Daniel Johnston is a 47-year-old troubled soul who plays through the pain of mental illness with a quirky pop sound that takes on the terror of unrequited love and Captain America.
The Capitol Years is a bunch of age-30-and-younger Philadelphians whose Lennon-meets-Beck eclat makes for nervously contagious pop concentrating on loss, luck and doom. That might not make them ready-steady partners.
But tonight, not only will the Capitol Years open for the dicey genius, they'll be his backing band for Johnston faves like "Speeding Motorcycle," as well as a few Beatles songs, both acts' most lasting love.
"Daniel's song-oriented as opposed to operating on sheer bombast, so we share that quality," Shai Halperin, Capitol Years' singing-songwriting guitarist, says of their charge. "And he, like we, worship the Beatles, so there's always a part of him going for that sing-song melody."
The Capitol Years (and its daring side project War on Drugs) have successfully guided Philly's odd-pop scene with
Let Them Drink,
Meet Yr Acres,
and
Jewelry Store
under their belts and lyrics on the sadly sardonic side. "I latch onto melancholy," Halperin says of his best songs' subjects. But in considering what unites him with gentle giant Johnston, Halperin finds that his brand of melancholy lends itself to a knowing "sense of comic tragedy."
In Johnston, there is childlike honesty that's brutal, hilarious and poetic in deceptively simple fashion. "His is an underdog music that draws you into his world and makes you care about him immensely," Halperin says. "Besides, we opened for him at North Star [Bar] and at the end of the night, he left an unopened can of Mountain Dew and some classical guitar strings on my amp. I always thought it was a message."