Jad Fair "Kristy"

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Jad Fair
Light Bulb Magazine Number Four:
The Emergency Cassette
2 x cassette compilation
(Los Angeles Free Music Society, 1981)

Kristy McNichol came out the other day, and the first thing I thought was, Poor Jad Fair must be crushed.

Here's Kristy today (right) with her other half of two decades, Martie Allen. From the blurb in People magazine:

McNichol, 49, who has lived with her partner Martie Allen, also 49, for the past two decades, decided to make a statement about her sexuality and share this photo because she is approaching 50 and wants to be open about who I am.

She is very sad about kids being bullied, her publicist Jeff Ballard tells PEOPLE. She hopes that coming out can help kids who need support. She would like to help others who feel different.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of very ugly comments in the People article. I'm not going to reprint any of them here, though. I just want to add my 2¢, that celebrities coming out does have a positive effect on young LGBT folk. So, bravo for Kristy!

There were nice comments, however, by folks who mentioned having crushes on Kristy when she was on TV back in the '70s and '80s. Sure, she was cute, but her older brother Jimmy was the one who caught my eye back then. No, I do not own the magazine with this pic. I did a Google image search, thankyouverymuch. If the results are at all indicative of reality, the poor boy owned very few shirts.

Terror at the Opera "Masquerade"

Terror at the Opera
I'm in the Eye
7" single
(Ypsilanti Records, 2004)

The cover for Terror at the Opera's album Snake Bird Blue intrigued me. The duo (Gretchen and Faith) are pictured in what looks like a color Polaroid from the 1950s.

No, I don't know when Polaroid introduced color film! Get off my back!!

Anyhow, it reminded me of my all-time favorite pop vocal duo, the fabulous Barry Sisters! The CD was in a bargain bin for only $3, so there was no way I was gonna pass it up. It turned out to be a rather haunting, lo-fi and low-key affair, that actually sounded more like Yoko Ono (her often charming, slightly off-key singing voice, rather than her amazing, shrieking, ululating voice) singing gypsy folk songs than The Barry Sisters. No matter. I adore Yoko (and now Terror at the Opera, too)!

Terror at the Opera's now defunct website turned me on to this single, released sometime after the album. It took until just a few weeks ago to finally find a copy, though! It turned out to be limited to only 300 copies (on clear vinyl, to boot), so I'm not entirely surprised.

Today's song is either the B-side, if you go by the back cover and/or label's long ignored MySpace page (which I found after I found the single), or it's the A-side, if you look at the mastering numbers in the matrix. Imma go with B-side. Enjoy!

Jad Fair "Another Silent Night"

Jad Fair
Everyone Knew . . . but Me
LP
(Press Records, 1983)

I saw ½ Japanese, who featured Jad Fair on vocals and guitar, open for the Dead Kennedys when I was 17. Based on that performance, I was firmly convinced they were the worst band on Earth. Later, I was shocked to discover they had a 7" single out! I mean, someone was stupid enough to put out a record of that? They just made a buncha noise, and, out of six people on stage, only one of them appeared to know how to play his guitar, and he looked all of 14 (he, Mark Jickling, was actually quite a bit older than me)!

I didn't know at the time that the single, Spy, was from a full-length album, Loud, now on CD with the b-sides from the aforementioned single plus the also excellent Horrible EP. Or that Loud had been preceded by a couple of 7" records, a couple of cassettes, and a triple-LP box set, 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts!

Jad and his brother David founded ½ Japanese in 1974. David wrote the majority of the songs in those early years, so I guess that's why Jad started doing solo releases. Jad's solo songs gravitate mainly towards love, mostly unrequited, and monster/horror movie themes; today's song, Another Silent Night, is one of the former. Musically, the album veers from noise collages to frantic anti-rock to beautiful sadness. As far as I know, it is the only of his solo albums to never see reissue, in CD or any other form. That's a damn shame.

NOTE: There was a follow-up, of sorts, to this song called 1,000,000 Kisses on the 1988 ½ Japanese album Charmed Life.