Johnston - Critique

The resources of the future!

"I
just sit here and daydream all day, smoke cigarettes and write songs."
Daniel Johnston, 1995

It was as
late as the beginning of the 90's, when for the first time I listened to
Daniel Johnston tapes, which at that time were already seven years old.
They were mainly available from a small label, STRESS RECORDS, led by Jeff
Tartakov from Austin, Texas (Johnston's musical "home").
To me this
music seemed to come from another planet, comparable to nothing I ever
heard before. It was like a shock from a strange world!
It was easy to
become friend with Jeff. He was happy about customers from overseas and
provided every interested person with information, tapes, singles and also
with Johnston's drawings. This contact was established by friends from
Hamburg.

When I was visiting Jeff in 1994, I had a strange
experience:
The record shop Sound Exchange was decorated by a huge
Johnston graffiti: "Jeremiah, the friendly frog". The whole city of Austin
was full of graffiti, on every wall there were pictures and logos, that
were constantly painted over, one close beside the other. But on this huge
frog as well as on the rest of the wall, there was no other drawing to be
seen. This frog, I was told, was a relic.
No one would ever dare to
desecrate it. In 1999 Austin looks cleaned. It is hard to find any
graffiti, but the frog is still there. But now the record shop gets offers
from cleansing firms, which promise a white wall, since they would really
like to remove the drawing....
Jeff Tartakov, who was Daniel's manager
until the middle of the 90's, was fired, when Atlantic published the CD
FUN, which was produced by Paul Leary (Butthole Surfers). Under Tartakov's
sensitive and motivating care (Daniel's career was a permanent up and down
between greatest euphoria and deepest depression), he worked with Kramer
and Shimmy Disc in New York and recorded a song with Moe Tucker, the
drummer of Velvet Underground. Mike Watt, Sonic Youth, Half Japanese,
Kathy McCarthy and John Zorn idolized him! Kurt Cobain did that as well!

They all discovered his oeuvre: First the tapes from the 80's, then
his first records and finally his big production FUN - that was maybe
something like his "Sgt. Peppers". His "White Tapes" he already had left
behind for a long time. His actual music is new in every respect.

Today Daniel Johnston is still sitting in his parent's garage in a
small town near Austin, smoking too much and drinking enormous amounts of
Coca-Cola. He still has to take pills in the strangest shapes and colors
that should help to control his manic-depressive moods. He constantly
composes this marvelous music. Recently, together with Jad Fair, the music
legend from Maryland and initiator of the unique band Half
Japanese, he recorded the album LUCKEY SPERMS (astonishingly this CD
is still in search of a label). Together with a rock band he recorded the
wonderful CD REJECTED UNKNOWN, which in the USA was only sold as a limited
edition by a small regional label, but it is going to be published by the
label WHICH?REC. soon.
Together with DANNY AND THE NIGHTMARES he is
playing fast punk rock. A few months ago he accompanied films by Harry
Smith with his music (yes, Harry Smith, whose famous ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN
FOLKMUSIC, a collection of American folk music of the 30's and 40's, has
already made history for a long time (it is available as a wonderful CD
box from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings / Sony).
Actually also Daniel
Johnston should be part of this disturbing collection of American music.
He as well seems to be one of these forgotten voices of an undiscovered
America.)
Right from the beginning I had this incredible desire to see
Daniel Johnston playing live. I listened to the live tape of his 90's
performance at the world famous SXSW Festival in Austin again and again.
From time to time Johnston is touring New York. And from time to time he
is performing in Austin.
During my visit at that time in Austin I
could not see him play, so I decided to organize a concert in Germany for
Daniel Johnston (and also "for myself", of course). But again and again
there were confusions, troubles and delays concerning my plans to invite
him. And also Daniel's unstable health thwarted this idea. That I could
not see him in Geneva in 1998, finally finished me off. Ok! But then:

To Berlin he should come.
To the Volksbühne.
To this
theatre and not to a club.

"Wow, it looks like the Royal Albert
Hall! Is it a kind of Civil Hall, or what?" Daniel says, when he first
sees this huge building in the middle of Berlin.
This night, as the
concluding seminar of the 7X-University, a research series of the
Volksbühne, Daniel is playing exactly the concert, his audience has always
hoped for. Only guitar and piano. (Daniel Johnston was very delighted with
the grand piano. He loved to play it, because at home there is only an
ordinary piano.)
Seconds before the concert started, Daniel and his
father Bill are standing on the giant backstage of the Volksbühne. Daniel
is waiting for his performance. A huge applause sounds from behind the
curtain.

"Are you nervous, Daniel?" Bill asks.
"No,
I'm not nervous, Dad!" Daniel says. And then: "Where are you during
the concert, Dad?"
"I am right near you, just beside the stage
and if anything happens, please call me, ok?"
"Ok, Dad!"

And there he goes. His whole body is shaking, he is incredibly
nervous or excited. He is singing about his world in the most concrete
terms.
"I had a dream."
"Well, we all live on, trying to
get the job done."
"I had a welcome mat, but you never came
around."
His language gives the impression of being chiseled.

He is playing the piano and the guitar like no other.
Actually,
Daniel Johnston ought to be world famous.

"He can't handle the
fame, but I don't think he can handle the rejection either." Bill told
me later.
"Buy his records!" Detlef Kuhlbrodt wrote
enthusiastically after the concert in a Berlin newspaper.
Trust your
ears! Order his tapes!
"These are the resources of the future."
my friend Bernhard Schütz said enthusiastically and fascinated after the
concert, referring to Daniel Johnston, whom he just had expressed his
deepest admiration in the dressing room, which was surrounded by fans.
Just listen!
(Henning Nass - Berlin, January 2000)

last updated: 27.04.2000 | top