Jay Reatard: “Band quit! Fuck them!”

Read his lips. Er, tweets.

By Fred Mills

Seems like only.... SUNDAY that all was rosy in the Jay Reatard camp. Saturday night Reatard and  his band had polished off the final show of the first leg of his fall tour in support of the Watch Me Fall album, and on Sunday were driving back home to Memphis from Baltimore.

Reatard even Twittered that day thusly: "In the van on the way back to memphis . Forst leg of the shattered tour was a smash thank you to everyone who partied down with all of u ..."

Ah, but what a difference 24 hours and a stinky van ride can make. Today, avid followers of Reatard's sporadic tweets found this missive waiting for them:

"Band quit! Fuck them! They are boring rich kids who can't play for ahit anyways ... Say hello to your ugly and boring wifes opps I mean lifes guys suck it."

Apparently bass player Stephen Pope and drummer Billy Hayes are no longer with Reatard - no official explanation has been issued yet - and while this doesn't necessarily interrupt the tour per se (Reatard's got until Oct. 15 to round up new members; that's when he's slated to kick off West Coast dates in Seattle), all we can do is say... wait and see.

Oh, and pick up the new issue of BLURT, too: we have an interview with Reatard in it.