Arrrgh! Have you SEEN all those songs listed in the archive collection being offered on ebay? Why taunt us so? Rent is past due, I'm living on coffee and eggs, the cat is almost out of ACME Cat food, and I'm sitting here actually considering how much I can bid if I get a 2nd job, at night, at the local copy store! Or maybe I can donate some plasma. Or sell off all my early Spiderman's I've been holding onto since I was 5...
(Deep breath... let it go...think calm thoughts...)
It's gonna be real interesting to see what these go for.

Whew!
Too much coffee maybe?

Always Christmas morning when I play the downloads from the cassette releases. November's standout "When We All Become Famous in the Sky" blows me away. Can't you just hear Flatt and Skruggs jamming with Johnny Cash on that baby? Damn!

To everyone behind making this happen: Thank You. You're doing a wonderful thing making Daniel's lost diamond demos available. No telling what things may come of it, but it's all good, I'm sure.

Not to harp on this for too long, but hey, we’re all here at rejectedunknown for one reason. A man’s work has touched us all deeply, even profoundly.

As for the idea of hits or even success, I have found, through many years of exploring my own creative endeavors, that there is a huge difference between entertainment (commercial jingles? Jeez...) and Art. Art takes the chances. Art survives. Art is the only thing that can connect people from all over the world without irony, without overt packaging, without a hit.

Another big fan of Mr. John Milton was William Blake (1757-1827). Never left London. Spent all his life writing songs and engraving his complex personal mythologies. Less than 30 copies of his illuminated “greatest hits” (“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” and “The Visions”) were printed in his lifetime! He was considered a loony tune by his contemporaries and during most of the following century. But he directly influenced almost single-handedly English Romanticism and the Symbolist painters of a few decades later, to name only a few.
 
In fact, the argument could be made that without William Blake, and therefor the English Romantic movement in poetry and literature and painting, there would have been no Beatles. Very Romantic heroes, those guys.

As I mentioned in my little statement on the rejectedunknown fan list page, Daniel Johnston truly is a living William Blake. I say that with complete sincerity and honesty.

In my attempt to live an authenticated life, and create authentic works of poetry and art of my own calling, no living musician has pointed that direction out more clearly to me than Daniel Johnston.

To quote Stan Lee, the Paul McCartney to Jack Kirby’s Lennon, “Nuff said!”

"...and if a man seeketh to belittle or taketh poopie
on another of far superior talents and grace, yay, I say unto ye,
that man shall be laughed at and ignored, foolish though he be."

Tool.

Honorary Consultant?! Yay! Do I get a badge or special hat or something?
Actually, it's just that I have a photographic memory for things that are not that important to anyone else (entire casts of old movies, Star Trek episodes, names of obscure 13th century mystics, original writers and musicians of rock and roll songs...)

I've found that with ART (i.e. Daniel's MUSIC) there can be all kinds of intuitive appropriations. That is as it should be. I'm just interested in following the threads of thought which lead from one thing to another.

Keep up the great work. It really is a treat to have this site up and running.

Anybody interested in maybe doing a few Daniel Wallpapers? A little photoshop/scanner goes a long way!

I'd like to hear this:
A tribute to our hero, including Daniel playing on every track, with covers of his songs by the likes of Evan Dando (imagine that great understated foggy voice of his doing something like "Nothing" or "Come See Me Tonight"); Eels doing a rocker like "I Killed The Monster" or "My Life Is Starting Over"; something for the kids like the great White Stripes or the Strokes covering some older material like "The Beatles" or "Big Business Monkey"; maybe a few nods to other Lo-Fi masters like (SMOG), Guided By Voices,  Bonnie Prince Billy, and why not Steve Malkamus of Pavement...
Add Iggy Pop doin "Billions/Rock", U-2 on "Walking The Cow", and none other than Mr. Bob Dylan on acoustic guitar singing "I Am A Baby In My Universe." Wow. I just got chills.
Then, as a special hidden track on this imaginary CD, Page and Plant doing  a 10 minute "King Kong!" along with everybody in the house chiming in on chorus.
If I ever win the lottery, I promise to make this happen.

Great. My 56Kmodem sucks, so I spent the afternoon at a friend's who has a cable modem and downloaded my first 11 song CD; the MP3's of course, and the new archive material. Now I know how I'll be spending all my weekends. So much for a social life. Thanks alot, guys.
BTW, King Weasel! Hell Yeah!

Okay, here's a thought...
What was your very first exposure to hearing Daniel's music? Did a friend give you a tape? Hear something in the background of "Slacker" or "Kids?" Maybe it was through another band's cover.
Myself, I was visiting an Actor/Musician friend of mine in Wilkes-Barre Pa. about 6 years ago. Before I returned home, I asked him to let me borrow something interesting to listen to for the ride back to Wilmington, Delaware (about a 2-hour drive) What he gave me was a dubbed cassette someone handed to him in NYC years earlier of "Hi, How Are You?"
The damage was done. I wore that little white cassette tape out. There was next to nothing on the web at that time, just a few articles here and there. Spotty at best. Finally contacted Jeff at Stress and thus begun my nearly dangerous preoccupation with all things Daniel.
One more metaphor, if I may. I heard a story once, that when William Burroughs met Allen Ginsberg for the first time, he handed the poet a copy of Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West" and said, "Here. Educate yourself!" Continuing that tradition, I now do the same with Daniel's music.