First World Problems

I'm a bit peckish as well, but I have a lot of one thing that I made a few days ago and I'm already kind of over it even though it's really quite good and was pretty satisfying the first few times I ate it. But the honeymoon is over and it's time for it to head to the freezer. Unfortunately for me, it's also the only thing I have to currently eat.

So I guess, I'm stuck eating this delicious thing that I'm not really in the mood for anymore.

Everyone Knew...But Me (1983)

The first time that Jad Fair flew solo on a Long Player and it's just chock full of hits that should have been.

While the actual Billboard Chart Toppers for the year were that creepy stalker classic "Every Breath You Take"by that band with that one dude your mom listened to in the car back in the 90's and "Billie Jean" by that other creepy dead guy plus a song from a movie about a really hot welder/softcore stripper and a whole host of other crap Jad Fair made this and released it and nobody paid that much attention.

Seriously, I'd like to travel to that other of the infinite other parallel dimensions where "Snake on my Head" was a smash single and #1 on the charts.
I think I'd like that dimension a lot better than this one.

How I Feel.....Horrible

Blah Blah Blah

Horrible (1982)


It's Half Japanese. It's a 12" 45rpm Elongated Player. It has "Thing With a Hook" and "Rosemary's Baby" on it and I really like those songs a whole hell of a lot. Spend some money and buy some of the reissues yourself.
That is all.

Some Days I Just Don't Have It in Me.

Yeah, it's chilly and there's a cat in my lap and I'm just generally feeling kind of grouchy,  but things must happen and I'll churn out a post or two and call it good

Spy (1981)

So we're continuing with the Half Japanese stuff. There's also going to be some Jad Fair stuff mixed in because they're essentially the same thing. After the big box set of the last post we start getting to the things that I can listen to more often.

It does however start off with a Doors cover. I never really liked the Doors.

They were music that the people who gave me a shit in high school listened to. Plus Morrison was such a pretentious douche who's literary stylings were about as profound as anything that ever was scrabbled in a teenage sophomore journal.

I just can't do it.

But here's the Half Japanese take on it.





I find the other side of this to be more enjoyable anyway.

Take It Magazine Flexi (1981)

In the year of 1981, Half Japanese also shared space on this flexi with the Mutants that came with a copy of Take It Magazine, back issues of which you can apparently still purchase.

How cool is that?

On this one the boys in the band do a version of "Heart" by Petula Clark but done much better by those Boston garage legends the Remains. That's the one that I know and love ever since I found a beat original mono copy of that Remains Lp for two whole dollars in Central Square in probably 1983 or so.

But you can listen to this one now.

Brutal Firsts

This.

Half Gentlemen/Not Beasts (1980)

I've had this box set for decades. I've had it so long and it's been sitting in my record shelves for such a length of time that it barely registers on my any more that it even exists. It's just one of those dust magnets. It's there.

 I've also only listened to all three Lps in one sitting precisely once in all these years.

That was when I digitized it.

To be fair (or Jad Fair if I wanted to make a pun), I hadn't actually pulled it out in a long long time. I was kind of traumatized by it when I first got it because I had no idea what to make of it. It was noisy and almost non-musical and sounded for all the world like adults making music like they were six year olds which is, I guess, kind of the point but didn't quite click with my youthful brain at the time. All these years later, and a bunch of other records later and life and what not, it still sounds like that but I find that it makes more sense and that for the most part I kind of like it. It's certainly the most primitive album that Jad and David Fair made under the Half Japanese moniker.

Still not likely to be the first Half Japanese record I'm going to pull off the shelf at any given moment, but I'm not going to curl up in a corner.

If you're the type to actually go out and purchase things and not a filthy leech then you should also know that Fire Records has done a bang up job with reissuing pretty much everything and you can have it for your very own to stroke lovingly in your very own home.

Not That One, The Other One

This may be initially confusing, but it's not really.

Once upon a time there was a short lived duo/band from Olympia, WA that called themselves

Courtney Love.

This group did not involve the infamous ex of the dead guy that fifteen year olds wear t-shirts of. I'm not sure how they got away with it, but they did.

Uncrushworthy (1991)

It involved Lois Maffeo and Pat Maley.
And all told they recorded three singles before moving onto other things.

Here are two of the three.

Highlights (1991)

You're welcome.
 I have nothing more to add.