Jonathan Coulton

JoCo Cruise Crazy

JoCo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:01:14 +0000

Thanks for all the comments on the cruise idea everyone, it’s incredibly helpful to be able to get such direct feedback from such a large group of people. I’m still working on this, trying to figure out the best way to make it happen, so please understand that this was just one possibility. It may end up being a different boat, destination, time of year, price, etc., but this seemed like a decent place to start taking everyone’s temperature. Obviously I can’t pick a location that works for everybody. I hear you that cost is a factor and I’m not surprised – that’s a hefty chunk of change. We’re trying to find the right balance between high awesomeness and low cost, and that means dealing with a lot of details and possibilities. Stay tuned. Remember this is all HYPOTHETICAL.

In the meantime, I wanted to mention a couple other shows that just got set up. We added Pittsburgh in December:

Saturday December 5 at 8 PM
Rex Theater (Pittsburgh, PA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/3e75SA

And already plans are being made for 2010 (finally, Florida):

Thursday January 14 at 7 PM
The Social (Orlando, FL) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/3Teu0M
No service charge if you buy at the box office M, W, F: (407) 246-1419
$1 service charge if you buy at Park Avenue CDs: www.parkavecds.com

Friday January 15 at 8 PM
Nova 535 (St. Petersburg, FL) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/2Zr956

Saturday January 16 at 8 PM
Variety Playhouse (Atlanta, GA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/1Wfbbo
$2.25 service charge if you buy through the Variety Playhouse Ticket Club: bit.ly/1Wfbbo
No service charge if you buy with cash at the box office ($1 for credit cards): www.variety-playhouse.com/tickets.html

Friday January 22 at 9 PM
Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/3uE2HO
$1 service charge when you buy at venue box office: www.gamh.com/tickets/

Saturday January 23 at 9 PM
Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/2PAq8E
$1 service charge when you buy at venue box office: www.gamh.com/tickets/

Friday February 5 at 8 PM
Antone’s (Austin, TX) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/mhGdL

Hypothetical Question

JoCo — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:38:10 +0000

Let’s just say that sometime Summerish 2010 there was a cruise. It lasted a week, it left from Seattle and went to Alaska and back. The first four days featured all sorts of activities and performances involving Jonathan Coulton and his circle of famous entertainment powerhouse friends – kind of a Jonathan Coulton and friends convention. And then lets say the official activities ended and there were another three days of just cruise. And let’s say that it cost around $1300-1500 depending on how nice a room you wanted. What would you say to that?

JoCo in the Midwest, UK, Ireland

JoCo — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:23:34 +0000

Three notes:

First I must say thank you to They Might Be Giants and especially our Chicago audience for letting us do our Flood show at Park West. I think it went very well – I know that Paul and Storm and I certainly had a blast, and it even felt kind of important or historic or something by the time we were done. Many have asked about us making a recording for sale, and currently we don’t have any plans to do this, it feels better as a special live thing. But you know, never say never…

Second, I often get complaints about Ticketmaster service charges. You should know that I also find them inappropriately high, and that I and my booking agent try to avoid them when possible, but ultimately it’s not up to us. It really comes down to the venues and/or promoters, and sometimes we don’t have a lot of choice in what venue we book in a particular town. BUT: when we can, we try to get the venue to sell tickets at their box office for a smaller service charge (ideally, zero). I’ve indicated where that’s the case here and on my Shows page, so read carefully if you want to save a few bucks.

Third, the UK/Ireland trip is mostly together now, we’ve even ordered the new UK/Ireland tour shirt, which we’ll reveal later. There are two dates that refuse to resolve themselves: The Bongo Club in Edinburgh on Nov 9, and Oran Mor in Glasgow on Nov 11. There seems to be some sort of mixup with the promoter, I’m not sure exactly what the problem is. We’re doing our best to resolve it, and I’m pretty sure those two dates are going to happen, but don’t hold me to it.

———————————————-
JoCo wraps up the Fall in the midwest:
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Friday October 23 at 7 PM
Beachland Ballroom (Cleveland, OH) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/nqelmy
NO SERVICE CHARGE if you buy with cash at the box office: (216) 383-1124.

Sunday October 25 at 8 PM
Majestic Theater (Madison, WI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/yjuyq6l

Monday October 26 at 7.30 PM
Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, MN) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/yexom7c

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JoCo Visits the UK and Ireland:
————————————

Friday November 6 at 8 PM
Academy 2 (Dublin, IE) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/ykmyhjo

Sunday November 8 at 7 PM
The Bongo Club (Edinburgh, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/2uDl1d

Tuesday November 10 at 7 PM
Classic Grand (Glasgow, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/4Ak6WK

Thursday November 12 at 7.30 PM
Manchester Academy 3 (Manchester, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/y8ptots

Friday November 13 at 7 PM
Union Chapel (London, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/yhtgmf4

Sunday November 15 at 8 PM
The Tunnels Bristol (Bristol, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/34moxs

—————————
And still there is more:
—————————

Thursday December 3 at 7 PM
World Café Live (Philadelphia, PA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/ndjahp

Friday December 4 at 8 PM
Rams Head Tavern (Annapolis, MD) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/n3jj83
ONLY $2 SERVICE CHARGE if you buy tickets at the box office: (410)-244-1131.

Saturday December 5 at 8 PM
Rex Theater (Pittsburgh, PA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/3e75SA

Wednesday December 9 at 7 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg (Brooklyn, NY) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/yk2jxge
NO SERVICE CHARGE if you buy tickets at the Mercury Lounge box office: (212) 260-4700.

And that is the truth.

Holy Cow I Think He’s Gonna Make It

JoCo — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:48:29 +0000

At our show in Ann Arbor last night we tried out a few Flood songs – mostly unrehearsed except for a quick run through at sound check. I think they went pretty well, and I’m feeling optimistic about our chances of not only getting all the way through it, but actually doing some interesting things with a few of the songs. Paul and Storm and I have been spending the week practicing individually and working out who’s going to do what, but last night was our first time playing stuff all together in the same place. There is electric bass guitar, there is trumpet, there is triangle, there is melodica, there is harmonica, THERE IS STILL NO ACCORDION.

We’re on our way to Chicago right now, and we’ve got a rehearsal space reserved for a few hours tonight, so by the time we hit Park West tomorrow night we will be totally sick of Flood, which means we’ll be ready to play it for you. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

In the meantime, here’s John Flansburgh being interviewed about interviews by the AV Club. He’s right.

I Might Also Be Giants

JoCo — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:02:16 +0000

As many have pointed out to me (often concluding with the phrase “Noooooooooo!”), my show in Chicago on the 10th is competing directly with a They Might Be Giants show at the Vic Theater. Also it is a Flood show, which is the worst possible thing it could be vis a vis making it a difficult decision for those of you who are fans of both of us. Flood is the record that made my head explode way back when, they are a huge influence on me, and I wish I could go see this show. I believe there are still tickets available. It’s Flood people, seriously.

But as I was pondering this cruel turn of fate, it came to me: I should also do a Flood show. Unbelievably, at least a few people have bought tickets to see my little show at Park West (tickets also still available, ha ha, just saying), so apparently I have to do some kind of performance. I’ve strategized with Paul and Storm about it, and we’ve decided that by stealing a little time from each of our sets (and by learning to “play our instruments”), we can probably make it happen. Many of you have heard our fantastic cover of “Birdhouse in Your Soul” so really we just have to do that 18 more times. And it still leaves plenty of time for us to do our own stuff, so those of you who bought tickets to our show because you hate They Might Be Giants will still be entertained.

THERE WILL BE NO ACCORDION.

If you live in Ann Arbor and are coming to see us at the Ark on the 8th, the answer is no, we will absolutely not be ready to do the same thing for you. But maybe we can sneak in a song or two if we’re feeling frisky. Turns out tickets there? Also still available…

Madison Show Added

JoCo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:15:29 +0000

As many of you noticed, there was a gap in that last show schedule that simply begged for a show in Madison. It’s happening – Sunday the 25th we’ll be at the Majestic! Tickets and more details soon…

UK/Ireland Plans

JoCo — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:28:10 +0000

But first, thanks to Denver and St. Louis. I took no photos, I left no footprints, but I had a great bunch of shows last weekend. Many thanks to everyone who came out. It was my first non-PAX road trip since June, so I was expecting to be pretty rusty, but I actually felt pretty competent much of the time. Go figure.

A lot of people have been asking and I can now confirm that I’ll be back in the UK for a while in November (and Paul and Storm will be with me). We’re still working on the final details, but it’s coming together nicely. We’ll be there about a week and a half and we expect to hit Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, London, and Bristol. In fact, Manchester and London are already on sale if you’d like to get a head start. I’ll post more details as soon as I know them myself.

Yes, this does mean no Birmingham and no Nottingham this time around, just can’t get everywhere we’d like to get in this one trip. I know this is going to make it hard or impossible for some people to see a show, and I’m sorry about that, but WE’RE ONLY ONE MAN! If anyone knows how to build a robot that looks and acts and sings just like me, please get in touch. Or if anyone has the technology to smush the cities closer together, that would help as well.

Northampton, New Haven and Boston are coming up this weekend. I hope you are ready.

JoCo in the Fall

JoCo — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:47:50 +0000

Summer’s over, and I am back to work (if you can call this working). Just look at this series of incredible shows, each of them potentially the Second Best Concert Ever.

Thursday September 17 at 8PM
The Soiled Dove Underground (Denver, CO) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/4084Ki

Friday September 18 at 9PM
The Soiled Dove Underground (Denver, CO) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/rnKTz

Saturday September 19 at 8 PM
Off Broadway (St. Louis, MO) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/ng4aj3

Thursday September 24 at 7PM
Iron Horse Music Hall (Northampton, MA) with Paul and S torm
Tickets: bit.ly/O1Gw5

Friday September 25 at 7 PM
Toad’s Place (New Haven, CT) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/1jYq44

Saturday September 26 at 9PM
The Paradise (Boston, MA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/m6jjy8

Thursday October 8 at 8 PM
The Ark (Ann Arbor, MI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/lwbzn2

Saturday October 10 at 8PM
Park West (Chicago, IL) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/mrlck5

Friday October 23 at 7PM
Beachland Ballroom (Cleveland, OH) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/nqelmy

Sunday October 25 at 8PM
Majestic Theater (Madison, WI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets on sale soon

Monday October 26 at 7:30PM
Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, MN) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/dx5Mw

Thursday December 3 at 7PM
World Café Live (Philadelphia, PA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/ndjahp

Friday December 4 at 8PM
Rams Head Tavern (Annapolis, MD) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/n3jj83

And now I guess technically we’re into Winter, so I’ll stop. But there’s more coming, there’s always more…

PAXtatstic

JoCo — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:41:13 +0000

Where to begin?

I suppose I’ll start with this TERRIBLE injury that I received while putting my bags into the trunk of a cab on my way to the airport. A lot of musicians would have stopped right here; I soldiered on (please note: I am not talking about the wedding ring, that injury was sustained years ago ZING!).

Arrived in Seattle Thursday night and immediately felt the “Seattle Smoothies,” which is a term I have just invented that describes the feeling of well-being that settles on me the moment I breathe the delicious air of that charming city. I don’t have a photo of this. Dined with the fine people of Harmonix, plus Wil Wheaton, plus Paul and Storm, plus MC Frontalot. Also enjoyed beers with various Guild and Legend of Neil folks. Yes, I am dropping names, it’s the only way I can demonstrate to you how I roll. When I returned to the hotel, this apple was on the floor (I am just reporting the facts):

Up early to set up the booth and sound check with Frontalot. See here the empty but enormous concert cave:

And also Wil Wheaton “practicing” with Frontalot:

Spent the day a-boothin’ and got to meet many fans, costumed and otherwise. Saw a lot of dressed up babies this year, which is always hilarious. Received two half-pony-half-monkey-monster gifts, was pleased:

Also sold quite a few of this new flash drive I have: it’s 2 Gigs, contains 320K MP3s of all my music plus source tracks for everything on JoCo Looks Back, also album artwork, AND PLUS ALSO comes with a DVD. This incredible deal will also be available at future shows, I’m just saying. The image on the flash drive is by Len and also appears on my guitar picks, due to my narcissism. And yes, I probably should have rotated this image before I exported it:

Did a panel with all the other PAX musicians, who all seemed smarter and funnier than me. Played “Diseases of Yore” with Frontalot at his Friday night show, talked Paul and Storm into singing harmonies with me (click the play button that’s currently in the top right corner of Frontalot’s site if you’d like to hear it and then go buy Front’s fantastic record). Went to sleep. No partying for poor, old, tired JoCo.

Similar things happened on Saturday, including a very fast lunch of sandwiches with actual rock stars John Roderick and Jason Finn (again, do you see how I roll?). Did a panel with Harmonix on the subject of the very exciting Rock Band Network, in which we pushed an authored version of The Future Soon into an Xbox and then played it right there in front of everyone with the help of some audience members. As you can see, I am not very good at playing Rock Band. It was also announced that another PAX Pack is coming to Rock Band next week, featuring me (”Re: Your Brains”), Frontalot and Paul and Storm. “The Future Soon” is going up on the Rock Band Network obviously, and I’m working on putting a lot more stuff in there right now. In case you missed that, “Re: Your Brains” will be in Rock Band next week. Brains!

And then of course, late at night, the big show. Wil Wheaton introduced Paul and Storm by talking about me for 10 minutes. Paul and Storm did their usual kick-ass job of warming up the crowd, then setting them on fire and burning them up until only ashes remain. I staggered on at 12:45 in the freaking morning to do my little show. I was joined by Paul and Storm and our pal Molly for a few songs, including a version of “My Monkey” where we replaced those words with “Wil Wheaton” to extremely comedic effect. Participated in group hug with all parties. Collapsed in a heap.

Sunday morning hopped a plane home, ate a lunch/dinner combo meal out of a tube, watched as the ratio of food to garbage in my Luxe Snack Box (TM) descended quickly to almost zero. This is ALSO how I roll.

Thanks to everyone who came to the concert, visited the booth, bought me a beer, helped me sell merch, joined me on stage, or stuffed my dinner into a tube. Special thanks to all the people who work very hard to make PAX such an incredible event, extra-especially the very generous and often be-kilted Enforcers.

You rule Seattle, I’ll see you soon.

Scarface is dead, long live Scarface

JoCo — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:29:56 +0000

Well OK, not dead, that’s overstating it. As you know, I’ve had an assistant for a while, much to my surprise and amusement. Thus far I’ve referred to this assistant only as Scarface, both to protect this person’s identity, and because it is hilarious. But mostly because it is hilarious. In a move that I applaud with loud isolated claps (the stirring, earnest, emotional kind, not the sarcastic kind) Scarface has moved on from Coulton Industries and taken a real job with a real company. And so I can now reveal that Scarface’s name was actually Meaghan.

I was going to write a fantastic post about Meaghan and our time working together and my extreme delight at seeing her take on the challenge of a brand new thing, but I see that she has beaten me to it with a post of her own that has made me all misty. It’s true, Meaghan now works for Tumblr, but she is also on the Twitter and on the Tumblr as a very talented writer and observer of things funny and sad.

Much as I would have liked to, I never intended to keep her prisoner here at my secret mountainous island lair forever. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about living a life it’s that you need to keep moving, and if there’s another thing it’s that you really should quit your job every once in a while and take on something new, maybe even something that seems crazy and scares the hell out of you. So I wish her well, and I thank her for her time of servitude. She was a great assistant, but I’m sure that she will be an even better former assistant.

But for all of us here at Coulton Industries the work goes on. There is a new Scarface, as there always will be, because it is my way. I’m not going to tell you anything about this person either, at least not until they break my heart and leave me alone in this godforsaken place (kidding Meaghan! I kid!).

That’s all for now. I’m painfully aware that the Summer is ending, and I got lots of stuff cooking that I hope to share with all of you soon.

Rock Band Network

JoCo — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:07:42 +0000

The fine folks over at Harmonix are launching something called the Rock Band Network, which will allow independent musicians to create and sell songs in the game. The answer is yes, I am very interested in putting more of my stuff in there, and I’m working on making it happen right now. It’s all brand new, so nobody knows how long it takes, how much it costs, how many will sell, etc. For my part, I’d like to get a sense of what you all are interested in getting in the game.

Will you take this poll? You can and should vote for more than one, and you can write in a song if it’s not already on this list that I have very scientifically derived just now.

Six Word Memoir

JoCo — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:27:03 +0000

UPDATE: So many great ideas, it’s hard to pick just one six-word memoir. I think I should have six six-word memoirs, that should be a thing. There is one that has become my favorite because it makes me laugh out loud, and it also captures a little bit of that “I am unable or unwilling to be a grown-up and have a real job” feeling. “For sale: adult shoes, never worn.” It’s a reference to Hemingway’s six-word story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” (which may or may not be real but is famous anyway). It was submitted by Tim Canny, who, if he will email me a mailing address, will receive a free DVD from me. Thanks everyone for thinking on it, this was a lot of fun.
———————————————————

The coffee shop I frequent here in Brooklyn is filled with lots of other people who are, like me, using it as an office. I can’t imagine the work that everyone else is doing is quite as important as my own work, which is mostly avoiding the OTHER work that I have to do, but they all seem pretty busy. There is one person in particular who is always there before I arrive and after I leave, and who does not seem to be merely reloading Twitter every couple of minutes. In fact he is working on his media empire: you may know it as SmithMag, and that might be because you have heard of the Six Word Memoir. This fellow and I – let’s call him “Larry Smith” – Larry Smith and I were talking about the Six Word Memoir and he suggested I contribute one for his book about same. Let me tell you, it’s hard. Just take a look at the ones that people have submitted, some of them are sort of brilliant. In its perfect form, it’s kind of like the punchline of a joke, where something very small and specific suddenly expands in your mind to sum up a life story. OK, now do that for your own life. Actually, stop, do it for mine instead.

I asked Twitter to help me out on this and got some great responses. From a quick scan, here are some of my favorites:

@meaghano: Sorry didn’t get to this sooner.
@awryone: Should have left that pimple alone.
@mehuman: Already peaked with song from portal.
@petersagal: Vanished after failing as IT professional.
@aaronfever: I need someone to work merchandise.
@colleenky: Should not be trusted with cats.
@paulandstorm: Paul and Storm just won’t leave. (Note how even MY six word memoir is somehow ABOUT THEM.)
@unmodisch: Internet pioneer, domesticated money-pooping cow.
also @paulandstorm: Dear Internet: thanks for…well, everything.
@marmotry: Liked cold baths with Angela Lansbury.
also @unmodisch: Phase one: music. Phase three: profit!
@scottknaster: Couldn’t write own six word memoir.

And they continue to trickle in. Boy do I love the hive mind! Since I don’t want the blog readers who are not on Twitter to miss out on the fun, I’ll take suggestions here in the comments as well. A couple of things I didn’t know until I started getting suggestions: I probably will avoid using my own lyrics for this, and ideally this will not be about me being dead. Though it’s only six words, it would be nice to somehow capture the collaborative nature of my rise to online semi-celebrity, by which I mean that while I owe the internet plenty already, it would be fun and appropriate if you also did this work for me. By Tuesday.

OK, back to tweeting about sandwiches and pretending to be on vacation.

Summer Vacation

JoCo — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:08:31 +0000

My daughter just had her last day of school for the year, and I can’t understand why she’s not terribly sad about it. I’m sad about it, and I don’t even GO to preschool. There’s something about school that will always make me feel a little melancholy I guess – a school year is such a discrete thing, a big chunk of life behind you that will never come again. I can already imagine the hazy memory 08-09 will become for her, just a couple of snapshots really: that time they made macaroni necklaces, that friend she had who moved to another school, the one kid who was always peeing his pants. Obviously this is my baggage not hers, and it has a lot to do with having a child who’s growing up in front of my eyes, but I also think I’m identifying with the end of the school year because I’m taking something of a Summer vacation myself.

NO TOURING. That is the rule for the next couple of months. I really do enjoy playing for all of you, much more than I ever thought I would. But the airplanes and hotels and suitcases are a real drag, and it’s the closest thing to actual “work” I ever get in this ridiculous career. And it chops up my personal and professional life; I’m always either on a trip, getting ready for one, or recovering from one. So I’m going to defrag a little, recharge, waste some time, play guitar for no reason at all, mess around with various bits of hardware and software that I’ve purchased but never used, see what happens.

Merlin Mann gave a great talk at MaxFunCon about creativity, specifically about that pesky “getting started” part of it. It’s the thing I was trying to defeat when I started Thing a Week, and while I had it on the ropes for a while, it was just a temporary victory. I still struggle with it, and I suspect I always will. I can use the traveling as an excuse, but if it wasn’t traveling it would be groceries, or Xbox or whatever (Marble Blast Ultra, seriously, I am getting my ass kicked by a bunch of 13-year-olds, but I dig it). I can always find distractions that seem like higher priorities than making stuff. So part of my goal for this Summer is to take as much pressure off as I can and pry apart some space for doing just that. I’m not promising to write you a bunch of songs exactly, in fact I kind of have to keep my goals a little fuzzier than that in order to not frighten the muse away. I don’t know exactly where I’m going or what I’m working towards, and I forgive myself in advance for that because that’s sort of the point. I’m just hoping to have some fun making music in the privacy of my own head for a while. Maybe you can hear it when I’m done (whatever it turns out to be).

In the meantime, I am JoCo4Realz on Xbox Live and I will see you in Sprawl emmer effers!

Rifftrax Presents: Tron (featuring me and Paul and Storm)

JoCo — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:48:53 +0000

I am a long time fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a television show in which a human and his robot friends watch movies and make fun of them (it maybe is not a surprise to you that I like this sort of thing). Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, formerly of said show, now do this thing called Rifftrax – sort of an alternate audio track for movies that you can sync up as you watch, MST3K roll-your-own style. Imagine my delight when they invited me and Paul and Storm to record one of these for the movie TRON. I’ll wait while you imagine. Did you imagine me jumping up and down and peeing my pants? Because that’s what happened.

Now you can purchase this item! I am serious! This banner proves it (when you click on it)!

DVD For Sale

JoCo — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:19:04 +0000

At long last, here it is.

BEST. CONCERT. EVER.

A live DVD/CD super combo package, now available to you, the general public. It’s currently in pre-sales but discs will ship May 15th, and if you buy now you can download the mp3s immediately.

Science FAIL

JoCo — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:11:51 +0000

If you’ve been listening to me on the Twitter this morning then you’ll be tired of this, but here’s the thing. I made a dumb joke referencing an aphorism I have heard: “all animals can swim.” Then I started wondering if that was true. A lot of people replied saying that great apes can’t swim, in particular chimpanzees. That didn’t sound right to me, or at least it sounded like one of those things that everybody says that nobody really knows if it’s true or not (kind of like “all animals can swim”).

So I asked again on the Twitter: for reals? Great apes can’t swim? A lot of people responded “yes they can” or “no they can’t” which wasn’t helpful. And a lot of links came in, a lot of conflicting information. This site says they have too little animal fat and so they sink. This person says they can outswim an olympic swimmer (human, presumably) and tantalizingly links to a video called “seemychimpswim” that no longer exists. According to The Big Zoo they can only swim “if extremely excited” (?). And here’s a story about a swimming orangutan. From what I can tell, it’s kind of “some chimps can swim but mostly they hate it and are not good at it.”

Or worse, it’s still an open question, which is a terrible thought. What the hell scientists? What are we doing here? Can we please start throwing some monkeys into pools and taking notes? IT IS 2009, SERIOUSLY!

Also, giraffes.

Invisible Post

JoCo — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:14:25 +0000

Which is what this will be for many of you today – traffic on the First of May is always a little heavy for some reason, but my poor server is doing its best to keep up. I wish you all a happy Spring, even if you don’t know it.

This song is free even when it is not this day of the year, but it is especially free today (if you know what I mean):

First of May (<–Not At All Safe For Work)

Friends, Fans and Followers

JoCo — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:57:31 +0000

Scott Kirsner is a writer who, inexplicably, interviewed me once. I was somewhere in the earlier parts of Thing a Week, and I was just seeing the hint of the glimmer of the possibility of some kind of semi-success. He was hoping to pitch me as a feature article to a certain important magazine about technology, but that feature never materialized, I think probably because Scott was ahead of the curve. He already knew what the world did not: that I was destined to become a big, fat, shining superstar.

So now he’s put me in his book, which is also very nice of him. I mention it not just because I’m in it, but because Scott is a very smart and well-spoken fellow who ran an excellent panel with me and some other folks at SXSWi, and this book looks kind of awesome. It’s about this new kwazy internet thing we’re all trying to figure out, where suddenly everyone has the tools to create and publish, and so reaching your audience is simultaneously very easy and very hard. He interviews a bunch of artists of various types about how they deal with this paradox, how they launched and built their creative enterprises. If you’re wondering how you might turn your creative thing into a money-pooping cow, it’s really helpful to read about how lots of other people did it. Like I always say: 1) find the good ideas and then 2) steal them.

It’s called Friends, Fans and Followers, and you can preview it here, and buy it here.

Three Mysteries, Solved

JoCo — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:33:01 +0000

1. Millionaire Matchmaker – you were not imagining it, the bachelor named Alex sang “Soft Rocked By Me” on the Bravo show Millionaire Matchmaker. They did get permission from me before doing this, and the last time I was in Vegas Alex even took me out to a delicious Thai lunch to thank me. It was my first lunch date with a millionaire. Hopefully not my last – AM I RIGHT?!

2. Ernie Wade – April Fools! You all know that by now, and most of you knew it pretty early on. I meant to juice up a little more doubt and controversy, but when it came down to it I couldn’t keep a straight face. Also there were enough people in on the joke tweeting and blogging about it that I enjoyed watching it all unfold. In case you missed it, the idea took shape in Vegas (erm, I guess there are a lot of things that do NOT stay in Vegas) when I was at the New Media Expo playing the Coverville 500 concert. At the table were me, Len, Patrick and Tom, and I hope nobody else that I’m forgetting because I’m an insensitive jerk. We thought it would be funny to manufacture a scandal in which it is discovered that all my songs are stolen. Because he is crazy, Tom actually followed through and created a site and recorded a couple of songs: Code Monkey and Warrior Robot Revenge. Say want you want about these kinds of April Fools Day pranks, but there are some really nice touches on the site, in the photos, the cassette labels, and especially in the songs. My favorite is the photo on this page captioned “Here is a picture I had of Ernie driving his truck…” And the songs have a perfect bizarro-world-JoCo quality to them – poor Ernie really loved Jan.

3. Where the hell is Jonathan Coulton? Last week we closed on the sale of my old home and the purchase of my new home, and on Monday we moved. I’ve been too preoccupied to blog or twitter – sorry if you’re waiting for me to get back to you, or even just let you know that I’m alive. I’m still in Brooklyn, not too far away from where I was, but kind of on the fringe of Stroller Town itself. The new place has some leaks and broken things, and of course my entire life is packed into lots of poorly labeled boxes. I can’t find anything, all is chaos. I had no internet until yesterday afternoon, which was painful. And my studio does not really exist at this point – it will only when I muster up the strength to find everything and plug it in again. The photo up top is my old studio room, now empty and sad.

Moving is weird. A lot happened in that old apartment – I entered as a childless writer of software, I leave as a twice bekidded musician, with Thing a Week and all the rest of it trailing out behind me. The new place has quite a bit to live up to. I’m hoping that soon it will actually feel more like home, and less like a showroom for a cardboard box company.

Sorry to have been so quiet. I will start making noise again soon.

I Totally Forgot

JoCo — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:22:33 +0000

To post anything about the NYC show. Isn’t that terrible? It was a great deal of fun, and if you missed it, you also missed this:

Yes, that is the Hungry March Band, and they are the nicest group of anarchist marching band hipster types you will ever meet.

And if you missed me at University of Arkansas last night, you missed a sound check (which the audience was lucky enough to see), and a set done WITHOUT A SET LIST. Very dangerous, but I think it worked out OK. Thank you Arkansonians.

In other news, some attorney friends of mine say it’s probably a good idea for me not to say anything about this.

JoCo Cannot Be Stopped

JoCo — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:56:51 +0000

So I guess I lied when I said that was the last of the Spring shows – INADVERTENTLY. Check it: a FREE concert at University of Arkansas next week, then Dallas, LA, and Solana Beach (the one near San Diego) in May.

Plus a special benefit show at the Birchmere on May 21 to benefit the Lung Transplant Foundation – a cause near and dear to my heart because my booking agent recently had both lungs replaced (you can go back and read that again if you want) and is doing really well. I don’t know what my booking agent would have done without these new lungs, and I don’t know what I would have done without my booking agent.

But enough about lungs, here are the details:

Friday March 27 at 8PM
Symphony Space (New York, NY) with Paul and Storm
tinyurl.com/dkzjoe

Tuesday March 31 at 7PM
Arkansas Union Theater (Fayetteville, AR)
FREE and open to the public!
(sorry for the late notice on this one, I thought it was students only)

Thursday April 23 at 8 PM
Lula Lounge (Toronto, ON) with Paul and Storm
tinyurl.com/czz9sn

Friday April 24 at 7:30 PM
Lula Lounge (Toronto, ON) with Paul and Storm
tinyurl.com/bxr6lb

Wednesday May 13 at 8PM
Granada Theater (Dallas, TX) with Paul and Storm
tinyurl.com/d9fslw

Thursday May 14 at 8PM
Belly Up Tavern (Solana Beach, CA) with Paul and Storm
tinyurl.com/ckyfjj

Sunday May 17 at 8:30PM
Largo (Los Angeles, CA) with Paul and Storm
For tix call (310) 855-0350
This one will sell out I think, so don’t wait too long.

Thursday May 21 at 7:30PM
The Birchmere (Alexandria, VA) with Chelsea Lee
Lung Transplant Foundation Benefit
tinyurl.com/ch8r3r

Tone Deaf Eagles

JoCo — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:21:59 +0000

In case you missed it during the internet telethon insanity that was RedNoseNet, here’s a video of me and Paul and Storm working on our new cover band project. (Please note: it is not too late to donate to Comic Relief.)

Payday

JoCo — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:01:02 +0000

People often ask me for stats about how much free downloading there is vs. actual sales. I’m sure they are very frustrated when I explain to them, in excruciating detail, how impossible it is to know such a thing. I used to track stats like crazy back when I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make a living this way. And it was often depressing – songs like Baby Got Back or Code Monkey would get huge traffic and few sales, and the performance of less successful songs like Drive or Resolutions are best left undiscussed. But somewhere along the way the bottom line started improving, and I became less obsessed with tracking every little thing. Now I sort of think of the whole engine as a special genetically engineered cow who eats music and poops money – I have no idea what’s going on in its gut, and I have the luxury of not really caring that much about the particulars.

But because it’s interesting, since I posted Blue Sunny Day here is what happened (according to Google Analytics):

I posted it to the blog on 3/16, and twittered about it with a link to the blog post on 3/17. I have about 5,000 blog subscribers and about 23,000 Twitter followers.

On 3/16 the blog post received 740 unique views, on 3/17 it received 1,942.

As of today, the original blog post has received 4,313 unique views: 2,518 direct, 1,721 from twitter, 788 from google, 209 from facebook, and then some more smaller sources.

The link to the free mp3 has received 1,544 unique views. The way things are set up I have no way of knowing how many of these were downloads and how many of them were just people clicking on the link to listen in their browser. Though I can tell you for certain that none of those views come from people clicking on the blue playtagger play button, because Google Analytics doesn’t track those clicks.

The mp3 has been sold 179 times and earned $196. Some people bought it several times, not sure whether that was a shopping cart mistake or just people deciding to pay me more than a dollar for the song (if you made a mistake and would like your $$$ back, let me know).

The FLAC version has been sold 11 times for $11. Yay FLAC!

Worst case scenario (every unique view = one free download), the ratio of paying customers to freeloaders comes to about 13.4% if you count dollars instead of purchases. That’s actually pretty good in my opinion. And maybe I just have my rosy glasses on this morning, but I’d guess that some of the people who bought Blue Sunny Day were tipped over into buying other stuff.

So how does this work? I put out a new song and make $200? Obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that, because I’m making a pretty good living considering my recent output is about 2 songs per year. Even not considering that – I’m not getting rich exactly, but I make more money now than I did when I wrote software.

So here are some of the questions I can’t easily answer:

How many free downloads were actually “lost sales?”
How many people downloaded/listened and then donated instead of purchasing? (Full disclosure, probably not many – donations are generally a teeny tiny fraction of my income.)
How many free downloads happened in other places (P2P networks, emails, etc.)?
How much increased buying of tickets, CDs, Tshirts, mp3s happened as a result of this song and news of its release bouncing around the internet?
Who is currently making a movie about a suicidal vampire and is planning on paying me a million dollars to use this song for the final tragic scene? (Seriously, who is it? Call me…)

The eight-day period since the song was first posted boasts a 40% uptick in digital sales in my store compared with the eight days prior to that, though I just did a show and a bunch of press at SXSWi last week, so that could account for the uptick as well. And of course there are ancillary benefits of all kinds that come from the simple fact that for once there was some new content on my site – more traffic is always good.

So then extrapolate what happened with this song across my entire catalog, across all the things sold that make up my income, across the past and present and future, across all the internet radio stations and file sharing networks and Facebook pages and Twitter posts and the whole wild and wooly internet – you will never know HOW it works, but I can tell you that for me it does. The state of the industry makes a lot more sense when you think of it this way, all these new business models rising and falling, internet radio choking on insanely high performance royalties, Radiohead and NIN giving stuff away and making a killing. This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop.

Spiff – Tom Cruise Crazy

JoCo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:41:54 +0000

I think my favorite moment is Tom sliding across the floor in his underwear (but then I have always been a sucker for an attractive young man in briefs):

Len – Blue Sunny Day

JoCo — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:21:22 +0000

Oh man, no wonder this vampire’s so sad, he’s only got four fingers on each hand! As usual, Len finished this in record time and I took a million years to post it. (Check out his initial sketch too, probably done in two minutes with ketchup and a toothpick on the back of a napkin.)

New Song – Blue Sunny Day

JoCo — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:44:22 +0000

Unbelievably, there is a new song. As I’ve mentioned the couple of times I played this live, I tried very hard to NOT make this about a sad vampire, but of course it is. It started out with the idea that I should just, for once, write a song that was kind of bouncy and happy. Though once I had decided to use the phrase “blue sunny day,” it was hard not to notice that the word “blue” can have another meaning. From there it’s only a quick jump to vampire suicide. I don’t know what happened to him exactly, perhaps he suffers from seasonal affective disorder? Or maybe he’s just sick of working nights.

I’ve had this chord progression and melody running around in my brain for a long time, so it’s nice to get it out. This was one of those songs where the arrangement started to build itself in my head before I had really finished writing, I could hear all those vocals from the very beginning. I’m stealing from all sorts of places of course, there’s more than a little Tally Hall influence, some Queen in there, maybe a little Jeff Lynne, and the bridge makes me think of XTC so much that I fear I may discover it’s a direct lift of something and I just haven’t realized yet (in which case, sorry Andy!).

Other cool things: Dave has already posted a video guitar lesson for this song here, as well as put the chords into the wiki.

As always, you have a choice: stream it, download it free, or buy it.

Blue Sunny Day
Buy It

By the way, I have messed up the store link to the flac version somehow – sorry to everyone who’s trying to buy it, I will fix it as soon as I can, and then offer you some kind of lavish compensation for your trouble. UPDATE: Fixed. Let me know if you bought and ran out of downloads. This is very embarrassing.

Texas!

JoCo — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:07:38 +0000

Dear Texas,

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I did any shows here – both Houston and Austin were really fun, despite the breaking of strings and the throwing of monkeys. Thanks to everyone who came out, especially here in Austin where doing so meant that you were unable to enjoy unlimited free Sierra Mist cocktails at some kick-ass web company party. Not that you don’t have better things to do in Houston. I mean, you know, Houston is nice too. I love all cities equally!

There are a lot of nerds here in Austin, there must be some kind of nerd convention going on or something.

-j

Indie Band Survival Guide

JoCo — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:16:13 +0000

Watch as I plug something that I think is good:

The Indie Band Survival Guide is one of those “how to work the music business” books that is actually helpful. These guys did a really great job of dealing with all the new stuff that’s happening in this space. And I say this not only because they interviewed me a lot. Anyone who has questions about how I have been able to turn an interest in robots and monkeys into a career as a musician (it still makes me laugh to say that) while barely ever having to leave my house or even put on pants – chances are the answers are in this book.

And currently, there’s a free eBook version being offered in connection with Eventful, you can get it simply by signing up with your email address at IndieGuide.com. Of course, the book can also be “purchased” if you’re into that sort of thing.

Last of the Spring Shows

JoCo — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:38:47 +0000

It’s been a busy couple of months for sure, just a few more shows lined up for this Spring: Houston, Austin, New York City and Toronto. Luckily all this touring is happening before my live DVD/CD package is ready – it would have been a terrible shame to sell a bunch of them at all these shows. Wait, what?

Friday March 13 at 8PM
House of Blues (Houston, TX) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/cxdf8s

Sunday March 15 at 7PM
Antone’s (Austin, TX) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/ama6l7
(This is not an official part of SXSW, you must buy tickets to attend. Technically that’s true for all these shows I guess.)

Friday March 27 at 8PM
Symphony Space (New York, NY) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/dkzjoe

Thursday April 23 at 8 PM
Lula Lounge (Toronto, ON) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/czz9sn

Friday April 24 at 7:30 PM
Lula Lounge (Toronto, ON) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/bxr6lb

Kutiman Mixes YouTube

JoCo — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:28:48 +0000

I was going to write this long thinky post about what this “means” and how amazing it is to be living in an era of such unprecedented creative opportunities thanks to the internet and the rise of amateur content, but I will leave it at this: in your face, Andrew Keen.

This is the work of Kutiman (via Open Up), an Israeli musician who creates really great music using bits and pieces of lots of YouTube videos. He’s got a whole album’s worth of material online at thru-you.com. He has also broken my skull open with the ball-peen hammer of his awesomeness. Here’s the opening track, “The Mother of All Funk Chords.” So amazing, so illegal. What are we going to do with you, future?

SMS to Email List

JoCo — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:10:07 +0000

Poor Scarface has been inundated with questions about how I managed to set it up so that people can add themselves to my mailing list by sending a text message. It was actually pretty easy to do once I found the right site – the trick now is me remembering to stop my set and tell the audience to do it. I remembered in Ann Arbor, but I think probably I forgot in the last couple of shows before that, because I am a big fat dummy.

The trick: I signed up for a free account at Textmarks.com, which lets you choose a unique keyword (I chose JoCo, for obvious reasons). You can then set it up so that when someone texts a message to the Textmarks number (41411) that starts with your keyword, stuff happens. In my case, I set it up so that Textmarks parses the message, grabbing everything after the JoCo, which I assume is the email address. It then composes and posts to my “add this email to my mailing list” URL, passing that text as a parameter. The URL happens to be from the email list tools that are built into Hostbaby (my web host), but it would be pretty easy to do just about anything you want once you get the email into a page on your site – database access or some other further processing. Or if you’ve got some other mailing list management solution, as long as you can add with a URL you can use this method.

There is my secret. Go forth and SPAM.

Heading Home

JoCo — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:57:03 +0000

Sitting here at the gate waiting to board, if the weather treats me nice I’ll be back in NY in just a few hours. It was another great bunch of shows here in the Midwest, though I have made a mental note to make sure that the next time I come back here it should probably be in the time of year when there are NOT ice storms. Thanks to everyone who braved the black ice in Madison, thanks to the weather gods who brought the snow to St. Paul the night before our show, and Chicago, well, just thanks. If, in fact, you exist.

As you may know I’ve been assembling set lists from Twitter requests, and I have to say the results have been really interesting. There are requests for songs I would never dare to force on an audience, songs I don’t play well, songs that haven’t seen the light of day in years. It feels nice to be taking some risks again, even when I fall on my face. The most surprising thing to me is how mellow and sad the requests seem to trend – I don’t think there’s been a single show where someone hasn’t asked for Famous Blue Raincoat. I usually try to include as much up tempo funny stuff as I can, but I do love a sad song, and it’s nice to have permission to play a few of them. You asked for it!

Also, my life has become a parade of famous person cameos – Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett and Neil Gaiman were all at the St. Paul show (on stage with us for goodness sake), and last night we had sushi with Adam Savage. It’s like a weird dream. I am a big fan of all of these people, so it’s bizarre and wonderful to get to hang out with them and their large, white, affable dogs.

And on top of it all, audiences keep showing up and being nice to me. You rule, audience. Thanks everyone for another great trip.

Going, Making

JoCo — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:21:55 +0000

Ad hoc Jonathan Coulton internet cover band The Mandelbrot Set has done it again. They finished their version of “Skullcrusher Mountain” which you can listen to and download here. It sounds like a party is what it sounds like, a big internet party. If you’re interested in checking out their works in progress, look here. And if you’d like to be part of the next thing they do, there is this here forum thread. Go, make!

Speaking of which, Spiff has sent me a link to something that broke my brain a little. Apparently his video for “Betty and Me” inspired another person to make some WoW machinima, specifically this one using characters from Spiff’s work. Note, my music is not in there anymore, this is a thing that somebody made based on Spiff’s stuff, which was something that he made based on my stuff. Also, apparently Guitar Hero is involved in some way? I’m not at all sure what’s going on to be honest, but it sure is awesome!

MC Lars and Me (and Frontalot)

JoCo — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:38:17 +0000

If you’re fans of any of us, you may be interested to know that MC Lars’s’’s’ new record drops today – that is how we say it, even though it is not a record and even though it doesn’t physically fall anywhere. There’s a track on there called “O.G. Original Gamer” that features Lars and Frontalot both, plus a chorus by yours truly (and yes, I proudly channeled Michael McDonald). The album is called This Gigantic Robot Kills and is available online and in stores starting today.

www.mclars.com

New Shows

JoCo — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:04:03 +0000

Just an update of the schedule – since last time we’ve added shows in New York, Houston, Austin and Toronto. Tickets are for sale at these new ones, get em while they last!

SOLD OUT
Friday February 20 at 7:30 PM
The Birchmere (Alexandria, VA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/9xn4ue

SOLD OUT
Saturday February 21 at 8 PM
Rams Head Tavern (Annapolis, MD) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/86qvbu

Thursday February 26 at 7:30 PM
Barrymore Theater (Madison, WI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/86lw3z

Friday February 27 at 8 PM
History Theater (St. Paul, MN) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/bk753u

Saturday February 28 at 8 PM
Park West (Chicago, IL) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/8n3glh

Friday March 6 at 8 PM
The Ark (Ann Arbor, MI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/asm2h9

Friday March 13 at 8PM
House of Blues (Houston, TX) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/cxdf8s

Sunday March 15 at 7PM
Antone’s (Austin, TX) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/ama6l7
(This is not an official part of SXSW, but it is happening at the same time as SXSWi, which I’ll also be attending. Panels, don’t you know.)

Friday March 27 at 8PM
Symphony Space (New York, NY) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/dkzjoe

Thursday April 23 at 8 PM
Lula Lounge (Toronto, ON) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/czz9sn

Friday April 24 at 7:30 PM
Lula Lounge (Toronto, ON) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/bxr6lb

The Long-Awaited DVD

JoCo — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:50:10 +0000

Not quite ready yet, but very soon I think. I’ve just now resolved a licensing issue that was holding things up, and am currently pushing to finish this sucker up. To answer some of the questions that have been coming in through various channels:

1) This will be a DVD/Audio CD combo for $20. The audio is from the same show that’s on the DVD, but with most of the blah blah blah edited out. It will be available for purchase at shows as soon as I have the finished copies, by ordering online in a few places, and hopefully in some actual retail stores. I’m guessing we’re looking at a month or so at this point.

2) The DVD will be region free.

3) The Audio CD will come with highly restrictive DRM software that secretly installs a rootkit, which creates a security risk and may crash your computer (just kidding!).

4) The audio will be available for sale digitally, most likely on iTunes and other such outlets. The video, maybe, I’m not quite sure how that’s going to work yet, but I hope so.

5) The DVD will have the full San Francisco show from February of last year (ack!), with only a few bits here and there edited out for pacing and maximum awesomeness. There’s plenty of fan cam footage in there from cameras that were in the audience. There’s a bit of documentary/interview type stuff with me, backstage business, etc. There’s also an audio commentary track featuring me, Paul and Storm, and Kristen Shirts, which was recorded poorly in my living room over pizza. Plus extra extras.

All in all I’m very happy with the way this turned out, though it has taken a lot of time and money and effort to make. It’s been a very different experience from the method I am used to – make it cheaply and quickly, publish it immediately – but in the end it’s a thing I am very glad to have in the world. The live show has come a long way since that first concert at the Jewelbox Theater in Seattle, and the songs have evolved as I’ve learned how to play them, and then learned how to play them well, and then learned how to deal with it when I don’t play them well. And of course it’s just fun to watch an audience at a live show. Zombies! Rock Band! Kristen Shirts!

Thanks for your continued patience, I will of course overwhelm you with SPAM the moment this thing is buyable.

PDX–>JFK

JoCo — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:56:46 +0000

One of the things that’s hardest about this job (if you allow that I have any right to complain about it at all, which I don’t) is the traveling. Not the part where I go to great cities and meet interesting people and pretend to be a rockstar in front of an audience of superfans, that part I like. It’s the part after that, where I tape up boxes in a crappy hotel business center at 2:30 in the morning, crash for an hour and then lug my stuff to the airport. I’m lucky today, I got the free upgrade to the upper class, so there will be breakfast and room to sleep. Poor Paul and Storm drove from Portland to Seattle last night after the show to catch their flight this morning, which sounds even worse.

All this is to say that when there are crowds and shows like these last two, it goes a long way toward making up for the bad parts. Molly was awesome, Paul and Storm always make me laugh, and of course you guys in the audience continue to amaze me by showing up at all, let alone in massive numbers, ready to scream for brains. I’m pretty sure that if you account for everything, I’m still coming out way ahead. So thank you.

Also. a first class upgrade does not hurt. Have fun in coach, suckers!

SEA–>PDX

JoCo — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:13:17 +0000

Wow Seattle, huge turnout. Thanks to everyone who came out, hope you didn’t mind the unusually mellow and breakup-y set list. Nice to have Molly up there with us too (if you’re in Portland and feeling undecisive, she’ll be with us tonight as well). I always enjoy your fair city, and this time was no exception. We’ll be back soon for sure.

Portland tonight, still plenty of tickets. Buy some why don’t you?

Whiffenpoofs Centennial Concert

JoCo — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:47:35 +0000

I keep forgetting to mention this, but I and Hodgman will be guest performers at the Whiffenpoofs Centennial Concert at Woolsey Hall on the Yale campus, Saturday January 31. Details from the Facebook page (you kids still use the Facebook?):

$20/General, $5/Yale students

Purchase tickets at www.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=167246 or reserve them by emailing whiffenpoofs@yale.edu Tickets can also be purchased at the door. Visit www.whiffenpoofs.com for more information.

I will not be wearing tails!

More Shows

JoCo — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:38:44 +0000

And on and on we go: Seattle and Portland this weekend. VA and MD in February, plus a little Midwest swing. How many shows will it take until I can play The Presidents correctly? 100?

Friday January 23 at 8 PM
Moore Theatre (Seattle, WA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/8cqfjw

Saturday January 24 at 8 PM
The Aladdin Theater (Portland, OR) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/6upo6l

Friday February 20 at 7:30 PM
The Birchmere (Alexandria, VA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/9xn4ue

Saturday February 21 at 8 PM
Rams Head Tavern (Annapolis, MD) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/86qvbu

Thursday February 26 at 7:30 PM
Barrymore Theater (Madison, WI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/86lw3z

Friday February 27 at 8 PM
History Theater (St. Paul, MN) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/c9rt56

Saturday February 28 at 8 PM
Park West (Chicago, IL) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/8n3glh

Friday March 6 at 8 PM
The Ark (Ann Arbor, MI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: theark.org/1948.html

San Francisco Part Two

JoCo — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:08:34 +0000

Sunday night was another great San Francisco show, no big surprise there. We missed selling out by one ticket – if you were planning on coming and then didn’t, that’s your fault. In a way the Saturday night crowd got a better spectacle because of the complete Presidents breakdown – I merely bobbled it on Sunday. But on the plus side, I did not get it completely right, which would have been boring.

Paul is good at many things, but sometimes I think what he is best at is stalking the famous people he wants to be friends with. He used twitter to invite Adam Savage (from Mythbusters) to our show, and it actually worked. Adam came back stage afterwards, claimed to enjoy the show, and then spent a while hanging out and chatting with us. He’s a swell guy, I’m a big fan, and it was fun to meet him. I guess you get to do these sorts of things when you’re famous.

I’m home for a couple of days and then out again to Seattle on Friday and Portland on Saturday – still still plenty of tickets left for both, so don’t be shy.

Thank you Denver and SF!

Epic Fail

JoCo — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:17:10 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m trying to shake up the set list a bit. Last night in SF it got shook up a bit too much – I blanked on The Presidents lyrics and had to bail out TWICE. you know that I make mistakes constantly at live shows, and I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring them. For whatever reason this one really rattled me. I was off my game for quite a few songs, sort of hanging suspended over the deep black hole of total think shutdown. Of course the audience was very supportive despite my rough edges, and as usual, seemed to take particular delight in getting to see such a spectacular meltdown in person – that’s what live music is about after all. I forced myself to come back to it later in the set and got through it, which felt great. Take that you stupid song.

SF again tonight, some tickets still available last I checked. I promise I’ll make some big mistakes tonight too.

Finally, Denver

JoCo — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:35:04 +0000

It’s taken a long time for me to get here and now I wish it had happened sooner – had a very pleasant 36 hours here and a great show last night. A lot of newcomers in the crowd, I could tell because they laughed at the sad parts and looked confused during the first verse of First of May.

This was the first gig in a couple of months, so I was a bit rusty. Also I have that perpetual parental head cold so my voice started out a little ragged. But I took requests during the day on Twitter, and that gave me a set list with some challenging choices, kept it interesting for me. I’ve fallen into a rut lately with set lists, so I’m trying to shake it up and bring in some newer stuff, maybe some of the Thing a Week songs that haven’t been done live yet.

Also I met Craig Robinson (Darryl from The Office) when he and I were both guests on the channel 7 morning news. After I did Code Monkey (on this NEWS SHOW) he claimed during his interview to have written a song called Pin Number Orangutan, which doesn’t even make any sense, but is still funny.

And now I’m headed to SF for tonight. Still tickets for Sunday I think, but Saturday is sold out.

Note: I wrote this on my phone and forgot to post it until right now…

January and Stuff

JoCo — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:44:32 +0000

Man, seems like I never blog anymore, I think because I’m spending all my talky energy on Twitter. In case you haven’t already joined the fray, that’s where all the action is these days, at least for me. Mostly I complain about things, but once in a while I might say something “funny” (or not).

I’m back in NYC and already behind for the year, which is no longer surprising to me. The good news is, I’m hitting the road again for a few shows in January and February. Paul and Storm and I could use some merch help for some of these too (Seattle, Portland and the Birchmere are all covered, the rest I need peeps). Just email Scarface if you’re interested.

Friday January 16 at 9 PM
The Soiled Dove Underground (Denver, CO) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/967oq8

Saturday January 17 at 9 PM
Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA) with Paul and Storm
SOLD OUT!

Sunday January 18 at 8 PM
Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/4r25ns

Friday January 23 at 8 PM
Moore Theatre (Seattle, WA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/8cqfjw

Saturday January 24 at 8 PM
The Aladdin Theater (Portland, OR) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/6upo6l

Friday February 20 at 7:30 PM
The Birchmere (Alexandria, VA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/9xn4ue

Saturday February 21 at 8 PM
Rams Head Tavern (Annapolis, MD) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: tinyurl.com/86qvbu

Wintertime is Coultontime

JoCo — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:05:34 +0000

It’s Christmas and I’m here with the in-laws (yes, Brookline) surrounded by cakes and cookies and newly opened presents. After a few days here I will head for the deep woods, where I will hunt, kill, and dress a moose. Or maybe I will skip that and eat fatty foods and drink beer while sitting on the couch, we’ll see how I feel. In either case, I’m outie till the new year. I hope you’re all having fun winter holiday times, because I sure am.

It’s been another great year here at Coulton industries, thanks in no small part to all of you who read, listen, record, send monkeys in the mail, etc. I’ve got a few songs in the pipeline and a few new toys itching for the studio, a trip to the west coast in January with more touring to follow, and this FREAKING concert DVD which is still very nearly finished and targetted for February release (I hope). And probably other exciting things that I haven’t even thought of yet will happen.

Thank you all, and here’s hoping the years continue to get better and better until everything is awesome everywhere all the time.

2009 here we come…

Child’s Play Charity CD

JoCo — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:06:45 +0000

Nerdcore compilation that includes (among many other excellent things) me singing Still Alive with Felicia Day at PAX 2008 – available now for just ten bucks. All proceeds go to Child’s Play, a worthy charity started by the Penny Arcade folks that gives toys and games to kids in hospitals (hard to argue with that, no?).

Buy it here!

Brains!

JoCo — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:46:47 +0000

Ad hoc, virtual Jonathan Coulton cover band The Mandelbrot Set (born in the forums, like all other crazy schemes) has completed their first cover, a soothing version of Re: Your Brains. It’s quite nice, and were it not for the subject matter I’d say it would be right at home on some Wes Anderson soundtrack. But for the moment, it is only available on the internet.

Thanks crazy forum people!

And speaking of crazy forum people, I recently was made aware of a couple of foreign language (to me) Jonathan Coulton areas. Here is this forum for speakers of French: joco.forumactif.fr and this fan page for the burgeoning fanbase in Hungary: koponyaroppanto.wordpress.com/

There is also this Camp Bachelor cover: www.myspace.com/sparechangequartet

There is also this piano medley: spaceparanoids.net/2008/11/joco-medley/

Don’t you people have work to do?

JoCo Looks Back – CD

JoCo — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:12:24 +0000

For those of you who prefer to have your music on an audio disk (or “CD”) instead of a jump drive, JoCo Looks Back is now available for purchase at CD Baby, kind of just barely in time for Christmas, sort of. (N.B. the CD does not include the source tracks, just the songs.) But man, what a lovely gift this would make, especially for someone who has not yet drunk the delicious JoCo-flavored kool-aid.

Buy it here!

The jump drive with this album and the source tracks is still available too with a $50 donation to Creative Commons, and will be there through the end of the year.

(I should mention – it may periodically say that it’s sold out over the next couple of days, it’s just the way CDBaby does the initial stocking of a new title. Rest assured, I am pushing them out to them quickly so as to keep them from running out, and even now am heading out to the post office to send a bunch more.)

Holiday Magic

JoCo — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:09:16 +0000

Two kinds! First, here is this Christmas message I recorded for dear old Ken Plume at Quick Stop Entertainment. He always tries to get me to do something for his annual Holiday Havoc extravaganza, and I usually weasel out of it in some way. This year was no exception. And yes, those are the same potato sticks I was eating at the end of the Monkey Shines credit sequence. Back in the 80s, on television. Thank you Ken Plume for all the entertainment you make available to us at a single, quick stop.

And second, it’s a JoCo advent calendar filled with Ultrastar Deluxe karaoke files! What? Right. I am barely hanging on myself here, but I gather that one of the elves in the forums has used the open source karaoke game Ultrastar Deluxe and the CC licensing of my karaoke versions to create 25 playable JoCo “levels.” Do you kids still call them levels? A new song will be released every day between now and Festivus. Sing along and win (points I think?)! And no, I cannot help you with installing anything or learning how to sing. Thanks Spektugalo and SKillMaster and Silverbeam and Blindguard for making it happen. (By the way, those are the names of my reindeer.)

And Then There’s JoCo

JoCo — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:48:42 +0000

Yeah, I don’t know what to say about this. Everyone knows what happened to my acting career in the 80’s – let’s just say that I should have been working at Sea World because I was very good at making sharks jump. Or I guess, making people, or rather television shows, jump over sharks. Or Fonzie. Whatever! You know what I mean. This series never got of the ground, and to be perfectly honest I don’t even remember shooting the pilot – as you know, in those days I would drink about 10 Cokes before I even got out of bed, that was what it took for me to feel normal. So it’s safe to say that I was still feeling pretty loopy by the time they turned the cameras on. This particular failure was one shark (jumped over) too many, and it pretty much marked the end of my TV career (punching Stephen J. Canell in the eye at Tony Danza’s progressive dinner party did not help, ha ha).

Anyway, they found some footage:

Hello?

JoCo — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:18:58 +0000

Is it me you’re looking for?

Thank you llyse.

Birthdays

JoCo — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:12:09 +0000

When you get to be 38 like me, the birthday thing starts to feel a little bit like old news – what, this again? So it’s nice to discover that people I don’t even know are thinking of me on my SPECIAL DAY (which was yesterday December 1). I received several gifts in the mail yesterday, many birthday wishes via email, and most remarkably, a box filled with the results of a stuffed monkey’s incredible journey across the globe, through the very bowels of JoCo fandom (i.e., NASA, Ren Faires, etc.). Colleen kicked the whole thing off in the forums, and over the course of the last year said monkey was passed from fan to fan, collecting souvenirs, journal entries and photos along the way. Here is most of what came in the box (two boxes actually).

I’m still trying to process everything, but it certainly seems like JoCo fans know how to show a monkey a good time (does anyone know how to disinfect a stuffed monkey?).

You people are crazy, and I love you for it. Thank you.