Serious music lovers have their obscure favourites. I’m no exception. Actually, many of my favourite artists haven’t even had a hit record in their entire career. But the artists who do have hits more or less have the privilege to expose or foster a talent that they feel deserves better recognition. The late Kurt Cobain was one such person. In interviews he voiced his support for underground curiosities including the Raincoats, the Vaselines, Flipper and the Wipers. But the most intriguing of his personal unsung heroes was an oddball from Texas named Daniel Johnston. This would become a name that I’d encounter for many years – in magazine articles, on websites and from some other musicians’ biographies. The only thing was I had no access to Daniel Johnston’s music to make up my own mind about him. He’d just be a name I’d recognise and identify with certain people.Daniel Johnston has been making and releasing music since around 1980. But it’s only been in the last couple of years that Johnston has been getting a significant profile boost. An example of this was the ironically-titled tribute album of 2004 ‘The Late Great Daniel Johnston’, with such household names as Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, Tom Waits, The Flaming Lips and Bright Eyes giving their own personal touch to their Johnston composition of choice. In addition to this, a documentary about the man and his music, “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”, was released last year. Something like that would be the perfect introduction to a generally unknown cult artist such as himself. I saw “The Devil and Daniel Johnston” the day I found out my grandfather died. Out of all the cinemas in Melbourne, it was only showing at the Nova, an arthouse-leaning cinema in Carlton that is a 50-minute train ride from my house, and then some. Well, it certainly was worth the long, tedious train ride. I learnt so much about the man, and wished that I’d discovered him earlier. As far as music or biographical documentaries go, “The Devil and Daniel Johnston” is truly vital.From what I learnt in the documentary, Johnston has lived with bipolar disorder for most of his life, and this, along with his fundamentalist Christian upbringing, heavily affects his craft. As the documentary unfolds, we see evidence of his precocious abilities in music, film and visual art from a young age, and, disturbingly, his periodic obsession with immortalising his life on cassette. We also see how he is never afraid to express himself bluntly. There’s footage of him in the doco that dates back to around 1985, which was taken by MTV when it was doing a scene report of Austin, Texas, where Johnston was residing at the time. Looking all goofy, he holds up one of his cassettes to the camera and nonchalantly says something along the lines of “I’m Daniel Johnston, and this is my album ‘Hi, How Are You’, which I recorded while I was having a nervous breakdown!” Then we see examples of his psychotic episodes that have put himself, and others, in danger, and often resulted in him being institutionalised. Furthermore, his up-and-down episodes have caused him to do such things as throw away nearly all his possessions in a single fit, and waver and break down during an instore appearance. Johnston’s erratic nature makes him seem like a downright handful, but it shows how taxing and often barely controllable mental illness can be for the sufferer and those around him (or her).Most of Johnston’s musical output is crudely recorded and rudimentary, and he often sings in a high-pitched, childlike voice comparable to Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. His cassette releases that made up the first half of his career were largely recorded using an inexpensive tape recorder. This made their sound quality sub-par and hissy, but rendered the music (often performed on a chord organ, piano, or cheap guitar) endearingly naked and pure. His lyrics can be direct and simplistic, yet also have a tendency to demonstrate a stark, disquieting honesty - sometimes with a humourous streak. Aside from his more lighthearted, cartoonish observations of Captain America and Casper the friendly ghost, the autobiographical nature of songs like “Peek-a-boo” and “Story of an Artist” expose a vulnerable, troubled soul that arouse in the listener a genuine sympathy for the artist. Johnston has long held adoration for the Beatles. However, many other possible influences creep into his music. His 1990 song “Some Things Last A Long Time” is a wistful Neil Young-esque ballad, while the vocal style in “Man Obsessed” gives a nod to Elvis Costello. Above all, Johnston claims his music has been influenced by his own assumed muse, Laurie – a girl he once had a crush on during his college years and who inspired him to start recording music. Laurie would go on to marry (and eventually divorce) an undertaker, and this situation became the source for many of Johnston’s death-related songs. Possibly the most recognised of these songs (among his fans at least) is “Funeral Home”, in which the following verse is repeated throughout:Funeral home, funeral homeGoing to the funeral homeGot me a coffin shiny and blackI’m going to the funeral And I’m never coming back!

One theory suggests that this song “represents both the foreknowledge of death and Johnston's desire to be reunited with Laurie”. For the record, Laurie was working at a funeral home around the time Johnston composed that song. Earlier at one point, Johnston did have a chance at reaching a wider audience. In 1993 Elektra Records saw potential in this quirky talent, and offered Johnston a special contract with certain clauses, given his mental instability. This was all well and good until Johnston realised that Metallica, who he believed at the time were ‘under the control of Satan’, was on the same label. Then Atlantic Records stepped in with a similar contract, and Johnston was sent to work with Butthole Surfers’ guitarist Paul Leary to come up with an album destined to make or break him. The resulting album “Fun” was the most polished and accessible out of all of Daniel Johnston’s releases, except it sold only 5,000 copies. The major label gamble had worked out terribly. Interestingly, that album is still in print while most other albums that suffer a similar fate are swiftly deleted.Despite such mishaps, Johnston continues to be celebrated to this day. He’s had his artwork exhibited in Europe and New York, has a painting based the “Hi, How Are You” cover on a wall of a Mexican restaurant in Austin, Texas, still performs regularly to appreciative crowds, and has such high-profile fans as David Bowie and Simpsons creator Matt Groening. And yet, at the age of 45, Daniel Johnston still lives in the basement of his elderly parents’ house in smalltown Texas.Oh, and by the way, he and Laurie were finally reunited for a short time after her divorce.hihowareyou.com