REATARDS, THE - GROWN UP, FUCKED UP LP

Shortly after the release of Teenage Hate, the debut album from the Reatards, an 18-year-old Jay Reatard started working on a new album. He was spitting out punk rock anthems a mile a minute at this point, so a new record made sense. And what else was there to do? He’d quit school a couple years back so a normal day for Jay meant he was bumming around midtown Memphis winding people up. At this point, Eric Friedl had introduced Jay to Meghan Smith, via mail or phone or something. And they became fast friends. Smith and Blake Wright ran Empty Records out of Seattle, and the label made plans to release Grown Up Fucked Up. After a complete mess of a European tour with the Persuaders, Jay came back and recorded the album with some help from his girlfriend at the time (and future Lost Sounds bandmate) Alicja Trout. It soon became clear that there was a harder edge to everything. While Teenage Hate had been nasty, it was rooted in the Crypt / Oblivians scene of scuzzy rock, with covers of Fe