The second pressing of Better Than Something LP/DVD/BOOK has begun. It will ship out on November 20. You can order it here: http://bit.ly/R0QTdf

Addictive, crazed sugary pop music with dark themes… with Stephen Pope and Billy Hayes from Jay’s band.  Thought to be lost on Jay Reatard’s hard drive but rescued and put painstakingly back together by the band with Alicja Trout.

Includes colorful insert and download card. Get it on the vinyl, CD, or download.

In the late 2000s, Memphis had The Barbaras, a handful of early-20s music heads colliding in the midtown bar scene and making a racket that captured VOM and Del Shannon in a blender. The band was great, the live shows were insane—see the checklist below.

• Maniacal bearded frontman (Billy Hayes)
• Incredibly tall bassist (Bennett Foster)
• Synthesizer mastermind (Will McElroy)
• Boy-next-door guitarist (Alex Gates)
• An array of unbalanced drummers
• Crowd interference (Stephen Pope)
• Shows that included props, costumes and groupies
• Had a somewhat cult-like aura
• Always had fun and seemed to enjoy each other’s company
• Could induce grown men to strip and gyrate on the bar at a show
• Staged orgies, deaths and resurrections at live shows
• Performed ventriloquist act
• Wrote great absurd pop songs

One thing they didn’t do? Record an album. Although they tried. Jay Reatard recorded them in fits and starts between touring, but after taking two Barbaras (Hayes and Pope) for his road band and touring constantly over the next few years, the group flamed out. The Magic Kids formed in their wake. When Hayes and Pope eventually left Reatard’s band and joined Wavves, he told them that he erased all of the Barbaras recordings.

In 2011, Goner was excited to find the sessions safe and sound right where Reatard had left them, on his digital recorder. Alicja Trout helped the band finish recording and mixing the tracks, and when paired with their own recordings (plus some heavy-duty work from Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering) it was clear their legacy held more than just a great (and now out-of-print) single. There’s a Barbaras album after all—and it’s a doozy.

Better Than Something: Jay Reatard
A film by Alex Hammond & Ian Markiewicz

The Ultimate Jay Reatard Limited Edition with 13 unreleased live tracks on Blood Red Vinyl, a 50 page book, and the documentary is available for pre-order now!!!

“Does a remarkable job of capturing Reatard’s complicated, conflicted, and often prickly persona.”  -Mike Rubin, Spin
“Remarkably candid and eerily prescient.” -Eddie Cockrell, Variety
“Riveting, sad, and inspiring, Better Than Something is the best rock documentary of 2011.” -Steven Hyden, AV Club
“Like the longhair with the foghorn falsetto it’s titled after, this unfussy rock-doc profile is shaggy, sophisticated, and more than a little sad.” -Mark Holcomb, The Village Voice

For Jimmy Lee Lindsay, known to his fans and detractors as Jay Reatard, life was a race against time. After growing up fast among Memphis crack addicts, he managed to blaze a path through the rough-and-tumble underground rock scene of the early aughts, releasing over 100 singles, EPs and full-length records in fourteen years. Then on January 13, 2010, not yet 30, he died.

With their feature documentary Better Than Something, filmmakers Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz let Jay tell his own story: a poverty-stricken childhood, teen years spent as a two-fisted tunesmith battling fans and band mates alike, and a short-lived adulthood of focused and relentless productivity.

Jay said “I just try to make as much as I can with the time that I have.” By any measure, that is exactly what he did. Better Than Something is both a testament to Jay Reatard’s indisputable legacy and a tribute to his vital, thrilling, and all-too-brief life.

Music by: Jay Reatard, Lost Sounds, Destruction Unit, Reatards and Oblivians

Featuring: Jimmy Lee Lindsay, King Louie Bankston, Scott Bomar, Chad Booth, Alix Brown, Shawn Foree, Eric “Oblivian” Friedl, Larry Hardy, Zach Ives, Andria Lisle, Jeffrey Novak, Stephen Pope, Ryan “Elvis Wong” Rousseau, Adam Shore, Alicja Trout, Michael Venutolo-Mantovani and Sherman Willmott

Pitchfork reports:

After a solid run through the festival circuit in 2011, the Jay Reatard documentary Better Than Something has announced its first official string of screenings throughout the U.S. It premiers Friday, March 2 in Brooklyn, Memphis, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon.

Directors Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz captured the late punk icon in his native Memphis just months before his tragic and unexpected passing in 2009. The film mixes interviews and concert footage with cinéma vérité.

Additional screenings will be announced, with details posted on Facebook and Twitter. Watch the trailer after the dates:

03-02 – 03-08 Brooklyn, NY – Nitehawk Cinema
03-02 – 03-08 Memphis, TN – Malco Studio on the Square
03-02 – 03-08 Seattle, WA – Grand Illusion Cinema
03-02 – 03-08 Portland, OR – Clinton Street Theater
03-03 – 03-05 Phoenix, AZ – FilmBar
03-08 – 03-11 Los Angeles, CA – Egyptian Theatre at the American Cinematheque
03-09- 03-10 Bellingham, WA – Pickford Film Center
03-15 Columbus, OH – Wexner Center for the Arts
03-26 Austin, TX – Alamo Drafthouse Ritz
04-11 – 04-12 San Francisco, CA – Roxie Theater

Yellow Bird Project created this excellent t-shirt in memory of Jay. Drawn in detail using black pen on A2 paper, this design depicts a Gibson Flying V; one of Jay’s trademark guitars. The brand name has been taken off the headstock and replaced with the intials ‘JR’.

Jay’s father chose to designate the profits from this shirt to the St. Jude’s Research Hospital.

You can order the shirt here.

This was the 1st release from Memphis’ great LOST SOUNDS, with core members Jay Reatard, Alicja Trout, and Rich Crook. Here they’re joined on bass by the mysterious “Steven,” never to be heard from again. Four blasts of primal electro punk, remastered from the original cassette.

Originally released on the Italian label Solid Sex Lovie Doll, notorious for their flimsy, lo-fi aesthetic and ridiculous limited editions. This was their first release and we salute the label and their fearless leader, Fredrico Zanutto, who trekked all the way to Memphis for Gonerfest 1 and released records of many of the finest bands in the world in tiny, unobtainable editions.

Plastic Skin
Don’t Bother Me

What Did I Say?
Lost And Found

Order it from Goner Records here.

Jay’s harsh electro punk project “Terror Visions” has just seen a reissue of their only full length record “World of Shit”, This remastered 180 gram LP collects the entire recorded history of the band including a few previously unreleased tracks. Look for it in stores starting Dec 6th or order it at www.fdhmusic.com

Better Than Something comes to New York City soon for the DOC NYC Festival (you can also connect on Twitter and Facebook). Information on the two screenings (click dates for ticket information):

Friday, November 4 @ Midnight
IFC Center
323 6th Ave @ West 3rd Street

Tuesday, November 8 @ 8:30pm
IFC Center
323 6th Ave @ West 3rd Street

FDH Records are reissuing the only document of Jay’s visceral synth side project, Terror Visions, in expanded form. World of Shit is remastered and will be stamped onto 180g vinyl, along with a picture set and… a contest! Everyone who pre-orders the record will be entered to win the following:

Grand Prize – A 50$ gift certificate for FDH records, and a copy of the Terror Visions test pressing ( test press limited to 10)
Second Prize – A 20$ gift certificate for FDH records, and a copy of the Terror Visions test pressing ( test press limited to 10)
Third Prize – A copy of the Terror Visions test pressing (test press limited to 10)
Fourth Fifth and Sixth Prize – A free copy of any FDH record LP thats still in print (Terror Visions LP exculded), and a Terror Visions magnet (300 made for the original pressing of Terror Visions)
Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Prize – A free copy of any FDH records 7″ thats still in print, and a Terror Visions magnet (300 made for the original pressing of Terror Visions)

You can pre-order the record at the FDH Records site.

Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz continue bringing their documentary on Jay to the masses. Here are their upcoming screenings — don’t miss your chance to see the film! You can learn more about the film at their Facebook page.

Minneapolis: Sound Unseen Festival, October 13, 7PM

Montreal: Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinema / Pop Montreal, October 19 9:00PM

Barcelona: In-Edit Music Documentary Festival, October 30, 4:30PM & November 1, 8:30PM

Charlottesville: The Virginia Film Festival, November 3, 10PM

New York: DOC NYC Festival, November 4, Midnight & November 8, 8:30PM