Review Summary: Check out my heart!
III
By the time 1994 came around, the cult of Cobain had grown to such a grotesque peak, it was leaving strewn contrails in the wake of its every step. And like every manmade prophet shoved onto a rostrum, every other word he dropped became a point of exploration for those addled enough to listen. Whatever your take might be on the man, his band, their legacy or the veneration of celebrity opinion, the verifiable virtue of Cobain’s gloomy orations in the time he spent under pointed lights is that he would routinely name-check and promote small indie-label punk and noise bands, old and new, giving a slew of underground heavies brief flings with the outer edges of mainstream attention, and at the very least, aiding them in forging cults of their own, albeit on comparatively minuscule levels.
The list of cohorts and benefactors runs deep. Cobain’s now-hallowed list of 50 favourite records brought another decade’s worth of heed to uncharted classics like
Raw Power,
Entertainment! and
Rock for Light, as well as shedding sparse light on the even lesser-known. Minimal primitivism pioneers The Shaggs, Aussie punk masters The Saints and pre-post-hardcore noiseniks Scratch Acid all got mention. Cobain would continue referencing and championing artists throughout Nirvana’s run. It was an easily understandable point. Like any kid who loved music and for whom it loomed as an integral formative and therapeutic point, the records that mattered to him had seeped into his life’s every aspect, to the point where even his premature demise brought about the last streak of indie crib-sheets for his fans. Neil Young’s lyrics were infamously present in his suicide note, and the band T-shirt that he wore on that day was like a moribund last recommendation to anyone paying mind. Half Japanese, a lo-fi noise outfit from Ann Arbor, whose wild takes on tuneless shredding aligned themselves with the formless no-wave movement that was searing its way through the American East’s underground in the late 70’s.
Jad Fair, Half Japanese’s mastermind and only constant member, stuck to a markedly laissez-faire doctrine to writing and recording. On their debut EP, the group were renowned for never tuning their guitars, rather bashing out short punk implosions, letting forms and patterns land as they saw fit. The 11-minute, 9-song EP is a concentrated study on sound that travels on trajectories seemingly unknown to the very people laying it down. That might be a hell of an aggrandizing way of simply saying that these were some fuckers who didn’t have the chops and didn’t give a rat’s ass about tuning or structure. But by the 1977, spearheaded by future iconoclasts John Cale, James Chance and Lizzy Mercier Descloux, music and artistry were looking for new rooms to live, less constricted space to spread the shoulders. Whether premeditated or not, Half Japanese were partaking in one of the first modern pushes towards unexplored brinks, straying from channels of least resistance into something more mutant, less boring, something rooted in sabotage and ruin. Behind
Calling All Girls’ squall of anarchic noise lay a screech and scream against convention that was intoxicating, and for the briefest of instants, looked like it would actually break through to the other side.
Calling All Girls rushes you, then splits before you have time to let it sink in fully. The band’s future path through the 80’s and beyond would see them settle somewhat, start adapting brass and keys, and tightening their writing. Soon enough, they would be knee-deep in the indie rock template of the 90’s, never losing ability, but moving further and further away from those scrappy, thoughtlessly cogitative origins. The EP stands as a temperamental marvel. From the first askew strum of “Dream Date” to the clattering drums and hum of feedback that close out “The Worst I’d Ever Do,” it thrashes like a snotty child pitching a fit as his parents try and teach him what compromise is.
Fair and his band are still around today, and though the musical tracts they now ply are decidedly more sedate and conventional, a quick flick through their early days’ catalogue is all one needs to see the scorching and giddily shambolic brand of punk they used to trade in. Nowadays, their sound closer aligns itself with other hyper-civilized indie folksters like Neutral Milk Hotel, but in 1977, Half Japanese were noisy prodigies, loud contradictory and devoid of any attention to protocol; jagged little cogs in a sound movement that tapered off all too quickly.
