Jason Falkner is OK, are you?

I’ve been really enjoying this new Jason Falkner album I’m OK, You’re OK, though I don’t think I can review it anywhere. Falkner is really one of the great power pop songwriters, horribly overlooked. He got his start with the Three O'Clock in the late 1980s, then joined Jellyfish, then the Grays with Jon Brion. What I really loved, though, was his first solo album Presents Author Unknown, and especially the song “She Goes to Bed.” I don’t think I’m OK, You’re OK is quite that good, but it’s very good anyway.

I’m linking two videos, the first is “This Time” from the new album, performed live at Spaceland about a year ago.


And the second is “She Goes to Bed” which is one of my favorite songs, ever, period.

Daniel Johnston cleaned up

Okay, here's the thing. The idea of Daniel Johnston making a studio album with a professional producer and session guys doesn't immediately sound like a good one. After all, what we want from Johnston is a kind of purity, of unfiltered creativity untouched by artifice, rough and a little crazy. But in this case, the producer is Jason Falkner, whose Author Unknown is one of my favorites (I can listen to "She Goes to Bed" a dozen times in a row...and have), a guy who, incidentially, worked with Brendan Benson on another of my favorites, Lapalco. The Johnston/Falker collaboration -- Johnston's songs and Falkner's guitar, bass, keys and sound work -- is called Is and Always Was. It will be out October 6 on High Wire Music. One listen in, it's maybe my favorite Daniel Johnston ever...almost enough to get that image of that airplane fiasco out of my head.

Here's an mp3 of "Freedom"