Yeah, when I saw him open for Dinosaur Jr. he powered through about 12 songs in a 15-minute set.

Uh fuck yes.

Love that nasty guitar tone.

I am an admitted Jay Reatard apologist; a lot of the comments I’ve posted here are about him. It’s not because I’m obsessive or anything, but because Jay is pretty much the only musician that Stereogum follows about whom I have some sort of personal perspective. I grew up in the south and currently live in Memphis. I’ve interviewed Jay for my college radio station. I was standing next to the camera guy at the Record Store Day show at Goner. So there’re my credentials, I guess.

I don’t think either of you are wrong. Jay does tend to come of as antagonistic toward contemporary bands and even here paints a portrait of himself as an outsider (I don’t know about martyr). However, it’s my opinion that he does this because he IS an outsider, and reacts badly to being shoehorned in with a scene to which he has no real physical or emotional connection. Memphis is not Brooklyn or Portland or LA; it’s a musical town by nature but there is no real indie scene here outside of a couple of good bars. Moreover?and I could be talking out of my ass here?the “scene” (and indie rock in general, at least since the early 90s) has been steered predominately by upper-middle-class, suburban white kids with easy access to a nurturing scene. I don’t mean to denigrate that method; most of my favorite bands come from that background. Southern musicians, though, are almost by nature outsiders; I think that they tend to develop as artists in reaction to or dialogue with the region and all the tension that comes with it. This doc did a really good job of capturing that, I think.

I want so badly for it to be them doing the tricks, but I realize it’s pretty unlikely. In any case, it totally works. Dinosaur Jr. has my heart (and eardrums) forever.

I’ve got a 20-minute or so interview with Jay that’s just sitting on my hard drive. Do you guys want it?