MOG

Well I'm nearly speechless at this ...

While researching another band 'The Capital Years' I stumbled across this incredible story about outsider artist Daniel Johnston here

"When I was a kid, probably nine, I used to bang around on the piano, making up horror movie themes. When I got a bit older, I'd be mowing my lawn and I'd make up songs and sing them. No one could hear me 'cause of the lawn mower."

As a teenager, Daniel and his friends began to record their own tapes and trade them among themselves. After high school, he attended an art program at a branch of Ken State near his family's home. This was a prolific period of his life. Unemployed, and attending classes sporadically, he began to spend most of his time in his family's cellar, writing and recording. The tapes he made there included "Songs of Pain" and "More Songs of Pain," which both centered around his unrequited love for a woman named Laurie who ended up marrying an undertaker.

The aspiring cartoonist -- whose playful, symbol-heavy sketches have graced the covers of may of his releases, including "Fun" -- moved to Texas in 1983. FIrst he went to Houston, living with his brother and working at Astro World, while also recording the seminal tapes "Yip/Jump Music" and "Hi, How Are You?" on a $59.00 Sanyo mono boom box. These recordings featured such classics as "Speeding Motorcycle," "Sorry Entertainer," and odes to everyone from "Casper the Friendly Ghost" and "King Kong" to "The Beatles." From there he moved to San Marcos, TX, and even joined a traveling carnival show for a spell, selling corndogs."

Now THAT is just too funny ... but Daniel's bio continues:

"It was like a movie all the time. Everybody around me was a great story that never stopped, and for the first time, I realized how much freedom you have to do what you want."

Throughout his career, Daniel's songs and drawings have been informed to some degree by his ongoing struggle with manic depression -- lending an added poignancy to his soul-searching times. His five-month stint with the carney left him in Austin, where he decided to stay. In the midst of that city's mid-eighties music scene, Johnston was a definite iconoclast. While he continued to hand out his tapes for free, Austin record stores started selling them; in fact, they became best-selling local releases.

Soon, a camera crew from MTV's seminal "Cutting Edge" show came to town and all the Austin bands suggested they feature Daniel.

snip

I began to remember that I had read Daniel's unlikely story sometime back in the mid 90's and was very curious about a buzz growing around him, but it was hard to get a handle on it back then without the internets, and I subsequently forgot.

Well those threads connected today ... and now I understand.

Caw