On January 22, Austin will celebrate the third “Hi, How Are You” Day, which promotes mental well-being and address issues related to mental health in the community by sparking conversations with people in need of help and support. The non-profit organization behind the project, the “Hi, How Are You” Foundation, is also hosting a benefit concert that evening at ACL Live at the Moody Theater.
Both the day and the foundation are named after a mural located on the corner of Guadalupe and 21st Street, across the street from the University of Texas, which depicts a friendly frog asking “Hi, How Are You.” The mural was painted on that wall in 1993 by singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston, back when the building it adorns was occupied by the Sound Exchange record store. Johnston, an off-and-on Austin resident and frequent visitor, went from handing out his home-recorded cassette tapes to customers at the Dobie Mall McDonald’s where he worked in the mid-80s, to international acclaim as both an artist and musician.
Johnston also suffered from significant mental health issues during his life, which were addressed in detail in the acclaimed 2005 documentary film The Devil and Daniel Johnston. The “Hi, How Are You” foundation’s co-founders, Courtney Blanton and Tom Gimbel (Johnston’s longtime manager), chose both the name and the date (Johnston’s birthday) as a tribute to his creative contributions and to recognize how his mental health travails were expressed so painfully and eloquently in his art and music.
Last year’s benefit concert drew such acclaimed artists as Flaming Lips, Bob Mould, Built to Spill, and Yo La Tengo with Jad Fair, among other Johnston fans and collaborators. The 2020 lineup includes Cage the Elephant, Tunde Adebimpe (vocalist of TV On the Radio), White Denim, Jason Falkner and Katie Schecter—with more artists likely to be announced before the show. This year, the occasion will also be a day to memorialize Johnston, who died of a heart attack in September at the age of 58.
Tickets are already on sale. For more information on both the foundation and the benefit concert, please visit hihowareyou.org.