Daniel Johnston Friday 14th April - Barbican London
This show was in a similar format to last year's Daniel Johnston's Discovered Covered;
a double CD: - CD 1 - Covers of Daniel's material and CD 2 of the same songs played by Daniel. I confess, I happily listened to the
more palatable cover versions but failed to get acquainted with the rawer CD of Daniel versions.
The show also presaged the up and coming film, 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston'.
A myriad of artists turned out to demonstrate their support for this difficult to penetrate, erratic and unconventional performer.
There was James Yorkston, Teenage Fanclub, Jason Pierce of Spiritualised,
Vic Chestnut and Howe Gelb.
In turn they took to the stage against a backdrop of Daniel's child-like felt-tip pen comic book style art; featuring characters such as a depressed Incredible Hulk,
Casper the Friendly Ghost, Captain America and various hybrid creatures - triple-headed duck-lions,
triple-stick-eyed snakes.
James Yorkston and his trio took the stage, bathed in an Kryptonite green light.
The first song was a tensely damped acoustic affair with violin and bouzoki,
'My yolk is heavy' 'I feel as empty as an egg shell'.
This led into 'Somethings Last a Long Time' and then catchy 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on a Grievience'.
Everett True was compere for the night and decided, as he admitted, that it was far easier to sing instead of speak.
So we were treated to Everett's unaccompanied, seemingly plague-ridden songs - an except:
'There's a man going round taking names' we later find out it is death. Thanks Everett.
Vic Chestnut, next, performed a Daniel classic 'Like a Monkey in a Zoo'; the lyric convincingly
compares his life to a monkey in a zoo, 'Devil Town'; a paranoid song about being living in a town of vampires.
Then 'Joy Without Pleasure (... Ain't No Fun At All)'
Then a new one from Vic which drifted through Europe, flu and the Kaiser. He confided it was from a dream he had.
Howe Gelb comes up for accompaniment, and on Tuna Ketchup, he adds piano, that, in parts sounds jarring, damped and metallic. I think
I saw him slip a steel harmonic holder in over the stings of the piano.
More songs follow and a few more guests appear out of the darkness to accompany of singing saw.
There's Lee and Nancy type ballad with a Bardot blonde from Danish band, Under Byen, singing a sultry ballad.
Other lyrics that strike me out of the stage gloom: 'She wore a yellow suit in the rain'
'I was looking for love, alls I got was a fight' seemingly a tale of an affair on a oil rig.
Another 'Send me your love no more, it'll only make me sick'.
Vic goes off and Howe Gelb is left on stage alone with a Casio keyboard. He admits he's not very good at working out
other people's songs but launches into Daniels' 'Walking the Cow'. The hammering
of his fingers on the Casio's keys as loud as the accompanying notes.
The night has so far been slow paced. All the way through the artists are alluding to Daniel's greatness, possibly even genius.
Teenage Fanclub perform a more upbeat 3 song set of Daniel's songs - Delusion Confusion & Fish. Then it's Jason Pierce from
Spiritualised.
He seems reverential in regards to Daniel's songs, and performs 'True Love Will Find You in the End',
and 'Funeral Home'. The string quartet and gospel backing singers are a touch too much, the tenuous nature of the songs are rendered
bloated and overblown. The words 'Funeral Home' are repeated ad infinitum to tedium.
Then as the stage is emptied it's the moment we've all been built up for, the Brian Wilson-like, mad, obsessive songwriting
genius - Daniel Johnston.
He takes the stage in grey tracksuit bottoms and evergreen sweatshirt. He doesn't look as if he's ever
set foot in a gym the outfit is more for lounging around in, eating tubs of ice cream.
He looks like a man who's let himself go, a man who has never had
anything work out for him ever. He never quite looks out into the audience and
keeps his gaze angled down to the stage floor. Through his uncertain demeanour you could surmise that
he's has the air of mental dishevelment.
He opens his guitar case and procedes to play his out of tune nylon stringed guitar.
He performs 3 unrequited love songs on the guitar, sometimes having difficulty with the bar chords in the bridge he'd written.
By the 2nd song, I could see the ernest nature of his song and could get through his presentation to see the inherent the quality.
He moves to piano for a 4th unrequited love song. His piano playing is of top quality, and I wonder why he doesn't present his songs on piano, rather
than guitar.
That's it. There's no encore.
I leave the venue with the wisdom of
'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on a Grievience' ringing like a bell inside my head, '... do yourself a favour be your own saviour, don't let
the sun go down on a grievience'.
I get home and flip on CD 2 of Discovered Covered.
a double CD: - CD 1 - Covers of Daniel's material and CD 2 of the same songs played by Daniel. I confess, I happily listened to the
more palatable cover versions but failed to get acquainted with the rawer CD of Daniel versions.
The show also presaged the up and coming film, 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston'.
A myriad of artists turned out to demonstrate their support for this difficult to penetrate, erratic and unconventional performer.
There was James Yorkston, Teenage Fanclub, Jason Pierce of Spiritualised,
Vic Chestnut and Howe Gelb.
In turn they took to the stage against a backdrop of Daniel's child-like felt-tip pen comic book style art; featuring characters such as a depressed Incredible Hulk,
Casper the Friendly Ghost, Captain America and various hybrid creatures - triple-headed duck-lions,
triple-stick-eyed snakes.
James Yorkston and his trio took the stage, bathed in an Kryptonite green light.
The first song was a tensely damped acoustic affair with violin and bouzoki,
'My yolk is heavy' 'I feel as empty as an egg shell'.
This led into 'Somethings Last a Long Time' and then catchy 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on a Grievience'.
Everett True was compere for the night and decided, as he admitted, that it was far easier to sing instead of speak.
So we were treated to Everett's unaccompanied, seemingly plague-ridden songs - an except:
'There's a man going round taking names' we later find out it is death. Thanks Everett.
Vic Chestnut, next, performed a Daniel classic 'Like a Monkey in a Zoo'; the lyric convincingly
compares his life to a monkey in a zoo, 'Devil Town'; a paranoid song about being living in a town of vampires.
Then 'Joy Without Pleasure (... Ain't No Fun At All)'
Then a new one from Vic which drifted through Europe, flu and the Kaiser. He confided it was from a dream he had.
Howe Gelb comes up for accompaniment, and on Tuna Ketchup, he adds piano, that, in parts sounds jarring, damped and metallic. I think
I saw him slip a steel harmonic holder in over the stings of the piano.
More songs follow and a few more guests appear out of the darkness to accompany of singing saw.
There's Lee and Nancy type ballad with a Bardot blonde from Danish band, Under Byen, singing a sultry ballad.
Other lyrics that strike me out of the stage gloom: 'She wore a yellow suit in the rain'
'I was looking for love, alls I got was a fight' seemingly a tale of an affair on a oil rig.
Another 'Send me your love no more, it'll only make me sick'.
Vic goes off and Howe Gelb is left on stage alone with a Casio keyboard. He admits he's not very good at working out
other people's songs but launches into Daniels' 'Walking the Cow'. The hammering
of his fingers on the Casio's keys as loud as the accompanying notes.
The night has so far been slow paced. All the way through the artists are alluding to Daniel's greatness, possibly even genius.
Teenage Fanclub perform a more upbeat 3 song set of Daniel's songs - Delusion Confusion & Fish. Then it's Jason Pierce from
Spiritualised.
He seems reverential in regards to Daniel's songs, and performs 'True Love Will Find You in the End',
and 'Funeral Home'. The string quartet and gospel backing singers are a touch too much, the tenuous nature of the songs are rendered
bloated and overblown. The words 'Funeral Home' are repeated ad infinitum to tedium.
Then as the stage is emptied it's the moment we've all been built up for, the Brian Wilson-like, mad, obsessive songwriting
genius - Daniel Johnston.
He takes the stage in grey tracksuit bottoms and evergreen sweatshirt. He doesn't look as if he's ever
set foot in a gym the outfit is more for lounging around in, eating tubs of ice cream.
He looks like a man who's let himself go, a man who has never had
anything work out for him ever. He never quite looks out into the audience and
keeps his gaze angled down to the stage floor. Through his uncertain demeanour you could surmise that
he's has the air of mental dishevelment.
He opens his guitar case and procedes to play his out of tune nylon stringed guitar.
He performs 3 unrequited love songs on the guitar, sometimes having difficulty with the bar chords in the bridge he'd written.
By the 2nd song, I could see the ernest nature of his song and could get through his presentation to see the inherent the quality.
He moves to piano for a 4th unrequited love song. His piano playing is of top quality, and I wonder why he doesn't present his songs on piano, rather
than guitar.
That's it. There's no encore.
I leave the venue with the wisdom of
'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on a Grievience' ringing like a bell inside my head, '... do yourself a favour be your own saviour, don't let
the sun go down on a grievience'.
I get home and flip on CD 2 of Discovered Covered.
posted by M S @ 12:20 AM
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