Memphis punk Jay Reatard has passed away at the age of 29. Born Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., Reatard made a name for himself as founding member of The Reatards and The Lost Sounds.
Goner Records’ message board has the following message:
“It is with great sadness that
we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard.
Jay died in his sleep last night.”
Reatard has released an impressive array of albums and EPs and Had gone on to co-found his own label, Shattered Records. Reatard had just released Watch Me Fall on Matador Records …

It’s winter. It’s cold. We get it. However, it doesn’t give anyone the excuse to confuse fab with frumpy. Some trends just need to be buried like an Egyptian. Do yourself a favor and ring in the New Year with a new sense of style and humor…because we at Racket dress to the nines all the time.

1. Costello Glasses – To the wearers of these spectacles, if your name isn’t Buddy Holly or Elvis Costello, beware. You might look like you’re pretending to be smart to no avail. Chances are: …

Ahhh, the obligatory “Best Of” lists. If anything, they get my blood pumping as I think of the injustice of none of my top ten even making the top 40 for Spin. Then again, I haven’t seen any of these bands listed as “indie darlings” and to my knowledge, none of the band members have appeared in anything resembling Juno or any given Wes Anderson flick.
These are the ten albums that have come out this year that I can’t stop listening to. I continually come back to these, whether it’s …

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Sony Pictures
10 of 10
On DVD and Blu-Ray Jan. 5th
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, based off of the classic children’s book by Judi Barret, is a deliciously delightful film about an overzealous young inventor who cooks up a plan to make it rain a hail of cheeseburgers and ice-cream to save the townsfolk from a fate of sardines. Meatballs is bright and imaginative and has an awesome early 80’s feel that pops with color; even the end credits are gorgeous. It also is just a …

Shootin’ the Sh*t with Kevin Smith
Titan Books
6 of 10
I have a long-harbored affection for Kevin Smith. His Clerks movies are two of my all-time favorite movies, his podcast and college talks make me chuckle, and I briefly contemplated stealing Silent Bob Speaks from the library. I dig the man’s style and sense of humor- he’s crude, vulgar, and at times childish; he’s a huge comic book nerd (and he even writes comics!); and deep down, he is a huge softie.
I was stoked to see that he was “writing” yet another …

JoJo’s Fashion Show: World Tour
iWin Games
8/10
I’m not going to apologize for reviewing a children’s dress up game- deal with it. Jojo’s is my guilty pleasure. Where other fashion games are mostly empty fantasies in taffeta and bubblegum pink, Jojo’s  steps it up with style boot camp that pulls looks right off the hottest current day runways to make addicts out of even the toughest fashionistas. I’ve whiled away countless hours on the other two incarnations, sucking in friends along with me.  Jojo’s is more than a dress-up game, it is …

Rich Smedley is a riddle wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma.  The notoriously inaccessible artist has no website of his own, nor does he have a presence on social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook.  Yet despite his relative anonymity, he has become a fixture among the online community of gun girl fetishists.  His Flickr page has been profiled by Girls with Guns as well as Alex In Wonderland.com (profiled here).   His fan base numbers in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, and his artwork has spawned numerous imitators. …

It is the final frontier.  93 billion light years of stars, asteroids and planets spread across a limitless expanse- a beautiful and dangerous world fraught with collisions and violence and spectacle that is almost infinite.  Ever since Aristotle gazed into the heavens and proposed his heliocentric theory of the universe, philosophers, scientists, artists and filmmakers have attempted to describe the twinkling objects and orbs they’ve seen in the night sky.  Writers as diverse as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells have explored the mysteries of the night sky and dared to …

I Am Ghost
Live in Orange County
Epitaph Records
According to Steve Juliano, “It’s a bitch to record a live album.” Ain’t that the truth.
I sat down with Juliano and the band at the Hustler Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard to talk about their latest release, Live in Orange County. Entirely self-produced and distributed without the help of their label, Epitaph Records, the album is a raw performance of a sold out show at the Chain Reaction in Anaheim, CA.
With tasteful mixing and mastering of David Adam Monroe at Time Bomb Studios, editing savvy …

They walk among us- accountants, nurses, lawyers, teachers- mild mannered individuals by all accounts, with spouses, children, families, and friends. Few recognize them in the crush of anonymous folks in the crowd. They are our neighbors, our sisters, our brothers, our fathers.  Everyman John and Jane Does, just doing the best they can.
By day they are just another nameless face. Come night, though, they take off their coats and jackets and blouses and skirts, and put on their capes and cowls, and become something else. Some call them misfits. Others …