Jad Fair
Encyclopedia
Jad Fair is an American singer, guitarist
and graphic artist, most famous for being a founding member of lo-fi alternative rock
group Half Japanese
.
. Since then, Half Japanese released nearly 30 records.
Fair performs and records as a solo artist, as well as collaborating with such artists as Terry Adams
, Norman Blake
, Kevin Blechdom
, Isobel Campbell
, Eugene Chadbourne
, DQE
, Steve Fisk
, Fred Frith
, God Is My Co-Pilot
, Richard Hell
, Daniel Johnston
, J. Mascis, Jason Willett
, Monster Party
, R. Stevie Moore
, Thurston Moore
, The Pastels
, Phono-Comb
, Steve Shelley
, Strobe Talbot, Teenage Fanclub
, The Tinklers
, Moe Tucker, Bill Wells
, Jason Willett
, Adult Rodeo, Lumberob, Yo La Tengo
, and John Zorn
.
Because of his constant output and his large series of collaborations, his discography is very large, and consists of mostly releases on small, independent labels.
He's also active as a visual artist, drawing
s as well as papercutting
s. He took up papercutting to alleviate boredom while touring on the road. Many of the album covers are made by Fair. Four books of Fair's art have been published. Exhibitions of Fair's paper cuts and drawings have taken place in New York, Tokyo, Glasgow, Austin, Paris, London and Houston.
In 2008 Vincent Moon
made a short documentary called Paris lost in Texas, which is part of his The Take-Away Shows-series. In this short movie he visits Fair in house in Texas. In the same year experimental instrument builder Yuri Landman
constructed for Fair a special 2 string instrument called the Bachelor QS.
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and graphic artist, most famous for being a founding member of lo-fi alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
group Half Japanese
Half Japanese
Half Japanese is a punk rock band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair in their Coldwater, Michigan bedroom around 1975. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playing; vocals; and an out of tune guitar...
.
Biography
In 1974, with his brother David, Jad Fair founded the lo-fi group Half JapaneseHalf Japanese
Half Japanese is a punk rock band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair in their Coldwater, Michigan bedroom around 1975. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playing; vocals; and an out of tune guitar...
. Since then, Half Japanese released nearly 30 records.
Fair performs and records as a solo artist, as well as collaborating with such artists as Terry Adams
Terry Adams (musician)
Terry Adams is an American pianist/composer and a founding member of the musical group NRBQ , known for decades of extensive touring, energetic and humorous live shows, and wide-ranging musical repertoire, including rock, blues, country, pop, and jazz...
, Norman Blake
Norman Blake (Scottish musician)
Norman Blake is a singer-songwriter in the Glasgow based band, Teenage Fanclub.Blake and Sean Dickson were in The Faith Healers together, which also contained various members at different times Stevie Gray, Hugh McLaughlin, Brian Carson and Colin Murray to name but a few.Blake and Carson were...
, Kevin Blechdom
Kevin Blechdom
Kevin Blechdom, born Kristin Erickson, is an American experimental electronic musician/performance artist from San Francisco, California.-Life and career:...
, Isobel Campbell
Isobel Campbell
Isobel Campbell is a Scottish singer, cellist and composer in the indie and rock genres.-History:Campbell was a member of Belle & Sebastian from their formation in Glasgow in 1996 until 2002, when she departed the band for personal reasons. She played cello and keyboards with the band, and sang...
, Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne is an American improvisor, guitarist and banjoist. Highly eclectic and unconventional, Chadbourne's most formative influence is free jazz. He has also been a reviewer for Allmusic and a contributor to Maximum RocknRoll.Chadbourne started out playing rock and roll guitar, but...
, DQE
DQE
DQE Holdings is a traditional utility company based in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company provides electric power to much of metro Pittsburgh, competing with longtime rival Allegheny Power and has extended its services into northern West Virginia and eastern Ohio...
, Steve Fisk
Steve Fisk
Steve Fisk is a Washington-based audio engineer, record producer and musician.Fisk joined the instrumental rock band Pell Mell in 1982. With vocalist Shawn Smith, he formed Pigeonhed, which released its first album in 1993....
, Fred Frith
Fred Frith
Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
, God Is My Co-Pilot
God is My Co-Pilot
God Is My Co-Pilot may refer to:*God is My Co-Pilot a book by Gen. Robert Lee Scott Jr., USAF *God is My Co-Pilot a 1945 film based on the above book*God Is My Co-Pilot a band from New York City...
, Richard Hell
Richard Hell
Richard Hell is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion. He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins...
, Daniel Johnston
Daniel Johnston
Daniel Dale Johnston is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He currently lives in Waller, Texas....
, J. Mascis, Jason Willett
Jason Willett
Jason Willett is an American musician, known largely for his work with experimental rock groups including Half Japanese, Can Openers, Pleasant Livers, X-Ray Eyes, The Dramatics, The Jaunties, The Attitude Robots, Leprechaun Catering, and many more...
, Monster Party
Monster Party
is a video game for the NES, released in the U.S. in 1989 by Bandai. It was and remains a relatively obscure platform game for the console, having a small following among some players. The game follows a boy named Mark who is asked by a gargoyle/dragon-like alien named Bert to help rid his world,...
, R. Stevie Moore
R. Stevie Moore
Robert Steven Moore is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. In addition to having numerous albums released on labels around the world, the prolific Moore has self-released over 400 cassette and CD-R albums since 1968, as well as dozens of home videos, mostly through the R. Stevie Moore...
, Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...
, The Pastels
The Pastels
The Pastels are a group from Glasgow, Scotland, UK.Their early records for labels like Whaam!, Creation, Rough Trade, and Glass Records, had a raw and immediate sound, melodic and amateur, which seemed at odds with the time...
, Phono-Comb
Phono-Comb
Phono-Comb was a Canadian instrumental/modern surf rock group that originated in Toronto, Ontario.-History:Phono-Comb first materialized when Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet played with Jad Fair when he was performing in Toronto to promote a film about his band Half Japanese...
, Steve Shelley
Steve Shelley
Steven Jay Shelley is an American drummer, best known as the drummer of alternative rock band Sonic Youth.-Biography:...
, Strobe Talbot, Teenage Fanclub
Teenage Fanclub
Teenage Fanclub are an alternative rock band from Bellshill, Scotland. The band is composed of Norman Blake , Raymond McGinley , Gerard Love and Francis MacDonald , with songwriting duties shared equally among Blake, McGinley and Love...
, The Tinklers
The Tinklers
The Tinklers are a band from Baltimore who have been together since 1979. The group consists of Charles Brohawn and Chris Mason, both of whom sing, play guitar, and percussion instruments of varying degrees of quality . Both members are also actively engaged in creating art in other mediums...
, Moe Tucker, Bill Wells
Bill Wells
Bill Wells is a Scottish bassist, pianist, guitarist and composer.He is best known for his group the Bill Wells Octet, since the early 1990s, but he has performed and recorded in a wide range of settings, including collaborations with The Pastels, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Future Pilot A.K.A., Lol...
, Jason Willett
Jason Willett
Jason Willett is an American musician, known largely for his work with experimental rock groups including Half Japanese, Can Openers, Pleasant Livers, X-Ray Eyes, The Dramatics, The Jaunties, The Attitude Robots, Leprechaun Catering, and many more...
, Adult Rodeo, Lumberob, Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan , Georgia Hubley , and James McNew .Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential...
, and John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
.
Because of his constant output and his large series of collaborations, his discography is very large, and consists of mostly releases on small, independent labels.
He's also active as a visual artist, drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
s as well as papercutting
Papercutting
Papercutting is the art of cutting paper designs. The art has evolved uniquely all over the world to adopt to different cultural styles.-History:...
s. He took up papercutting to alleviate boredom while touring on the road. Many of the album covers are made by Fair. Four books of Fair's art have been published. Exhibitions of Fair's paper cuts and drawings have taken place in New York, Tokyo, Glasgow, Austin, Paris, London and Houston.
In 2008 Vincent Moon
Vincent Moon
Vincent Moon is an independent filmmaker from Paris mainly known for his field work music videos of indie rock related musicians as well as some notable mainstream artists like Tom Jones, R.E.M. or Arcade Fire. Besides making music videos he also makes experimental films and documentaries...
made a short documentary called Paris lost in Texas, which is part of his The Take-Away Shows-series. In this short movie he visits Fair in house in Texas. In the same year experimental instrument builder Yuri Landman
Yuri Landman
Yuri Landman is a Dutch experimental luthier who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a list of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japanese and Liam Finn...
constructed for Fair a special 2 string instrument called the Bachelor QS.
Albums
- Everyone Knew ... But Me (Press, 1983)
- Monarchs (Iridescence, 1984)
- Best Wishes (Iridescence, 1987)
- Great Expectations (Bad Alchemy, 1989)
- Attack of Everything (Paperback, 1990)
- I Like It When You Smile (Paperhouse, 1992)
- Short Songs (Smells Like Records, 1993)
- Greater Expectations (Psycho Acoustic Sounds/TEC. Tones, 1995)
- Jackpot, Songs and Art (Paperback, 1997)
- Spooly Tales (Book & CD, 1997)
- Sunshiney Sunshine (download)
Singles
- "Good Day" - (Arts & Crafts Series Vol. 1, ?)
- "Three Cycles" (France, 2005)
- "Samantha" (Third Uncles Records, 2009)
With David Fair
- Jad and David Fair - Best Friends (UK Vesuvius, 1996)
- Jad and David Fair - 26 Monster Songs for Children (Kill Rock StarsKill Rock StarsKill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and based in both Olympia, Washington and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, making it difficult to pigeonhole as having any one artistic mission...
, 1998) - Jad and David Fair - Six Dozen Cookies (2006)
- David and Jad Fair - Halloween Songs (Thick Syrup Records, 2008)
- David and Jad Fair - I'll Be Moe (Thick Syrup Records, 2009)
With Daniel Johnston
- Jad Fair and Daniel JohnstonDaniel JohnstonDaniel Dale Johnston is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He currently lives in Waller, Texas....
- It's SpookyIt's SpookyIt's Spooky is a collaboration album by musicians Daniel Johnston and Jad Fair, of the band Half Japanese. It was first released in 1989 on 50 Skidillion Watts Records, under the title Jad Fair and Daniel Johnston. It was re-issued on CD in 1993 on Paperhouse...
(50 Skidillion Watts, 1989) - The Lucky Sperms - Somewhat Humorous (JagjaguwarJagjaguwarJagjaguwar is an indie rock record label based in Bloomington, Indiana.-History:In 1996, in Charlottesville, Virginia, friends of Darius Van Arman who performed in a band under the moniker The Curious Digit had just recorded a new album, but they were signed to no label...
, 2001)
Albums
- Jad Fair and Kramer - Roll Out The Barrel (1988, Shimmy-Disc)
- Jad Fair and Kramer - The Sound of Music. An Unfinished Symphony in 12 Parts (1998, Shimmy-Disc/Knitting FactoryKnitting FactoryThe Knitting Factory is a music venue and concert house with locations in Brooklyn, Boise, Reno, and Spokane. The club originally specialized in jazz and experimental music and has expanded to showcasing all genres of music, performing arts and comedy....
)
In Mosquito
- Mosquito - Oh No Not Another Mosquito My House Is Full of Them! (Psycho Acoustic Sounds, 1993)
- Mosquito - Time Was (ERL/Smells Like RecordsSmells Like RecordsSmells Like Records is an independent record label based in Hoboken, New Jersey formed by Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley in 1993. Groups that have recorded under the label include Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead, Cat Power, The Raincoats, Fuck, and The Rondelles....
, 1993) - Mosquito - UFO Catcher (Japan. Time Bomb, 1993)
- Mosquito - Cupid's Fist (Hol. Red Note, 1994)
Albums
- Jad and Nao - Half Robot (Paperhouse, 1993)
- Jad and Nao - Half Alien (Sakura Wrechords Japan, 1997)
- Jad and Nao - Half Monster (Misc. Music, 2008)
EPs
- Jad Fair and The PastelsThe PastelsThe Pastels are a group from Glasgow, Scotland, UK.Their early records for labels like Whaam!, Creation, Rough Trade, and Glass Records, had a raw and immediate sound, melodic and amateur, which seemed at odds with the time...
- This Could Be the Night EP (Paperhouse, 1991) - Jad Fair and The Pastels - No. 2 EP (Paperhouse, 1992)
With The Shapir-O Rama
- Jad Fair & The Shapir-O'Rama - We Are the Rage (Japan. Avant) 1996
- I Like Your Face - Jad Fair & Shapir-O'Rama (1999)
- We Are the Rage - Jad Fair & the Shapir-O Rama (2002)
Albums
- Teenage FanclubTeenage FanclubTeenage Fanclub are an alternative rock band from Bellshill, Scotland. The band is composed of Norman Blake , Raymond McGinley , Gerard Love and Francis MacDonald , with songwriting duties shared equally among Blake, McGinley and Love...
and Jad Fair - Words Of Wisdom And HopeWords of Wisdom and Hope-Personnel:*Jad Fair: Vocals*Norman Blake: Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Keyboards, Additional Bass*Raymond MacGinley: Lead Guitar, Mandola*Finlay McDonald: Keyboards, Additional Bass*Gerard Love: Bass, Additional Drums*Katrina Mitchell: Drums*Paul Quinn: Drums...
(Domino, 2002)
Singles
- Teenage Fanclub and Jad Fair - "Near To You" (Geographic, 2002)
- Teenage Fanclub and Jad Fair - "Always In My Heart" (Alternative Tentacles, 2002)
- Teenage Fanclub and Jad Fair - "Like a Monkey in a Zoo" (Pema, 2006)
Albums
- Jason WillettJason WillettJason Willett is an American musician, known largely for his work with experimental rock groups including Half Japanese, Can Openers, Pleasant Livers, X-Ray Eyes, The Dramatics, The Jaunties, The Attitude Robots, Leprechaun Catering, and many more...
/Jad Fair/Gilles Rieder (Megaphone) (1992) - Jason Willett & Jad Fair - It's All Good (Megaphone Limited) (1995)
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - Honeybee (Dr Jim's, 1996)
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - The Mighty Super-Heroes (Marginal Talent, 1997)
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - Wonderful World (Shrimper) (1997) triple cassette
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - Twister (Dark Beloved Cloud) (1997)lp
- Jason Willett & Jad Fair - We're Going to the Moon (Megaphone Limited) cd (1998)
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - Wild (Megaphone Limited) (1998) cd
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - The Mighty Hypnotic Eye (Dr Jim's) (1999) cd
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - Enjoyable songs (Alternative tentacles) lp & cd (1999)
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - The Attack of Everything (Paperback + cd) (2002)
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - Superfine (public eyesore) (2005) cd
Singles
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - "Punk Rock" (Chlorophyl, 1996)
- Jad Fair & Jason Willett - "The Corpse is Missing" (Slab-O-Concrete, 1996)
With Yo La Tengo
- 1998: Yo La TengoYo La TengoYo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan , Georgia Hubley , and James McNew .Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential...
- Strange But TrueStrange But TrueStrange But True is a collaborative album between the band Yo La Tengo and Jad Fair. It was released by Matador Records in 1998. Song titles on the album are taken from outrageous newspaper headlines.-Track listing:...
(an album based on the unusual stories taken from the Strange but True column of newspapers)
With Phono-Comb
- In A Haunted House 7" (Derivative Records, 1995)
- Monsters, Lullabies...and the Occasional Flying Saucer CD (Shake the Record, 1996)
Other Side Projects
- Between Meals - Oh No I Just Knocked Over a Cup of Coffee (Iridescence, 1983)
- Coo Coo Rocking Time - Coo Coo Party Time (50 Skidillion Watts, 1990)
- Workdogs in Hell - Workdogs in Hell (Sympathy For The Record Industry, 1993)
- Strobe Talbot - 20 Pop Songs (Alternative Tentacles, 2001)
- Jad Fair and R. Stevie MooreR. Stevie MooreRobert Steven Moore is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. In addition to having numerous albums released on labels around the world, the prolific Moore has self-released over 400 cassette and CD-R albums since 1968, as well as dozens of home videos, mostly through the R. Stevie Moore...
- FairMoore (Old Gold, 2002) - Jad Fair & Bill Wells - Whale EP (Friends And Relatives Records, ?)