Daniel Johnston

Daniel Johnston is a name that comes up a lot when you start digging around in indie rock.  Just about everybody has dropped his name in an interview at least once; Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with his name on it.  And he's written some killer songs: check out Yo La Tengo's cover of "Speeding Motorcycle," or M. Ward's version "I Go Home"; Sparklehorse and the Flaming Lips teamed up (as SparkleLips) to cover his song "Go" for an album of cover songs called The Late Great Daniel Johnston.

You might have noticed that all the songs I named were cover versions.  There's a reason for this.  I can barely stand Daniel Johnston's music.  His (original) version of "I Go Home" is lo-fi - it sounds like it was recorded on a boombox (a la the Mountain Goats) - and is just him singing over a very percussively played piano.  His voice has a Neil Young-like whine to it, and lasts about thirty seconds on the stereo at work.  Not that it's without its charms - there's a sweetness to the way he sings the chorus that is disarming - but this is my favorite of his recordings, and I can barely stand to listen to it.  He version of "Speeding Motorcycle" sounds like it was played on a cheap Casio keyboard - it honestly sounds like a child's toy.  I probably wouldn't like these songs at all if someone with more patience than me hadn't sifted through his catalog for the true gems.

I don't mind lo-fi, honestly.  I like Sebadoh (in fact I think "Flame" is one of the best indie rock songs ever) and the Mountain Goats.  But I don't understand it as an aesthetic - where you like a song because it's lo-fi.

There are a lot of people like Johnston in my collection - Syd Barrett, Skip Spence - and others who I should have but don't - Roky Erickson, Jandek - and they all have one thing in common: they're outsiders.  For a long time there's been an obscurist streak going through the serious music fan community, and so you find records of schizophrenic or bipolar semi-hermits thrust into your hands with the assurance "listen to this, it's great."  Often you're told you can "hear their pain" but even if not, there's some attraction there.  The most dangerous word, though, is honest.  I don't know what honest means in this context, but lo-fi is "honest" and so is outsider rock.

All of this is fine.  I own Madcap Laughs and there's a couple of songs on it I really enjoy, so I certainly won't begrudge someone whose tastes venture a little farther out than mine.  But I think there is a group of people who don't like this music, but keep trying to, because they're supposed to like it.  Because it's "honest" and "real" and not like (to pull an example out of the sky) Kings of Leon.

Some people genuinely like Daniel Johnston, and I hope he keeps making records that they love.  But I, for the most part, just can't take him unless he's been filtered through a layer or two of M. Ward or Yo La Tengo.