Unlike many of my musical heroes who die, I actually knew Daniel Johnston a little. In 1998, he was working with the Station Manager of KVRX, Mark Miller. Mark was making a music video for him, which you can see here. At least a couple of times he followed Mark up to the station, & I was at the station a lot - I was a Program Manager that summer.
To say that Daniel Johnston didn't like me would probably be too much - I just didn't really have much that interested him. He carried with him a two-liter of Coca-Cola & a carton of Kools, & since I was a smoker at the time, we would often be outside smoking. Daniel Johnston had a ton of energy & his mind worked double-overtime, obviously fueled by the nicotine & caffeine. We had a few conversations, we of course talked once about the Beatles, but if there were a woman outside, he was going to be focused on her instead.
The last time I saw him play was in 2000 I think when he came onstage at a Yo La Tengo show. Something about being around him made me worry about him. He lived with his parents who were getting on in years - what would happen to him once they had gone?
That level of anxiety I would feel would also come to me in his music, which I had heard before I met him. I came to Austin for college in 1986 & might have run into him at the McDonald's on the Drag where he worked or maybe I would've seen him handing out his tapes. I don't recall. I believe I first saw him live in a nicely-packed room at an early South By Southwest. I might not have heard his music before.
It was when I started volunteering at KVRX that he began to figure in my life. We had his cassettes & CDs. People played him all the time. & in 1994, Kathy McCarty released Dead Dog's Eyeball, which brought a whole new appreciation to the originals.
There's always a part of me that feels like I didn't appreciate him as much as I feel he deserved. I don't know if it has something to do with being around Daniel Johnston the Person instead of concentrating on Daniel Johnston the Artist. I do wish he had been more appreciated in his life. I also hope that whatever demons tormented him for his short time on this planet let him have moments of peace & beauty away from his music.
He'll always feel so much like Austin to me. One night, with my dear friend Mike, as we stumbled home after the bars closed, we were carless & drunk & a mile away from our apartment, Mike, shirtless in the heat of Austin in August at 2am, walking down Dean Keaton toward Red River, he began to sing as loud & passionately as possible:
Funeral home
Funeral home
Goin' to the funeral home
Got me a coffin
Shiny & black
I'm goin' to the funeral
& I'm never comin' back
Austin is more populated & busier now, but we had the streets all to ourselves. I don't remember getting home but I remember that song.
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