Half Japanese’s David Fair Dies at 74

David Fair, who co-founded the outré punk duo Half Japanese with his brother, Jad, has died. Jad Fair posted an uncaptioned photo of the pair together on Facebook yesterday (August 30), and confirmed in a statement to Rolling Stone that David died of cancer. He was 74 years old.The origin story of Half Japanese is as chaotic as their unpindownable music: Formed in 1974 either in Michigan or Maryland, the duo evolved from scrappy twentysomethings messing around in a bedroom for an audience of each other, to scrappy twentysomethings releasing homemade cassettes recorded while messing around in a bedroom for an audience of anyone who’d listen. After signing to the plucky British indie label Armageddon for a string of singles, the duo released debut album 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts in 1980, at which point demand began to outstrip supply. The project, a 3xLP box set of debased covers, thrilling punk skirmishes, minimalist sound art, and anarchic noise, became a cult classic.David Fair later published How to Play Guitar, a mini-manifesto that railed against guitar-playing orthodoxy and helped define a particular punk purist ethos. “If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you...