From the Inside Looking Out is our opportunity to have musicians tell us a bit about the music world from their point of view. This time around, we’re thrilled to have Leo Maymind from Spanish Prisoners detail his experience opening for and playing with Daniel Johnston.

Daniel and I sat on a small, squat couch in a room filled with people. I had no idea whom most of them were, and I’m fairly certain Daniel didn’t know or care who they were either as he sipped on a diet soda and stared into one corner of the small green room of the Highline Ballroom unknowingly.

Daniel was Daniel Johnston, revered outsider songwriter and visual artist and subject of the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which boosted him back to a level of prominence he had not experienced since he first rose to national attention when he snuck his way on some MTV “music” program, clutching a copy of his home-made cassette tape and an eagerness to find whatever limelight was meant for him.

My band Spanish Prisoners was playing that night with Johnston at the sold-out 700 person venue in Manhattan on February 21, 2008. I had moved to Brooklyn, NY from Columbus, Ohio four months prior and assembled a group to play the songs I had recently recorded. Through a combination of sheer audacity and good fortune, we had been chosen to both open and back up Daniel on 5 songs during his set.

Rewind about 30 minutes to soundcheck. Usually a pretty rote routine, tonight was an exception: we would be running through the songs I chose to play from Daniel’s back catalog on which we’d be accompanying him later that evening. I had talked to Daniel’s brother and manager Dick and we’d figured out keys, tempos, and made a few changes to the list I had spent the last week deliberating over incessantly. We had met Daniel two minutes before we stepped on stage together to do what I thought was going to be a trial run through of all the songs. Daniel, dressed in tattered sweatpants and a monochromatic t-shirt, had other plans. We ran through the first two bars of the classic “Walking the Cow” before he yelped “next!” into the microphone. This continued for the other tunes we were going to play before Daniel unexpectedly roamed offstage and we were left to wait till it came time for doors to open and for the crowds to slowly filter in.

Our own short set of music was mostly a blur and rush of adrenaline- I remember looking down at my pedals and laughing for some reason during one song, catching the reflection off the upright bass from a spotlight in another. Before I realized it, we had finished our last song and Daniel was coming onstage to play a few songs solo and with his guitarist while we took a breather before joining him for the songs we were playing together.

After it was all over, there was a certain sense of relief and decay that I always feel after such a long wait for an event that happens so quickly. And that was when I found myself on the couch, sitting quietly while 25 or 30 people crammed into the room, most talking quickly and loudly, in excited tones about the spectacle they just witnessed. Amazingly, Daniel was far from the center of attention, even though all of these people were here because of him and the simple songs he wrote, most many years ago in his living room or garage. A few journalists momentarily asked Daniel some questions and he responded with a quick grin that faded just as suddenly as it appeared before he turned away again and quietly sipped on his sugary drink.

I recall feeling disturbed by the fact that Daniel was getting so little attention in that room, that he was pushed to the side while these smartly dressed New Yorkers talked about tours and numbers and articles and whatnot. But looking back, perhaps that is simply what he wanted: to be able to play his songs to an adoring audience and afterwards, sit back and enjoy a quiet drink, lost in his own world. Not so different from the rest of us, it seems.

*front-page photo and above photo by Bryan Bruchman

Listen: “Where God Does His Laundry”

See Spanish Prisoners live:
26 Sept - New Haven, CT @ The Apartment w/The Antlers

Visit Spanish Prisoners on MySpace.

If you’re a musician who would like to contribute to this feature, please get in touch.