And people say we monkey around, but we’re too busy singing to put anybody down.” This was the theme song for the Monkees TV show. The authors were a songwriting duo Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart who wrote, produced and recorded, accompanied by their backing band, the Candy Store Prophets, backing tracks for a large portion of the first season of The Monkees, and the band’s accompanying debut album. Buy hey kids, this was an organic thing. The Monkees were just like the Beatles, only non threatening “We’re just trying to be friendly, we don’t wanna put anybody down. ”
Kids…we’re just like the Beatles, only more corporate and manufactured
I don’t want to go into the political ramifications of all that, suffice to say that the Monkees were a manufactured answer to the Beatles which was widely rejected at the time by anyone who wasn’t a pre pubescent teenager. Record companies do this all the time. Most of what people listen to has been programmed into their skulls by record company marketing people. How do explain the popularity of rap music? It isn’t music, it all sounds the same. It glorifies violence, misogyny and greed, yet all the kids just naturally think it’s a gas. You think?
You can read all about this death cult on Wikipedia
Last night I was watching a 2005 documentary called the Devil and Daniel Johnston. Johnston was what you would call an “outsider artist”. A handy term that categorises a person who obviously displays some kind of creative talent, whether it be music or art, and that doesn’t fit in with the accepted standards of the day. In Johnston’s case he had both musical and artistic talent, if you could call it that. His rise to fame was propelled rapidly when Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain wore a T shirt with a Johnston drawing of a frog on MTV and subsequently everywhere he went for a period of time he wore it, sparking much curiosity.
Danny sure liked his Mountain Dew
Suddenly everyone wanted to know who had done this drawing, and people started discovering Daniel Johnston’s work. I’m leaving out a lot of stuff here, but you’ll have to watch the doco. Record companies started a bidding war and Daniel was offered an appearance at South by South West to showcase his material. The audience raved, despite the glaring fact that he couldn’t really sing or play the guitar in my opinion, but what do I know? I wasn’t there. On his way back home in a light plane to West Virginia with his father, who was pilot, Daniel decided that he was Casper the Friendly Ghost.
He had been reading a Casper comic book where Casper and Spooky were flying through the air. Daniel, believing that he could fly (he was off his meds) took the plane’s keys out of the ignition and threw them out the window. He was too strong for his father to wrestle the controls away from him until finally, after almost going into a death spiral, his father regained control of the aircraft and crashed into some trees. Miraculously, they both survived.
Wendy looks very happy here. Good for her.
After sacking his long time, long suffering manager of ten years, Daniel signed with Atlantic records who released his first album “Fun”. It sold less than 6,000 copies and he was subsequently dropped. His later years were spent touring all over the world as well as having his art work shown in various galleries.
For a guy with questionable talent (in my opinion) he did pretty well. His career blossomed and grew despite his self sabotage and mental illness. In the end part of the documentary he is seen in his late forties in a morbily obese state, still living with his elderly parents who had by then moved to Texas. He was still clearly not right in the head, but a legend nevertheless. I was getting strong Legendary Stardust Cowboy vibes by this stage, although Ledge isn’t quite as off the air as Johnston was.
I love it when they totally butcher up my name, but what a line up
When the documentary finished, and not before a bat had flown into the room where I was sitting placidly on the couch, and seemly out of nowhere, causing me to flee in terror, I did an internet search for Daniel up to see where he was today. I discovered that had died at 58 years old of a heart attack on Sept 11 2019, exactly six years ago to the day. His music lives on, however.
Wikipedia tells us that Tom Waits, Beck, TV on the Radio, Jad Fair, Eels, Bright Eyes, Calvin Johnson, Death Cab for Cutie, Sparklehorse, Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips and Starlight Mints, have all recorded covers of his songs. I listened to a few of them. I’d rather not say that I think they all sound like garbage, that would be mean.
I don’t give a fuck what anyone in the music business thinks of me anyway, least of all these hipsters who are desperately trying to stay relevant by trying to make a shekel from this guy’s mental illness. I won’t say he was no good. He certainly had some unique talent, but as far as I’m concerned a lot of it was just manufactured hype by people who wanted to profit from him. Wha’ever, that’s the music bidness man.
Happy Friday
My new song “Playin’ in a Cover Band” The better version with the missing verse didn’t make it to the screen because the cameras had stopped working by then. This is essentially a first run through.