Jay Reatard’s first full-length LP Teenage Hate, first released in 1998, is set for a deluxe reissue on May 31 on Goner Records. This Jay Reatard posthumous double album will include early tracks (Fuck Elvis Here’s the Reatards) recorded by Jay on 4-track and only previously released on cassette. Some songs feature Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound, Oblivians) on drums. The double album features Reatards covers of Fear, The Dead Boys, Lil Bunnies, Buddy Holly, Johnny Vomit & The Dry Heaves, and The Beatles. Teenage Hate/Fuck Elvis Here’s the Reatards offers a glimpse into the punk energy and rapidly developing raw talent of a teenage Jay Reatard.
“Having seen Jay Reatard on the periphery of the leather-boy rock circuit a couple of years ago, I had gotten the impression that he was an arrogant shit. A real ‘Little Lord Punkleroy,’ he was. It seemed that the short path from aping the Oblivians in his bedroom to actually playing alongside of them had given him an undeserved license for haughtitude. Well, after hearing this release, I now grant him the right to be as shitty to me as he wants to be. He may ignore my ass around the club all night, because this record just spews aching beauty. It is easily the most blistering pizzunk to dribble down the leg of the raspy whore that is the ‘Memphis scene’ in a long while.
The liner notes lack any trace of irony and spill more pubescent bile than a crippled maid cleaning up after one of Roman Polanski’s ‘hot tub ‘n cognac’ parties. It all starts to make sense when you think of the Goner CEO’s fascination with the low-rent vitriol of ‘The Jerry Springer Show.’ But this has truth, whereas “Jerry” has spectacle. The guests on the show- tanning bed lesbians and domestic abuse Olympians- all seem to reflect a bovine uniformity. The Reatards, while nipping from both the Oblivian and Wiper jugs, maintain a unique, strangled articulation. If ‘RUCKENRAOUL’ is remotely near the neighborhood of your daily thought processes, there is absolutely no reason not to rush out and get this — through three red lights, even.” – Quentin Sebago (a.k.a. Dave Dunlap, from his original review of Teenage Hate in Cimmaron Weekend magazine)
