Hi, How Are You?

"Are you entertained by deep despair?"

I think it's safe to say that on a creative level I am, particularly by the scribe of the question himself.
Daniel Johnston, for me has been one of the few musicians, writers, artists that I truely believe on every level, there's no platform of sorrow for show in his work, this 'despair' isn't there to entertain.
This is honesty in its most pure form.

I've waited years to see Daniel live, he's played here three times before but I was always too young to get in. I think this inability to see him fueled my interest, the rejected unknown. I had romanticised visions of a broken Daniel, warbling his way through a back catalouge of crushing misery, but when the time came to see this idol of mine, I was presented with something on an entirely different level, a level I never wish to land on again.

I could sit here for an hour, even two and chronicle my whole night. Delineate the picturesque performance of the support act and even write a paragraph on how flattering the vocalist's dress was, but I've got one hand to type with and I'm moving at a slow enough pace so all of that worthless jargon can fuck right off. For now, I'll just get right to the point, Daniel Johnston fucking sucked. There's no other way to say it, his quivering cantillate just didn't quite titillate my dulcet pallet, that just doesn't cut it, it doesn't have the raw edge the statement needs, it's as simple as this... It was shit.
Maybe other people won't understand this, but after that show I think I was in a pretty dark headspace and I can't seem to put into words just why. It's an odd feeling, having my early teenage view of Daniel, a man who could do no wrong, sorely crushed. This, the man who I cite as the catalyst that pushed me head first into songwriting.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on the performance, on the man himself, afterall the first three songs he played were outstanding, in truth, that night he had me at hello but after the initial introductory, the three solo performances, it fell quickly into a sea of sonic shit. He left the stage after this trinity of verse and there he remained for quite a time, as I sat in horror watching the Beam Orchestra (his new backing band) play an instrumental version of Speeding Motorcycle. I'm sorry, but that song to me is the epitome of perfect pop melody and that doesn't come across so well with an eleven piece 'experimental jazz' orchestra. He returned to the stage after this and began a collection of numbers, each one sending me spiraling deeper into this hole of calamity, the endless bummer.
There was one point when I came close to leaving, he disclosed that Walking the Cow would be next, I was filled with dread and excitement, who knew they went together? And then it started, and once it did, I knew this was saving nothing, not a lousy thing. No song of his needs a fucking thirty second drum solo at the start, cut the shit and give the man a guitar, a piano or even an organ and let him play some magic, but when you start trying to make these simple songs 'out there', you're drowning in a river of fluxing piss. Obviously, despite the temptation I waited it out, I stayed to see if Daniel could muster up some comely masterpiece seperate from the group of unflattering dissonance, and you know he almost did. The encore, the one song that everybody wanted to hear, True Love Will Find You In The End. I have no shame, no shame atal in saying that this song, the version featured on 1990 has never failed to totally level me to a lamentable point, an oddly pathetic point, but a point without any humiliation. This particular recital however, didn't quite dig a hole in my gut, it didn't quite shovel what came from that hole to form a huge lump in my throat. Sure, it sounded nice, it did. It was simply pretty and it held my interest but I didn't believe it, for the first time listening to that song, I just did not believe that I'd be found. The failings here didn't lie with Daniel, his heart and soul and every other emotional entity did seem to pour out but that was painfully overshadowed by the backing band, who although descreased in size still were far too much for this one song. There was no suffering in the wind section, there was no hope in that guitar player, they were simply playing, and simply playing, for me just doesn't work for Daniel's songs.
Where was the woe, where was the belief, where was the fucking catharsis? Perhaps I do ask for too much, but hey, that's just the way I am.
He did return for a second encore, another two songs that had me struggling to stay in my seat, not because I was jumping up for the standing ovation like every other idol lover and idle lover in the building, but because that door, that exit was looking more and more appealing each second.

I don't feel like trying to make a strong conclusion, tying everything together, this has taken long enough as it is (my one handed typing is improving though), I think it's all fairly simple, Daniel Johnston was not enjoyable live. Thankfully, the albums won't change, they're always going to be there, they will probably continue to effect me the way they always have done, and one thing is for sure, Daniel Johnston was the spark to send me into writing, and that can never change.