Played a show about 11 years back with the Reatards and Marky Ramone and the Intruders . Boy did they ever so fucking blow . Marky got up to sing blitzkrieg bop and invited a kid out of the audience to play drums who might have been better than him .Even back then It really ticked me off that this asshole was exploiting one of Americas greatest rock n roll bands ever ! Well now hes got a new band of goons called Marky Ramones Blitzkrieg !! Give me a fucking break you didn’t even play on the first and best record you old wig headed bastard . At lest Tommy plays shitty bluegrass these days .. Nothing is sacred I guess..

from exclaim.ca

Thoughts on 2008: Stephen Pope, Bassist for Jay Reatard
12/26/2008

To tide us over while we indulge in the holiday spirit gorging on stuffing and egg nog, we asked a bunch of musicians to tell us their thoughts on 2008. Some of them replied with lists of their favourite music, some told us their fondest memories, and some came up with much more creative ways to commemorate this past year.

Jay Reatard’s super fro’d bassist Stephen Pope, also a member of the Boston Chinks , was nice enough to look back on his year of hectic gigging and give us a detailed list of his freaky celebrity encounters in 2008:

What I’ve come to realize on tour from watching hundreds of hours of television from hundreds of TV sets in hundreds of hotel rooms is the only thing more entertaining than watching these A to Z list celebrities make fools of themselves is meeting them in person. Will barely being able to play bass in Jay Reatard enable me to meet the host of one of those late night infomercials? Can I ask Brigitte and Frank if Extenze really does work? What would I do if I saw Jaleel White (Steve Urkel) at one of our shows? Would I be able to speak if Dave Grohl was wandering around backstage? Do I have a Shot at Love with Tila Tequila? Well, I didn’t meet Urkel, Grohl or Tila Tequila, and I can’t say for sure if Extenze really works or not, but I did meet a few other celebrities (at least in my mind) who totally freaked the fan boy inside of me out. Here is my list of freaky celebrity encounters in 2008 (in no particular order):

J Mascis
I actually met J for the first time in December of 2007 when we played with Dinosaur Jr. in Memphis. Jay [Reatard] and I actually went and had dinner with J Mascis and Jodie Stevens of Big Star. I don’t think I said a word the entire time. I was freaked. It was awesome. I’ve met him a handful of times since. I’m still freaked. It’s still awesome.

Lars Ulrich
Let me say that again. Lars Ulrich. Drummer. Metallica. Lars Ulrich. He was at one of our shows. I met him. Don’t believe me?!?! I have proof. Check out the April 4, 2008 post onjayreatard.blogspot.com. Holy freak I was freaked!

Nardwuar
I’ll admit, not being Canadian I had not heard of the Human Serviette before, but when I found out he was going to interview us in Vancouver I Googled him and was severely freaked. He’s interviewed Nirvana, Snoop Dogg, Mikhail Gorbachev, Slipknot, and Sonic Youth, just to name a few. Meeting Nardwuar was like meeting a countless number of other celebrities, dead and alive.

Meat Puppets/Ween
2008’s Pitchfork vs. ATP festival in England, as I remember, was like floating on a cloud of indie celebrity drug-and-alcohol-induced vomit. Amazing. In one night I had Gene Ween tell me I was his favourite bass player (even though I don’t think he knew who I was), Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets tell me and Billy [drummer for Jay Reatard] that he “smoked weed, hardcore, everyday” and Chris Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets pretend to rape me with a bottle of red wine. When he “finished” he took his thumb off the top of the bottle and spewed red wine all over me. Best friends? Best freaks.

Jay-Z/Slayer
Okay, I didn’t actually meet Jay-Z or Slayer, but we played Roskilde Festival in Denmark together on the same day, and I get to tell people that we “opened up” for Jay-Z and Slayer now. That tends to freak some people.

Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones
We played a punk festival called Riot Fest this fall in Chicago. Headliners of the festival included acts like D.O.A., the Casualties and yes, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I had a cigarette with the horn section right before we played. Right after we played, while I’m drenched with sweat and voice completely shot (even though I don’t sing), an equally sweaty and hoarse Dicky Barrett comes up to me and says, “your show kicked ass.” I just stared at him because he was so sweaty (the Bosstones hadn’t played yet) and eventually said, “Thanks man!” Freakin it with the Bosstones!

Beck
Earlier this year Jay got asked to do a cover of Beck’s new single “Gamma Ray,” to be released as the B-side to Beck’s version. Then, later on in the year, we were asked to come open up for Beck in Los Angeles. Freaky! I met Beck right after we played but he didn’t say much. He did however ask Jay to come on stage and sing “Gamma Ray” with him. Only problem was, Jay didn’t remember any of the lyrics. I scrambled around trying to get lyrics printed out from Beck’s manager. As I was looking for the lyrics I heard through the grapevine that Drew Barrymore was in the audience somewhere, and my attention turned from the lyric-sheet to celebrity-spotting. Unfortunately, I never met Drew Barrymore but I did get the lyric sheet and Jay got to freak with Beck on stage.

This concludes my list of celebrities I’ve met this year. If there are any celebrities I met but forgot to mention I apologize. Please feel free to come meet me again. And, to all other celebrities whom I have not yet met, come out to a Jay Reatard show in a town near you. I’ll be standing behind the merch table after we play.

Last night’s show in Toronto got completely fucked up. The Silver Dollar holds 190 people but Craig Laskey the promoter let 350 people in there. That’s cool if there’s some sort of security or crowd control – we don’t need people getting so wild they jump on stage and smash our gear – but that’s exactly what happened. Right when we started playing someone pushed the monitors right on top of Stephen and on to his pedals – breaking them, people were throwing beer bottles at us, a someone jumped onstage and smashed my pedals, another guy took a full pitcher of beer and dumped it all over the rest of my pedals, and then threw it right at my Flying V, breaking the pickup and the input electronics. After three songs all our gear was smashed and unusable. Even when shit gets that crazy at Circle Jerks show there’s at least some security but when I asked Craig Laskey about it before the show he told me “I thought you guys were a garage band.” When we couldn’t play anymore I hung out and talked to people, refunded people’s money out of my own pocket, and tried to borrow gear and finish the set a bit later but Dan Burke wouldn’t get off the stage, too busy talking trash about me.

I’m getting really sick of shit like this happening. We’ll come back in Toronto soon and do a free show to make it up to the real fans in Toronto. And we’ll steer away from greedy promoters who don’t have any control of their shows and who don’t care about doing right by the audience.