11. Half Japanese1/2 Gentleman/Not Beasts
They are amazing. Half Japanese were a group that when I worked at the New York Rocker, Byron Coley used to say were his favourite band and at first I thought he was making them up. I had never heard the 7”s so the first thing I heard was this debut triple album and it just was incredible. The most pure record. These two brothers singing their hearts out – I remember hearing this incredible noise and then looking at the lyric sheet and seeing these beautiful heartfelt words that, by definition, didn’t seem to go with the noise they were making but then as soon as you heard it it was perfect and it was like, “Why has nobody thought of this before?” Because we’re not Jad and David Fair, that’s why. Remarkable record.
