Daniel Johnston: Austin's legendary genius-madman whose art and songwriting are deeply woven into the fabric of American culture through years of music poster art, songwriting appearances and subculture press.
Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers wrote this in the liner notes for The Early Recordings of Daniel Johnston, Volume1, released in 2003 by Dualtone, ?My band used to drift through and gravitate towards Austin back in the early eighties. This kid was handing out his cassette tapes to anyone who would listen. They sounded timeless and kind of spooky. I thought my band was out there, but Daniel Johnston was way out there. I got to work with Daniel a few times over the years. Daniel really pours his soul into his music and his art. Daniel has a pop song writing genius which sheds all pretenses away, which is part of why so many musicians have been quick to embrace his work. He told me he liked the Beatles and the Butthole Surfers, and we've been friends ever since.?
The Early Recordings of Daniel Johnston, Volume1 is comprised of the performer?s first two recordings, Songs of Pain and More Songs of Pain, recorded in the basement of his parent's house, originally released on homemade cassette tapes and available for the first time ever on CD.
In 2002 Important Records released Hyperjinx Tricycle: The Songs of Jack Medicine, Daniel Johnston and Ron English. In an unusual twist, the album was released as a full length CD, and as a four song LP. The only song on both is "Greg the Bunny." The LP contains songs that were previously unreleased. Because of its format alone, it is destined to become a collector's item.
Johnston has released at least 15 albums, mostly on a Stress Records label. He recorded hundreds of songs in his basement before moving to Austin. Once in Austin, in 1984, he took a job at a MacDonald's restaurant and passed out tapes of his songs to pretty girls who came in.
This obscure and famous dichotomy offers a double handful of rare tapes, shown below, available through Local Flavor.
By 1985 he was on MTV's Cutting Edge program. In 1986, he won Best Songwriter and Best Folk Artist in The Austin Chronicle Readers' Poll. Also in 1986, Stress Records begins distribution of his homemade cassettes. His songs were recorded by Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, and Kathy McCarty of Glass Eye. He made a recording with Jad Fair of songs they wrote together. His records were also released by Homestead Records, Atlantic Records and Seminal Twang, a British label. His Hi, How are you?, perhaps his best known recording, showed up on Kurt Colbain's tee shirt at an MTV awards show. The title page of his official Web site is called "Welcome to the Official Daniel Johnston Web site. Hi, How Are You?" The discography on this site lists a 1999 recording from Which Records called Rejected Unknown.
Johnston's music is spare, personal, intimate and not for the listener who wants slickly produced pop. His career has suffered ups and downs refecting the state of his mental health at the time. In 1999 he did a very successful show at Austin's Cactus Cafe and was the cover story in the Austin Chronicle afterwards.
