I first became aware of Daniel Johnston and his music in 2006, thanks to a documentary, ‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston’, which made me think about creativity and mental illness. I saw him performing at Amoeba, may be a year later or so, and it was a mix feeling of pure pleasure and human tragedy, as he was visibly happy to be there, but he was struggling during his set, shaking all the time. Daniel Johnston is the guy who drew this ‘How are you?’ t-shirt worn by Kurt Cobain at the 1992 MTV VMAs (he was a big fan), and it seems that many artists are fans too as the album ‘The Late Great Daniel Johnston’ proves it: I mean, everyone I like is on this album (Eels, TV on the Radio, Bright Eyes, Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, The Flaming Lips, Sparklehorse, Tom Waits,…), singing one of Johnston's songs!
Daniel Johnston is back with a project called ‘Space Ducks – an Infinite Comic Book of Musical Greatness’, consisting of an album, a comic book and an iOS app. The comic book, entirely drawn by Johnston, serves as an illustration to the album, if you aren’t looking for too much narrative structure, and I read that it is about the ‘Nada ducks who are on an intergalactic mission to rescue their girlfriends from Satan’,… some typical Johnston territory!
You can listened to ‘Space Ducks’, a song posted on YouTube, and illustrated by pages of his colorful comic book. With its stomping piano melody, the pop song is playful, whimsical, almost like an Eels song, and even if you think these ‘duck warriors fighting all the evil’ comes straight from a crazy and childish imagination (and it does), I guaranty you will have this Space Ducks song stuck in your head for a long time.