Contentious US punk rocker and Matador Records signee Jay Reatard has been found dead at his home in Memphis. He was 29.
His label Goner Records posted a missive on their (currently crashed)
site this morning. (Via
P4K) It reads: "It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public."
Reatard (born Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr.) began making inroads into the lo-fi punk scene when he was signed to Goner Records at just fifteen. After a slew of ramshackle bands the singer rose to prominence with his 2006 solo album
Blood Visions. He was signed to Matador records and released a series of singles and EP's throughout 2008, before releasing his Matador debut
Watch Me Fall in 2009. Most recently he contributed 'Pull Down The Shades' on the tribute album to NZ musician Chris Knox, who suffered a stroke last year.
Matador records
posted the following tribute this morning: "We are devastated by the death of Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., aka Jay Reatard. Jay was as full of life as anyone we’ve ever met, and responsible for so many memorable moments as a person and artist. We’re honored to have known and worked with him, and we will miss him terribly."
While a cause of death has not yet been reported, Reatard had complained on his
Twitter recently of feeling sick. On January 9th he posted: "If I don't get well soon I'm gonna eat myself into pig champion/tad teritory". This was followed
by another missive: "Fuck this sick shit ! I'm out the door on a Pho' soup run!"
Reatard was in Australia early last year for the 2009 Laneway Festival. Of his showing at the Sydney event, we
wrote: "Meanwhile Jay Reatard is ferocious down in Reiby Place. There's a blast of wind funneling down the lane directly into the bands faces, styling their windswept hair and insistent rock moves into poses for the cover of some fantasy space calendar. Or a Spod album.
Reatard's tight solos ricochet off the glass office towers like sonic bullets, his buzzsaw guitar; electricty itself. Not really. It just sounds like the way the "take no shit" Reatard would want it to read."
(Pic: Tim O'Connor)