The Reatards, Teenage Hate

It is amazing how bottomless Jay Reatard's catalog is. Over the past few months, I have found myself plunging deeper and deeper into the late artist's recordings. An album that I have frequently circled back to is the 1998 LP Teenage Hate, recorded with Jay's first group, appropriately named The Reatards. The fifteen tracks amount to little more than thirty minutes, and exhibit a raw and relentless energy. The vocals, which at times approach a feverish scream, pair with the guitar work to deliver an abrasive, yet sculpted, rush as Jay and his band-mates hurtle from one song into the next. Teenage Hate, upon one's first listen, presents itself as an unabashed standard for garage rock.





I would contend that Teenage Hate exhibits as many signifiers of early rock n' roll as it does punk heritage. Dampening the distortion and slowing manic tempo for a moment, the guitar riffs illustrate the distinct impact of artists such as Chuck, Berry, Buddy Holly, Alex Chilton, and The Stooges. This strong undercurrent of early rock n' roll is further tempered by the lyrical sentiment and simplicity of several tracks, including "Outta My Head," "I Gotta Rock N Roll," and an interpretation of Holly's "Ollie Vee." Teenage Hate also offers passing glimpses of the direction that Jay Reatard's music would take over the next twelve or so years, during which time he recorded with maniacal frequency. As Jay howls "Well that's quite alright, baby if you wanna leave" again and again with such a despondent derision on "Quite All Right," it portends his future recordings for Matador Records, recording that were so full of reclusive isolation and gloomy disenchantment. 





The Reatards, like virtually all musicians, were indebted to their forebears and developed their own distinct Southern garage punk through an amalgamation of styles and acts, and through their own musical individuality. More recently, Alabama Shakes have been accused of being derivative, as if that word alone should be some type of indictment of their creativity and musical ingenuity. Certainly, Boys and Girls demonstrates how Southern rock n' roll, Robert Plant-esque vocals, and a hearty helping of Stax Records soul, all served to influence and inform the manner in which Alabama Shakes make music, and there should be nothing wrong with that. After all, classical music is built on a foundation which is centuries old, why should rock n' roll be any different?

Los Campesinos!: "By Your Hand"

I have an enduring fondness for British bands with a propensity for disclosing the travails of their personal lives in vivid and often melancholic detail. For me, there is simply no turning down Frightened Rabbit, The Twilight Sad, Glasvegas, and most recently Los Campesinos!, when one of their respective tunes turns up via my iTunes' shuffle. Los Campesinos! released their forth studio album, Hello Sadness, a few months back and it is bundled up with the quintessential droll wit and clever self-deprecation that listeners have come to expect from the seven-piece Welsh outfit. Nowhere else will you find choice lyrics such as: "I christen all the ships that sailed/On your little kisses saliva trails." Hello Sadness takes a step back from the roughness of the group's previous release Romance is Boring, which explored the fringes of noise rock, and instead favors crisper guitar work, melodic keyboards, and some intoxicating sing-along choruses. "By Your Hand," the introductory track, embodies these pop qualities and sets the tone for the remainder of the album.

It often seems that lead singer Gareth Campesinos! is beset at every turn of life with a tremendous emotional episode or burden. "By Your Hand" relates a relationship rife with uncertainties and desires, but showered in an ironical reversal of gender roles. Our narrator finds himself enrapt with an assertive and forceful woman described as having "eyes of doe and thighs of stallion," establishing an androgyny that imparts characteristics to this woman more generally associated with masculinity. Her designs are anything but romantic, and her actions reinforce the notion of a woman who is both androgynous and virile: "Cause we were kissing for hours/with her hands in my trousers/she could not contain herself/suggest we go back to her house/But here it comes/this is the crux/she vomits down my rental tux." Gareth Campesinos! delivers pointed verses, bemoaning what a cruel mistress fate is, and his foolish hope that this woman reciprocates the affections he feels: "By your hand is the only end I foresee/I have been dreaming you've been dreaming about me." The absence of sincere endearment and emotional unattainability of our narrator's consort lead to a lack of conviction ("I'm not sure if it's love anymore, but I've been thinking of you fondly for sure") and self-loathing ("Spitting cusses at my face, reflected in the window pane/Throwing insults and calling names").

Instead of treating these issues with the heavy gravitas that other artists might accord them, Los Campesinos! deliver the very same matters with a sardonic wryness and upbeat orchestration which in turn becomes more accessible and digestible.

Chatham County Line "The Carolinian"

I wholeheartedly enjoy bluegrass music. Having thoroughly surveyed the foggy nebulous of a genre that people categorize as alternative country, it was only a matter of time before the jangle of banjos and sweet swell of fiddles lured me in.

Chatham County Line is among my favorites when it comes to bluegrass. The quartet out of North Carolina possess a sound that does not seem to belong with this current generation. The banjo, fiddle or mandolin, and guitar meld and compliment each other in a fashion that is nothing short of anachronistic. That worn feel of years past is compounded by everything from their lyrical diction to their dress.

"The Carolinian" is a wistful recollection of a providential meeting upon a train, relating an unspoken, futile love and pensive pining for what might have been. The notion that the encounter occurs on a train itself seems out of place, and couplets such as "She smiled and said 'Richmond' when I asked where she was bound/I began to wish my life away to be born in that town" inflate the old fashioned, Americana sensation. Nowadays, bands like The Head and The Heart write with a nostalgic look at our country's past ("I wish I was a slave to an age old trade/Like ridin' around on railcars and workin' long days"), but Chatham County Line songs "The Carolinian," "Wildwood," "Crop Comes In," and "I Got Worry" illustrate something beyond ruminating nostalgia. It is that unpolished and unpretentious rusticity which Chatham County Line draw from the American folk tradition that make the group so endearing.

And one more for luck...

Okkervil River: Golden Opportunities 2, Overboard & Down...

At the end of November, Okkervil River released another free EP of covers titled Golden Opportunities 2, which included the wistful and buoyant "It Is Nice To Get Stoned." Since that time, I have been on a steady diet of Will Sheff and company. In my process of rediscovering Okkeril River's catalog, I sought out rarities I had previously missed, chiefly Overboard & Down EP, a small collection of tracks from the group's Australian tour in 2006. I marveled at the rawness of emotion and melancholy in "Love to a Monster," the sad jangle of the mandolin completing the tender wound. The song begins with a verse that is as stark and distressed as any: "Lover, now that you've left me, I'm glad you're unlovely/Because if you could take all the heat in your heart and just hang it from you/I wouldn't be able to bear the way you cannot love me/It's much easier of me to make a monster out of you."

Far and away, the album I enjoyed from start to finish and enjoyed time after time, was Black Sheep Boy. Those eleven tracks encapsulate what I find so captivating and appealing about Okkervil River. The album drifts between frantic, steep layers of vigor and more hushed moods in "Get Big" and "A King and A Queen." In each instance, however, Sheff's vocals are delivered with palpable feeling of distress and grief, hovering on the edge of hysterics. Simply put, it is the perfect introductory album to initiate your love affair with Okkervil River.

Sharon Van Etten "A Crime"

For whatever reason, when I hear Sharon Van Etten I am transfixed, straining forward to listen with a heightened inspection. With talents that stretch far beyond the cookie-cutter folk singer formula, Van Etten's lyrics are simultaneously robust, uncomplicated, and gut-wrenchingly personal. Her 2010 album Epic is filled with intimate narratives that are both remarkably beautiful and staggeringly heartbreaking. One can only hope that her upcoming album Tramp features more of the same.