first ever music video for the single:


The 29 Jan – Sydney, Gaelic Theatre w/ No Age
Fri 30 Jan – Melbourne, Corner Hotel w/ No Age
Sat 31 Jan - Brisbane, Laneway Festival
Sun 1 Feb - Melbourne, Laneway Festival
Fri 6 Feb - Perth, Laneway Festival
Sat 7 Feb - Adelaide, Laneway Festival
Sun 8 Feb - Sydney, Laneway Festival

myspace.com/jayreatard

Matador download sampler

US label Matador have released a new Intended Play download sampler featuring a track from each of their current acts including Fucked Up, Jay Reatard, Lou Reed and A.C. Newman.

The sampler is a musical mixbag, from A.C. Newman’s jewel-like pop songscapes to the majestic neo-punk of Fucked Up to the crystalline depths and heights created by Shearwater to a track from Lou Reed’s painstaking, thoughtful, first-ever performance of his controversial classic album Berlin.

Download the 13 track .zip file: Matador Intended Play Fall 2008

1. A.C. Newman There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve [NEW AND UNRELEASED. mp3] (from Get Guilty, due out late January)
2. Belle and Sebastian The State I Am In (BBC Version)
3. Jennifer O’Connor Here With Me
4. Shearwater The Snow Leopard (Remastered) from Rook)
5. Lou Reed Caroline Says, Pt. II (Live) (from Berlin: Live At St. Ann’s Warehouse, due out November 4)
6. Mogwai The Sun Smells Too Loud
7. Fucked Up No Epiphany (from The Chemistry Of Common Life)
8. Jay Reatard An Ugly Death (from Matador Singles ‘08)
9. Jaguar Love Humans Evolve Into Skyscrapers (from Take Me To The Sea)
10. Pavement Cataracts (from Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed., out Dec 6)
11. Brightblack Morning Light Oppressions Each (from Motion To Rejoin)
12. Times New Viking Call & Respond (from Stay Awake, out Nov 15)
13. Condo Fucks What’cha Gonna Do About It?

Jay Reatard and Stereolab hit the streets

Jay Reatard and Stereolab have both been announced to play next year's Laneway Festivals.

It's been six long years since Stereolab last graced Australia's shores and four since their last album release, Margerine Eclipse. Stereolab recently released their 11th studio album in an illustrious career, Chemical Chords. According to Tim Gane the album is a collection of “purposefully short, dense, fast pop songs”. It is classic Stereolab; like all their best work it is the perfect melding of an implausibly cool past and a shamelessly exotic future.

Three Women [mp3]


myspace.com/stereolab

Last week saw the release of Jay Reatard's new album Matador Singles '08. The release compiles the 12 punk pop gems that Jay has released over the past few months on limited 7" through Matador. With Jay already working on his debut album proper for Matador, we can all look forward to hopefully hearing this new material live.

Always Wanting More [mp3]


myspace.com/jayreatard

Laneway Festival 2009 Dates

Sat 31 Jan - Brisbane
Sun 1 Feb - Melbourne
Fri 6 Feb - Perth
Sat 7 Feb - Adelaide
Sun 8 Feb - Sydney

Tickets on sale Monday 27th October. More info at myspace.com/lanewayfestival

Jenny Lewis, Jay Reatard and Fucked Up albums out now

Just released are three new albums that range from soulful guitar rock to hardcore (with pan flute!).

Acid Tongue is the sophomore solo album from Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. Collaborators on the album include Elvis Costello for a duet on Carpetbaggers, Johnathan Rice, Jason Boesel, M Ward, Zooey Deschanel and Chris Robinson. All of the album was recorded in analogue in just 3 weeks, without the use of Pro-Tools. With the vocals tracked entirely live, Lewis's voice has never sounded so expressive and the narratives have never been so hard-hitting and acerbic.
"The album is boastful, vulnerable and witty, usually within the course of a single song." Prefix

Acid Tongue [mp3]


myspace.com/jennylewismusic


Matador Singles '08 is a collection of all six singles that Memphis boywonder Jay Reatard has been releasing on 7" through Matador over the past months. Not only does the release cater for those who aren’t so bothered about collecting and those who missed out on the 7”s the first time round (frenzy was so intense that it brought down the Matador server twice, once with 10,000+ attempts to buy a copy in a one minute period.), but it's also an outstanding album in its own right. Every song is a perfect snarling pop-punk gem evolving interestingly (and erratically) from punk to pop. As Pitchfork said on the subject, “In this short space of time, Reatard has cranked out more memorable songs than some acts do in their whole careers.”

Always Wanting More [mp3]


www.myspace.com/jayreatard


The new album from posthardcore wunderkinds Fucked Up is The Chemistry of Common Life. Far from being your ordinary hardcore band, Fucked Up merge elements of hardcore songwriting with up to 70 tracks of guitars, organs, winds and vocals. The songs are iconoclastic and startling, with Pink Eyes' growling vocals front and center. Though Fucked Up remain punks at heart - if quixotically diverse ones - they have created a great, weird, heavy record that stubbornly sticks in your brain and your heart. Check out front man Pink Eyes on the cover of NME.

Twice Born [mp3]


Looking For Gold - Fucked Up Blog

Jay Reatard to release Matador singles compilation

Every month for the last six months, Matador Records have been releasing a limited 7” by a new signing to the label, namely Memphis boywonder Jay Reatard.

The 7”s have generated more and more attention with each release, but each one has been put out in a progressively more limited run, starting with 3,500 worldwide for single #1 and ending with only 400 copies of single #6. Each release has differed from the last (be it on clear and coloured vinyl, a split 7” or a picture disc) and all have sold out instantly upon release.

The new release, Matador Singles '08, features all six singles plus bonus track I'm Watching You (Jay’s attempt to write a song in the style of Kiwi songsmiths The Tall Dwarfs, which uses the word “c*nt.” He succeeds.) Every song is a perfect snarling pop-punk gem, but the collection evolves interestingly (and erratically) from punk to pop. As Pitchfork said on the subject, “In this short space of time, Reatard has cranked out more memorable songs than some acts do in their whole careers.”

Matador Singles '08 is due out October 4th.


See/Saw [mp3]


Always Wanting More [mp3]


www.myspace.com/jayreatard