Half Japanese

When I was about 18, I rented a DVD from Netflix called Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King. It was a documentary about a band called Half Japanese, who many within the wold of music felt had been unjustly neglected by the explosion of alternative rock in the early nineties. The film had been made by Jeff Feuerzeig, who years later would create a massive hit within the documentary sphere called The Devil And Daniel Johnston, which introduced the world to another pivotal and often overlooked alternative musician.

After I watch the Half Japanese documentary, at first I thought the whole thing was a joke, a la This Is Spinal Tap. When a bit of Internet research turned up information suggesting Half Japanese was indeed a real band, I became curious, and I felt obligated to get more into a band that people like Maureen Tucker (drummer for The Velvet Underground) and Byron Coley (big deal music critic) had raved about so much in the movie. I grabbed the first Half Japanese album I could. The record was Hot, which came out in 1995. Honestly, I put it on, and I thought, ‘This is okay, but nothing groundbreaking.’ I was dying to check out the band’s earlier releases, but they were long out of print, and weren’t even easy to come by on ebay.

For a while, while I was going to school at Chico State, I DJed for the campus radio station, KCSC. Among the massive record collection (that hardly anybody ever touched) I found a copy of two Half Japanese albums. Charmed Life, which is often considered to be the band’s quintessential work, and The Band That Would Be King, which is often considered to be a close second. I was stoked. I was mates with the manager at KCSC, and was allowed to do the unthinkable, take two very rare, very valuable records from the station, and give them to a friend who could convert vinyl into CDs.

To make a long story short, I lost both CDs before I was able to listen to them very much. I was super bummed, until recently, when I was able to re-aquire Charmed Life, as well as Calling All Girls, Sing No Evil, and Half Gentlemen/Not Beasts, all totally crucial albums.

A quick listen to any of these, and it’s very easy to see why Half Japanese is considered such an incredible band. The music is short, technically unskilled, and bizarre in the best way possible. It goes to depths that would soon become imitated with commercial success by the likes of Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Green River, etc. This is not to say listening to any of these bands will prepare you for the fuck attack that if Half Japanese. The band may be always bridesmaids and never brides, but thank goodness the large-scale dissemination of underground music that is the Internet has allowed music fiends to get their fix of an utterly necessary group. If you aren’t familiar, get familiar, NOW!