Daniel Johnston

Daniel Johnston为独立乐圈Cult Hero的代表性人物。 从小受到心理疾病的折磨，长大之后也没有好转的迹象，Daniel Johnston只好依赖大量的镇定剂与其他药物来控制病情。然而这些药物通常含有伤害人体的成份，Daniel Johnston不但精神状况始终无法到达与常人一般的水平，多年下来更是毒害缠身，屡次因药物中毒被紧急送入医院。 这些先天的折磨与痛苦却激励出一名勇敢的艺术家。自八零年代开始，Daniel Johnston发表的卧房录音作品充满着不假修饰的Lo-Fi质感。他的歌词看似光怪陆离，实则处理着自己经历的破碎成长体验。透过创作，他坦白地颇析自己，将心中的黑暗面摊在众人眼前。也因为这种真实的态度，让Daniel Johnston获得众多乐手的高度拥戴（如Beck、Wilco与Sonic Youth），更建立起一群忠心耿耿的乐迷，成为美国Singer/Songwriter界的传奇人物。 不但是名多产的唱作人，Daniel Johnston同时也是画家。他的个人专辑封面几乎都采用自己的作品；Nirvana主唱Kurt Cobain生前也酷爱穿着一件印有Daniel Johnston插图的T-Shirt。
by John Dougan
As with other talented but troubled artists such as Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson, and Roky Erickson, Daniel Johnston fights a daily battle with the chronic mental illness that has plagued him nearly his entire life. However, despite recurrent bouts of delusional behavior wherein he has physically endangered himself and others, Johnston has carved out a respectable, influential career as a singer/songwriter of extraordinary talent who has grown since his first crudely recorded cassette was released in 1980. He became the singer/songwriter of choice of the alternative/underground rock scene, and at various times has had his work championed by members of Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Butthole Surfers, Half Japanese, Nirvana (Kurt Cobain was often photographed wearing a Daniel Johnston T-shirt), and numerous others.
Until the 90s, Johnstons recordings were basically homemade affairs, his plain voice accompanied by crude piano and guitar playing. His narrative concerns focused mainly on lost love, the pain of miscommunication, his love for the Beatles, and comic-book superhero Captain America. Johnstons music is unflinchingly direct, almost embarrassingly and painfully honest. Because of this and his increasingly erratic behavior, he was considered a local hero in his home of Austin, TX (where he moved from rural West Virginia), but too extreme to engender the interest of a record label. That situation changed in 1985, when MTV filmed a program on the Austin music scene. Johnstons performance brought him almost overnight acclaim, and he went from local legend to national cult figure. Soon, many of his self-released cassette recordings (on his appropriately named Stress label) began showing up in hip record stores from Boston to L.A., and the buzz was that Daniel Johnston was the coolest. There was, however, a grim side to this success, as if his mental illness was the primary component of his hipness; therefore, there was a feeling that those not close to him were marketing his illness as much as his talent. Sadly, Johnstons behavior wasnt helping, and he was institutionalized twice in the late 80s after his refusal to take medication led to two dangerous episodes.
In the late 80s, indie label Homestead issued some of Johnstons early recordings on vinyl and a full-blown appreciation of Johnstons work was well underway. Soon he was recording solo and with Half Japanese mastermind Jad Fair on the Shimmy Disc indie label, and later with Butthole Surfer Paul Leary, who may well be the best producer/musical accompanist Johnston ever had. Johnston, to the amazement of virtually everyone, recorded for Atlantic, and despite occasional behavioral lapses, seemed more self-assured than ever. As a result, in the late 90s and 2000s, he recorded some of the best music of his career — smart, ebullient pop with ringing guitars, primitive keyboards, and a wonderfully naïve way of looking at the world. Although he sometimes becomes sad and bitter, cynicism and self-pity arent his style, and that makes the little tragedies and epiphanies he writes about all the more compelling. Johnston was exposed to an even larger audience in 2005 with the release of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a feature-length documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, eventually making its way around the world. The Electric Ghosts, an album credited to the duo of Johnston and Don Jack Medicine Goede, arrived in March 2006. Johnstons world may seem small, but its much bigger and friendlier than that of your wildest imagination.