Daniel

(Edited from WikiPedia)

Johnston was born in Sacramento, California and grew up in Chester, West Virginia, in the northern panhandle of the state between Ohio and Pennsylvania.



Johnston's life aspiration was to be a great comic book artist. He recorded songs on a cassette tape player in the basement of his home in the mid-to-late 70's.



After a false start at college at Abilene Christian University in 1979, he returned home to go to the East Liverpool, Ohio branch of Kent State University from 1980-1982. It was there he met his muse, Laurie Allen, who though she already had a boyfriend (that she eventually married), but he obsessed about Laurie, and he music reflects that obsession to this day.



Failing at every employment, he was invited by his brother to work for the summer in Houston, Texas at Astro World in April, 1983. It was there that he wrote his pinacle album, "Yip Jump Music" (later listed as 35 by Kurt Cobain in his top 50 albums).



After the summer, he lived with his sister in San Marcus for several months as a pizza delivery boy, continuing to write songs.



He was experiencing increase paranoia and had a fear that his family planned to have him committed for mental problems. The family was actually quite naive about the problem at this point. But he disappeared from sight for about six months, traveling with a carnvial.



In 1984 while the carnival was in Austin, Texas he was beat up by badly, and Daniel sought help from the local church of Christ. They provided medical care, put him up in an apartment, and got him a job at the local McDonalds at the Univeristy of Texas.



Over the next few years, he made himself know among the Austin crowd, handing out casssette tapes of his songs, and in 1985 edged his way onto the MTV show "The Cutting Edge" where his performance became the show's highlight.



A local Austinite, Jeff Tartakov pursued Daniel to be his manager, and helped him copy and distribute cassettes, and get several albums published.



Daniel's mental state continued to deteriorate, and he was in and out of the local mental hospital and was finally retrieved by his parents from desparate circumstances to return home in 1988. Obsessed with furthering his music career, he traveled to New York in 1988 and recorded with prominent musicians, only to end up on the streets of New York homeless and penniless.



Sent home on a bus, he arrived in a hallucinating state and frightened one woman such that she jumped out of a window to escape him, breaking both ankles. Running and hiding in the wild for days, he was eventually captured and held for assault. After some time in mental institutions, he was eventually released into his parent's custody.



In 1990, he played at South By Southwest, a music festival in Austin, Texas. On the way back to West Virginia on a small, private plane piloted by his father, Johnston had a manic episode and wrestled control of the plane away from his father, removing the key from the ignition and throwing it out of the plane. His father, a World War II fighter pilot, managed to successfully crash-land the plane in a wooded area. Although the plane was destroyed, Johnston and his father emerged unharmed. As a result of this episode, Johnston was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.



In 1991, Johnston was able to air his music on a radio show while being hospitalized at a West Virginia mental hospital. While hospitalized, Johnston sent requests to his manager to have Yoko Ono produce his music and to contact PepsiCo about the possibility of becoming spokesman for the soft drink Mountain Dew. Johnston had written a song praising Mountain Dew during this hospitalisation, in which he claimed to have been locked up for being "crazy about Mountain Dew."



His music has been acclaimed by David Bowie, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, Eddie Vedder, Beck, Spiritualized, The Flaming Lips, Bright Eyes, and Matt Groening. Kurt Cobain praised Johnston's work, and often wore a tee shirt featuring the cover art of Johnston's debut release, "Hi How Are You?" The frequency with which Cobain wore the "Hi How Are You?" tee shirt exposed Johnston to an even wider group of music enthusiasts.



In 1994, Johnston released Fun on Atlantic Records, his only major-label release. The record was produced by Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers, a group that had long supported Johnston, even inviting him to open a number of concerts for them. The record sold a little over 6,000 copies and Johnston was dropped by the label.



His disorder also cost him a contract with Elektra Records. Johnston was on the verge of signing a deal with Elektra VP of A&R Terry Tolkin, which included a generous advance and a clause that Johnston would not have to tour or make music videos. But he refused to sign with the label during a psychotic phase accompanied by religious preoccupation, claiming one of Elektra's bands, Metallica, was under the control of Satan. Interestingly, Johnston used a passage of Metallica lyrics in the song "Melody" on the Lucky Sperms collaboration with Jad Fair and Chris Bultman.



In 1995, Johnston contributed two songs to the soundtrack for Larry Clark's controversial film Kids, produced by Folk Implosion and Sebadoh's frontman, Lou Barlow.



Johnston covered Schoolhouse Rock!'s well-known "Unpack Your Adjectives" for a compilation of the popular education songs called Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks in 1996.



Johnston's songs have been covered by over 150 artists around the world including Tom Waits, Pearl Jam, Beck, Wilco, Yo La Tengo, Bright Eyes, Teenage Fanclub, Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. [3]



The famous "Hi, How Are You?" mural in Austin, TexasIn 2005, Texas-based theater company Infernal Bridegroom Productions received a Multi-Arts Production/MAP Fund grant [4] to work with Johnston to create a rock opera based on his music, titled Speeding Motorcycle.



Johnston often performs with fellow Waller residents Jason and Bridget Nightmare as Danny and the Nightmares.



[edit] Art career

In 1983, Johnston painted a mural of the "Hi, How Are You?" frog, also known as Jeremiah the Innocent after the Three Dog Night song, on the side of Sound Exchange. The site was converted into a Baja Fresh franchise in 2004. Although initial plans called for the mural to be torn down, public outcry persuaded restaurant owner John Oudt to let the mural stay, at a price of $50,000 in additional costs and lost revenue. The Baja Fresh has since closed and the space has remained vacant for several months as of July 2007.



Johnston's drawings were featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. His artwork is shown in galleries around the world, including exhibits in London's Aquarium Gallery (April 28-May 20, 2006) and New York's Clementine Gallery (March 16-April 15, 2006).