The project didn’t take off until Benair mentioned it to Yep Roc Records co-owner Glenn Dicker, who loved the idea. The show went so well and everybody had so much fun that Danny Benair (The Three O’Clock), Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), and Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) started talking about doing some type of album to celebrate their Paisley Underground beginnings. In 2013, the four ensembles got back together to share the bill at L.A.’s Fonda Theatre for a charity concert that benefited the non-profit Education Through Music organization. Īt the dawn of the ’80s, The Bangles (then just known as The Bangs), The Dream Syndicate, The Three O’Clock (originally called the Salvation Army), and Rain Parade were all new bands in Los Angeles who formed the core of the small yet influential Paisley Underground scene. Half Japanese are Jad Fair, John Sluggett, Gilles-Vincent Rieder, Jason Willett and Mick Hobbs. It has songs for those still bedevilled by one liners and abrasive melodies. It’s pop music for those outside of pop music. Their new studio album continues to be uncategorizable, joyous, detuned, quizzical, alluring, childlike, charming, innocent, questioning. You have to put in the work, have the imagination. It begs the question, is penultimate track ‘It Has Me’ about the former or the latter? As ever, this is a two-way thing, you make as much of Half Japanese as you want to. …a host of others remains a rose-coloured visionary, mocked by monsters and loved by girls. Fair, J, an inspiration on the Elephant Six groups, Kurt Cobain and… Noise is an important word here because one defining feature of the group is this.” They’ve been making noise since the late ’70s.
On their last excursion into the studio, Pop Matters summed them up as so: “Half-Japanese are a respected institution. “Hooray for love!” Jad intones on ‘All at Once’.
He feels invincible and as the closing instrumental cut ‘Indestructible’ floats off into the ether there’s a feeling of job done we can rest tonight everything is good we are loved and in love. Puppet people, vampires and the walking dead frequent the world of Jad Fair’s songwriting – outside of those interruptions he’s besotted.
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