Daniel Johnston
Genre: Folk/Indie
Website: www.hihowareyou.com

After a long, sleep-deprived week, I was readying myself last night for a well-deserved night’s rest before another day of journalistic prosperity here at the joonbug offices. I predicated my slumber with the positive, reinforcing words of Henry Rollins’ spoken word performances; a new personal obsession which, I feel, brings hope and assurance to my often bleak view of everyday life. As my eyes began to involuntarily close, I decided to close-out my session of “youtube-ery” with a video from the site’s side-bar suggestions, namely, a musical performance. I saw the name of a performer I was unfamiliar with and thought, “Why not?” as I clicked on the less-than encumbered thumbnail. In a clip from the former hardcore-singer’s talk-show on cable’s IFC, I saw an exceptionally overweight, middle-aged man in sweat-pants and what looked like a hand-Sharpied t-shirt timidly fist-strumming mangled chords on an acoustic guitar. When he opened his mouth, his nasal, slightly off-key voice began singing a song of love by way of poetic despair that made the world around me float away until all that was left was the music pouring from my computer speakers and my heart that was breaking with each word the man spoke. I replayed the song over and over again, mesmerized at the aural magnetism of the song despite its apparent simplicity. Hours and hours later, early into the morning, I found myself lying on my bed, unable to get to sleep, weeping uncontrollably at the beauty of Daniel Johnston’s music.

Now I sit in front of this computer, tearing up as I type, trying to conjure up the right combination of words to describe Johnston’s brilliance. It simply cannot be put into words. It would be like trying to describe a sunset to someone who had spent their whole life blind. Surely, it is something that you have to experience in order to fully comprehend.

Much is the difficulty of casually describing the life of this highly influential musical genius. He was raised in a devoted Christian household in West Virginia and was regularly chastised for his darkly foreboding illustrations and general aversion toward social “norms.” He traveled through Texas as a carnival worker, eventually settling in Austin amidst the emerging local scene of the early 1980s, and made a name for himself handing out hand-made, lo-fi home recordings of his original music on cassettes dubbed on a Sanyo boombox. When MTV sent a crew of videographers to Austin to cover the emerging music scene for the “Cutting Edge” series, Johnston was nowhere on the list of artists they intended to film; yet, he somehow found his way into various social gatherings filmed for the series and the project found this odd character as a central figure for the show. He continued to self-record his own music on cassette and hand them out to his friends.

In spite of his growing reputation as a musical wonder and gaining praise from popular artists across the U.S., Johnston began to exhibit signs of emotional and mental distress. Always considered by people who knew him as an “odd-duck,” he gradually digressed into a manic depressive state, often convinced that the devil was actively trying to ruin his life. He eventually began to violently act-out as a result of his delusional state and was admitted into several mental institutions on multiple occasions. Although his popularity grew exponentially when Nirvana band-leader Kurt Cobain was seen at the 1992 MTV Music Awards and subsequent photo-ops wearing a shirt with Johnston’s frog-lien cover art for his “Hi, How Are You?” cassette, Johnston was locked away in one of his many residencies at a mental hospital.

Johnston’s music and art continued to be passed around among musicians and fans alike. His songs have been covered by the Dead Milkmen, Yo La Tengo, the Velvet Underground, and the recently released Where the Wild Things Are movie features a cover of his song “Worried Shoes” by Karen O. Two of his songs, “Casper” and “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” were featured in the controversial film Kids, and Target issued a commercial using the Johnston tune “Speeding Motorcycle.” His life was also the subject of a 2006 independent documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which has gone on to receive many prestigious awards.

Above all, the life of Daniel Johnston mimics the tragic beauty that accompanies his music. The relationship between his life and music is often likened to that of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, who also suffered similar bouts of mental instability. Johnston is regarded as an “American original” along the paths of artists like bluesman Robert Johnson, country legend Hank Williams, and surpassing the folk iconoclast Bob Dylan. When future history books are laid-out, Daniel Johnston will have a chapter along side the likes of Socrates, Shakespeare, Mozart, or Einstein: true geniuses of humanity.

Discography:

Songs of Pain (cassette, 1981)
Don't Be Scared (cassette, 1982)
The What of Whom (cassette, 1982)
More Songs of Pain (cassette, 1983)
Yip/Jump Music (cassette, 1983; CD issued 1989)
Hi, How Are You (cassette, 1983; issued with Continued Story, 1989)
Retired Boxer (cassette, 1984)
Respect (cassette, 1985)
Continued Story w/ Texas Instruments (cassette, 1985; w/ Hi, How Are You, 1989)
A Texas Trip (2 Songs, 1987)
Merry Christmas (cassette, 1988)
Live at South by Southwest (cassette, 1990)
1990 (1990)
Artistic Vice (1991)
Frankenstein Love recorded live in 1992 (cassette, 2000)
Fun (1994)
Why Me? recorded live at the Volksbühne in Berlin, June 6, 1999 (2000)
Rejected Unknown (2001)
Fear Yourself with Mark Linkous (2003, LP 2008)
Freak Brain (2005)
Lost and Found (2006, LP 2008)
The Angel and Daniel Johnston - Live at the Union Chapel (DVD, 2008)
Daniel Johnston at Home LIVE recorded live in Waller Texas 1999 (Video/mp3 release 2009)
Is and Always Was (2009)