Half Japanese wield an instantly recognizable yet consistently evolving amateurism springing from the immediate shockwaves of 1977 and continuing right up to the present; they stand as one of the true pillars of Underground USA. Featuring numerous personnel led by solitary constant member Jad Fair, the band has inspired scores of folks to pick up instruments and press record. Particularly significant were the albums released in the late-‘80s; this week Fire Records carries on anthologizing their output by collecting those and relevant bonus material in the 3LP/3CD/digital set Volume Two: 1987-1989.
While it’s taken a back seat to Jeff Feuerzeig’s excellent 2005 film portrait The Devil and Daniel Johnston, I rate that director’s ‘93 documentary Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King nearly as high, in large part because its approach, often comedic but never mocking, is as endearingly unconventional as the subject it covers.
Much of the humor is Feuerzeig poking fun at the overzealous stumping of music docs in general. Along the way indie celebrity talking heads, occasionally purposefully grandstanding, help to deliver essential background as performances by Jad Fair and his cohorts quietly shift the film’s tone from satire/parody (a mock-Mockumentary, if you will) to an essay of singular brilliance.
Like the movie, the sounds harnessed in the prior installments of Fire Records’ reissue series, namely ½ Gentlemen/ Not Beasts and Volume One: 1981-1985, vividly illustrate that the world, certainly not before and hardly ever since, offered nothing comparable to the fascinating growth spurts of the early incarnations of Half Japanese.
Started by brothers Jad and David Fair in 1975 as a two-man outfit, they announced their presence in ‘77 with the self-released nine-track EP “Calling All Girls.” It remains one of the most startling documents of uninhibited soul purge ever grooved into vinyl, but it was only a teaser for ½ Gentlemen/ Not Beasts; issued in ’79 by the UK label Armageddon, it’s reportedly history’s first instance of a group making their long-playing debut with a 3LP box.
I’m not alone in rating those six sides as a masterwork of truly unique American ingenuity. Both of its reissues have included extras, Fire adding an LP’s worth, but the initial third disc held two side-long live sets in Baltimore and Washington, DC. They brought a second pair of bothers, Rick and John Dreyfuss of the Chumps, into the equation on drums and sax respectively, their arrival pointing forward to what’s on ‘81’s Loud, ‘84’s Our Solar System, and ‘85’s Sing No Evil, the slabs comprising Volume One: 1981-1985.
On those records Jad and David employ varying levels of assistance to reinforce the beautifully bent sincerity of their response to punk’s “anybody can do it so do it yourself” mandate. And Feuerzeig’s flick details the story from the beginning, but in the late-‘80s Half Japanese’s already legendary early discs were pretty scarce on the shelves. Therefore, many of us made our first acquaintance with the band through what’s assembled in Volume Two.
‘87’s Music To Strip By, ‘88’s Charmed Life, and ‘89’s The Band That Would Be King could be uncovered in shopping malls as released by 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts of Power in the Hands of Babies, or 50 Skadillion Watts Records for short, the venture started in ’77 reactivated via the kindness of notable magician, talker, and Half Japanese fan Penn Jillette after their label Iridescence went kaput.
All three of the 50 Skadillion LPs remain classics that proved extremely influential to ‘90s alt/indie; there’s K Records-style “love-rock” (Calvin Johnson released a split live cassette with Half Jap and DC running partners the Velvet Monkeys in ‘86) and the additional Pac NW rumblings of the fledgling Kill Rock Stars label, together with Jad’s collaborators Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), and his outsider contemporary Daniel Johnston, plus the Spinanes (who recorded “Jad Fair Drives Women Wild”) and of course Kurt Cobain.
But at the time, Half Japanese was transitioning from an art-damaged fringe fixture on the DC scene (with the Chumps and others they figured on Limp Records’ :30 Over DC compilation) to a crucial component in the landscape of the late-‘80s underground. Complications with Iridescence delayed Charmed Life until ’88, but it was recorded in ’85 and is the best place to begin surveying the contents of Volume Two.
The credits shape up into a DC supergroup of sorts, the majority retained from Sing No Evil; alongside the siblings Dreyfus there’s Jay Spiegel and Don Fleming of the Velvet Monkeys, Mark Jickling of Underheaven, and John Moremen of Hyaa!, with production services provided by Don Zientara. But Charmed Life is also the final Half Japanese album to offer the musical input of David Fair (he kept contributing cover art), though he didn’t quit music entirely, releasing an LP as leader of Coo Coo Rockin Time and later teaming with Jad on Best Friends.
Not accurately described as tight, Charmed Life’s opener “Said and Done” finds the band navigating its looseness; the incessant reed chewing of Dreyfus, the spirited drumming of Spiegel, the shared singing of the chorus, with aplomb. 21 tracks deep including a handful of their most revered numbers, it’s an utter treat.
There’s the suave hip-sway of “Love at First Sight,” the gallant love tug of “Red Dress,” the off-center swamp-garage of the title cut, and the bluesy swagger of Jimmy Reed’s “I’ll Change My Style.” Across both sides the participants continue to refine the Half Japanese experience into a sound simultaneously identifiable as rock while remaining essentially distinct from any stylistic antecedent, in part due to Jad’s avoidance of testosterone-fueled cliché as he plumbs deep into concerns of the heart.
Love odes, cover tunes, and monster-horror-cinema songs were the mainstays of early Half Jap, and that’s maintained on Charmed Life; blending with multiple excursions into amour is another swell one by Reed (“Bright Lights Big City”), a doozy by The Stooges (“Real Cool Time”), a celluloid-themed instrumental (“Terminator”), and a ditty about a sea beast (“Trouble in the Water”).
But the LP expands the subject matter a bit, with historical references (“Vietnam”) and nods to pro wrestling (“Face Rake”) as Fleming takes the lead vocal on a few tracks including “Real Cool Time” and the very impressive “Trouble in the Water.” Altogether, it splendidly captures a band making grand strides in a fruitfully low-pressure environment (as evidenced by the false start of “I’ll Change My Style”), and next to ½ Gentlemen/ Not Beasts, I’ve always ranked it as Half Japanese’s finest moment.
So it kinda goes without saying that I consider Charmed Life to be one of the ‘80’s great LPs. By extension, ‘87’s Music to Strip By has impacted my ear over the years as lesser if still strong enough to eschew the designation of disappointment; considering the absence of David, that’s actually quite impressive.
Swapping out the entire lineup save for Jickling and replacing them with guitarist Steve Johnson and the rhythm section of Rob Kennedy (another former Chump) and Scott Jarvis (ex-Hi Sheriffs of Blue etc), a duo noted for recording under the name the Workdogs, an increased instrumental adeptness is quickly discernible in opener “Stripping for Cash.”
Music to Strip By was produced by Mark Kramer, a relationship unsurprising as 50 Skadillion Watts sorta connected as a parallel development to Kramer’s Shimmy Disc label, an enterprise responsible for two collabs by Jad and the prolific musician-producer (he was also in a couple bands with Jillette); bringing reliable clarity and balance, his organizational hand audibly palpable in the recurrent interjection of pre-existing audio, often nabbed from movies.
It’s a familiar Kramer tactic, spanning back to Shockabilly and playing an integral role in Bongwater. Here it at times registers a little extraneous, though it doesn’t harm the album. More impressive is Jad’s widening perspective, which frequently wrangles a B-movie-like intersection of desperation and sensationalism (e.g. “Stripping for Cash,” “Diary,” “Big Mistake,” “The Last Straw,” “Ouija Board Summons Satan,” “My Sordid Past”), and how it combines with the raised dexterity of the music.
“U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums” dabbles in the topical and gives it a hardcore beat. There are also interpretations of Fats Domino (“Blue Monday”) and Willie Dixon (“Hidden Charms”), and welcome guest spots from NRBQ’s Terry Adams, lending lopsided accordion to “Big Mistake” and spiffy piano to a left-field cover of “La Bamba,” and Brit-tenor saxophonist Gary Windo, whose smoldering lines elevate the outstanding “Silver and Katherine.” That cut inspires the finale; it’s followed by the gripping “Money to Burn,” the lively “Hidden Charms,” and the humidly sauntering closer “My Sordid Past.”
The Band That Would Be King adjusts the program, benefiting from the return of Fleming (adios Steve Johnson), a slightly less assertive role by Kramer as he contributes organ and bass, sweet cameos (guitarist Fred Frith on “Daytona Beach” and a pair of saxophonists, George Cartwright on “Some Things Last a Long Time” and “Brand New Moon,” and downtown NYC kingpin John Zorn on the brief skronk-fest “Ride Ride Ride”), a dandy, wholly accessible reading of Daniel Johnston’s “I Live For Love,” and a smattering of rockers like “Open Your Eyes/Close Your Eyes,” “Lucky Star,” and “What More Can I Do?”
There are also a few Jad gems. “Daytona Beach”’s inventory of seasonal imagery is a neo-summertime party nugget, and “Put Some Sugar on It,” arguably the record’s highpoint (though Fleming almost steals the show again with the melancholy “Ashes on the Ground”), is a stellar slice of guitar pop grandeur derived from a long-chewed wad of bubblegum (specifically a tune sung by Archie Andrews) establishing Jad could pull in a potentially wider listener base without diminishing his personality one bit.
To the contrary, he coasted victoriously into the ‘90s as a highly valued surviving example of punk individualism. It was only when the platform got too large (like touring as opener for post-splash Nirvana) that he would catch a little flak from squares. Such were the circumstances of the era, but Jad wasn’t limited by small minds; ending a long hiatus, a new Half Japanese album appeared last year.
Much, possibly all, of the bonus stuff rounded-up here was previously available, and as proper addenda should, it effectively amplifies aspects found on the LPs. There’s a load of wrestling songs (“George Steele,” “King Kong Bundy,” “Mongolian Stretcher,” “Something New in the Ring”), a monster/movie piece (“Frankenstein Meets Billy the Kid”), and a bunch of alternate versions (like a blazing “Charmed Life” originally on the Homestead Records’ comp Human Music). Fleming even gets to sing a trucker song (“Big Wheels”).
But the meat of the matter is the records gathered in this set; for fans, this is an easy way to procure three of the band’s classics on vinyl or CD, and for anyone cultivating a hearty shelf of ‘80s u-ground rock, Volume Two: 1987-1989 is simply mandatory.
Charmed Life
A+
Music to Strip By
A-
The Band That Would Be King
A
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
