Daniel Johnston: 3rd Annual Hi, How Are You Day Concert

Daniel Johnston

AUSTIN, TX — January 22nd would have been Daniel Johnston’s 59th birthday. 

In his youth, Johnston stood on the street and eagerly handed his tapes to passersby saying “My name is Daniel Johnston, and one day I’m going to be famous.” His go-getter attitude got him places. He was on MTV News in 1985, where he proudly displayed his newest tape titled “Hi, How Are You?” to the cameras, his familiar frog smiling—unaware just how important it would become to Johnston’s transplanted home of Austin, Texas, and the world. 

In early recordings, Johnston’s tonguey vocals and untrained guitar are imbued with the warble of background fuzz—a side effect of the low-quality Dictaphone tape recorders he preferred, but the effect is more than an aesthetic choice. He was unpolished, and that’s the most powerful part of his legend he left us with.

Johnston was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He struggled with the demons of anxiety and depression he fended off and sometimes succumbed to. As he got older, Johnston’s albums were set free less frequently, but he continued to create and collaborate. He worked with musicians and groups like Yo La Tengo, James Faulkner of Spoon, and Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo. He stayed friends with many of the people who knew him in his twenties. His honest lyricism, lo-fi style, and outsider status influenced a generation of musicians who came to the Moody Theater to pay their respects.

Before I wrote this piece, I thought that interviews of concertgoers would reveal Johnston’s influence. I interview people while I wait for the doors to open and each time my questions turn to Johnston, my subjects say they’d never listened to his music.  Johnston never got as big as Cage The Elephant—the headlining act— though some recognize his name once I mention he’s the artist behind the landmark “Hi, How Are You?” mural. I take an opportunity for a breather and go down to the street before the show starts.

I walk a block and find a bike stand underneath a tree. I wipe some rain from steel and sit. A man approaches me. “This stuff is burning a hole in my cup,” he says. I’m confused and it shows, so he repeats himself. I ask him what’s in it. “Whiskey,” he says. He starts to walk away, but I figure that I’ll try one more time, so I ask: “Do you know Daniel Johnston?” He turns and cups his hand behind his ear. I repeat myself, and he says he’s never heard of him. 

He’s standing, keeping a keen eye on the south-bound traffic. He’s from Santa Cruz, California, but he tells me he’s lived all over the country. He ended up in Austin recently, within the last two years. “I just got back from Mesa, Arizona,” he tells me. “Right off the Greyhound, man. 22-hour ride.” I ask what brought him to Arizona. He momentarily drops his bloodshot eyes from the cars that pass us indifferently. “Watching my dad die,” he says.

He tells me how he’s been kicked out of a bar tonight, that the bartender didn’t care about his father or the $5 that the bar supposedly owes him. There were threats of a fight, but that wasn’t what he was looking for. “I just want respect, man.” He never tries to walk away from me. He stays at my side, gently rocking and biting his lips. There are tears in the corners of his eyes, which he wipes with the back of his black jacket sleeve.

He opens up his phone and starts scrolling. “I can’t go back to prison,” he says. “I tried to show the bartender the texts from my brother about Dad. He didn’t believe me.” I tell him I believe him, but he continues to search. Finally, he turns the screen to show me a message from his brother that reads: “Hello, I wanted to let you know that Dad passed today. The official time of death was 8:33 A.M. He died peacefully. I just wanted to let you know, and say that I love you.” I saw that he’s responded: “I love you too.”

“I was on the bus when I got the text,” he tells me. 

Against the towering metal walls of the Moody Theater, projectors display a cast of Johnston’s doodly characters: green and blue monsters with wings, a thin man with a guitar, a yellow duck; more faces, like Johnston’s interpretation of Casper, peaks above the rubber edges of custom low top Vans that are on sale next to the bar. A long, chatty line forms for a photobooth which features a backdrop of the “Hi, How Are You?” mural. That character’s name is Jeremiah the Innocent. Volunteers have his stocky eyes and squat body printed across the front of their T-shirts. On televisions around the venue, Johnston’s characters raise awareness for mental illnesses, and give tips for how friends and family can recognize the signs and help. All around, Johnston is being celebrated. His work never stopped.

The third annual Hi, How Are You Day concert, like Johnston’s life, was messy. During James Faulkner’s set, the mic stand nearly swiveled off the stage and into the front row; during Cage The Elephant’s set, the audio cut out completely for a short time; Cage’s frontman, Matt Schultz, forgot the lyrics to Johnston’s most popular song, “True Love Will Find You In The End,” and The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” Schultz sat down at the edge of the stage after “True Love” and bows his head in thought. “Sometimes,” he says, “ you know the words to a song, but then you get scared and you look for them and you forget them.” He looks up at the crowd. “Fear. Don’t let fear in.”

As I look down at the stage from the upper edge of the Moody Theater balcony, I notice the squares and circles of fluorescent duct tape pressed into the black wood. Hundreds of people worked together to make this concert happen, and even with all of those people—collaborating, sharing, and networking—shit happened. Daniel was a friend tonight, because nobody can do it alone.