.

Daniel Johnston was born in Sacramento, CA sometime in 1961, the youngest of 5 children in a strict, Christian Fundamentalist household.  His earliest memories of music involve ‘banging around at the piano, making up horror movie themes' when he was about 9. He then progressed to making up and singing songs while mowing the lawn, developing his madcap craft in the privacy of the lawnmower's roar. Like most of us of that age, he was blown away by the Beatles and continued to make up songs through his High School years, only now he was committing them to tape and trading them with his friends. After High School he enrolled in an Art program at a branch of Kent State near his parent's West Virginia home, where the family had moved and where Daniel lived in the basement, depressed and recording his songs on a $60 Sanyo boombox.

Daniel's depression receives more notice than his work, and although that's a shame, it is understandable as Daniel does not go mad quietly. Stories abound of his setting apartments on fire, becoming suddenly violent and striking out at family and friends, he reportedly threw, or chased, a woman out a window in Maryland because he thought she was the devil. For a man who has spent as much, if not more time in various mental institutions than he has in the studio or on the road, Daniel Johnson has, over the last 20 years, produced a body of work that shines with the naive genius of a Hank Williams or a Robert Johnson. Yes, his work is that essential. 

The fact that Johnston refers to ‘making up' his songs, rather than use the more  portentous word ‘writing' tells you a lot about the way he approaches his craft. Daniel sings what he thinks, in all it's embarrassing honesty, in all it's easy-to-ridicule purity. Truth be told, the man has a voice like a hinge, but looking past the technical ‘imperfections' of his voice, one is rewarded with the touch of the true believer, a saint of rock and roll. While living in that basement (1982-83), he recorded two cassette of tunes, dubbed ‘Songs of Pain' and ‘More Songs of Pain', a 2-part collection of heartbreak songs about a woman named Laura, who spurned his love for another (reportedly an undertaker) which he then proceeded to hand out to people in the street. One of my prized possessions is an original cassette of ‘More Songs', with it's cover and label hand drawn and written by Daniel himself. I bought it at the CBGB Record Canteen and annoyed my friends for months. ‘You gotta hear this guy' I would say and I will say it again unto you and yours that, if you've lost even a little bit of faith in the power of rock and roll to heal and bring joy to a sad, sad world you need to hear this man's music.

Between 1980 and 1990, Daniel recorded 11 odd tapes of beautifully damaged, visionary work. All on that $60 boombox  which, from the resulting lo-beyond-lo-fi sound, was resting on top of his piano, giving the mix a decidedly reverberant quality. All the sympathetic vibrations of the piano's strings and the cheap recorder gave the tapes the feel of a fevered dream sequence, like a visitation of a spirit from the otherworld. Daniel sang about the hole in his heart, in his life with such achingly honest words, such beautifully simple music as to create works of art far beyond the concerns of the marketplace or even individual tastes. To give you a frame of reference, compared to the purity of Daniel Johnston, Jonathan Richman is a card carrying member of Bon Jovi and on the Clear Channel board of directors.

Moving to Texas in the early 80's, Johnston continued to make and pass out his homemade tapes for free. It was during this period that he recorded the monumental "Yip/Jump Music" and "Hi, How Are You?", all of which are currently available on CD, complete with tv noise and his mother's admonitions to eat something from upstairs in the background. It is this type of realism and immediacy that draws me to Johnston's work when I need to hear real music by real people and get away from the bulls*** of modern life. After an 8 month stint selling corndogs in a carnival (and, boy, I would've like to have been a fly on the wall on that trip!) Daniel settled in Austin, again handing tapes out on the street. Austin is a great rock and roll town, a fact that did not escape MTV and their ironically titles 80's show ‘The Cutting Edge'. Most Austin bands were impressed enough with Daniel to hype him to the then new music channel, who profiled
him on a 1986 special, complete with an interview and several performances. When the show itself aired, however, Daniel was once again in the Austin State Hospital, this time for attacking his manager. 

That's a large part of Daniel's story and sadly, often surpasses the originality and loveliness of his music. Maybe we're all so conditioned to expect music to be played and marketed a certain way that when anyone comes in from what we've been led to believe is left field, we don't know how to react. But a crazy guy making silly records? That we can handle, usually by dismissing after the requisite amount of glad-it's-not-me ridicule, and this is a disservice, both to Daniel Johnston and ourselves.

Throughout the late 80's and 90's, Daniel recorded many CDs, now that MTV had given him their seal of approval, with the cream of the alternative crop. ‘The Continued Story' with Texas Instruments, the 1994 Paul Leary (of Butthole Surfers) produced ‘Fun', which includes the wonderful ‘Love Wheel' the closest thing DJ's had to a hit single, and duet records with Jad Fair of the unhinged Half Japanese. Various people, including Yo La Tengo and Kathy Waller covered his tunes and various record companies have reissued his very early work. The point I'm trying to make is, having been exposed to this music has made my life better. All these ‘producers' and record companies have been tripping over themselves to keep Daniel Johnston working and getting his music out to the world. Such devotion to an artist is uncommon, especially when one doesn't know when said artist is going to freak out and push one out a window because one might be the devil. 
 

And you know what? One might be the devil. Or at least be the devil's billboard, or the devil's advance man, bringing pain and negativity into the childlike world view of this boy genius, and if we can't respond to the innocent beauty of a man giving all of himself in the service of (his own) truth and beauty then maybe we all ought to jump out that window and spare Daniel the bad Karma accrued when he has to do it himself. In any event, the best album of 2003 is, hands down, Daniel's ‘Fear Yourself' released on the Gammon label and produced by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. A review of this CD is found below. For a complete discography and more information about Daniel Johnston go to www.hihowareyou.com. 

Daniel Johnston- Fear Yourself
(Gammon Records)

Daniel Johnston is the crackpot/genius that everybody tries to sell us Syd Barret as. True, Barret did some wonderful work on the 1st Pink Floyd album, his crystalline visions of the early psychedelic era were all Lewis Carroll whimsy in lysergic sauce and very real milestones in rock history, but after that and 2 wildly erratic solo records, Barret folded up his tent and has been surviving as both living legend and Roger Waters' muse since, what, 1980? Johnston has been releasing records of homespun decency and manic innocence for nigh onto 20 years now, each one better than the last. After a 10 year run of voice and piano solo tapes, recorded in various basements and bringing new meaning to the words ‘lo-fi', Daniel ran through a gamut of producers in the late 80's and through the 90's to varying degrees of success. 

For the most part the production values consisted of garagey bass and drums and way too much reverb. Johnston's songs, however, have always been too powerful and direct to be hobbled by weak production, but with ‘Fear Yourself', Johnston's best work in years, he's  finally been matched up with a truly sympathetic producer. Mark Linkous of  Sparklehorse douses most of the record in reverb also, but it's the right kind of reverb, lending these songs of failed love, but unbroken hope a baroque majesty, a misty moor of solace and civility. The addition of what sound like sleigh bells, a small thing but a touch that turns a backing track into a soundscape, on a song like ‘Must', is the type of detail so lacking in earlier work. The CD is by no means a Def Leppard tangle of overproduction, no 752 guitar overdubs for our boy, but it is the 1st DJ record, to me, that was given the respect it deserved from the get go. Linkous is quite empathic to Johnston's muse, giving ‘Fear Yourself' the smoky glow of the campfire ghost story and giving Daniel Johnston the shot at massive recognition he so richly deserves. There will be a special place in heaven for you, Mr. Linkous, cause if God ain't a Daniel Johnston fan, well he oughta be.

In this time of the world, with our Commander in Thief (thanks RH) declaring war on basically the rest of the world, with religious tensions broiling away far across the map, with every institution from Wall St to the Catholic Church threatening to burst into flames any minute now and all of us standing around wondering just who it is we're supposed to hate and fear, Daniel Johnston hits the nail right on the head. We need to Fear Ourselves, ‘cause all that's good and all that's evil in this world comes from us, if not from direct action than from our response to the direct action of other's. We need to step away from the race toward mutual destruction we all seemed so hell bent on winning and look at things through a pair of honest eyes.

Fear Yourself can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and, if you’re lucky, at a record store near you. Do yourself a favor and let go of that Cannibal Corpse / NuMetal / Popdiva crap that's been poisoning your heart and catch the new sensation. A crazy man is trying to save the world (again), we have only to listen.
 

Visit the official website for Daniel Johnston www.hihowareyou.com

Hear Samples and Purchase Daniel Johnston music online online!