{"id":173,"date":"2012-01-02T23:35:38","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T23:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeuchill.org\/?p=173"},"modified":"2014-01-06T12:41:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T12:41:14","slug":"how-to-count-to-475-milwaukee-shepherd-express-december-24-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"How to Count to 475 \/ Milwaukee Shepherd-Express, December 24, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>No one is entirely sure of the number of albums released by Jay Reatard and his bands. His record company says it\u2019s more than 90. Wikipedia places it somewhere around 60. Reatard isn\u2019t certain of the exact number, but says that Wikipedia\u2019s discography has some holes in it. He guesses it\u2019s a little more than 70\u201422 albums and 50 or so 7-inches. By his math, he has recorded somewhere in the range of 475 songs. And he throws away more songs than he keeps.<\/p>\n

It would be an incredible catalog for a 70-year-old. Reatard is only 29. He has been recording deviously uncomplicated, snot-nosed garage punk since he dropped out of eighth grade 14 years ago. By a conservative estimate, he has recorded one song every two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people try to do quality over quantity. This is quantity over quality,\u201d Reatard says. \u201cI don\u2019t think that artists are defined by the worst things that they\u2019ve done. They are defined by the best. So there\u2019s no risk involved in releasing some things that you might think are mediocre.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\u2019ll do it, too. He releases songs he thinks are mediocre, or worse. He releases songs that aren\u2019t finished (\u201cSomething about them being unfinished was part of the charm,\u201d he notes). He releases songs he hasn\u2019t taken the time to fully evaluate. A few months later, he\u2019ll play his last EP and realize he\u2019d underperformed what he hadn\u2019t realized was a gem. He re-records these for albums.<\/p>\n

This is the worst of all possible worlds. It isn\u2019t the indignity of being wrong or demonstrating his own mistake. For Reatard, recording full length albums is the circle of hell reserved for musicians \u2014 a circle he has volunteered to pass through an astounding number of times. Full-length albums are deliberate, perfectionist things, and Reatard plays all of the instruments on his solo work. The first time he released the track \u201cI\u2019m Watching You\u201d it took him an hour to record. The second time, the version that appeared on this year\u2019s Watch Me Fall, it took three days. Albums just don\u2019t hold the same function as singles. More than merchandise, even more than art, Reatard values the three-song record as an \u201cemotional snapshot.\u201d The 50 7-inch records form a photo album of sorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside of promo pictures, I think I only have two photographs of me from the age of zero until I was 20,\u201d Reatard says. \u201cI almost think of a lot of the early records I\u2019ve made as a replacement for that. I can listen to a record and remember exactly what I was pissed or happy about or inspired by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reatard swears that, if challenged, he could remember how to play any of his unbelievably large number of songs. He doesn\u2019t see how impressive that is. He says that his songs are written for him to remember: simplistic music penned for a man who, by his own design, is not a virtuoso on any instrument.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same way I could probably play any Ramones song right now,\u201d he says, glossing over the fact that he\u2019s actually recorded more songs than The Ramones. No matter what Reatard says, it is difficult to remember 70 albums\u2019 worth of anything (or 60, or 90).<\/p>\n

He has, at this moment, recorded more than 19 hours of music. At this rate, by the end of 2012, he will have recorded a full day. By 2016, he will overtake the battery life of an iPod. Quantity over quality? Quantity over sanity.<\/p>\n

(Milwaukee Shepherd-Express)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one is entirely sure of the number of albums released by Jay Reatard and his bands. His record company says it\u2019s more than 90. Wikipedia places it somewhere around 60. Reatard isn\u2019t certain of the exact number, but says that Wikipedia\u2019s discography has some holes in it. He guesses it\u2019s a little more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}