Reatards – Teenage Hate/Fuck Elvis Heres the Reatards

Dave Marsh (Rolling Stone) once pointed out that anyone who failed to recognize “the swindle” and believed Sid Vicious to truly be real would probably commit suicide. I’ll go no further into it, other than to say I learned of this band after the fact.

Judging it from a raw, remedial first time, Teenage Hate has all the markings of great rock ‘n’ roll. There’s an obvious lineage formed from Jerry Lee friggin’ ‘n’ freakin’ on the back of a flatbed to that photo of Iggy, shirtless and hoisted above the crowd, pointing forward, to a lacerated Germs show unable to finish when a riot shuts down the club, to Pussy Galore dazed and confused as Jon Spencer drops his guitar during “Cunt Tease”!

A band that covers Fear’s “I Love Living in the City” and The Beatles! The last track on this overview CD is the last song The Beatles played when I saw them, “I’m Down.” If you’re gonna cover a Beatles tune, it has to be one of the few high energy numbers, either “I’m Down” or “One After 909.”

“Out of My Head Into My Bed.” “Not Your Man.” “I Lie Too.” These are songs you don’t forget.

For years I’ve argued with stuck-in-the-60s purists that punk had the same drive and gut-punched magnetism found in those mid-60s garage rockers. I can’t think of another band outside of maybe Gun Club that was able to pull together these different eras of music into a cohesive sound that when presented provides a terrifying vision of contemporary desperation. Their stripped down, convulsive, brain-damaged delivery is like trying to remember bits and pieces of previous encounters with bands on the upswing bridging the gap between then and what that is. Deja Voodoo. Frightwig. Neon Christ. Suicide. Early Dirt, only sped up, flipped around backwards for maximum effect.

Teenage Hate is a custom buzz of extraordinary hits and misses that makes me nervously confess, I missed something snotty and loud at the turn of the century.

Brat-rock two-point-oh-hell started here.

Reatards
Teenage Hate/Fuck Elvis Heres the Reatards
[Goner]