I can't stop writing. If I did stop, there could be nothing. Maybe everything would stop. So I won't stop. I've got to keep it going. | | | | Daniel Johnston with one of his treasured lyric notebooks, Barcelona, April 19, 2012.
(Jordi Vidal/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "I can't stop writing. If I did stop, there could be nothing. Maybe everything would stop. So I won't stop. I've got to keep it going."
| | | | | | rantnrave:// He wrote this: "Try to remember / But my feelings can't know for sure / Tried to reach out / But it's gone / Lucky stars in your eyes / I am walking the cow." And he wrote the unexpected descending chords that turn that last line into an indelible chorus that everyone and their brother and (this is the best one) their sister wanted to cover. Please don't call DANIEL JOHNSTON quirky. At least not his art. At his best, which he frequently was when he was sitting in front of his beloved chord organ or a piano, and even sometimes when he was strumming a guitar and struggling to stay on the beat, he was a genius, a songwriter's songwriter, a strange, troubled soul with a direct line to that place deep in his own heart that other songwriters would sell their souls for. He was many other things, too, not all wonderful, as did not go unnoticed during an unconventional, unhappy life that ended Tuesday after 58 years. Manic depressive. Pathologically obsessive. Difficult to be with. Dangerous, to himself and to others. A little too well acquainted with the man who does the buying when songwriters or anyone else have souls to sell. But he was obsessed with God, too. He had a heart as big as Mars. And an innate melodic sensibility that might have been even bigger. He wrote "TRUE LOVE WILL FIND YOU IN THE END." And "SPEEDING MOTORCYCLE." And "STORY OF AN ARTIST." And "LIFE IN VAIN," which the BUTTHOLE SURFERS helped him turn into this magnificent recording that time a major label came knocking with a little money. Hundreds more. He worked mostly at home, mostly on lo-fi equipment, and made his name by releasing the results on homemade cassettes. And if anyone who's ever made rock and roll deserves to be called a poet, then he does, too. And yes, OK, there were personal quirks. The first time I saw him, at the KNITTING FACTORY, he was insanely late. It seemed like hours (I'm sure it wasn't). It turned out he had lost his notebook with all his lyrics. He was utterly lost without it and had been frantically searching for it backstage, to no avail. He finally came out, apologized profusely and said there was no way he could perform. He fought his way thru two songs, his arms and hands shaking, his voice struggling yet amazingly clear, and said he could do no more. He apologized profusely again and left. The songs were heart melters. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was human and true and beautiful and strange and left me confused, shaken and, as the best performances always do, wanting more. I still want more. MusicSET: "True Love Did Not Find Daniel Johnston in the End but He Never Stopped Looking"... How Daniel Johnston became a songwriter, in his own words: "I met this girl who was engaged to an undertaker. But she was very beautiful, and I made up some songs just to please her. And she liked them. And I just flipped out. I was at the piano banging away every day, writing songs. And I turned into a maniac and I never gave up, and that's what really happened to me." Her name, as all Daniel Johnston fans know, is LAURIE... DEEZER will become the first major streaming service with a user-centric pay model if it gets a formal buy-in from labels. The company says it wants to test the model in 2020 in its native France, starting with artist/label royalties but not with songwriter/publisher royalties... The California legislature has passed, and GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM is expected to sign, the controversial Assembly Bill 5, aimed at reclassifying hundreds of thousands of contract workers in a wide range of industries as employees. The music industry spent a year negotiating with legislators to try to get an exemption from the law, and failed. It could "gut the music industry," A2IM president RICHARD BURGESS told BILLBOARD. Media companies aren't too hot on the bill either... BRANDI CARLILE and JOHN PRINE win big at AMERICANA MUSIC HONORS & AWARDS. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | REDEF | | Driven by strange obsessions and crippled by mental illness, Daniel Johnston was a songwriter's songwriter, and destined to be the rock and roll cult hero that he indeed became. RIP to a Texas legend unlike any other. | | | |  | MusicAlly | | Deezer is hoping to launch a pilot of a user-centric payment system (UCPS) by early 2020 in France, if it can persuade labels to back the idea. As part of its preparations, it has launched a website this morning explaining UCPS to music fans. | | | |  | Affidavit | | I hadn't thought of Jane's Addiction for nearly three decades until last year's mid-term elections, which made me remember the 1990 mid-terms. The stakes seemed epochal, then and now. I told a friend, a former college radio deejay who is now a judge, that I was interested in researching the band against the backdrop of the late 1980s and early 1990s, how that story may resonate today. | | | |  | The Verge | | At the Smart Financial Center outside Houston in late July, thousands of fans gathered with homemade banners, tribute costumes, and armfuls of merchandise as they waited in line to see Monsta X, a K-pop group on their third world tour. These fans didn't get here because of radio play or by combing through bins at a music store. They've shown up thanks to one site: YouTube. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | Naming a song after something already famous ("Post Malone," "Hot Girl Bummer") is leading to extra clicks -- and in some cases, extra controversy. | | | |  | The FADER | | Read an excerpt of Rick Ross's "Hurricanes" in which he explains how Kanye West brought him to Hawaii. | | | |  | Billboard | | How Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer united for the Hella Mega tour -- the stadiums-only trek they say will make rock'n'roll king in 2020. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | Despite a tumultuous lineup change in 2015, the trio remain a rock staple, and their new album tackles modern sounds and the plague of mass shootings. | | | |  | JazzTimes | | A new online strategy—releasing music piecemeal—is taking hold in the jazz world. | | | |  | Chartmetric | | An informed and methodical way to explore new styles of music based on a single track and machine learning algorithms. | | | |  | The New York Times | | Celebrities tend to receive more attention than primary candidates. Campaigns have never seemed entirely sure how to use that fact to their advantage. | | | |  | The Guardian | | Mark Lewisohn knows the Fab Four better than they knew themselves. The expert's tapes of their tense final meetings shed new light on "Abbey Road" -- and inspired a new stage show. | | | |  | The New York Observer | | "The problem with classical music is everything except the music." | | | | | Los Angeles Times | | San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra's new leader has worked with Kanye West and Imagine Dragons. Anthony Parnther wants classical to steal pop's moves. | | | |  | DJ Mag | | Dance music has a mental health problem. Sirin Kale speaks to artists such as Luciano, Courtesy and Marie Davidson, as well as some PRs and promoters, about the principal issues affecting our scene, and the potential solutions to this pressing issue. | | | | | Rolling Stone | | Greg Kurstin and Inara George discuss how they turned the quintessential party rockers' hits into cool, jazzy pop numbers for their new tribute album. | | | |  | The Daily Beast | | On Sept. 7, Nadya Tolokonnikova and 15 other members of the Russian punk rock-art collective Pussy Riot were detained by Moscow police. Here is their side of the story. | | | | | Billboard | | In June 2017, Briggs took on Max Harris' case pro-bono and has spent the past two years helping the defendant disprove the daunting 36 counts against him. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | We've spent the entirety of Iggy Pop's rock-and-roll life poking at his abs, trying to figure out if he's beyond human. In the public imagination, he's the maniac Adonis who invented punk without even trying, then celebrated his world-changing achievement by rolling around in broken glass. | | | |  | Stereogum | | There are many, many reasons why I love rap music. One of those reasons, I have learned, is this: At a young and formative age, I had my mind blown by superhero comics. Many rappers - most of the best rappers - present themselves as flesh-and-blood superheroes. (In this, rappers are like action-movie stars or pro wrestlers, two other groups of people that similarly fascinate me.) | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group | | |
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