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Review: Half Japanese
Jad Fair, the Michigan-native-now-Manor-based musician, is the sole constant member of the band Half Japanese. But the band started back in the mid-’70s as a collaboration between Jad and his brother David Fair. Their earliest material — the “Calling All Girls” 7-inch EP, the chaotic double LP debut “Half Gentlemen/Not Beasts” and the album “Loud” made with an expanded line-up — are considered stone classics of outsider rock art, possessing of a two dorks against the world quality that noise-nicks have been trying to chase ever since. David Fair has been absent from the band for years.
A good percentage of the classic Half Japanese lineup — the Brothers Fair, bassist Mark Jickling, saxophonist John Dreyfuss, drummer Rick Dreyfuss and guitarist John Moremen — played at 11 p.m. at Spiro’s Amphitheater Friday night. There’s always been a childlike quality to Half Japanese’s music, a mix of naive art and skilled musicians who really like naive art.
Jad played a tiny, toy-like electric guitar and David Fair (aging astoundingly well) jumped around like a little kid while the band cranked like the old pros they are (Yo La Tengo guitarist Ira Kaplan sat in on saxophone). The large crowd was, naturally, mighty nerd-heavy — not too many hipsters there to hear the next big thing. Attendees were there to hear the old thing than gave rise to a whole lot of the new things or inspired the band that then gave rise to the old things. It was surreal to hear these songs by these people in 2008 (and a little Half Japanese goes a long way), but it was certainly welcome.
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