Two great films on two unrepeatable musical lives
Being Frank and The Devil and Daniel Johnston are unmissable films, on men who lived unbelievable lives. If an obsessively creative person is wealthy, then we call them "eccentric" and leave them alone to do their work.
But if you come from working class Manchester or Austin, Texas, and you don't have money to hide behind, then life as an artist and musician can get very difficult.
Chris Sievey was born near Manchester in 1955. He was exactly the right age to be obsessed with The Beatles as a teenager and then graduate to punk and new wave as he hit his 20s. When he was 22, Chris started a band called The Freshies, whose claim to fame was a single called I'm in Love with the Girl on the Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk, and the fact their guitarist later joined The Cult.
Chris's partner and band-mates knew he was a restless and driven soul. But even they were surprised when he started to appear at gigs wearing a giant paper-mache head and calling himself Frank Sidebottom.
“Frank” was originally just a fan of The Freshies. He would appear after gigs to scream his approval and demand encores and autographs. But soon, Frank was on stage as a "guest vocalist" while Chris "had a break".
After a shockingly short amount of time, Frank had replaced Chris as the front-man of the band, and then graduated to a career as a TV personality, chat-show guest, singer on other people's albums and Manchester identity.
All without ever removing the giant head.
Meanwhile, at around the same time as "Frank Sidebottom" was becoming famous in the UK, a young man called Daniel Johnston was working at a
McDonald's in his adopted home-town of Austin, Texas. Daniel, like Chris Sievey, was a musical savant who danced to his own drum.
Daniel recorded songs onto cassette tapes and handed them to customers at the drive-through, knowing that if his genius wasn't recognised, at least people would have heard his music. Very few people knew that Daniel only owned one recorder, and couldn't make copies of his tapes. So every cassette was a unique original.
Daniel performed locally and gathered a cult following. He visited New York and came to the attention of a few producers. Unlike Chris, Daniel lived with a diagnosed mental illness. But, like many people who are told they are schizophrenic, Daniel often refused to take his medication. On one such day he reached from the passenger seat of a small plane his father was flying, grabbed the keys from the ignition and threw them out the window. They were at 8000 feet at the time. Daniel and his father both survived the crash.
Chris Sievey and Daniel Johnston are both gone now. Chris died of cancer in 2010, at the age of 54. Frank Sidebottom performed for the last time a week earlier. People noticed he had lost weight.
Daniel Johnston died of a heart-attack in 2019. He was 58. He had lived to hear Kurt Cobain, Tom Waits and Sonic Youth cover his songs.
Chris and Daniel are remembered with an incredible pair of documentaries. Being Frank is a 90-minute tribute to a musician, raconteur, father, friend and bandmate, who no fiction writer could have invented.
And The Devil and Daniel Johnston is one of the most engrossing films I have seen in my life. I cried my eyes out the first time I saw it.
Chris Sievey was also the inspiration for the 2014 film Frank, with Michael Fassbender in the title role.
All three films are amazing. You'll be happy you watched them. Promise.
Being Frank is available on DocPlay, AroVision and Academy On Demand.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston is on Google Play, or you can borrow my copy of the DVD from Aro Video. Frank is on AroVision, Academy on Demand and also Apple TV.