ACL '09: I'm Gonna School You, Part 2 |TheWellSet.com

By Jordan Jeffus

ACL Pick #2 Daniel Johnston

Friday, 4:45-5:30p.m., Austin Ventures

You know the “Hi, How Are You?” frog on UT’s campus?

Bet you don’t know what’s it’s from. I didn’t either until last year when my boyfriend made me watch a documentary called, “The Devil and Daniel Johnston.” I had NO idea what it was about, but was pleasantly surprised, as it portrays a life of an extremely odd and tormented, but no doubt talented man named Daniel Johnston. I became even MORE pleasantly surprised when looking at the ACL lineup this year because the one and only Daniel Johnston is playing at ACL. Who is Daniel Johnston? I will tell you…

Daniel Johnston was born into a Christian fundamentalist household and started out like a normal enough teen – just one who really loved art, music and basically – weird shit. He spent most of his time drawing really strange art portraying skeletons an monsters (we later come to find that he is mentally ill and believes these demons are after him) , but the bulk of his considerable fame came from a series of homemade cassettes which he recorded with friends in the early 80s. Almost all of his songs are about his unrequited love for a woman named Laurie (who ended up marrying an undertaker), and were titled things like “Songs of Pain” and “More Songs of Pain.”

The cartoonist moved to Texas in 1983 where he first lived in Houston with his brother and worked at Astro World. He recorded the famous “Hi, How Are You?” on a $59 boom box in a make-shift recording studio in his brother’s garage. From there he moved to San Marcos and joined a traveling circus. The circus landed him in Austin, and that’s where he stayed for awhile, handing out his tapes for free; namely, the “Hi, How Are You” tape which made him relatively famous here. The bigger music community began to embrace Daniel when an MTV show “Cutting Edge” came to Austin and caught Daniel at one of his many shows.

Plagued with manic depression, which is quiet relevant in his music and art, Daniel never quite went on to live a normal life. An attempt at suicide and his parent’s overprotective nature landed Daniel in a mental hospital for awhile. But amazingly while there, he was offered several record deals.

He now lives a simple life with his aging parents and continues to draw, sing and occasionally tour. His music is definitely unique and unlike any other, with simple (and sometimes disturbing) lyrics and melodies. This guy is an icon in Austin and has developed a cult following around the world for his painful stories of love and existential torment.