CLUTTER To Release Daniel Johnston “Jeremiah The Innocent” Vinyl Sculpture

The late, great musician / “outsider artist,” Daniel Johnston landed in Austin, Texas in 1984, when the traveling carnival that he was selling corndogs for stopped there. An imposing fellow carnie had struck him for taking too long in a port-a-potty, which led to Dan fleeing to a local church and, subsequently, taking up a more permanent residence in the city. After growing up in West Virginia, Johnston temporarily lived with his older brother and future manager, Dick, in Houston. This is where he would record now-classic albums like Yip/Jump Music using a humble boombox and chord organ setup. Issues with his erratic mental health would create obstacles in his living situation, forcing Dick to evict his younger brother in September of 1983, the same month credited with the recording of Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album. From there, the younger Johnston moved in with his sister in San Marcos, Texas. His undiagnosed mental issues only continued to worsen and, if I recall correctly, when he vanished from her home without notice, he was afraid that his family was planning to institutionalize him. In Austin, Daniel found a job at a McDonald’s and began peddling his lo-fi homemade cassette tapes to anyone that would listen – he was even known to slip them into a customer’s bags if someone connected to the music scene would place an order. His first real break came in 1985, when the MTV program, The Cutting Edge came to town to film an episode spotlighting area talent. Although they hadn’t planned to showcase Johnston or come looking for him, they found the meek underground musician, whose charm and shy demeanor helped him to infiltrate the show and work his way onto the air. Along with a raw and beautifully heartbreaking live performance of “I Live My Broken Dreams,” there is a particularly memorable moment from the show when Daniel introduces himself to the world, while the TV crew is filming a BBQ. Holding up his homemade cassette of Hi, How Are You, he looks into the camera and says, “Um, my name is Daniel Johnston, this is the name of my tape, and it’s ‘Hi, How Are You?’ And I was having a nervous breakdown when I recorded it.” On the front of the tape is an illustration of his character, “Jeremiah The Frog of Innosense.”

Kurt Cobain was well known for using his fame to bring attention to lesser-known artists whose work he had enormous respect for, but who never had as great of a platform. He did this for acts like The Raincoats, The Vaselines, Meat Puppets, Flipper, and The Wipers; and he also did it for Daniel Johnston. The Nirvana frontman began wearing a T-Shirt with the Hi, How Are You artwork on it, around 1992, most notably, performing in it at that year’s MTV music awards. The impact of his influence was so tremendous that it instigated a bidding war from labels trying to sign Daniel, even though, in some cases, he was committed to a mental health ward.

Johnston created an expansive visual world through his art with reoccurring characters like Joe The Boxer, flying eyeballs, and the evil multi-eyed Vile Corrupt, but none is more iconic than Jeremiah. Not unlike the cover art for Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, which has been repurposed for one T-shirt parody after the other, over the years, there must be endless people who know the artwork from Hi, How Are You that have never even listened to the album, or seen so much as an image of the man who created it. This simple line drawing has transcended more than the album whose homemade j-card it was scribbled on nearly 40 years ago. In 1993, Daniel was commissioned to paint a mural of Jeremiah on the side of the Sound Exchange music store on Guadalupe Ave in Austin. 11 years later, a new owner of the property planned to demolish it in the process of opening a Baja Fresh restaurant, until major backlash and protests convinced him of the importance of preserving the piece. Over the 2 decades which have followed, the property has exchanged hands multiple times, but the mural has endured as not only a beloved landmark, but a symbol of Austin, itself.

Back in 2008, At Arms LTD released a numbered “Jeremiah The Innocent” vinyl “collectable [sic] toy frog,” but if you didn’t manage to grab it then, it’s been more or less impossible to track one down for anything close to a reasonable price. If you’re like me and regret passing up the opportunity when you had it, then you should be happy to hear that a second chance has finally presented itself. The folks over at CLUTTER have teamed up with the Daniel Johnston estate to release an officially licensed Jeremiah The Innocent “vinyl toy sculpture.” But, whether you choose to refer to it as an “art toy,” a “designer toy,” or a “sculpture,” doesn’t really matter; what matters is that it’s beautifully crafted and stays true to the spirit of the artist and his work that it’s intended to pay tribute to. CLUTTER explains that they have “re-sculpted and re-imagined this popular character in vinyl, adding elements such as the Twig (or Sprout) of Hope to keep the figure as true to the art as possible.” The ability to remove the figure from its stand is a great feature, while the way they have designed it overall offers a more immersive scene than that of a simple object.

Check out a selection of preview images in the gallery below

The sculpture stands 9.5” tall (on the base) and 10” wide. It also features a replica of the original Hi, How Are You album art printed on the back.

This Hi, How Are You Edition will be available starting Thursday, June 16th at 9 pm EST / 6 pm PST with each piece priced at $125. These will be purchasable online directly from Clutter or in-app on NTWRK. Those who don’t already have the NTWRK app can download it/sign up now via THIS LINK to get yourself a complimentary $10 credit.

For anyone wondering if it’s worth it to download the NTWRK app, the full disclosure is that the credit you’ll receive via our referral code might not even be applicable toward your purchase, as they’ve increasingly restricted their usage to the point of virtual obsolescence. Since purchasing through CLUTTER sounds so much easier, the real pros to downloading NTWRK are the ability to view the live show that they’ll do during the release and, more importantly, because they are hosting a giveaway for an authentic piece of original Daniel Johnston art!

“Elvis We Love You” is a 1/1 original marker on paper illustration that measures 8.5″ x 11″ created circa 2004. The winner of the drawing will receive a COA included. The following text/details come directly from the CLUTTER website.

“The lottery is Now Open on NTWRK in the Clutter Show for this week. Enter now to secure your chance to win! Entry is free! The winner will be announced live on air during the episode and charged $1 for the drawing.

Make sure to download the NTWRK app to enter the drawing and tap ‘Notify Me’ to stay up to date for this drop!“