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Jay Reatard: "It Ain't Gonna Save Me" (Live on ADD) (Video)

8:57 a.m. · November 9, 2009 · by Nick Neyland

Jay Reatard has been having some well publicized band problems, but that didn’t stop him from turning up for this special performance for Pitchfork’s ADD. On this clip he performs “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me,” which opens up his album from earlier this year, Watch Me Fall.

Reatard’s rote run through of every cliché in the punk rock handbook is tiresome at the best of times, and his recent attempt at manufacturing some controversy by urinating on his audience was another desperate bid to grab some headlines. This performance of “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” is an empty facsimile of past punk triumphs, and why anyone would choose this over a true original remains a mystery.