Jay Reatard

Having founded seminal Memphis punk outfit Reatards at the tender age of sixteen, Jay Reatard (May 1, 1980 – January 13, 2010) was a seasoned veteran of the garage-punk scene. In the ’90s Reatards turned the Memphis underground rock scene upside down with a legendary live show so over-the-top that they were banned in a number of European countries.

Never content to stick to one genre, one project or one band, Jay also co-led the synth-punk Lost Sounds with Alicja Trout, played drums for The Final Solutions, pursued the solo project Terror Visions, co-fronted The angry angles and ran his own label, Shattered Records.

In 2006, In The Red announced the release of Blood Visions, Jay’s first album as a solo artist, which combined the aggressive approach of Reatards with a melodic pop sensibility, and production recalling classic UK punk records — The Adverts (who he covered), Siouxsie & The Banshees, ATV, etc.

On January 13, 2010, Jay was found dead at the age of 29 at his home in Memphis. A statement was posted on the website of Goner Records that Reatard had died in his sleep. His autopsy reported he died of cocaine toxicity and alcohol as a contributing factor.

Jay Reatard on My Space http://www.myspace.com/jayreatard

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.

Jay Reatard Albums

0.0 0.0 Blood Visions Jay Reatard
Released on
August 18, 2009 Read More →

0.0 0.0 Singles 06-07 Jay Reatard
Released on
June 24, 2008 Read More →



Captains Dead Blog

    • the breton sound live tonight at mud and water, baton rouge
      May 17, 2013

      been following these chaps on twitter for seemingly years now, and have never seen them, for whatever reason. anyway, tonight, hopefully that all will change. new orleans’ the breton sound is who i am talking about if you havent figured that out. they recently released a new ep entitled maps, and its great. admittedly, even [...]

    • hallelujah the hills “three minute mark”

      you ever run into a band, that seemingly everything they put out, hits you in just the right spots? yeah, thats me and hallelujah the hills. they just put out a odds and sods double record that is made up of b-sides, non album tracks, etc and god damn if it aint better than most [...]

    • centro-matic live at mercy lounge, nashville
      May 13, 2013

      photo by me top of the monday evening! trying to get back into this blogging thing, but admittedly its been tough. then again, for the past year or so i have been going in spurts, which i guess is better than nothing esp after almost 8 years of doing this. anyway, so my boys centro-matic [...]