Boo!

In 1992, Jad Fair and his band Half Japanese set out on a tour of Europe, where they introduced the band's primitive but wildly passionate take on rock & roll to a new audience. While Half Japanese's music is sometimes daunting on record, given their willingness to sacrifice technical skill in favor of embracing the moment, live they're a powerful experience, and Fair's frantic, joyous abandon in front of an audience is a unique testament to to the power of rock & roll. Several dates on the 1992 tour were recorded, and Boo! features highlights from dates in Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, and in the grand Half Japanese tradition, the set list ranges from slightly bent Jad Fair originals to sculpted-to-fit takes on traditional folk songs, all of which sound like they emerged fully formed from the minds of Fair and his musicians as they jumped through their hoops in performance. This isn't the ideal document of Half Japanese on-stage, if only because you can't watch them as the music flows through them like an electrical current, but Boo! catches enough of their ecstatic fury to make this an essential document for serious fans and a recommended detour for dabblers. ~ Mark Deming