Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (21 page)

King Coffey, Butthole Surfers:

He was definitely an eccentric, but a good eccentric, a great Texas pioneer. Daniel Johnston’s songs stick with you, they’re so unique and incredibly moving. There’s a sense of drama and sadness, wonder and humor, in his songs. Everyone in Austin had these homemade Daniel Johnston tapes. He was controversial in Austin. You either thought he was a genius or a joke. I’m with the camp that thinks he’s an amazing songwriter.

Johnston’s early tapes, with titles like
Songs of Pain
,
Don’t Be Scared
, and
More Songs of Pain
, were disarmingly intimate. With sound quality ranging from decent to awful, his tapes bundled together songs – often great, but not always – with snippets of phone calls, family fights, toilet flushes, TV shows, and anything else that seemed appropriate. The songs ranged from confessions of anguish (
Going Down
) to hopeful advice (
Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances
) and from hilarious character studies (
Pothead
,
Harley Man
) to sincere tributes (
The Beatles
). Though amateurish and childlike, they undeniably contained the seeds of really good pop tunes. Where Johnston could be unselfconsciously enthusiastic, he was also a showman with a great knack for songcraft.

Among those in Austin who recognized Johnson’s unrefined talent was film director Richard Linklater, who included Daniel’s music in films such as the Austin-based Slacker. At gigs, local bands like Glass Eye (featuring Kathy McCarty, who’d later record a tribute album to Daniel) invited him to perform his songs between their sets. Whether the audience was laughing at him or cheering him on, Johnston reveled in the attention. His ultimate dream, to be a famous rock star, seemed to be coming true. But by 1986, Daniel had taken to using LSD, and it was destroying his already fragile psyche. He eventually became delusional and suffered a mental breakdown that sent him home to West Virginia for recovery.

Chris Cornell, Soundgarden:

There’s so much humor and pain all in the same tine, it’s pretty devastating and pretty amazing. This is somebody making music just because he wants to or because he has to. That itself is such a big influence to somebody in my situation, where everything has to balance in the books at the end of the year, that kind of crap. To stop and think that this guy made a record on his boom box that’s one of my all-time favorites. To remember that what matters is the process, and not if anyone buys it or hears it.

Meanwhile, Johnston’s reputation continued to grow and in 1988 indie label Homestead began professionally releasing the best of Daniel’s tapes, 1983’s
Hi, How Are You
and
Yip / Jump Music
. Safely on medication, and with a newfound religious zeal in his music, Johnston recorded his first studio albums with producer Kramer (released on his Shimmy Disc label). The album,
1990
, featured an appearance by Steve Shelley and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. But, again, Johnston fell apart just at the point he was nearing a breakthrough. Having stopped taking medication to curb his manic depression, Johnston started to believe he was on a mission of world salvation; he became combative with his label and incoherent in concert. Soon, he was back in West Virginia.

Lou Barlow, Sebadoh:

[Barlow’s first band] Dinosaur did a tour with Sonic Youth, and I heard Kim [Gordon of Sonic Youth] playing a Daniel Johnston tape. I immediately recognized the way he recorded it because I’d been doing the same thing. But I was totally floored because his songs were really developed in a way that I hadn’t developed my own. He was obviously completely enamored with the Beatles, and songwriting. He was making his own Billboard Top 300 at home, making his own legacy to keep himself entertained or keep himself sane. He made the definitive hand-held tape recordings, so hearing Daniel made me want to concentrate on really crafting my four-track recordings.

After more time spent in a psychiatric hospital, Daniel amazingly bounced back and signed a contract with a major label, Atlantic Records. Returning to Austin, he recorded 1994’s
Fun
. Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers produced and other local musicians, including King Coffey and members of Lyle Lovett’s band, appeared as well. But Daniel was too fragile to be a pop star. Unable to promote the record through the normal routes of promotional tours and interviews, Atlantic could not convert Johnston’s cult status into anything like mainstream success.

Though there has been some talk of a second Atlantic album, prospects seem dim. However, his reputation as a visual artist, in the world of folk and outsider art, has grown, and his drawings have been known to sell for hundreds of dollars.

DISCOGRAPHY

Songs of Pain
[cassette]
(Stress, 1980-81)
; the best of the early recordings that are still available only on cassette.

Don’t Be Scared
[cassette]
(Stress, July 1982)
.

The What of Whom
[cassette]
(Stress, August 1982)
.

More Songs of Pain
[cassette]
(Stress, 1982-83)
.

Yip / Jump Music
(Stress, Summer 1983; Homestead, 1989)
; the best-known early release, featuring Daniel on chord organ and favorites like
Casper the Friendly Ghost
.

Hi, How Are You
(Stress, September 1983; Homestead, 1988)
; the first nationally available release, featuring
Walking the Cow
, a signature song.

The Lost Recordings
[cassette]
(Stress, 1983)
.

The Lost Recordings II
[cassette]
(Stress, 1983)
.

Retired Boxer
[cassette]
(Stress, December 1984)
.

Respect
[cassette]
(Stress, January 1985)
.

Continued Story
(Stress, December 1985; Homestead, 1992)
.

(w/ Jad Fair)
Jad Fair and Daniel Johnston
(50 Skadillion Watts, 1989)
; a spotty collaboration with the Half Japanese leader.

Live at SXSW
[cassette]
(Stress, March 14,1990)
.

1990
(Shimmy-Disc, 1990)
; the first studio recordings, featuring members of Sonic Youth giving minimal accompaniment.

Artistic Vices
(Shimmy-Disc, 1992)
; recorded in West Virginia with a full band.

Fun
(Atlantic, 1994)
; Daniel’s only major label effort is an uncharacteristically clean recording, but doesn’t contain his best material.

TRIBUTE: K. McCarty,
Dead Dog’s Eyeball
(Bar / None, 1994)
; an excellent collection of Johnston’s songs, fleshed out by a sympathetic performer.

Note: The Stress releases are all homemade cassettes, unavailable in stores; they can be ordered directly from Stress, 4716 Depew, Austin, TX 78751.

JONATHAN RICHMAN

THE MODERN LOVERS

Jeff Tweedy, Wilco:

The honesty and sincerity of what he’s doing is undeniable. He’s really a genius. The main thing you get from Jonathan Richman is to be loose, be yourself. It’s really enjoyable to watch someone who doesn’t have any problem with being on stage. He’s totally comfortable and having a great time, as opposed to someone who’s staring at the floor and obviously has some major hang-ups about people looking at them.

Though he hasn’t come close to any mainstream commercial success in his nearly 30 years as a songwriter and performer, Jonathan Richman can claim to have profoundly influenced rock music – not once but twice. With early ‘70s songs like
I’m Straight
,
Pablo Picasso
, and
Roadrunner
, Richman created a prototype for the cynical, hippie-hating, phony-exposing young punk rocker that would emerge half a decade later.

Dean Wareham, Luna:

That History of Rock and Roll series on PBS, the punk episode started with Jonathan Richman, which I thought was very appropriate. Because before any of it happened, here was this guy with short hair singing about being straight. Then the Sex Pistols covered
Roadrunner
. That first Modern Lovers record is one of the ten best records ever made.

Soon, though, Richman outgrew his teen angst and embraced innocence – not because he couldn’t do anything else, like the
Shaggs
, but by conscious choice. Writing silly songs that bring out the kid in us, and love songs that connect in very simple and direct ways, Richman created a unique style that shows up in the music of everyone from the Violent Femmes and Talking Heads to They Might Be Giants and Beck. Well-crafted and without a trace of irony, his songs celebrate the things (‘50s pop, suburban life, romance) that so many musicians have parodied or mocked.

By the time Jonathan Richman released his first album in 1976, he’d already left behind a career’s worth of great music that would secure his place as a key link between late-‘60s American garage rock and the late-‘70s British punk explosion. In 1970, the 18-year-old Velvet Underground fanatic moved back home to Boston from a year in New York and formed his first band, the Modern Lovers. Within a year, the band – which featured future members of the Talking Heads Jerry Harrison) and Cars (David Robinson) – were being courted by major record companies. In 1972 they recorded two sets of demos, one with former Velvet John Cole producing. By then, though, the group was on the verge of splitting up.

David Byrne:

Obviously they were an influence, we hired one of them. They were doing really spare, bare-bones stuff, that spoke in a rock vocabulary but was very honest.

As it turned out, the original Modern Lovers never completed a record and the ‘72 recordings demos remain the band’s only studio documents. When the recordings were finally released four years later, it was as if they’d fallen into a time warp: the youthful energy and dark humor of Velvets-influenced songs like
Hospital
and
Old World
turned up in England to inspire a new generation.

Ironically, at the same time the Sex Pistols adopted the Modern Lovers’ classic
Roadrunner
as a rocking proto-punk anthem of teenage freedom, Jonathan Richman had taken to writing quieter, less aggressive songs. “By the age of 22, having played a few hospital shows for kids and an elementary school or two with just acoustic guitar,” Jonathan later wrote in a record company bio, “I was convinced that high volume was not a necessity but a hindrance to communication and intimacy.”

In 1976, a few months before the early demos were belatedly released as
The Modern Lovers
album, Richman had put out his first “proper” record, called
Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
, which featured Jonathan fronting an entirely new backing band and singing – with his nasal sincerity – songs like
Hey There Little Insect
and
Abominable Snowman in the Market
. Just when he could have embraced the arrival of punk as a movement, Jonathan had opted for something entirely different.

Tony Goddess, Papas Fritas:

He offered examples from his world that anyone can relate to, when he sings about the suburbs and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. You think it’s just these kiddy songs, but then you realize it’s much bigger, this whole aesthetic. I like his innocence. And I get along with my parents, I want to be able to play them music that won’t offend them, that won’t make my mom jittery while she’s driving.

Moving to California in the late ‘70s to record for the Beserkley label, Richman made albums such as
Rock ‘n’ Roll with the Modern Lovers
and
Back in Your Life
. In sharp contrast to his rocking early years, the new Modern Lovers – featuring the stand-up bass of Curly Keranen (later Asa Brebner), D. Sharpe’s muted three-piece drum kit, and Leroy Radcliffe’s softer acoustic guitar sound – perfectly captured the wide-eyed wonder of Richman’s songs.

Tjinder Singh, Cornershop:

We did a cover of
Angels Watching over Me
[from
Rock & Roll With the Modern Lovers
]. It’s a religious, sort of traditional song, and I certainly like a lot of religious stuff, because it inspires people immediately. And it’s very good to see how they’re put together.

With record sales always minimal, Richman concentrated on touring, and by the early ‘80s he was performing around the world to a growing cult of fans. It was in concert that Richman’s charms shone brightest. A great storyteller and unselfconscious dancer, with a quick wit that made for terrific audience interactions, Jonathan could hold a crowd’s attention with just his guitar and stage presence – sometimes without the guitar at all.