http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT7v2nUcmek
“That’s dedication, pal.”
Anvil was a great watch…you end up feeling really bad for the guys.
The film seemed to have picked things up for them though…I noticed a month or two back they were playing a gig here in Edinburgh with Saxon…hopefully they got payed!
They’re actually touring with the film now. They show the movie and then the band comes out and plays. They were here in Atlanta a week or two ago.
That’s a good gimmick. Play the movie and make everyone feel bad and then they will listen to your shitty music and pay you as a form of charity. It’s the musical equivalent of a beggar who tells you the story of how he became homeless before asking for money.
I think more people would pay for music if they realized how broke the musicians they like are and saw how these people suffer for art first hand.
The documentary was the best music related one I’ve watched since “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”. The story it tells and the people involved get you genuinely involved in their struggles and hardships.
I’m cynical of their newfound boost in attention, though. The beggar analogy is spot on, unfortunately. It’s apparent when watching their film that “Lips” made lots of stubborn decisions along the way that maybe prevented his band from being as successful as they could have been. Maybe I should stop and listen to their music sometime, but the songs played in the film sounded nothing less than bland.
actually got their cd as a gift, since my sis saw me watching the movie a few times and I mentioned how great it was. The cd is not too bad at all. Better than alot of the crap metal that tries to sound like thrash… FYI: there’s some form of new thrash revival going on.
The dvd is a great story and the audio commentary is pretty funny too. Beats that movie “rockstar”
I don’t think the music is very good, but it’s clearly a sort of missing link between Iron Maiden and Metallica, for what it’s worth.
Yeah. I thought the movie was great and I did, throughout the film, find myself emotionally involved with the characters and their story. But here’s my main beef with everything . . . .
From the beginning when they start showing - Metallica, made it! Megadeth, made it! Slayer, made it!
Then they act like they just never got their break. They portray these schmucks on the same level as Metallica.
Look, Lips, you seem like a really sweet guy, but let me tell you why Metallica became hugely successful and you are still playing the Toledo VFW and bowling alley lounges. BECAUSE METALLICA IS INSANELY GOOD!!!
You are mediocre. You music is nothing special and your voice is freaking TERRIBLE!
Stop playing victim and face the cold reality. Your band kind of sucks. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I respect that you slave for your art and that metal is your passion and blah blah blah. Just don’t expect your big break to come. It would’ve never been offered to you anyway.
The documentary was the best music related one I’ve watched since “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”. The story it tells and the people involved get you genuinely involved in their struggles and hardships.
I saw Dan Johnston play live today in Melbourne, Australia.
It was really fucked. [:/]
The documentary was the best music related one I’ve watched since “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”. The story it tells and the people involved get you genuinely involved in their struggles and hardships.
I saw Dan Johnston play live today in Melbourne, Australia.
It was really fucked. [:/]
HAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!
I saw him here in Edinburgh a few months back and he was brilliant. The crowd was loving him and he was in fine form.
Daniel is a mental time-bomb with regards to live shows AND life as a whole…it really is the toss of a coin with regards to the type of set you’re going to get with that guy.
The documentary was the best music related one I’ve watched since “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”. The story it tells and the people involved get you genuinely involved in their struggles and hardships.
I saw Dan Johnston play live today in Melbourne, Australia.
It was really fucked. [:/]
Oh they were supposed to interview him on JJJ’s drive show… I wonder if it’s already been on. Damn if so.
What was fucked about it?
Speaking of documentaries about mentally ill rock musicians, I recommend “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” a recent doc on Roky Erickson.
Well, basically it’s 36 degrees celsius and you put a man up there in his condition? As far as I could see, he’s really not fit to perform. He had the shakes, was stumbling over his words and just didn’t want to be there. Every five minutes it was, ‘I need to take a break! Bye everyone!’
At the 20 minute mark, he goes ‘okay everyone, I’ve gotta go! Seeyou!’ and his minder/manager/whatever comes on, points to the clock and blocks him from going off. Disdainfully, he sings another song, and another, when at the 35 (out of the required 45) minute mark, he just sez the same goodbye to the audience, and basically fled the stage.
He was changing his mind about songs just as the band started, would end a song halfway through it and just didn’t seem to want to be there. And I don’t blame him.
So, as he went off stage, he had to walk through this little tarpaulin corridor to get off. He was really keen to leave. Really keen. Keen enough to try to lift the tarpaulin, and ‘escape’ under it instead of walking through the thoroughfare and nearly fall 2 metres down it. The entire thoroughfare cage was shaking and you could make out the sound crew battling to push him back onto the platform to safely leave it.
They eventually succeeded and he went straight to his tent. I could see him inside, and his touring guitarist, Australian-folk buttmunch Old Man River attempted to placate him. Dan instead took a swing at him and had a sort of childlike tantrum, stormed out, and managed to escape the band compound.
This was of some concern, because it faced a river right behind him. Everyone followed him, but to me it was clear he just want to be alone, and sit the fuck down. And he was that stressed than when he did try to sit down on the stone wall facing the Maribyrnong river, he missed it and fell flat on his arse, aggravating him even more. Eventually, he was just left with a female member of the entourage watching over him and he just sat facing the river, completely zoned out.
There were cyclists and joggers going past him, staring at him with little idea as to who he actually was. To them, and anyone else who didn’t know who he was, he just looked like another oddbod you’d meet on public transport, with his tracksuit pants, dishevelled and unshaved appearance and stained and faded t-shirt.
If you saw all of this, you’d have to strongly question the integrity of anyone who let him go on a world tour, let alone play in the Australian summer heat. [:/]
If you saw all of this, you’d have to strongly question the integrity of anyone who let him go on a world tour, let alone play in the Australian summer heat. [:/]
I agree. Same thing when you look at when Wesley Willis was alive. I saw a documentary on him and got the same impression. Although his love of music was real, the extent of his fuctionality was such that day to day was a crapshoot on his mental state… it’s not as easy to just bite the bullet and do a show when you got voices in your head screaming for you to die at the top volume.
But you know, there’s this romantic mystique to the artist that’s like an idiot savant, blessed with an insane talent in an art form (not necessarily westley but other people that just fuction on a differnt level/world then us)
Here, here to that.
I hate to say it, but neither Wesley, nor Dan Johnston, strike me as all that talented. They really don’t.
The songs just sound like some random shit a kid who’s just been beginning to learn guitar threw together.
The only ‘savant’ who I regard in any way whatsoever as accomplished as a musician was Syd Barrett. Listen to Jugband Blues, and even in that rapidly diminishing mental state, there’s a complexity to the harmonic rhythm that few people, sane as they may claim to be, can actually play. Yet, it’s not esoterically complex; the song itself is simple in it’s own way.
I hate to say it, but neither Wesley, nor Dan Johnston, strike me as all that talented. They really don’t.
On the contrary…I can’t speak for Wesley as I’ve only heard a few things from him but Daniel Johnston is extremely talented. The magic of his songs is the innocence and simplicity of them…no ego behind the music at all…as Miles Davis said…less is more. All these multi million dollar pop stars and rock bands don’t kiss the guys ass for nothing.
IMO Daniel Johnston is at his best in intimate venues…having him play at a festival is pretty stupid. I hope that that incident that Evil Dildo speaks of is the beginning of the end of big festivals trying to book him.
Give him his meds and a nice small venue with a receptive crowd and he steals peoples hearts. Like I said…I saw him here in Edinburgh a few months back at Queen’s Hall and he was brilliant…happy, comfortable and brilliant…here’s a review from Edinburgh’s Skinny Mag…
Daniel Johnston @ Queen’s Hall, 4 Nov
Posted by Rosamund West, Wed 11 Nov 2009
"From the eerie silence filling the packed auditorium of the Queen’s Hall, it’s clear that this is no ordinary gig. The usual pint-holding scrum of attendees in checked shirts has been replaced by a politely seated congregation waiting in rapt anticipation for their unlikely hero, American singer-songwriter and ‘outsider artist’ Daniel Johnston. People have been counting down to this show for months.
So great is this audience’s devotion, they even enthusiastically applaud support act Laura Marling’s fey witterings, despite a significant number looking near-suicidal at her seemingly endless stream of inane rhyming couplets. When the man himself takes to the stage, the crowd erupts before settling into a reverent hush as he begins his pared-down set. For the first half it’s just Johnston and a guitarist. Later, he brings on a backing band in the form of support act The Wave Pictures, whose Butlins house band-alike style proves strangely poignant when accompanying the magical tragedy of his lyrics.
Johnston appears both excited and extremely nervous at being on stage, grinning at the warmth emanating from the audience even as the shaking in his hands reaches violent levels. His struggles with mental illness are well documented, but that doesn’t matter tonight. Speeding Motorcycle and Bloody Rainbow are huge crowd pleasers, while his Come Together cover inspires a large part of the previously sedate audience to break out in whoops. For tonight, the demons are laid to rest, and Daniel Johnston can do no wrong." [Rosamund West]
A Daniel Johnston set is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re going to get[cool]
we’re hosting anvil @ the fillmore in s.f. on feb.6th.
On the contrary…I can’t speak for Wesley as I’ve only heard a few things from him but Daniel Johnston is extremely talented. The magic of his songs is the innocence and simplicity of them…no ego behind the music at all…as Miles Davis said…less is more. All these multi million dollar pop stars and rock bands don’t kiss the guys ass for nothing.
Look, I totally agree with you, but the thing is… Nirvana was simple, the Beatles were simple to begin with, but it hadn’t really been done before, and they were good songs played reasonably well.
I’m not being one of those snobs that sez ‘it has be perfect to be good!’, if anything, I hate that mentality, but what I saw, and have heard, from Dan, really wasn’t a step up from the day I saw a bunch of schizophrenics walk into the recording studio I did work experience at and do what was perhaps one of the most fucked up performances I’ve ever seen.
I mean, he played 3 songs on guitar and sang alone, and they literally sounded identical. I just couldn’t dig it.
But, I wouldn’t be surprised if I listen to him some more and my opinion changes. I hated Khanate, Jeff Buckley, Throbbing Gristle, the Birthday Party when I first heard them, but now I love them, so…
IMO Daniel Johnston is at his best in intimate venues…having him play at a festival is pretty stupid. I hope that that incident that Evil Dildo speaks of is the beginning of the end of big festivals trying to book him.
Give him his meds and a nice small venue with a receptive crowd and he steals peoples hearts. Like I said…I saw him here in Edinburgh a few months back at Queen’s Hall and he was brilliant…happy, comfortable and brilliant
Strongly agreed
the day I saw a bunch of schizophrenics walk into the recording studio I did work experience at and do what was perhaps one of the most fucked up performances I’ve ever seen.
Sounds like a record I’d buy.
I saw Wesley Willis play.
It was amusing at first, but then I realized that we were all just there to make fun of him and it got a little sad. Then I realized he loved the attention regardless, and I was a little less sad.
That said, the songs were awful, even for Wesley Willis.