Half Japanese

While Half Japanese never adhered closely to the rapid, aggressive sonic model associated with punk rock, even the genre’s earliest innovators could scarcely have foreseen how far the group would extend its core D.I.Y. principles. Brothers Jad and David Fair launched the project, which in its initial phase ranked among the most rudimentary rock ensembles to issue recordings since the Shaggs, largely bypassing fundamentals such as chord progressions, steady rhythms, and tuneful lines. The pair nevertheless elevated this approach into a deliberate artistic stance; David Fair’s essay “How to Play Guitar” codified the band’s outlook, asserting that discarding standard notions of finger placement, pitch adjustment, and even string installation removed all constraints on personal expression through an instrument that ultimately belonged to the player. From the middle of the 1970s onward, Half Japanese channeled this unrestrained mode of expression, with Jad Fair voicing themes of romantic disappointment and horror films while an ever-changing roster of musicians generated clamor behind him, positioning the group as one fated to attract devoted followers yet remain outside mainstream awareness. Over subsequent decades that devoted audience came to encompass figures such as Penn Jillette, Jello Biafra, Kurt Cobain, and Yo La Tengo, and the band issued a consistent sequence of idiosyncratic yet compelling albums during the 1980s and 1990s that established its members as respected senior figures within underground rock circles. Recording activity largely ceased through much of the 2000s as Jad Fair concentrated on solo work and visual art, yet Half Japanese resumed in 2014 with the buoyant and comparatively melodic Overjoyed, while successive archival reissues traced the development of their distinctive artistic perspective. Hear the Lions Roar in 2017 and Why Not? in 2019 stood among Fair’s most inviting and approachable releases, whereas Jump Into Love in 2023 balanced disorder with sincere lyrical expression.

Supporters regarded Half Japanese as the embodiment of unfiltered passion for rock & roll, the fullest realization of punk’s insistence that the form remain open to anyone willing to grasp an instrument. Critics, conversely, deemed the music abrasively cacophonous, nearly unendurable, and excessively deliberate in its cultivated artlessness. In earlier years, with fewer external inputs, the output leaned more toward disorder and emotional release; as years passed, David Fair participated only intermittently, and the industrious Jad assembled a stable nucleus of recurring accompanists who introduced a basic level of compositional craft.

Jad and David Fair established Half Japanese inside their bedroom during the mid-1970s. Reports vary regarding the precise year—anywhere from 1975 to 1977—and location—either Michigan or the Maryland area that later served as their base, since the family relocated frequently. It is documented that the siblings produced their initial home recordings in 1977 and issued the debut EP Calling All Girls that same year on their own 50 Skidillion Watts imprint. Additional homemade cassettes circulated through underground networks, leading to an agreement with the modest British independent Armageddon. In 1980 Half Japanese became the first act ever to present a three-record box set as a debut album; 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts gathered portions of those earlier domestic tapes, added barely recognizable renditions of material by the Temptations, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, and incorporated sonic experiments assembled from guitar distortion, electronics, and unusual sounds. Their principal reference points remained the sparseness of the Velvet Underground and the guilelessness of Jonathan Richman, occasionally infused with Iggy Pop’s raw edge. Across time, 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts acquired legendary status within collector circles, aided by its rarity, and anticipated the lo-fi aesthetic that emerged in early-1990s indie rock.

A follow-up album for Armageddon, the fittingly named Loud, appeared in 1981 and paired the brothers’ dissonant clamor and free-associative songwriting with a supporting ensemble of free-jazz players. The Horrible EP, a set of tracks honoring horror cinema, came out on Press in 1983. Around this period Jad Fair simultaneously launched an equally prolific solo career, releasing material under his own name and through collaborative side projects that continued into the 1990s. On the Iridescence label, Half Japanese advanced musically with 1984’s Our Solar System, which alternated between rock and spontaneous chamber jazz while deploying different musicians for different settings. Several of those players—multi-instrumentalist John Dreyfuss, guitarist Don Fleming (also active in B.A.L.L., the Velvet Monkeys, and Gumball), bassist/guitarist Mark Jickling, and drummer Jay Spiegel among them—maintained associations with Half Japanese in later years. Retaining many of the same musicians, the succeeding album, 1984’s Sing No Evil, represented a further, relative move toward accessibility through its sharpened songwriting and formal organization, and it continues to be cited by numerous listeners as one of the band’s strongest achievements.

After Iridescence folded, the group reactivated its 50 Skidillion Watts label with assistance from longtime admirer and magician Penn Jillette. In 1987 David Fair stepped away temporarily to focus on family matters; thereafter he contributed sporadically whenever circumstances allowed. Working without his sibling for the first time under the Half Japanese name, Jad Fair collaborated with Shimmy Disc founder Kramer on 1987’s Music to Strip By, which yielded the single “U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums” and sustained the movement toward greater musical coherence. David Fair rejoined for the buoyant 1988 album Charmed Life, which received some of the most favorable notices of the band’s history. He had again withdrawn by the time of the more exploratory follow-up, 1989’s The Band That Would Be King, which placed Jad Fair alongside Kramer and free-improvisation luminaries John Zorn and Fred Frith, together with several recurring associates. The relaxed, impromptu atmosphere extended to the subsequent release, 1990’s uneven We Are They Who Ache with Amorous Love, issued on the New Jersey label T.E.C. Tones. That record featured an extensive roster of past and present Half Japanese associates, among them the musicians who would form the core of the 1990s lineup: guitarist John Sluggett, Swiss-born drummer Gilles-Vincent Rieder, guitarist/bassist Mick Hobbs, and bassist Jason Willett, in addition to longtime supporter Mark Jickling.

The year 1993 brought Half Japanese their highest degree of public exposure. Devoted admirer Kurt Cobain, an advocate for guileless, rudimentary indie-rock acts such as the Vaselines and the Raincoats, invited the group to support Nirvana on the East Coast portion of the In Utero tour. Director Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary The Band That Would Be King, named after the recent album, reached art-house cinemas, while T.E.C. Tones reissued 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts as a two-CD collection. Half Japanese also delivered a new album, Fire in the Sky, on the Safe House label. One of the most direct rock-oriented entries in their discography, it included a guest appearance by former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker, who occasionally employed Half Japanese as a touring unit and frequently featured Jad Fair on her own recordings. Released in 1995, Hot extended the rock-focused direction of its predecessor; that same year Safe House issued a double-disc, career-spanning overview titled, with tongue in cheek, Greatest Hits. In 1996 Jad and David reunited under their own names to record Best Friends. Heaven Sent arrived in 1997 on drummer Gilles Vincent’s Kitty Kitty label; its title track, drawn from an Amsterdam radio session, exceeded an hour in length and was considered the longest “song” ever committed to record. Also in 1997, Half Japanese signed with Alternative Tentacles and released Bone Head.

In the ensuing period the band’s previously torrential output gradually diminished, although Jad Fair remained active as a solo artist and continued his visual-art practice, with paintings shown periodically in Europe. Following a four-year hiatus, Half Japanese returned in 2001 with their second Alternative Tentacles album, Hello. Activity then quieted until 2014, when Fire Records initiated a reissue campaign beginning with a fresh pressing of 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts, followed by Volume 1: 1981-1985, which gathered Loud, Our Solar System, and Sing No Evil. Volume Two: 1987-1989 appeared in January 2014, collecting Music to Strip By, Charmed Life, and The Band That Would Be King, while Volume Three: 1990-1995, issued in May 2015, combined We Are They Who Ache with Amorous Love, Fire in the Sky, and Hot. Fire also reissued the live album Boo!, captured during a 1992 European tour.

In late 2013 Jad and David Fair disclosed that they had reentered the studio with Deerhoof’s John Dieterich producing to create the follow-up to Hello. Titled Overjoyed, the album emerged on Joyful Noise in September 2014. After the unexpected limited-edition lathe-cut Bingo Ringo EP in 2015, the band delivered its next full-length, Perfect, in January 2016. Maintaining their steady pace, Half Japanese issued another album in early 2017, Hear the Lions Roar, and January 2018 brought Why Not?. The group returned in early 2019 with Invincible, a melodic and engaging set centered on Jad Fair’s favored subjects: love, optimistic outlook, and monster movies. 2020’s similarly themed Crazy Hearts constituted a robust, rock-driven LP captured during sessions spanning the United States, Spain, and France. In 2021 the band further mined its archives with the Record Store Day release of I Guess I’m Living: The Charmed Life Tapes, containing alternate versions of songs from 1988’s Charmed Life plus previously unreleased material. In 2023 Jad and his colleagues released Jump Into Love, a studio album of entirely new material distinguished by frantic instrumentation and rapid, exclamatory sung/spoken vocals.