Daniel Johnston – Is and Always Was
By Milo | November 3, 2009
If you expected Daniel Johnston to be eternally lo-fi and perpetually at risk of unravelling musically, with records that are little more than snippets of a damaged soul captured on tape cassette in his mum’s basement, then this album may come as a shock to you.
It’s full band and full throttle, with Beck and Air producer Jason Falkner bringing Johnston’s ideas closer to the way he always heard his songs in his own head (and any musician can tell you how wide the disparity can be between what you actually create and what you intended to create). DJ himself is in brilliant voice and sounds like he’s revelling in playing with the band. It took me quite a while to get used to the sheer professionalism of the album myself in fact, but I’m really loving it now because the more I listen to it, the more the whole feel of the album is utterly and completely uplifting.
Stand out tracks on the first few listens are the old school jam of Fake Records of Rock n Roll and canine tribute Queenie the Doggie (a song title and subject only someone as perma-innocent as Johnston seems to be could sing with a straight face), as well as the Sesame Street on crack cocaine keyboard riff of ‘Without You’ which is a bit musically trite but has grown on me.
Where he excels of course is as a unique songwriter, and at this stage he’s pretty much a genre to himself. You either hate him, love him, or find the fetishisation of his mental health issues by some fans difficult to stomach. But it’s difficult to deny the unblemished honesty of his lyrics and genuineness of his vocal delivery.
Daniel Johnston is playing Edinburgh tomorrow (Wednesday 4th November). Here’s what I wrote about his Glasgow gig last year (warning: it all gets a bit emotional) and here are the photos:
9 Comments
peenko on 03/11/2009 at 6:20 pm.
I hadn’t given this album a chance, you just reminded me how great the Fruitmarket gig was, defo going to check it out now. All thanks to your kick up the arse
Milo on 03/11/2009 at 6:30 pm.
Ah, were you there too? Cool! I think it’s worth sticking with it even if you’re put off by the production. The songs are still great.
Digital Plamf on 03/11/2009 at 6:35 pm.
There was a preposterous article in The Guardian the other week*. Its main contention was that people only like the music of Daniel Johnston because of his chronic health problems, and that calling him a genius is somehow to patronise him.
I didn’t get this at all. It’s like saying people only like Buddy Holly’s music because he died in a plane crash at a young age.
Daniel Johnston imho IS a genius. And that’s all there is to it. Didn’t Howe Gelb once describe Johnston as a "lifer"? (Meaning that Johnston was one of a select few artists he’ll be listening to for the rest of his life.)
I refuse to go see Johnston live in case it somehow breaks the spell. I have also passed up chances to see J Spaceman and Todd Rundgren for the same reason.
*I’m not suggesting that it was the only preposterous thing in The Guardian that week. There may have been others!
Milo on 03/11/2009 at 6:45 pm.
I agree – like any artist you either get their work or you don’t and to suggest so many people would "pretend" to like his music is what’s patronising.
Obviously his problems have made his story somewhat unique, leading to the film about him and an explosion in popularity as a direct result, but that’s because it brought his great songs to a wider audience, not because everyone was just waiting to jump on some kind of bipolar bandwagon!
He was great last year in Glasgow, and not a disappointment at all but I can kind of see where you’re coming from. Sometimes if I’ve enjoyed a gig I don’t want to see the band again in case they’re crap next time.
peenko on 03/11/2009 at 8:25 pm.
I was indeed there too, I’ve seen him a few times now (ATP and Indian Summer) and that was by far and away the best show I have seen him play. He’s on Marc Rileys show tonight with Laura Marling (in fact he might already have been on), I was going to record, so if you miss it you know where to go….
Milo on 03/11/2009 at 8:36 pm.
Aha I may pop over to yours later for that little gem! He did have a good band with him at that gig.
Euan on 04/11/2009 at 3:29 pm.
I’m not a massive fan of his. But everything I have heard I have enjoyed. Unfortunately I cannot make his show. However, I will check out this album based on this review. Thanks.
Milo on 04/11/2009 at 9:29 pm.
Cool, will be interested to hear what you think Euan.
Drunk Country on 25/11/2009 at 2:27 pm.
What a lot of people either do not know/understand, or simply tend to forget, DJ was a huge, worldwide cult figure long before the movie came along & long before the double cover/original release The Late Great: Discovered Uncovered. There were bands lining up to heap praise on DJ long before & after Kurt Cobain started wearing his homemade Hi, How Are You T-Shirt. DJ was also covered quite widely long before The Late Great… came out — which, incidentally, was more of a fund-raising exercise* than the ‘great names doff cap to obscure cult mentalist’ as was portrayed in the somewhat reticent music media.
Having been listening to him & collecting his records for 22+years, more or less, I can entirely understand why & how he divides opinion as much as he does. But then, to be honest, I don’t know if that many people in the greater scheme of things are as big fans as they’re very happy to publicly declare.
I discovered DJ just after Yip! Jump Music, through the likes of the Butthole Surfers, Shimmy Disc / Kramer / & the NY no-wave stuff from the mid-’80s. I was hooked the first moment I heard the chord organ. It had nothing to do with his mental health issues (I knew nothing of them at the time of first listen) & it certainly wasn’t a factor in my continuing to listen & collect his records.
I am lucky enough to have bought (at the time) & still own the original American vinyl pressings of all his early albums (did own some cassettes, too, but they were stolen mid-’90s); I own a ton of really obscure / hard to find DJ releases on the likes of Seminal Twang (a label I collected for its entire run of 7” & CD singles), etc.. I also own a number of very early collaborations & cover versions of his tracks, such as the original The Pastels’ Speeding Motorcycle.
All these records were hunted down & purchased, across the world, paid for with dollars ‘hidden’ in airmail envelopes (pre-paypal days, see), purely because of the songwriting, & what the recording circumstances / environment did to the end product. Shit, I thought Yip! Jump Music was astounding, proper genius when I bought it at 16yo. To be honest, back then (&, really, today), I’ve met very, very few people (in the UK) who shared my enthusiasm — the only other people really up for DJ seemed to be the indie-fringe bands that were covering him.
He was definitely one of those artists you could put on a mix-tape & guarantee everyone you gave it to would come back asking who/what the fuck was that?
When the movie came out I was really pleased that someone had finally taken the time to look properly at DJ’s story. However, I don’t believe any significant number of the cinema goers who went to the movie were converted musically. The 2 or 3 showings I attended were full of hipsters & kids who were wondering what the buzz was all about &, ultimately, came away scratching their heads wondering what, indeed, the buzz was all about… the lo-fi nature & his illness-addled vocals don’t exactly endear him to newcomers weaned on production values & verse chorus verse certainties.
In all, I’d say the movie served to capitalize on the momentum of attention The Late Great started & it got DJ’s name in the music press being discussed & considered properly. He’s also toured more, especially the UK, as a result of it, but then he toured Europe before that. He’s collaborated with a number of musicians / producers on the last couple of albums, giving a more accessible aesthetic to the overall & general schizophrenia of his un-puppeteer’d output. But, again, he’s always done that. 1990 is my favorite album by him & it (the album itself AND the versions of some of the old, previously released tracks they re-arranged) would never have happened were it not for the collaborators & producer.
That all said there are obviously some amongst us who are curious about who this guy is & what the hell he’s doing on stage. They may even venture so far as to illegally, or otherwise, download a track or album. But, I don’t know if that curiosity stretches to people declaring him a genius because they find it stimulating to ‘like’ someone with a history of mental illness. If that sort of equation-based person exists then they need to be set fire to, because that’s unforgivably shallow.
I have listened to Daniel Johnston for most of my musically conscious life & I shall continue to listen to him — as long as he puts out enjoyable music & it sounds like he is enjoying the process himself. That’s the important thing at this stage.
To me he is a true genius. I have no problem saying that at all; his diverse but consistent body of work, his lyrics (a cliché, yes, but he has a very clever wit & observation), his ability to write & play astonishingly complex piano pieces (check out the Songs of Pain series of reissues), & the simple universality of his themes — albethey writ large, on the side of a restaurant, in the shape of a frog with eyes on the end of stalks. Conventional he’ll never be.
*DJ’s parents were getting too old to look after him constantly in the house they shared &, frankly, needed some respite after all the years of constant caring. Unfortunately, they couldn’t afford to build anything on their land or move somewhere else where there were two houses close together (1for them, 1 for him). This is where the CD came in — a producer & a group of musicians pulled some strings & called in some favors & recorded the album in the hope they’d raise enough money for building materials & some aftercare costs for DJ & his famile.