Self-Taught Pianist Knows Sidewalk, Now Met

He has an agent now and a record label.

He got $50,000 worth of backing from a corporate sponsor.

A new CD. A concert next Friday night at the Met.

Spokane’s Dax Johnson has come a long, long way from his sidewalk sonata days in front of the Bon Marche.

That’s where I first met him, one month shy of five years ago. I was walking downtown to score some caffeine and saw a wild-looking, barefoot neo-hippie with dragon tattoos and a pierced eyebrow banging the bejesus out of a 450-pound black Wurlitzer upright piano.

Adding to the effect was Zuriah, Dax’s dog, who was snoozing like a furry log underneath his master’s lawn chair piano stool.

Spokane is no stranger to tip-hungry, street-music weirdos, but this one was different.

He could play.

Dax never does requests. He often asks listeners to tell him what mood they are in. Then he’ll compose an original song for them on the spot.

He’s never had a piano lesson. Dax is one of those self-taught naturals. By now, his fingers know the eighty-eights like they were old drinking buddies.

Think George Winston with a twist of Metallica - that’s about as close as you can get to defining the Dax style.

The important thing is that people like it.

“This whole thing’s been a major blessing,” says Dax, 25. “I don’t take any of it for granted.”

The column I wrote gave him his first flash of publicity.

Then came the TV lemmings, as they almost always do. All the attention motivated Dax. He bought shoes and began to play indoor venues.

Then he launched his first world tour of the Northwest.

Dax loaded his chewed-up Wurlitzer on a trailer and hooked it to the back of a half-bashed blue ‘65 Dodge van.

He didn’t have an itinerary, per se. Or, for that matter, a valid license and registration.

He just drove into whatever city came along, plopped his piano down on a field or busy intersection and started playing.

“I had so many cool experiences,” he says. “One time I was pushing it up a street and a guy came up and said, `Here’s 10 bucks just for the effort, man.”’

The van and the piano suffered a simultaneous meltdown at a farmers market in Eugene, Ore. He stored his Wurlitzer at the market and hitchhiked to Spokane. “It’s still there as far as I know.”

Dax began growing up back in Spokane. Responsibilities will mature even the freest vagabond.

He got married and had a couple of kids. But he kept playing.

A turning point came two years ago, when Dax hooked up with Spokane artist Marcus Bausch. During their first performance, Bausch painted Dax’s piano while he played.

That’s a one-time deal unless your last name is Steinway. So Bausch began painting canvases during Dax concerts. The music-inspired art is auctioned off after the show.

A musician knows he’s got something going when the vampires of the industry (aka promoters and agents) come sniffing around.

Dax believes he’s on the right track with Seattle-based management and BMR, an indie record label out of California. At the Friday Met show, his new solo piano CD, “The Random and the Purpose,” will be released.

“Go ahead,” says Dax, “ask me what `Random and the Purpose’ means.”

“OK, I’ll bite. What does it mean?”

“I have no idea,” says Dax, grinning. “I really don’t.”

Media Design, a Spokane high-tech company, is sponsoring Dax to demonstrate the firm’s computer marketing capabilities for musicians.

Oh, yeah. The last five years have been quite a ride for Dax Johnson.

He recently finished a six-state tour, recorded some pop rock songs and invented a piano pedal that mutes the strings similar to the way fingertips are used to suppress the strings of a guitar.

“Three months from now, who knows?” says Dax. “I’m just absolutely excited.”

And if it sours like a bowl of warm cream, hey, there’s always a market for a sidewalk sonata.

“That’s right,” says the one-time street piano man. “The sidewalk will always be there.”