Representative Songs: "Charmed Life," "1,000,000 Kisses," "U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums"
Biography
Few of punk rock's founding fathers could have anticipated the extreme to which Half Japanese took the music's do-it-yourself ethos. Founded by brothers Jad and David Fair, Half Japanese was quite probably the most amateurish rock band to make a record since the Shaggs, all but ignoring musical basics like chords, rhythms, and melody. However, the brothers made that approach into a guiding aesthetic, steadfastly refusing to progress in their primitive musicianship over a career that lasted decades. David Fair's article "How to Play Guitar" outlined the Half Japanese philosophy: if you rejected conventional ideas about fingering, tuning, and even stringing a guitar, there were no limits on how you could express yourself on what was, after all, your instrument. The band's proponents (who included Kurt Cobain) saw them as the epitome of a pure, unbridled enthusiasm for rock & roll, the ultimate expression of punk's dictum that rock should be accessible to anyone who wanted to pick up an instrument and play. Detractors found them gratingly noisy, borderline unlistenable, and too self-conscious and willful about their naïveté. That naïveté extended to their lyrical outlook too, not just their technical abilities; when they weren't singing about horror movies or tabloid headlines, most of their songs were about girls, veering between innocent longing and wounded sexual frustration. Early on, with less outside influence, their work was more chaotic and cathartic; as time passed, David Fair became a sporadic contributor, and the prolific Jad built a core of semi-regular backing musicians who brought a rudimentary sense of songcraft to the proceedings. Jad and David Fair formed Half Japanese in their bedroom in the mid-'70s. Accounts differ as to exactly when (somewhere around 1975-77) and where (either Michigan or their eventual base of Maryland; the family apparently moved around a lot). It is known that the brothers made their first home recordings in 1977, issuing their debut EP that year, Calling All Girls, on their own 50 Skidillion Watts label. Several homemade cassettes circulated in the underground, which resulted in a deal with the small British independent Armageddon. In 1980, Half Japanese became the first band in history to release a three-record box set as their debut album; 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts collected some of their earlier home recordings, while throwing in barely recognizable covers (the Temptations, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan) and sound experiments cobbled together from guitar noise, electronics, and odd effects. Yet their primary influences were clearly the minimalism of the Velvet Underground and the innocence of Jonathan Richman, with some Iggy Pop angst at times. Over the years, 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts became something of a cult legend (helped out by its scarcity), and foreshadowed the lo-fi movement of early-'90s indie rock. A second album for Armageddon, the aptly titled Loud, followed in 1981; it matched the brothers' atonal squall and stream-of-consciousness compositions with a supporting cast of free jazz musicians. The Horrible EP -- a collection of songs paying tribute to horror movies -- followed on Press in 1983. Around that time, Jad Fair began a concurrent and equally prolific solo career, releasing records under his own name, and in collaborative side projects well into the '90s. Moving to the Iridescence label, Half Japanese took a musical step forward on 1984's Our Solar System, which flitted between rock and improvised chamber jazz while using different musicians in different contexts. Some of those musicians -- multi-instrumentalist John Dreyfuss, guitarist Don Fleming (also of B.A.L.L., the Velvet Monkeys, and Gumball), bassist/guitarist Mark Jickling, and drummer Jay Spiegel among them -- would continue to work with Half Japanese in the years to come. Featuring many of the same musicians, the follow-up, 1984's Sing No Evil, was an even greater concession to accessibility (relatively speaking, of course) with its improved sense of songwriting and structure; it's still acclaimed by many as one of the band's best works. Iridescence subsequently went under, and the band revived its 50 Skidillion Watts imprint with help from an avowed fan, magician Penn Jillette. In 1987, David Fair took a temporary leave of absence to attend to his family; for the remainder of the band's existence, he would come and go as time permitted. Recording without his brother for the first time (as Half Japanese), Jad Fair worked with Shimmy-Disc label honcho Kramer on 1987's Music to Strip By, which spun off the single "U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums," and continued the trend toward greater musicality. David Fair returned for 1988's upbeat Charmed Life, which earned some of the strongest reviews of Half Japanese's career. He departed once again by the time of the more experimental follow-up, 1989's The Band That Would Be King, which found Jad Fair backed by Kramer and free improvisation gurus John Zorn and Fred Frith, along with several semi-regular bandmembers. The loose, spontaneous vibe carried over to the next album, 1990s uneven We Are They Who Ache With Amorous Love, which appeared on the New Jersey label T.E.C. Tones. It featured a large cast of Half Japanese cohorts past and present, including the musicians who would anchor the '90s lineup: guitarist John Sluggett, Swiss-born drummer Gilles-Vincent Rieder, guitarist/bassist Mick Hobbs, and bassist Jason Willett, plus longtime supporter Mark Jickling.
1993 brought Half Japanese the greatest visibility of their career. Longtime fan Kurt Cobain -- a champion of innocent, amateurish indie rock acts like the Vaselines and the Raincoats -- invited Half Japanese to open the East Coast leg of Nirvana's In Utero tour. A documentary film on Half Japanese, titled The Band That Would Be King, after their recent album, was released to art-house theaters by director Jeff Feuerzeig, and T.E.C. Tones also reissued 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts as a two-CD set. In the meantime, Half Japanese released a new album, Fire in the Sky, on the Safe House label. One of the most straightforward rock records in their catalog, it boasted a guest appearance from one-time Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker, who sometimes used Half Japanese as a touring band, and frequently welcomed Jad Fair as a guest on her own records. 1995's Hot continued the rock-oriented approach of its predecessor; the same year, Safe House released a double-disc, career-spanning retrospective, the ironically titled Greatest Hits. The following year, Jad and David reunited under their own names to record the album Best Friends. 1997 brought Heaven Sent, which appeared on drummer Gilles Vincent's own Kitty Kitty label; its title track -- the product of a session for Amsterdam radio -- was over an hour long, and was believed to be the longest "song" ever released. The same year, Half Japanese signed with Alternative Tentacles and issued Bone Head. In the years that followed, Jad Fair's flood of recorded material finally began to slow to a trickle, although he did continue his work in the visual arts (his paintings were exhibited periodically in Europe). After a four-year absence, Half Japanese finally returned in 2001 with their second album for Alternative Tentacles, Hello. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
Half Japanese is a rock band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair in their Uniontown, Maryland bedroom around 1975. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playing; vocals; and an out of tune (but quite distorted) guitar. Both Fair brothers sang, although over time Jad moved into the frontman role.
Jad is well-known for playing an untuned electric guitar. After 30 years, he still does not play in any traditional manner; in the documentary Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King he states that "the only chord I know is the one that connects the guitar to the amp."
Their lyrics often deal with monsters and the supernatural (especially as influenced by campy "creature feature" and scifi movies), in addition to more conventional themes, such as young love. They have stated that all their songs are either "love songs or monster songs."
The band played and recorded as a duo until the early '80s when they began incorporating additional members into the group: Mark Jickling (guitar and vocals) and brothers Ricky and John Dreyfuss (drums and saxophone). Since that time, dozens of musicians have come and gone under the Half Japanese banner, including Howard Wuelfing, Don Fleming, Jay Spiegel, and many, many others. Jad is the only member who has been with Half Japanese from the beginning. David Fair eventually left the band in the early 1980s to focus on his family. He has continued to make guest appearances with the band from time to time.
The next line-up of Half Japanese came together in the late 1980s. This incarnation featured guitarist/multi-instrumentalist John Sluggett (also a longtime member of Moe Tucker's band), multi-instrumentalist Jason Willett, and drummer Gilles Reider. Since then, the group has worked with Moe Tucker from the Velvet Underground, who produced Fire In the Sky (1993), Fred Frith, and John Zorn, among others.
Fans of Half Japanese include Penn Jillette, who helped the band release some of their albums on his label, 50 Skidillion Watts, and Kurt Cobain, who had them open for Nirvana on the group's 1993 tour. According to reports, Cobain was wearing a Half Japanese t-shirt when he died. [1]
The Weezer song "El Scorcho" contains the lyric "Goddamn you Half-Japanese girls", which reportedly was inspired by the band Half Japanese.[citation needed]
