lit a candle 11h agolearned to play guitar from his essay and it genuinely changed how i thought about the whole thing. rest easy david.
Their story
David Fair co-founded the American art-punk band Half Japanese with his younger brother Jad Fair in the mid-1970s, after their family relocated from Michigan to Uniontown, Maryland. Accounts vary on whether the project began in Michigan or Maryland; Wikipedia and Fire Records date the band to 1974 around that move.…
David Fair co-founded the American art-punk band Half Japanese with his younger brother Jad Fair in the mid-1970s, after their family relocated from Michigan to Uniontown, Maryland. Accounts vary on whether the project began in Michigan or Maryland; Wikipedia and Fire Records date the band to 1974 around that move. What is consistent across obituaries and band histories is the bedroom origin: two brothers trading vocals, guitar, and a shared drum kit, writing noisy, catchy, deliberately untrained songs about love and monsters, and treating enthusiasm as more important than conventional technique.
They issued home recordings on their own 50 Skidillion Watts imprint, including the 1977 EP Calling All Girls, then signed to the British indie Armageddon for the sprawling 1980 debut triple album 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts. That set mixed home tapes, noise experiments, and barely recognizable covers into a cult document later cited by Rolling Stone among influential alternative albums. Early and mid-1980s records such as Loud, Our Solar System, and Sing No Evil expanded the circle to include Mark Jickling and brothers Ricky and John Dreyfuss, among others, while Jad gradually became the permanent frontman. David distilled the band's DIY creed in his short, widely circulated essay "How to Play Guitar," arguing that ignoring conventional chords opens infinite options and that a player can "master guitar playing in one day."
In 1987 he stepped back to care for his family and to continue work as a librarian at Carroll County Public Library in Westminster, Maryland (Writers Directory lists the library post from 1977). He remained an occasional Half Japanese participant and kept making music: the Westminster-based Coo Coo Rockin' Time project (Coo Coo Party Time, 1990), numerous Jad-and-David albums (including 26 Monster Songs for Children, Halloween Songs, and I'll Be Moe), and solo/Thick Syrup titles such as The Middleman Soundtrack. Stereogum notes he returned for the 2014 Half Japanese album Overjoyed. Outside music he painted colorful acrylics, wrote the children's book The Fabulous Four Skunks (1996), produced the web series The Big Baby Show, and in 2020 co-wrote and co-directed Psycho X10!, a surreal take on Hitchcock's Psycho. After retiring from the library he helped grow Shakemore, a Carroll County backyard festival he named, into a yearly gathering of bands and fans.
Half Japanese's mythos was sealed for many listeners by Jeff Feuerzeig's 1993 documentary Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King and by famous admirers: Penn Jillette helped revive 50 Skidillion Watts; Nirvana invited the band to open East Coast In Utero dates in 1993 (David was not in the touring lineup then); Kurt Cobain was widely reported to have been wearing a Half Japanese shirt when he died. The band later recorded for Alternative Tentacles, Joyful Noise, and Fire Records, with Jad the constant member and David a recurring co-conspirator.
David Fair died on 29 August 2026 at age 74. Jad Fair confirmed to Rolling Stone that the cause was cancer. Producer Don Fleming wrote that David had been treated for cancer over recent years, that daughter Harper toasted him with a root beer float, and that he passed peacefully soon after. Harper posted on her father's Facebook page that he "lived a beautiful life of love, kindness, and creativity" and had been reunited with "the love of his life Pam." Thick Syrup's Travis McElroy and filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig were among those who announced and mourned him publicly. He was 74.
This memorial is for David Fair (c. 1951/1952-2026), Half Japanese co-founder, librarian, and visual artist. It is not for the living Philadelphia LGBTQ activist David Fair (English Wikipedia David Fair), and not for WEMU public-radio host David Fair.
Biography adapted from Rolling Stone; Pitchfork; Exclaim; Clash; Stereogum; NME; Consequence; Half Japanese Wikipedia; Encyclopedia.com; Austin Chronicle; Baltimore Post-Examiner; Feuerzeig 1993 doc.
In their own words
“If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day.”
Essay How to Play Guitar; quoted in Rolling Stone obituary.
“I taught myself to play guitar. It's incredibly easy when you understand the science of it. The skinny strings play the high sounds, and the fat strings play the low sounds.”
Opening of How to Play Guitar; Rolling Stone.
“The idea at the beginning, and I guess it's still the idea, is that enthusiasm is more important than talent.”
David Fair at Shakemore, 2018; Baltimore Post-Examiner.
“We decided to do two kinds of songs, love songs and monster songs.”
Attributed to David in coverage of Feuerzeig's documentary; Variety review, 1993.
“He lived a beautiful life of love, kindness, and creativity.”
Harper Fair's death announcement; Exclaim / American Songwriter.
“He was a pure artist and musician, all from the heart.”
Don Fleming tribute; Clash / NME.
“David was one of those people who showed you that music didn't have to follow any rules. You could just make something because you needed to make it.”
Travis McElroy, Thick Syrup Records; Rolling Stone / Exclaim / NME.
Photos
3David Fair (Half Japanese), Exclaim! obituary portrait via Thick Syrup Records.
by People Forever
Promotional photo of Jad and David Fair via Fire Records (Rolling Stone).
by People Forever
Yes. The kindness comes through in everything he did.