Jay Reatard’s reputation was to smash disco balls and get in on-stage fights—the kind of guy who tried to make people laugh by shooting bottle rockets out his ass. As wild and ridiculous as he was, he took his music seriously. He moved away from home when he was 16 and dropped out of high school, meaning most of his considerable free time was spent writing and recording music. He always had several bands going at once; he figured that if he played with each of his bands at least once a month, he’d make enough to get by. He was an excellent guitarist who got really good at recording; his collective discography was massive. It was his living, so the endless touring, huge pile of records, and even the provocations and live show destruction could be seen as business savvy. He played fast, he played loud, and in the early days of YouTube, his every move was documented.
By the time he died in early 2010, Jay Reatard had long usurped the Oblivians’ throne and ruled as the undisputed kingpin of Memphis garage rock. (He knew it, too—he quipped that getting thrown out of Gonerfest was like “kicking Jimi Hendrix out of Woodstock.”) He wasn’t just some local figurehead, either—he was the standard bearer for an entire genre. Obviously there were prolific punks before him, but Jay standardized the practice of putting out tons of music under several names in the internet age. He never seemed to oversaturate the market, either, since his audience kept coming back for more. That torch is carried today by guys like Ty Segall and Sick Thoughts’ Drew Owen. When Jay’s profile raised after he signed with Matador, he pulled artists like Hunx and His Punx and Nobunny into the spotlight with him by bringing them on tour. His absence is jarring, but his influence—both sonically and structurally—is still palpable in garage punk circles. That’s partially due to his work in the Reatards and Lost Sounds, but his best and most powerful full-length work—and the record that made him a standalone rock star—was his first solo album.
Blood Visions came together in the aftermath of the Lost Sounds’ dissolution. After Jay broke up with bandmate Alicja Trout, the band fell apart in short order. Their final tour in 2005 ended badly—there was a physical altercation between Jay and Alicja. He was in a "really, really bad place" when he temporarily decamped to Atlanta later that year. While staying in an apartment with Alix Brown and Black Lips’ Jared Swilley, he channeled everything into a murderous revenge album. (When asked if the record was about a particular girl, he revealed, “Yeah, a couple.”) He borrowed Carbonas’ practice space and knocked out most of the songs in one or two takes. Ten years later, the result is still a revelation.
The album is a portrait of a moony-eyed murderer. As a boy, he starts attacking his own family. When he falls in love, he lurks in the shadows and watches her from afar. "I won't stop until you're dead,/ because of voices in my head," he sings on "Fading All Away." This is the stuff of horror movies—love that leads to obsession, graduates to stalking, and culminates in murder. It's a narrative framed perfectly by his performance. In "Death Is Forming," as he attempts to veer away from dark thoughts, the words "death is forming" rush in at an anxious rapid-fire. With some simple studio work, Jay makes himself the narrator and all the voices in the narrator's head—the tortured and the torturer. He also offsets some of the stalking menace with power-pop riffs and tambourines, which puts "Nightmares" in the same tradition as the Ramones' Nazi love song "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World." Both songs explore the cross-section of good and evil—of love and hate.
To call Blood Visions a classic isn't just to praise its fucked-up storytelling—it's to celebrate an album stuffed with amazing hooks. The palm-muted chug of "My Shadow," the breakneck backbone of the 56-second highlight "Greed, Money, Useless Children," the loud-to-quiet blues rock stomp of "Turning Blue"—the album pivots between several rock'n'roll comfort food modes across its 29 minutes. These hooks are punchy and extremely well done—the sort of stuff that sounded incredible when he'd play them live at practically double the recording's speed. And while of course he was an amazing guitarist, his drumming is also essential here. When the instantly recognizable clacking introduction of the title track plays, it's worth noting that Jay was playing that part cold. Drumming is where he'd start—he'd do the percussion in one take and build out the song from there.
Aside from some blood-red vinyl, the album's 10th anniversary Record Store Day reissue came with a 7" featuring four demos: the title track, "Turning Blue," "It's So Easy," and "Oh, It's Such a Shame." The bonus record is far from essential, but it's an interesting glimpse into Jay's process. The percussion is thinner, the tempo slower; the main guitar hook is performed on a keyboard, and the words "blood vision" are delivered in a demonic bark. Now that he's gone, the urge to collect every single recording he ever made is strong. In this case, the extras feel definitively extra: you buy Blood Visions to listen to Blood Visions, not the preliminary sketches.
When it came time to turn in Blood Visions, Jay considered going back to his old routine—forming a new band and releasing those songs under that band’s name. The label convinced him that it should be a solo album. "This was the first record I made as an adult, when I didn't have to answer to another collaborative member of the band, so it was supposed to be like I was a big fat baby," he said of his appearance on the cover. "Now I finally get to start my life at 24." It's the perfect illustration to accompany the violent, unsettling birth of a rock'n'roll icon. Even though the guy had already amassed an impressive and sizable discography of wide-eyed rippers, Blood Visions stands as the ideal introduction to Jay Reatard the songwriter, studio perfectionist, character, and (reluctant) star.
