8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

Not As Many Yesterdays

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• Over the past several months, I’ve been reading not-so-heavy fiction before bed to help clear my head of news-trauma before sleep. I’m using the opportunity to check out books I probably should have read in my teens and college years but didn’t. At the time, I was mainly reading music fanzines1It’s fair to say that music fanzines made up 85% of what I read between the ages of 17 and 25 and Stephen King novels (with the occasional Vonnegut and beat writer interlude), so there’s a lot of catching up to do.

I just finished Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation Trilogy. A lot of people enthusiastically recommended the series, but it didn’t blow me away as I expected.2I guess I really should have read this when I was younger, as that’s when all the people who recommended it did. I’m glad I read the trilogy, though. There are many thought-provoking concepts, and that’s the least one can want from a book. Also, the storyline of The Mule captivated me. The Mule is a mutant conqueror who can mentally bend people’s emotions to become subservient, effectively enamored by him. What’s most interesting is that these people are aware of their manipulation, but they press on in their devotion. Here’s a passage from Second Foundation:

What kept him from action? What deadened him? There was a time when he was a rebellious and unpromoted captain of the First Foundation’s commercial empire, when it would have been himself rather than Channis who would have taken prompt and daring action such as that. Was the Mule right? Was his controlled mind so concerned with obedience as to lose initiative? He felt a thickening despondency drive him down into a strange lassitude. […]

Pritcher nodded mutely, and cogitated in the sudden loneliness on the evils of approaching fifty. The visiplate was sparsely starred. The main body of the Galaxy misted one end. What if he were free of the Mule’s influence—

But he recoiled in horror at the thought.

I can’t help but equate this to our struggles with social media and the internet in general. Not to mention, how we ‘lose initiative’ through our internet interactions (see: slacktivism). We know we should turn away, but we can’t — it feels too good to persist. File this alongside Wednesday’s ‘Siren’s song’ metaphor.

• Often this blog gets ‘meta,’ and I talk about the joys and processes of blogging. There are many things that I wish I had started earlier (like reading something meatier than music fanzines). I like to think blogging is one of those things. But, I was blogging as soon as the late ’90s. Astralwerks set up a site for me, and I had a ‘dispatches’ page where I could post a tour diary or studio updates. My Q-BAM site had a blog, too. And I’m embarrassed to admit I semi-regularly blogged on MySpace — most of those posts disappeared into the ether.

The problem was that I didn’t blog consistently. If I did post, the content was usually related to promoting an upcoming gig or release, or a tracklist and link to the latest Invisible Airwaves radio show. Occasionally the writer within appeared — here’s a piece I wrote on Tony Wilson from 2007 that I still enjoy seeing — but those pieces were rare. 

I’m thinking about this because I ran across a blog post by ex-Google programmer Steve Yegge from 2005. It’s called You Should Write Blogs, and I wish I had read it at the time. Steve is encouraging everyone to blog, and he lays out compelling reasons. Early on in the piece, he writes:

This is certainly the most important thing I’ll ever say in my blogs: YOU should write blogs.

Even if nobody reads them, you should write them. It’s become pretty clear to me that blogging is a source of both innovation and clarity. I have many of my best ideas and insights while blogging. Struggling to express things that you’re thinking or feeling helps you understand them better.

I don’t know if this article would have inspired a blogging (or writing) practice in those years. I certainly didn’t understand how writing in public sharpens the mind, hones opinions, and feels fantastic. No one told me. Or, more likely, I wasn’t listening — I was too busy slurping vodka and playing records in dark rooms. 

What’s the cliché? The best time to start something is yesterday, and the second-best time is right now. I’m thankful I started this blog a few yesterdays ago, even if it’s not as many yesterdays as I’d like. For the rest of you, the time is now. Get blogging. Here’s some encouragement of my own.

• This video of David Bowie turning the interview tables on MTV’s Mark Goodman is making the rounds. And with good reason. How cool.

• I’m just putting this here: State Moves Into Unannounced Goth Phase of Reopening

• The news has come over the wire that Jon Hassell is releasing the second installment of his ‘pentimento’ series on July 24. The first one, from 2018, was excellent, so I’m excited to hear its follow-up, Seeing Through Sound. The lead track — “Fearless” — is live, and it’s no surprise that it’s a stunner. Pre-ordered!

I should also mention that there’s a GoFundMe page for Jon Hassell. He’s not in the best of health right now, and the present COVID-19 dangers have made his situation direr. The page was set up by friends and family to help Hassell get financial assistance so he can receive the care he requires. [LINK]

• Lake Holden was looking particularly serene this morning = [LINK]

A Mural Made Famous by Daniel Johnston

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I’ve been reading about the Hi, How Are You Project, which is throwing a benefit concert this Tuesday in Austin, TX. Fantastic line-up. Here’s a description of the organization:

The Hi, How Are You Project is a non-profit organization inspiring new conversations around mental health issues by funding and creating thoughtful media content, projects, and events. The Foundation, created with the support of Daniel Johnston and Family, provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and education on mental well-being.

I admit that I learned about the project via the latest 5-Bullet Friday newsletter from Tim Ferriss, though I’m a little miffed that he identifies the organization as ‘so named for a mural made famous by Kurt Cobain.’ I mean, sure, I guess that’s technically true, but I still wouldn’t pass up a chance to give Daniel Johnston his propers.

This news sent me down a Daniel Johnston rabbit-hole. I was one of the lucky few who sent off for his home-dubbed cassette releases in the mid-80s. I discovered Johnston on an Austin-centric episode of the MTV show IRS’ The Cutting Edge. Do any of you remember that show? It was a considerable influence on this trapped-in-Central-Louisiana teenager. I was starved for new music and appreciated the variety of mostly American indie-bands introduced by host Peter Zaremba.

I know there’s a ‘best-of’ DVD retrospective of the show floating around, but I’d give a stack of bolo ties for a complete set of all the episodes. I’m sure re-licensing the music would be an impossibility but, seriously, that show is an important historical document of a special time. Young America was discovering its independent music scene, and it was a uniquely American scene, very different from the DIY bands and labels from across the pond. IRS’ The Cutting Edge should be playing in a museum.

I remember looking, years ago, for the clip of Daniel Johnston that inspired me to seek him out. I couldn’t find it anywhere. There are a lot of clips from IRS’ The Cutting Edge on YouTube but many of the iconic moments are missing. You would think there’d be a bazillion uploads of Run DMC performing in the streets of L.A. on the back of a moving flatbed truck, but there’s nothing.

I decided to look again after reading about the Hi, How Are You Project and hey, here it is — Daniel performing “Hard Time” for a single camera, as initially seen on IRS’ The Cutting Edge:

I was maybe 15 or 16 when I saw this, and I’m not sure what jumped out at me, what made me want to track down Daniel Johnston’s tapes. I was already into ‘weird’ music, but this isn’t that weird. The song is great. However, Johnston’s vocals are an acquired taste (to put it mildly), and the rockstar charisma quotient is at the bottom of the meter.

I think it’s the earnestness. Johnston is just so into it, inside his world. Others try to pull this off, but it’s almost always an act or a show, like Crispin Glover on Letterman (a TV appearance that also affected me at the time). It’s refreshing how honest Johnston is here, all coming through in the performance. Admittedly, you might not see it like I do and chances are it’s not for you. But Daniel Johnston must have been a revelation for this shy, geeky teenage kid who wanted nothing more than a pathway into a life of music-making. Like Daniel, you just had to believe in it.

So I sent off for a small bagful of Daniel Johnston cassettes from Stress Records (I probably got the address and info from an ad in Factsheet Five, a ‘zine that was basically my internet) which I listened to endlessly, much to the bewilderment of my friends. The songs were raw and real, and also touching and relatable. I was going through a lot, but not as much as Johnston was going through and, in its way, that made me feel better. I think this played a part in giving me the courage to pursue music.

There’s a fantastic documentary on Daniel Johnston, titled The Devil and Daniel Johnston. I highly recommend it — it’s a beautiful doorway into Johnston’s music and his heartbreaking world. And it always thrills me when his name comes up (which is why I was disappointed in Ferriss’s newsletter lack-of-mention), or someone covers his songs, or — miraculously from the lens of 1985 — one of his songs appears in a movie or a TV show. His artwork is terrific, too, always good for a smile.

Which brings us back to Hi, How Are You and the iconic mural. Don’t get me wrong — I’m thankful that Kurt Cobain frequently wore that t-shirt as it turned a lot of people on to Daniel Johnston. Cobain was good about using his influence to help out fringe musicians. And I’m also grateful that Ferriss is spreading the word about the Hi, How Are You Project, helping that worthy cause.

It’s always amazing to look back at our little pockets of music history and realize how they’ve spread out over time. These micro-scenes seem inconsequential while we’re living in them, meaningful to a privileged few. It helps us understand that everything has an influence. Our work may seem minor and unnoticed, but we should still give it our boldest effort. Great work often perseveres in ways we can’t predict.