Saturday, May 23, 2020

The 1980 Listening Post - Half Japanese - 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts

Half Japanese - 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts



#24
January 1980
Half Japanese
1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts
Genre: Art Punk
1 out of 5


(Non)Requisite 80s covers:
“10th Ave Freeze Out” If 10th avenue was on fire and they were playing it as they were running from the arson they created. 
“Tangled Up In Blue”. I hate Dylan. But not enough to endorse this piece of garbage. 



This debut is enormous. It’s 2+ hours long. And it sounds like it was recorded in my dorm room by my first punk band, if The Yeast Infection was fronted by Adam Sandler. 
It’s ugly and totally DIY.
“You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that’s pretty limiting,” wrote David Fair of 1/2 Japanese wrote in his mini-manifesto How to Play Guitar. “If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day.”
I don’t subscribe to the anti-everything nihilism of the Fair brothers. So, this is a nightmare for me to listen to. 
But, listen I did. I did not engage in that last live record, though, cuz, no live albums!
I want that hour back. 
I could’ve been practicing guitar. 

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