Hi, how are you?
Somewhere around 1994 I went into a record store and picked up a vinyl copy of ARTISTIC VICE by Daniel Johnston. I didn't really know who Daniel was, I just liked that the collaged cover featured Casper the Friendly Ghost and Captain America along with a cut out of The Beatles in their Sgt. Pepper outfits and a panel that screamed “GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!” Is it dumb to say a record changed your life? I really feel that way about first hearing Daniel Johnston on my sad, worn out record player in my back room in my parent's house.
I couldn't know that this was a record recorded just after Daniel had been released from a mental hospital. That the tender songs he sang about a girl named Laurie were a reflection of his maniacal obsession with a person who had simply been nice to him in college. I just heard the sweetness in his voice and the plain yearning of his lyrics, looking desperately to love and be loved. I strongly self-identified as a person who can’t easily hide his obsessions, who had been injured by love, who lived in his head with a jumble of cartoon characters as a mythological iconography. Daniel Johnston really spoke to me.
If you haven't seen the film, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, I really can't recommend it strongly enough. It's a fantastic portrait of the pains and triumphs of a very human artist, deeply flawed and deeply brilliant.
