The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Daniel Johnston is one of those musicians that I am totally in awe of yet can rarely listen to. His recordings are plagued by notoriously terrible quality– levels jumping all over the place, vocals exploding at all the wrong times as he yells too close to the microphone. His piano playing is grating, to put it lightly. He exhibits no understanding or grasp of the powers of sound dynamics. He pummels the keys with an obvious ear for notes and melody, but it is drowned out by the sound of 10 drunken chimpanzees jumping up and down on the keys.
All said and done though, his words hit nerves, touch the heart, and drop the listener into that comfortable funk that one indulges in every now and again for the pure pleasure of feeling blue and helpless. He has serene moments, and when they hit everything meshes, it all comes together, and you get a song like "Walking the Cow", "Devil Town" or "Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievience." It is within those flashes of restraint and tidiness that makes it easy to understand why the man has garnered such a heavy cult-like following, disregarding his crippling manic-depressive mental state of course.
Sadly, there will always be a group of ‘fans’ who are into him for the simple fact that he is tragically apeshit. I admit myself that I am attracted to that facet of his art. The most troubled people tend to be utterly and enviously brilliant– Roky Erikson, Syd Barret, Wesley Willis, Crispin Glover, etc.– and that is an undeniable draw. They approach things from angles that we can’t even envision coming from, and, knowing their sometimes dire mental misfires, don’t really hope to be able to understand. We’re content to let them filter the world through their paisley/hell-tinted glasses and become spectators to a world that is likely rife with pain, confusion, and broken hearts; chemically broken minds.
What sets Daniel apart from say, Wesley Willis, who only really had 5,000 versions of one song, is the fact that he truly an impressive songwriter. Maybe not great, or stupendous, but he is sincere and that in itself goes along way towards validating him. While a person may be interested in seeing just how nuts Johnston can possibly get, a compelling car crash/ reality TV syndrome that is enveloping the planet as I sit here and type, there is always the obvious fact that the man wrote strangely beautiful songs
The film is admirable for the simple fact that it isn’t set-up as a freak-show type documentary. It was made by a fan and paints a portrait of a semi-normal and creative kid that collapsed into a quagmire of manic genius and ended up on a quest to be a world famous Rock Star while wrestling with the real or imaginary conviction that he was running from the Devil himself. Through commentaries by his patient yet obviously heart-broken parents, snap shots and films from his childhood and adolescence, and interviews with friends and fellow musicians you are drawn into his life and get a good sense of the chronology of the tragedy.
It’s a smoothly paced drama that unfolds like a well written novel, but what makes it so much more effective is that it is all true, laid out right in front of you on the screen. No actors, no lighting technicians, the only soundtrack his words and heartache, his ragged piano and his punched-up guitar.
Notable episodes are home video of Lee Renaldo and Thurston Moore driving around New York looking for Daniel after he freaked out and disappeared (they found him in a parking lot in Jersey) and Gibby Haynes recounting the Butthole Surfers show where some say Daniel finally went around the bend after taking acid and witnessing the insanity of a Butthole performance. For reasons that we may never understand, Gibby gave his interview while having his teeth drilled. It’s an amazing scene, more cringe inducing than any horror movie I’ve ever sat through.
But the real star, of course, is Daniel Johnston. From his days of being chastised by his mom for immersing himself in his art, to his peculiar days as an MTV oddity, to working at McDonalds, and the awesome story of when he escaped a mental hospital in New York and opened for fIREhose the same night through presumably equal parts of serendipity and stupendous determination. This is a tragic and achingly beautiful story of one man, one broken heart, one broken mind, and a crippling drive to become a superstar while frustratingly, uncontrollably, shooting himself in the foot on multiple occasions. It’s also a sympathetic look, worthy of deafening applause, into the life of a manic-depressive personality. The blinding exuberance and energy, followed by neck-snapping falls from the treacherous and unstable peaks of grandiosity and shaky self-confidence.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston will kick you square in the heart, if you have one, as it traces the rise, the fall, and the subsequent resurfacing of a driven, tortured artist. The beauty of it all is that he still garners respect and praise for his work, proving that he was more than a flash in the hipper-than-thou pan that temporarily embraces something kooky and then drops it when the next damaged object comes along.
His longevity, I feel, is tied to his overwhelming honesty and purity. When he sings his words of pain, suffering, and unrequited love you know it’s all true, not some rote, by-the-numbers lyric writing machine that pumps up everyday shit to make it seem more tragic (fuck you, David Grey) or makes commercially pleasant music trying to pull at your heartstrings with songs of beauty and grace that fail to impress due to their lack of sincerity or inventiveness, hanging on a musical hook, a well-coiffed, faux bed-head look (fuck you, James Blunt, Ryan Adams). That Daniel Johnston can pack a club, play 10 minutes, and have everyone cheering insanely for him to come back for more is a testament to the ability of the human soul to recognize sincerity, beauty, honesty, and true, unfettered genius. Sure, the aforementioned (aforecursed?) pop super-stars of the moment can do the same, but they’ll be gone soon enough, and one can bet, and it’s a cynical bet, that if they looked like Daniel Johnston, they wouldn’t be where they are today.
But what Daniel lacks in physical beauty he more than makes up for in his works, dropping heart-warming/wrenching sentiments like they were loose change in a ripped pocket. And we all know that the most beautiful people are, ultimately, beautiful on the inside, and in this case, underneath Daniel’s admittedly rough exterior, glows a heavily shackled angel that continues to struggle and love and sing out for all that is good, right, and wonderful in this world.

Haa gongol...