Mission Mission

He also tells the story about the first time he ever met Jay:

I first met Jay when he was 17 years old. He booked us a gig at Barristers, the line up was The Spaceshits, Deadly Snakes and Reatards. When we showed up in Memphis it looked like a ghost town. Skid Marks (drummer of the spaceshits) has always  been a magnet for scum bags and immediately befriended a one armed man who had just come out of prison. They disappeared in search for some weed.

When Jay showed up he told me that he had just gotten engaged to be married. He also apologized about the lack of people at the show in advance, the reason was simple… “everyone hates us in this town.”  There were 4 people in the audience that night, Greg Oblivian and the dudes from Impala. But the show went on and it was great fun. Later that night everyone went to Greg’s house to hang and listen to records and Carson Binks (Legend of San Fran), Skid Marks and I decided to go for a Memphis adventure with Jay.

We drove around crazy ghettos in search of drugs. All we wanted was a little weed, none of us wanted any of the countless crack offers not even Jay. We parked at a gas station for some cigarettes and when we were getting back into the car i remember all these crack heads coming out of nowhere asking me for a smoke. They were crawling towards us like true zombies and even continued to follow the car in slow motion as we drove away. It really felt like George A. Romero was somewhere around the corner. Jay spoke of these crackheads with a sense of pride which was followed by pure hatred. He was really into showing us the nitty gritty of his city.

Read on!

[Photo via Pork Magazine]

I missed last night’s surprise Jay Reatard performance at 12 Galaxies because I had Digitalism tickets (no regrets). I figured someone would have some good shots on Flickr. No luck. Best I could do is this shot of their set opening for the Black Keys at the Warfield. Boooring.

I also figured someone would fill me in on the details of the show. No dice. Best I could do is this transcript of a gchat between me and some aufblasbarer hindernisparcours hater I know:

melena: the black keys bleeeew my mind last night
allan: omg, what about jay reatard?
melena: if that was the shitty band that opened i was not impressed
allan: oooo no way, i’ve seen jay reatard like 7 times
melena: it was like pseudo punk
sheer cacophony and not in a cool way
allan: snap

[beat]

melena: god the black keys are so insanely talented

Boooring.

Photo by erictoledo.

If you’re not friends with Jay Reatard on MySpace, you’re welcome. A bulletin was posted this afternoon:

Jay Reatard is playing a second set tonight– The Warfield is sold out!
Jay’s set is at 11:30; great bands to open so get there early.

Jay Reatard
The Ohsees (John Dwyer from the Coachwhips etc)
The Pets
Ty Segall
9:00 pm
10$

@ 12 Galaxies
2565 Mission St.

@ 22nd
advanced tickets www.12galaxies.com

Browse Mission Mission’s music section for posts on Black Lips, 12 Galaxies’ wraparound Mezzanine, SXSW, and more.