One Christmas at a Time is BY-NC except for “Wikipedia Chanukah” which is BY-SA.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Coulton

twitter.com/IronCurtaiNYC/status/332122652107997185

After a few hundred Scarface hours of database polishing (keep in mind each Scarface hour is worth about 250 man hours – Scarface isn’t really a MAN anymore per se), we’re finally ready to open up booking for JoCo Cruise Crazy 4 to the general public. To refresh your memory, the cruise is awesome. To refresh it a little more: February 23 – March 1, 2014 on board Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas, traveling to Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Labadee.

So have at, and get em while they last:

JoCo Cruise Crazy 4: Book Now!

Greg Pak is an old friend from college, and a talented writer of many comics including “Planet Hulk,” “Batman/Superman,” and “Magneto Testament.” Artist Takeshi Miyazawa will do pencils and inks, Jessica Kholinne (“X-Treme X-Men”) will color, and Simon Bowland (“Incredible Hercules”) will letter.

Boy howdy, this internet thing moves fast! I was expecting a slow ramp up that would allow me to carefully compose a thoughtful blog post about the nature of crowd funding. Instead, we blew through our goal of $39,000 in less than a day, and we currently sit at around $125,000. We’ve already increased the page count from 60 to 80, kind of a retroactive stretch goal arbitrarily set at some number that was higher than we ever expected to get, and we’ve got other stuff planned for even more ridiculous numbers.

FOR INSTANCE: today we’ve announced that if we reach $130,000 we’ll increase the page count yet again to 96 pages, which means four covers, the back cover, 80 pages of story, and eleven pages of extras and goodies. That’s 32 more story pages than we originally planned. And as part of those 11 pages of goodies, we’ve enlisted Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, the creators of “Action Philosophers” and “Comic Book Comics,” to create a little two page story based on one of my songs (probably “Mandelbrot Set”).

THIS WHOLE THING IS NUTS.

Honestly, the response has blown my expectations out of the water. My sincere thanks to everyone who has already chipped in – it’s going to be an amazing thing thanks to you guys. Everyone knows this already, but it’s pretty great living here in the future.

You can check out more artwork, story details, and all the various cool stuff available to backers here at our Kickstarter project.

It always takes me a few days to come down from the experience. I think I’m almost there, though I still catch myself thinking that Brooklyn is a dream, and being onboard a giant cruise ship is my real life.

First of all: holy BEANS that was a good time! This was the third year we’ve done JoCo Cruise Crazy, and we’ve learned a lot each year about how to run an event cruise. This was the best so far in my opinion. Everything seemed to run pretty smoothly, or else there were enough people shielding me from the bad stuff that it felt that way, and either situation is fine with me! I can’t thank Paul and Storm and Scarface enough for all their hard work, not to mention the army of volunteer helper monkeys who held the whole thing together. Scarface in particular was working his poor little hideously disfigured butt off while the rest of us were chilling with tropical beverages. He gets an extra ration of gruel (and once his gruel debt is paid off, he will be able to eat gruel again, so yay Scarface!).

The Sea Monkeys continue to own this thing. I say it every time, and it was truer than ever this year, but so much of what happens just grows naturally out of this huge group of wonderful people being together in the same place at the same time. The shadow cruise is where it’s at. It would be dishonest for me to take credit for ALL the awesomeness. Though I will say that we had a great lineup of performers, old and new, and in addition to the wonderful, funny, moving stuff they did on stage, their presence at all sorts of non-performative hangout type events really made it feel like a giant weeklong party. Such a great vibe.

A few favorite moments: the Double Clicks self-doubting Mars Rover song, the increasingly ridiculous Mike Phirman birthday gag, John Roderick’s debut of a BRAND NEW SONG, Hodgman’s cruise ship emergency government plan, his riffing on cylinders with Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, Joseph Scrimshaw’s story about french kissing a bear, celebrity Artemis (one of those “I can’t believe this is my job moments”), Zoe Keating blowing everyone’s heads off and making everyone cry so that our tears became the sea and the sea was somehow INSIDE HER CELLO, Randall Munroe’s solar system physics tweaks on John Roderick’s airplane story, the incredible scene that was the Hodgman/Rees DJ Danceparty Showdown, me getting riddled with bullets during Wil Wheaton’s Robocop sitcom reading, and Storm’s apparently epic karaoke moment (which I did NOT EVEN SEE and will always regret), and most of all, my new favorite thing ever, live band karaoke with Christian and Adam and you. And that’s just the official events – it barely scratches the surface. So much stuff.

We’ve already gotten a ship for next year, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that everyone in the world book passage thereon. We’ll be on Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas, February 23 – March 1, 2014, sailing from Ft. Lauderdale to Georgetown, Grand Cayman; Falmouth, Jamaica; and Labadee, Haiti. At the moment booking is only open to Sea Monkeys who were on JCCC3, but we’ll open it up to the general public very soon.

Thank you guys for making this trip so great. I can’t wait to see all of you again.

iTunes: Baby Got Back (In the Style of Glee)
GooglePlay: Baby Got Back (In the Style of Glee)
AmazonMP3: Baby Got Back (In the Style of Glee)

I’ve released this track as a single – it should be on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play eventually if it’s not already. It’s a cover of Glee’s cover of my cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s song, which is to say it’s EXACTLY THE SAME as my original version. I’m releasing this under the same Harry Fox license I used for the 2005 release, so Mix will get all the royalties due to him. I’ll donate the proceeds from all sales that happen between now and the end of February to two charities: The VH1 Save the Music Foundation, and The It Gets Better Project. (fine print: iTunes will get their cut first of course, then I’ll deduct enough to cover my licensing fees, and split the rest between the two. iTunes sometimes takes a long time to report sales, sometimes even a couple of months, so I won’t be able to do the math and make the donation until I have the numbers. But I’ll let you know when I’ve gotten the amount and made the donation.)

I’ve been reading your tweets and posts and I’m truly grateful for your support – honestly, this has been a very stressful time, and it means so much to see how many of you are behind me. I’ve been trying to figure out a positive way to channel all this energy. I haven’t asked you guys to take any specific action throughout this thing, but now I am asking: buy the track, give it some stars, leave a comment (please be civil), and tell everyone you can. Call it a form of protest, awareness raising, viral PR hackitude, whatever you like. I don’t know how big this will get, but there’s a potential to make a lot of noise this way – imagine if this thing charts! And failing that, we will create some real world impact by raising a lot of money for two great causes that are directly related to the Glee brand. There’s your win-win.

Maybe this is something that the Glee people would like to give some EXPOSURE. Though, in order to do that they’d have to make some kind of public acknowledgement that I exist. We’ll see! Maybe they’ll even want to match the gesture, and donate all their February proceeds for their version too!

I will have a lot more to say about this situation soon, most likely Monday. Stay tuned…

Check out the Store!

If you like to download your music, you can get individual songs or whole albums, either in 224K MP3 format, open OGG format or in full quality FLAC. You can also purchase downloads from the iTunes music store and other online music stores.

As for CDs, don’t feel bad, I still buy them too sometimes. You can get them on Amazon. ]]> http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2013/01/22/check-out-the-store/feed/ 0 http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2013/01/22/check-out-the-store/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jonathancoulton/~3/CiZ_29I0kHs/ http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2013/01/18/baby-got-back-and-glee/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:56:57 +0000 JoCo http://www.jonathancoulton.com/?p=2993 This morning, someone pointed me to this:

glee.wikia.com/wiki/Baby_Got_Back

Admittedly it seems to be an unofficial wiki, and I can’t find any clearly FOX-based source that lists this track as a part of episode 11 of season 4. So I guess the jury’s still out on whether or not this is an official Glee recording.

If it is, I have some questions about how IP works in terms of this song. It’s a cover of a Sir Mix-a-Lot song obviously, but I wrote a new melody for it, which this recording uses. Back when I released it, I bought the statutory license to distribute my version of this song through Harry Fox. Creative Commons doesn’t come into play because it’s a cover song, and anyway my CC license specifies Non-Commercial.

A complicating factor is that, to my ears, it sounds like it actually uses the audio from my recording – not the vocals obviously, but the instruments sound EXTREMELY similar. And I could swear I hear the duck quack somewhere in the background there, though it’s hard to say if that’s just my ears expecting it.

Anyway, yes, weird. Exciting times! I’ll post any updates here.

UPDATE 1/18: No word from Glee or Fox, but I’ve seen screenshots of the song on Swedish iTunes listed with artist = Glee Cast. My lawyers are researching the copyright issues, and I am trying to figure out how to isolate the duck quack, or otherwise test the theory that some of my tracks are in there. This side-by-side comparison is crazy: soundcloud.com/alacrion/joco-v-glee

MORE UPDATE 1/20: Still no new info. At this point I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on, if this is really Glee, etc. We’ll know more this coming week when the episode it’s supposed to be from actually airs, or if/when FOX actually has a comment about this. Until then, while I am really grateful for everyone’s support, I would suggest that we all chill out until we have the whole story. This is the internet after all – it’s a complicated place and it gets a lot of things wrong. If you want to take some kind of action, donate to the EFF or Creative Commons, which is a good thing to do anytime.

MORE MORE UPDATE 1/25: Well, they aired it, seemingly unchanged. And it’s now for sale in the US iTunes store. They also got in touch with my peeps to basically say that they’re within their legal rights to do this, and that I should be happy for the exposure (even though they do not credit me, and have not even publicly acknowledged that it’s my version – so you know, it’s kind of SECRET exposure). While they appear not to be legally obligated to do any of these things, they did not apologize, offer to credit me, or offer to pay me, and indicated that this was their general policy in regards to covers of covers. It does not appear that I have a copyright claim, but I’m still investigating the possibility (which I consider likely) that they used some or all of my audio. I’ll write something longer and more detailed about this when I can get my head together about it probably in a couple of days. Thanks for your support, but please continue not to burn anything down.

We’re in the final stretch of this year, so buckle up!

The big headline: we’ve added a New York City show at City Winery on December 14th. Think of it as a sort of album release celebration/Christmas Spectacular. John Roderick and I will delight you with songs from our new Christmas album One Christmas at a Time, as well as a selection of your favorite me songs and him songs. Tickets still available: bit.ly/UPqC0O

The Deluxe Gift Box edition of One Christmas at a time can still be ordered in time for Christmas delivery in the US – shipping will likely start next week. After this weekend we won’t be able to promise by-Christmas delivery, so if you’re getting this as a gift for someone, best do it now: bit.ly/TXejyU

Are you getting excited about JoCo Cruise Crazy? Because I sure am. We’re nearing the close of the booking window at this point – we have to adjust the amount of cabins we have on hand to match demand as closely as possible so we don’t end up with a bunch of empties. So if you’re on the fence about going, don’t wait too long because soon our selection of cabin types is going to start getting limited. You should come!

Tour has been great, and this bus thing is amazing. Turns out all that driving was making me grumpy and tired, and now that I don’t have to do it, I’m only slightly grumpy and tired! Thanks to everyone who has come out to see us – the shows have been terribly fun for us to play. Just a few left and then that’s it for me this year…

12/6 Charlotte: bit.ly/QUzg0i
with John Roderick

12/7 Orlando: ticketf.ly/SopGPm
supershow with I Fight Dragons and MC Lars AND John Roderick

12/8 St. Petersburg: bit.ly/O38lz9
with John Roderick

12/14 New York City: bit.ly/UPqC0O
CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR with John Roderick

OK!

Shows have been wonderful – thanks so much to everyone for coming out to see us. The band has really been clicking lately, and it feels like we’ve been playing together for years. John Roderick and I have been slowly but surely working songs from One Christmas at a Time into the set, and they’re awful fun to play. And of course it’s nice to see all you folks in this part of the country again – it’s been a while!

We’ve been doing these tour bus happy hours. It’s one of the things that I wouldn’t be able to fit in if it weren’t for this bus situation. Now I get to enjoy a cocktail and some conversation with a bunch of strangers on my tour bus right before my rock show, LIKE A NORMAL PERSON. I can tell that some of you don’t really like Manhattans and are just pretending to drink them, but I don’t care because Manhattans are delicious. There’s still time to enter these various contests for the remaining cities.

Yesterday was my birthday. In what has become a long-standing tradition, the superfans from the forums got together and made a celebratory video called JoCo Day. I don’t say it as often as I think it, so it’s worth saying again now: you fans are amazing. Your support over the years is an ongoing phenomenon that continues to surprise and delight me. Thank you.

File under “where do they find the time?”: Susan made 250 cupcakes with different JoCo song themes for the Houston show last night. I’ve never made 250 of anything in my life. There are now an awful lot of cupcakes on the bus. Here are the various species in all their glory:

Perhaps you have been following the adventures of @RealBusPig and @RealBusCat on Twitter. It would take too long to explain, so I won’t. But anyway, big ups to Molly, who sent me this robot cat for my birthday:

And finally, huge thanks to John Paul, who works the Environmental Control and Life Support System desk in ISS Mission Control at NASA, and who took us on an amazing tour of the Johnson Space Center. We were there watching the live feed from emmer effing space while the emmer effing astronauts were going to sleep for the day. Crazytown. Here’s us with the flight director:

So yeah. Going pretty well I guess. Another week of shows coming up…

12/2 Dallas
12/4 Nashville
12/5 Atlanta
12/6 Charlotte
12/7 Orlando (supershow with I Fight Dragons and MC Lars)
12/8 St. Petersburg
12/14 New York City (One Christmas at a Time Show with John Roderick)

Go here to watch. Showtime is 8 PM MOUNTAIN TIME, but the buy button and all the show details will be on that page starting at 7:30 MOUNTAIN TIME. It costs $5 for the whole show and you can pay with Paypal.

I’ll also be taking questions from the internet audience during the show. And don’t feel bad if you miss it, because I think there will be a way to buy it later. Maybe?

It’s an experiment!

But you know me: I’m a man of the people. I’m not going to keep this bus to myself like some power crazed egomaniac. No! I’m instead going to leverage it in a social media context, I MEAN share it with my fans. Before every show we’re going to do bus happy hours. Three randomly selected lucky show attendees (and their guests) will join me on board before the show for a happy hour featuring snacks and beverages and general bus luxury (technically it will not last an hour, and technically you don’t have to be happy).

It’s a contest you see: if you’re coming to one of these shows, tweet about that show and include its hashtag and link (use the table below). We’ll select three winners at random the day of the show. Schedules will vary, but generally we’ll try to start the party about a half an hour before doors open.

Never has spamming your friends been so potentially beneficial for you!

11/24 Los Angeles
11/25 San Diego
11/27 Salt Lake City
11/28 Denver
11/29 Tulsa
11/30 Austin
12/1 Houston
12/2 Dallas
12/4 Nashville
12/5 Atlanta
12/6 Charlotte
12/7 Orlando
12/8 St. Petersburg

This is my first ever bus tour, and I’m pretty excited about it. For those of you who don’t know how this works, and I was one of them until recently: you do the show, then get on the bus and go to sleep while someone else (a robot I think?) drives it to the next city. It’s a little more expensive than what it would cost to rent a van and a trailer and pay for hotel rooms, but it allows me to reach some cities I couldn’t otherwise get to by driving myself. And it means that when we start the show, we won’t all be strung out and exhausted from a 6 hour drive. Also probably hookers and blow I think.

One more thing: we’ve all noticed that the internet has lately gotten pretty crowded with people asking other people to come see things, or buy things, or kickstart things. Even I want the internet to shut up sometimes. The truth is, it’s harder and harder to get anyone’s attention these days. I can guarantee that some people are just hearing about these shows now, and some other people will not hear about them until after I’ve already played in their city. THIS IS A TERRIBLE CRIME! This doesn’t EVER need to happen here in 2012. So I’m saying this for all of us: if you know someone who would want to go to one of these shows, you should make sure they know about it. Spread the word: retweet, retumbl (?), re-facebook-erate (??), and pinterrupt (pretty sure that’s a thing) your friends.

I’m only trying to help you!

It’s a once in a lifetime intersection of several entertainment empires. Who knows what will happen? Distill all those different kinds of fun, put them in a beaker, agitate and stand back: KA-POW! We are renting special tuxedos, so you know that we’re serious. I can promise you that there will be songs and comedy and talking, lots and lots of talking…

Here’s how it works. There are 40 funder slots available – basically 40 tickets that go on sale in advance of the rest of them. After two weeks (or sooner), these slots will theoretically be filled, and the rest of the tickets will go on sale. If you are one of these first 40 people, you get your money back if we get more than 160 people to come to the show.

It’s a pretty cool idea I think: get a core of fans to cover what you need to make the show happen, and then incentivize those to spread the word. It’s a little popup street team. In a world where I didn’t know that I was coming to Salt Lake City for sure, we’d set these funder numbers at a level to cover my travel and production expenses, but you know what, I’m still doing the show even if there are only 5 people there. I hope there are more than 5 people there.

So if you live in Salt Lake City and want to maybe see the show for free, go get your tickets now. And then tell everyone you know to get tickets too, and maybe you’ll get to see the show for free. Or not! Could be a disaster! Exciting! Honestly I have no idea if this is going to work, but as you know, I am a scientist. I like to watch what happens.

Either way, can’t wait to see you again SLC!

Citizens:

Hello! I hope your Summer was as relaxing and indulgent as mine. I actually managed to stop looking at the internet for short stretches of time, which feels like a dangerous luxury when you’re in my line of work. What’s funny is that after a few days of vague anxiety, you forget all about what you’re missing. The internet is totally made up! The flip side of this is that now here we are in September and I have a ton of dropped threads sitting in my inbox. I AM ALREADY BEHIND. But it’s OK. There’s a lot of exciting stuff coming up this Fall. Allow me to illuminate you.

England and Sweden
Yes! So excited to be returning to a few cities in England, plus a bonus show in Sweden (it’s an experiment – I hope there is an audience HA HA). All acoustic shows with Paul and Storm opening: Stockholm, London, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester. I’m sorry we won’t have time to make it to Ireland or Scotland this time around, but I’m certainly looking forward to the Jaffa Cakes. Still plenty of tickets left, if you know what I mean. Details and links below.

Ask Me Another
The new NPR quiz show I’m kinda sorta assistant hosting/Paul Shaffering has gotten a ton of positive feedback from the first thirteen episodes. It’s now being co-produced by WNYC here in New York, and will be coming back this Fall as a weekly show. We’re all very proud of how fun it is to perform in and hopefully listen to. Tickets are already on sale for the first six shows: tktwb.tw/U7Oay4. Unfortunately, I will only be able to make half of these (Nov 12th, Nov 19th, Dec 10th), but they’re lining up some excellent replacements for the shows I’m missing. Brooklyn types should come out and see us, and the rest of the nation will have to wait until we come to your town (which we may – stay tuned).

Seattle Interactive Conference
I will be appearing a couple of times at the Seattle Interactive Conference, October 29-30. I would love to tell you the details, but I don’t know them, and currently their site isn’t loading for me (you can’t, um, “interact” with it). I’ll be speaking and performing with John Roderick, John Hodgman, Scott Simpson, and Merlin Mann, and afterwards the internet will explode and contract to a singularity and then we will all be robots. Watch the skies!

Me and Hodgman in Massachusetts
For TWO NIGHTS ONLY, John Hodgman and I will put aside our longstanding famous person feud (?) and offer up stories and songs to the people of Massachusetts. Shows are Nov 2 at the Calvin in Northampton and Nov 3 at the Wilbur Theater in Boston. Tickets are on sale now – details and links below.

Everywhere Tour
This will be the last stretch of what we at JoCo Industries call “The Artificial Heart Tour.” Still waiting on a couple of confirmations, but basically we’ll start in LA and head across the Southern part of the country until we get to Florida, ROCKING AS WE GO: LA, San Diego, Salt Lake City (I hope), Denver, St. Louis (I hope also), Tulsa, Austin (I hope also ALSO), Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, and Tampa. These are all band shows. I don’t know yet who will be opening. I don’t have ticket links for anywhere but Dallas yet. I stink!

Christmas Album with John Roderick
I don’t know how soon I can let you hear it, but I’m excited to announce that John Roderick and I will be putting out an album of original Christmas songs sometime this Fall. I was in Seattle for a stretch of time around PAX, and we decided to get together and write and record and see what happened. What happened is that we experienced a legitimate CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, and also wrote one Hannukah song. It’s mostly just the two of us playing all the instruments, except that we got a little help on a few tunes from our friend Jason Finn, who likes to play the drums. Mixing is happening now. I’ll be sure and let everyone know the moment you can listen and obtain these soon-to-be-classic holiday songs.

Cruise, Still
I know we haven’t been talking about it much, but that’s because we’re strategizing. In not too long a time, we’ll have more details on event schedules, room assignments for those who have booked, and other various kinds of informations for you. Until then, if you haven’t booked yet, may I ask respectfully WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE DOING? It’s bigger and better than ever this year – we’re on a new ship and a new cruise line, and we’ve got performers from prior cruises plus a few who are JoCo Cruise virgins (Virgin Monkeys?). Listen, you know how lazy I am, right? You know I wouldn’t keep doing this if it wasn’t a ton of fun for me and everyone who attends. Are you ready? OK, book now: bit.ly/LCZyhg

Other Secret Things
[REDACTED]

OK, here are the show details:

Stockholm, Sweden – September 17
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Södra Teatern, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/O8LL4i

London, UK – September 20
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Union Chapel, 7 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/NyjO77

Birmingham, UK – September 21
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
MAC Theater, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/MF1juq

Bristol, UK – September 22
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Colston Hall, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/Q2467t

Manchester, UK – September 23
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Manchester Academy 2, 7 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/OObUEQ

Northampton, MA – November 2
With John Hodgman
Calvin Theater, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/Q2OQDL

Boston, MA – November 3
With John Hodgman
Wilbur Theater, 7 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/SEIroh

Brooklyn, NY – November 12 and November 19
Ask Me Another – Season Two!
Bell House, 7:30 PM
Tickets: tktwb.tw/U7Oay4

Los Angeles, CA – November 24
Largo, time TBD

San Diego, CA – November 25
Anthology, time TBD

Salt Lake City – November 27
Venue and time TBD

Denver, CO – November 28
Soiled Dove, time TBD

St. Louis, MO – November 29
Venue and time TBD

Tulsa, OK – November 30
The Shrine, time TBD

Austin, TX – December 1
Venue and time TBD

Dallas, TX – December 2
Granada Theater, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/U7YRkb

Nashville, TN – December 4
3rd and Lindsley, time TBD

Atlanta, GA – December 5
Variety Playhouse, time TBD

Charlotte, NC – December 6
Visulite Theater, time TBD

Orlando, FL – December 7
The Beacham, time TBD

Tampa, FL – December 8
State Theater, time TBD

Brooklyn, NY – December 10
Ask Me Another – Season Two!
Bell House, 7:30 PM
Tickets: tktwb.tw/U7Oay4

Thank you for reading this long email.

j

Here’s what’s on the docket:

New York, NY – August 18
Glass Houses: Classic Album Night with the Punk Rock Heavy Metal Karaoke Band
Fontantas, 10 PM
Tickets at the door: $5

Seattle, WA – August 31-September2
PAX
All weekend long, Washington State Convention Center
Info: www.paxsite.com

Stockholm, Sweden – September 17
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Södra Teatern, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/O8LL4i

London, UK – September 20
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Union Chapel, 7 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/NyjO77

Birmingham, UK – September 21
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
MAC Theater, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/MF1juq

Bristol, UK – September 22
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Colston Hall, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/Q2467t

Manchester, UK – September 23
Acoustic, with Paul and Storm
Manchester Academy 2, 7 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/OObUEQ

Not as if it’s been crazy busy around here, but expect less talky talk from me until August (can you do NEGATIVE posts per week?). Hopefully I will not be eaten by a shark. We’ll see I guess…

Inside the cardboard box was a nailed-shut wooden crate with this on the top:

and this on the side:

Erp.

I waited till the end of the day so my kids could watch me open it, because what kid would not want to open a mysterious package that came from a cemetery? Inside was a layer of moss with a tiny shovel. Beneath the moss was green dirt, and buried in the green dirt was a coffin, along with a headstone and some chains. Like you do:

I confess I was just a TINY bit concerned I was going to find a human hand in there or something. But it was not a human hand. It was this guy:

The scroll explains that he is Eben Hardwick, undead person and movie extra. He’s a silicone zombie with posable limbs from the movie Paranorman, and the kind people at Laika (who also made Coraline) sent him to me. Because, you know, zombies.

I have never received something something so fantastic in the mail in all my life. And I know a little something about special boxes that contain special things (what’s up level 4!), so I can tell you that this particular special box is just plain amazing. I am extremely flattered that they would think to send me such a thing.

Which is why I have no qualms at all about saying that you should all go see Paranorman when it comes out in August, because I’m going to, and not only because I want to see if I can spot my guy. As you will know if you have seen Coraline, these people do great work. Plus they sent me a silicone zombie in a coffin. You should also check out weirdwins.com, where there is a lot of cool behind the scenes stuff from the people who worked on the film.

Eben says hi:

I retweeted Aimee Mann’s link to a post by David Lowery on his Trichordist blog, a post that he wrote in response to something Emily White posted on the All Songs Considered blog. You should read both posts to get up to speed. Let me know when you’re ready.

OK? So Emily is 21, and she writes about how she is young enough to have never had to go through the transition from physical music to digital. She’s never paid for much music in her life, but she has a large library of mp3s, and she has some misgivings about that. But she’s pretty sure that her generation is never going to pay for music. David’s response is a good read, and very instructive about the state of the music business and the internet, and I won’t try to sum it up here for fear of misrepresenting his position – you should definitely read it.

Some people are asking why I retweeted that link to an argument that is very different from the one that I made in response to the MegaUpload shutdown. The answer is because it made me think. I hesitate to even write this post, because every time I start talking about this stuff it feels like I’m poking a bear – a bear who is a lot smarter and more well-informed than me, a bear who is distributed all over the internet and has various law degrees, and has read and understood all the economic studies about file sharing and the decline in music business revenue. I imagine the bear will write a bunch of posts that make me think even more, and also make me feel kind of dumb about what I said or failed to say. I admit: I don’t know what I’m talking about, and a lot of what I believe comes from gut feelings, personal experience, and wishful thinking. Answers I have none, but here are some things David’s post makes me think about.

I have a different perspective on the music business than a lot of artists because of the way my career happened. Before I left my software job and started Thing a Week, the music business seemed like a private club to which I would never belong. Some of that was self-doubt and laziness I’m sure, but not all of it. I honestly don’t believe I could have made this thing happen under the old system. So to me, the internet is everything – it changed my life, it saved me, it continues to sustain me today. But over the past few years I’ve gotten to know a bunch of artists and industry people who came up in that old system, and who have been watching it fall apart around them. It’s a terrible thing, and as a human being, it’s hard to look those people in the eye while I’m waving the Free Culture flag. So when I read a post like David’s it really knocks me off my feet. What if I’ve been wrong all this time? What if I’ve been suckered in by the Free Culture movement, and all this rah-rah filesharing talk is contributing to the decline of civilization? What if it’s ME who’s on the wrong side of history?

I think David and I agree on at least one point, which is that Emily’s suggestion that buying music isn’t convenient doesn’t really make sense. It’s gotten pretty easy over the last few years to pay for the music that you like. And like David, I think the right choice is to support the artists that you love by giving them money. I also think it’s kind of shitty that there’s a lot of money generated from filesharing activites that makes some people rich and never gets to the artists (see also “Meet the New Boss, Worse Than the Old Boss”). I agree it would be nice if there were an easy way to fix that.

I’m trying hard to find the place where David and I begin to disagree, and I’m not even sure we do. I think it’s more a matter of our perspectives, and the context in which we see all this stuff happening. I’ll start with this: David points out that Emily’s free music isn’t really free, and that she needed to buy a bunch of stuff in order to get this free music: a smartphone with a data plan, an iPod, a Macbook. He wonders why Emily was OK paying for this very expensive stuff, but not OK paying for music. The answer is obvious: those are physical objects that Emily would have had to steal from a store, out there in meat space, using her actual body and hands, risking physical incarceration and getting in serious trouble. I am quite certain that if Emily could go to a website and download a free illegal copy of a Macbook in the safety of her own home, she would do it. Hell, I might even do it. I don’t know that I can articulate here to everyone’s satisfaction why getting digital music for free is different from getting physical objects for free, but it is hard to argue that it is not, in some fundamental way, very different. Clearly, we all think it’s different, otherwise we would be stealing as many laptops as we are mp3s. Mp3s are lying all over the ground waiting for us to pick them up, and no matter how many we pick up, there are always more. Whether you think picking them up is wrong or not, it would be hard to argue that this is not the current reality.

This difference between physical and digital is the meat in this sandwich. After all, the music business didn’t exist until it became possible to record music onto a medium that could be mass-produced. To be clear, I’m not saying that nobody made money making music before there were records, just that the music industry as we know it is almost exclusively based on the idea that there’s a physical object you can sell, and that access to that physical object is the only way you can play the music whenever you want. That’s obviously over. And it doesn’t just put a bunch of corporate suits at risk, it puts artists at risk. We know that the record industry is falling apart because look at these charts and graphs. The scary thing is, there’s also a very real possibility that in the long term, being a musician will no longer be a thing that you can do to make money.

It’s already happening. The job of being an artist and the business of selling music have both changed and are still changing. The money flows to different places now – it goes to Spotify, Grooveshark, Google, MegaUpload, Apple, Amazon. Some of them give artists a decent cut, some of them give artists nothing at all. Some of them are real douchebags, some of them maybe have the sheen of non-douchebagism, but the truth is that none of those guys care about artists because they are businesses (in contrast with many wonderful label people I have met, who are often fans first and business people second). This is how things are, and it’s good for some people and bad for other people. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

John Roderick tweeted a quote from Michael Penn. I don’t know the source of it, but here it is: “Recorded music exists now in a nether world between commerce and charity, dependent entirely on the ethics of strangers.” He’s not wrong. And that reality has a great deal to do with the fact that music is now a digital thing – it costs almost nothing to reproduce and distribute in unlimited quantities. There is no scarcity anymore, no discrete physical object to build a business around, no reason to pay for it other than wanting to support the artist so they can make more music, a long term proposition that isn’t always the first thing you think of when your finger is hovering over the download link. Some people support artists even though they don’t have to, which is a lot like how it used to be before there were recordings. You might call that nether world between commerce and charity “patronage.”

I believe this is the long-term future of all things, not just music. Here is where I will lose a large percentage of my audience, because I’m now going to get a little science fictiony and start talking about the future of nanotechnology and 3D scanners and printers, and the eden of abundance that awaits us in a glorious future of machine saviors. Stay with me though, because I’m going to bring this back to the David Lowery post in a bit.

Let’s do a little thought experiment. Let’s just say that within a few years there will exist a pretty reliable, pretty cheap, consumer 3D printer that you can buy at Staples and have in your house (this is not a crazy thing to say). You can give it the specs of an object and it will print it out in plain white plastic. Your costs are the machine, the raw plastic, the time it takes to print it, and whatever you pay for the digital file that has the object specs (hint: some people are going to charge you, but the internet is going to drive the price of these kinds of files towards $0). Let’s say there’s also some pretty accurate, pretty cheap 3D scanner technology out there too.

Your kid loves Legos. He’s got an X-wing fighter kit that he’s super excited about, and as he’s putting it together, one of the little pointy laser turret pieces on the tips of the wings slips out of his hands and falls down the central air conditioning vent. No problem. You fire up the old internet, and you find www.legowarez.to, the small crazy place where all of the Lego nuts go to obsessively upload and catalog 3D scans of every lego piece that has ever existed. This site is ad supported, and some douchebag in Nigeria is getting rich off it. But you find the file for the piece you need, you download it, and a few minutes later you’ve printed out a replacement piece.

How do you feel about that? Do we need to step in and protect Lego’s interests? I’m assuming that this act is some kind of theft of intellectual property – you are, after all, getting a copy of a thing for free that Lego presumably owns. But their business is not just based on intellectual property, it’s also based on the manufacture of these objects. So I don’t know, you’re not stealing a Lego piece precisely, but you are stealing the idea of a Lego piece, and not just a brick, but a specific custom piece that they spent money and time to design, create, and license from George Lucas. Ethically, it’s a little complicated, right?

Let’s take it further and say that you have a cheap and reliable consumer 3D scanner at home, and every time you get a new set of Legos for your kid, you scan and catalog the whole thing just to make sure you have a backup copy of all the pieces, so you don’t need to poke around the annoying, popup-laden, douchebaggy legowarez site the next time you lose a piece. How’s that? Still OK? Or is that not cool? You are presumably stepping a little bit on their business interests, because that might represent a bunch of replacement pieces you will not be buying from them. And theoretically you could print out a second copy of a Lego set that you only paid for once. But if it’s all just for personal use, maybe you’re OK with that.

What if a new Death Star kit came out and you didn’t buy it, but instead went to the legowarez.to site and just got the whole thing for free and printed it out? This is pretty clearly uncool I think. It’s money that Lego would have gotten but did not – well, probably, assuming you would have bought it in the absence of an available pirated version. In fact, this transaction created some small amount of profit for the douchebag in Nigeria who puts ads on legowarez.to, the 3D printer company, and your internet provider. That’s money that your sense of justice might tell you belongs in Lego’s pockets instead. So, what are our ethical obligations here? Do you think we should figure out a way to shut down legowarez.to? Do you think we need to get the 3D printer company to take some responsibility and give some of that profit back to Lego?

What if the Lego nuts created and uploaded specs for a bunch of Lego pieces that didn’t exist? What if they made, and published for free, the specs for a kit that connected Legos with K’Nex, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, and almost every other extruded plastic construction kit you can think of? (Whoops, someone already did that actually.) That’s kind of cool because it’s an innovation that is otherwise extremely impractical – it makes an end run around about 4,000 lawyers, and crosses all sorts of intellectual property lines, and makes something that enables your kid to create a super awesome log cabin death star ferris wheel. It just would not happen without this technology enabling Lego nuts to be Lego nuts. Now what? Do you feel the need to protect Lego and K’Nex and Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys and the entire molded plastic kit industry from this threat to their business? Because once anyone in the world can just make a new Lego kit and publish it online for free, this corner of industry is going to slowly disappear – revenues will drop, layoffs will happen, and career molded plastic kit people will eventually no longer be able to make a living.

Now take all those things that just happened with Legos and imagine them happening with auto parts, shoes, forks, watches, clothing, eyeglasses, medicine, food, beer, smartphones, iPods, Macbooks (and here’s the mind fuck: with 3D printers themselves). Where along this chain do you choose to put on the brakes? (<--Strawman alert: I concede that David Lowery is not advocating the obstruction of the 3D printer industry. Hang on a second.)

Now I sound like a crazy utopian futurist person. UNFOLLOW. But I think this is where my thoughts and priorities diverge from what's in David Lowery's post. I believe it's a noble and just pursuit to try to get some of the money that's flowing to MegaUpload and Google to flow to artists. It is definitely on the side of good. And I agree that the ethical choice is to pay for music (because I am an old person). I think it would be nice of Emily and her generation to realize that artists she loves deserve her financial support, and I'm pleased to see that on sites like Kickstarter, patronage is alive and well, at least for now. But I don't know if I'm going to spend a lot of effort trying to convince Emily that what she's doing is wrong, or trying to convince Google to give some of their ad revenue to me. These feel like a short-term goals, a little like skating to where the puck was a few minutes ago. I submit that it is maybe not the right place to focus our efforts. Frankly, I'd prefer it if we could make some progress on this 3D printer technology, because I am missing a lot of Lego pieces.

Even though they may spell doom for my profession, Emily's attitudes toward music feel a little bit like a piece of the future to me, a little bit like the way we're all going to feel about Legos and auto parts and eyeglasses in a few decades. Emily's kids are going to be born into a world that makes them think even LESS like us old people about the ethics of intellectual property in the digital realm (a realm that will increasingly include actual physical things). They're going to seem to us like depraved, heartless monsters who think it's OK to steal Legos. Even Emily is going to be shocked and surprised.

This is my bias: the decline of scarcity seems inevitable to me. I have no doubt that this fight over mp3s is just the first of many fights we're going to have about this stuff. Our laws and ethics already fail to match up with our behaviors, and for my money, those are the things we should be trying to fix. The change is already happening to us, and it's a change that WE ARE CHOOSING. It's too late to stop it, because we actually kind of like a lot of the things that we're getting out of it.

I don't know how to get all that artist money back, and I don't know if we ever will. I don't much like that Spotify pays out so little to me when their service is siphoning directly out of the gas tank of my mp3 sales. But I sure do love having Spotify here on this computer I keep in my pocket. The flood comes and it doesn't matter if the water is right or wrong - you get in the boat, you stack sandbags, you climb on the roof and wait for a helicopter, and sometime later the water is calm and the world looks different.

By the way, I also play music: San Francisco tonight, Portland Thursday, Seattle Friday, Vancouver Saturday. Come on out and tell me why I’m wrong.

Tonight is Boston, tomorrow New York City.

Next week is Rochester, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Alexandria (sold out!), and Philadelphia.

Then comes Ann Arbor, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver.

I’m delighted to have John Roderick opening at all these shows – he’s an amazing songwriter and a good friend, plus it means we can do Nemeses EXACTLY LIKE IT IS ON THE ALBUM. The band and I had our final rehearsal last night and have collectively decided that it’s going to be awesome.

This last couple of years I’ve worked very hard and done a lot of new and different things – the new album with the Flansburgh, the band, the tour with They Might Be Giants. I’m so looking forward to getting it out in front of you guys. Thank you for continuing to pay attention and care. See you soon.

Rock!

A while ago John Scalzi, one of my favorite sci-fi authors (and a pal as well) asked if I would write a theme song for his new novel, Redshirts. I said yes, mostly so I could get a chance to read it. You can read about and listen to what happened next and listen to the song over at tor.com as of this morning. You can also check out the whole series of chats about other sci-fi-themed songs of mine that John and I did leading up to today. I’ll be putting Redshirt up in my store soon, and the band and I will be playing it on our June tour. Hooray!

Redshirts is out June 5th, and it’s a fantastic read. BUY IT, AND ALL OTHER THINGS!

I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like working on this show – I guess nobody was, because it’s a brand new thing that we’re all figuring out as we go along. But we found our groove pretty quickly, thanks to the talented performers I was lucky enough to share the stage with. There was stuff that worked and stuff that didn’t, but hey, that’s what editing is for. And really, sometimes my favorite moments of these shows are the parts that go wrong. Mistakes are the best! That’s why I make a lot of them! It’s a live audience and actual human contestants, so there’s always plenty of room for strange things to happen. Anyway, I hope that the end result is as fun to listen to as it was to make.

The whole first season (13 episodes) has been recorded and will air over the next few months. I don’t know yet if there will be additional seasons – I hope so, but it depends on how well this first one does. We’ll know soon.

Go listen!

Podcast page

Main show page

iTunes podcast

And oh yeah hey, come see me on tour, would you?

And here’s a download link: FOM Remix

Listen, as much fun as it was traveling with and opening for They Might Be Giants, the 30 minute set created a lot of rockus interruptus for me and the band. We’re really looking forward to getting back out there with luxurious amounts of time on stage so we can play all the songs we know. And then I will also play some songs solo that only I know, perhaps on the acoustic guitar. IT WILL BE A REAL SHOW AND WE WILL DO A GREAT JOB. You should come. (There will be some sort of opening act too, details soon I hope.)

Hey, look at all these dates! Tickets on sale now!

The Paradise – Boston, MA
Friday June 1, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-boston

Gramercy Theater – New York, NY
Saturday June 2, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-nyc

German House Theater – Rochester, NY
Tuesday June 5, 8 PM
Tickets: ticketf.ly/art-heart-rochester

The Mod Club – Toronto, ON
Wednesday June 6, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-toronto

Rex Theater – Pittsburgh, PA
Thursday June 7, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-pittsburgh

The Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
Friday June 8, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-alexandria

World Cafe Live – Philadelphia, PA
Saturday June 9, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-philly

The Ark – Ann Arbor, MI
Friday June 15, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-ann-arbor

Double Door – Chicago, IL
Saturday June 16, 9 PM
Tickets: ticketf.ly/art-heart-chicago

Guthrie Theater – Minneapolis, MN
Monday June 18, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-minneapolis

Great American Music Hall – San Francisco, CA
Wednesday June 20, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-sf

The Aladdin Theater – Portland, OR
Thursday June 21, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-portland

Showbox at the Market – Seattle, WA
Friday June 22, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-seattle

Venue – Vancouver, BC
Saturday June 23, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-vancouver

Whoa daddy! Success! Victory! Being on a giant cruise ship in a sunny place with a bunch of great people is obviously a recipe for a good time, so that part did not surprise me. We all knew we were going to laugh a lot and have fruity drinks together and hear great music and meet wonderful people. That’s assumed. The thing that I wasn’t prepared for is the extent to which all of you Sea Monkeys have simply begun to OWN this event. Again and again I was struck by this notion that you were primarily there in order to be with each other. You assembled yourselves into a Voltron of fun. The open mic night, the a cappella group, the ukulele fest at Molly’s show, the insanely great sand castles on Half Moon Cay, and the many other numerous things that I DO NOT EVEN KNOW ABOUT because I couldn’t be everywhere all the time, much as I wanted to – they are proof of what an amazing bunch of people you are. Two years in, and JoCo Cruise Crazy has this wonderful community-fueled momentum to it that we never in a million years could have created ourselves. Thank you.

We had a fantastic bunch of performers of course, a couple of whom were relatively new to this scene, and they were similarly impressed with everyone. Many thanks to all of them for their time and talents. Everyone looked really great in formal wear! I ate too many tacos from the taco bar, and somehow failed to have free ice cream EVEN ONCE! I drank too many pina coladas at JoCo Karakaoke! And I do want to give a special shout-out (Yeep!) to Paul, Storm, Dammit Liz and Scarface (not to mention all the Sea Monkey volunteers) who put in an amazing amount of work – the cruise simply could not happen without them.

Oh also, some people got married.

And oh yeah, some other people got engaged.

WHAT?!

If anyone got conceived, I haven’t heard about it yet (and don’t want to).

We’ve put a read-only archive of Twit-arrr up so you can what, read it? Do data analysis and word clouds? Whatever, knock yourselves out! There is also an enormous Flickr group filled with too many great shots of too many great things. We are already planning JoCo Cruise Crazy 3, and as you may have heard by now, are offering this fantastic pre-registration discount to those folks who pre-register for it by the end of today. We hope to have actual dates and itinerary for you very soon, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you one and all, I have the greatest job in the world.

I wrote this thing on Twitter this morning about the MegaUpload shutdown, and it’s gotten some crazy traction on the old internet. In addition, I’ve just done a couple of interviews for NPR on the subject, and I think I may have said some crazy, provocative things. There are many comments and questions out there already with more to come, and rather than have a bunch of separate discussions on a bunch of different social media platforms, I thought I would put some of my thoughts here.

First of all, I was being sarcastic. I did not see an uptick in sales because one piracy site got shut down, nor do I expect to.

Second, this was a tweet, so it was <=140 characters of ha ha, and not designed to be a thorough discussion of all the issues. I recognize these things are complicated.

Obviously none of us knows the complete truth, but I'm guessing that the people who ran MegaUpload were knowingly profiting from the unauthorized download of other people's intellectual property (including mine). Probably they were making a lot of money that way. That's certainly illegal, and it doesn't exactly give them the moral high ground either. In fact, it's kind of a dick move. Essentially, they did bad things and they got in trouble for it. Here are the issues that, for me, make this complicated.

Along with all the illegal stuff happening on MegaUpload was some amount of completely legal stuff. People used MegaUpload to send large files around. Some number of those files were personal files owned by the people sending them. I have no idea what the ratio was, and probably it would be impossible to figure that out with any certainty, but let's stipulate that it was a very large percentage of illegal activity, and only a very tiny percentage of the users were there for anything other than downloading content that they didn't buy. Still, today that tiny percentage had something taken away from them, without warning, maybe just a service they liked using, but maybe a piece of digital media that belonged to them - if they uploaded something and didn't keep a copy, that thing is now gone. Them's the breaks I guess, but in evaluating whether this shutdown was a net positive for us humans, you have to take that into account.

Even some of the illegal usage was likely the kind of activity that approaches what I consider to be victimless piracy: people downloading stuff they already bought but lost, people downloading stuff they missed on TV and couldn't find on Netflix or iTunes, people downloading stuff they didn't like and regretted watching or hearing and never would have bought anyway, people downloading a Jonathan Coulton album (oh let's say, Artificial Heart, the new Jonathan Coulton album, which is an awesome Jonathan Coulton album called Artificial Heart) and loving it so much that in a year they decide to buy a ticket to a Jonathan Coulton show and walk up to the merch table and hand me $20. I know not everyone will think all of those things are victimless crimes, and even I can admit that some of them maybe kinda sorta have victims, but my point is that you can’t easily say that every illegal download is a lost sale, because it’s a lot more complicated than that. So when you evaluate the “damage” that a site like MegaUpload is causing, you have to think about these things too. The grand jury indictment against them says they’ve caused $500 million in damages to copyright owners. Given the complexity of actual usage on a site like MegaUpload, how can they possibly know that?

The real question in my mind these days, and what I was trying to get at with my little tweet, is: how much does piracy really hurt content creators (specifically, me)? Professional smart person Tim O’Reilly posted something that made me think about this question again in regards to SOPA/PIPA. He points out that any proponent of SOPA/PIPA starts with the assumption that all this piracy is causing great harm to lots of people and companies. Here’s his pull quote, taken from a recent statement about SOPA issued by the White House:

Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders.

Is it really as dire as all that? It’s an emergency is it? Tim points out that he and a lot of other content creators have been happily coexisting with piracy all this time, and I’m certainly one of them. Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan. The big content companies are TERRIBLE at doing both of these things, so it’s no wonder they’re not doing so well in the current environment. And right now everyone’s fighting to control distribution channels, which is why I can’t watch Star Wars on Netflix or iTunes. It’s fine if you want to have that fight, but don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV. A lot of us have figured out how to do this.

So if you can stand me sounding a little crazy, listen: where is the proof that piracy causes economic harm to anyone? Looking at the music business, yes profits have gone down ever since Napster, but has anyone effectively demonstrated the causal link between that and piracy? There are many alternate theories (people buying songs and not whole albums, music sucking more, niches and indie acts becoming more viable, etc.). The Swiss government did a study and determined that unauthorized downloading (which 1/3 of their citizens do) does not create any loss in revenue for the entertainment industry. I remember but am now too lazy to find links to other studies that say the same thing. I can’t think of any study I’ve seen that demonstrates the opposite. If there is one, please point me to it. So I have a lot of trouble with the idea that the federal government is directing resources toward an ultimately ineffective game of piracy whack-a-mole (with some unknown amount of collateral damage to law-abiding citizens), when we are not even sure that piracy is a problem.

And if you can stand me sounding even crazier, here is this: making money from art is not a human right. It so happens that technological and societal blahbity bloos have conspired to create a situation where selling songs about monkeys and robots is a viable business, but for most of human history people have NOT paid for art. I don’t want this to happen again, and I would be very sad if this came to pass, but it’s not up to me to decide. We are constantly demonstrating through our actions what we believe to be the norms for acquiring and consuming content. Right now a lot of us think that it’s OK to download stuff through illegal sites under certain circumstances, and a lot of us think it’s totally fine to use those things to make videos and put them on YouTube even though YouTube profits from it. That’s not ME saying that, that’s US saying that – we’re a nation of pirates and infringers. Based on our behavior, you would not be wrong to deduce that some of us think funny videos on YouTube are more important than honoring intellectual property rights. This kind of thing has happened before. Entire industries rise and fall as the world changes and our priorities shift. Sorry.

I believe in copyright. I benefit from it. I don’t want it to go away. I love that we have laws and people to enforce them. But if I had to give up one thing, if I had to choose between copyright and the wild west, semi-lawless, innovation-fest that is the internet? I’ll take the internet every time.

Now you may comment. I’m going to watch this thread and respond when I can, and we’re going to have a nice discussion. We’re not going to have fights and call each other names, and if you’re a jerk, I’m going to delete the jerky things you say. (And if you infringe on my copyright I’m going to send federal agents to your home and throw your computers IN THE GARBAGE.)

Tickets to the tapings are free, so all you need is an available evening and the ability to get your body to where it’s happening. The next one is at the Bell House in Brooklyn on January 23rd. I’ll be on tour or on a cruise ship for much of February, so I won’t be in the February 6th and 13th shows, but I will be a part of all the rest.

Because I sense it will become a FAQ, I will answer it now: no, I won’t be playing a TON of Jonathan Coulton songs. This is not a Jonathan Coulton show, so you shouldn’t expect a 12 minute Code Monkey jam. Which is not to say that you shouldn’t come, because you should – there will be puzzles, and victories, and defeats, and witty banter, and for goodness sake it’s absolutely free. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!?!?

Tickets here!

Artificial Heart

Artificial Heart special edition packages are almost all the way out the door. Levels 2 and 3 have shipped (3 went out just before Christmas), and Level 4 packages are being assembled RIGHT NOW and the plan is for them to hit the mail this week. The planet will breathe a little easier once that happens. I thank all of you for your patience, even the people who never ordered anything from me.

In general I’m really pleased with how the album has been received. Ridiculous Billboard charting incident aside, it seems to have found its way to a lot of people who like it, which makes me happy. All those videos I mentioned last time have now been released, so if you missed any of them, you can find them here. I think my favorite has to be Je Suis Rick Springfield, which features the Baldwin Fun Machine, a nice looking suit, and some even nicer looking bare feet.

The Cruise

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2 is coming up fast: February 19th-26th. We’ve sold through most of our allotment of cabins, so the booking website looks barren and sad, but there may still be cabins on board that we can snag if anyone is still interested in booking. Just get in touch with us at booking@jococruisecrazy.com and let us know what you’re looking for, and we’ll see what we can do. In case you haven’t heard on the Twitters, last minute additions to the talent line-up include John Flansburgh (who will be DJing a couple of dance parties), Molly Lewis, Joseph Scrimshaw, and Chris Collingwood from Fountains of Wayne. You should come! There is still time, but not much!

The official JoCo Cruise Crazy 2 T-shirt is now available at Topatoco for a limited time only, until January 13th. Order now and you’ll have the shirt in time for the cruise (or whatever sad, fake cruise you’re planning to have instead). While it’s possible we may have some EXTREMELY limited quantities on board, this is really the only sure way to make sure that you get one in the size you want, so order now or risk heartbreak forever.

Speaking of shirts, did you all see this fantastic new JoCo Has Some Problems shirt? Because it truly is my new favorite thing. I am fighting zombies!

The Touring

I’m out with The Might Be Giants again in February for the final leg of their Join Us tour. We start in California and head east until we get home, so it’s a big one. All these shows are with the band, and pretty short (but completely kickass) sets because I’m the opening act. Details on the Shows page as always, but here are the dates:

The Rio Theater – Santa Cruz, CA
January 27th 8pm
Tickets

Royce Hall – Los Angeles, CA
January 28th 8pm
Tickets

Marquee Theater – Tempe, AZ
January 29th 6:30pm
Tickets

Rialto Theatre – Tucson, AZ
January 30th 8pm
Tickets

Cain’s Ballroom – Tulsa, OK
February 1st 8pm
Tickets

Granada Theater – Dallas, TX
February 2nd 8pm
Tickets

La Zona Rosa – Austin, TX
February 3rd 9pm
Tickets

Tipitina’s (Uptown) – New Orleans, LA
February 4th 10pm
Tickets

The Ritz Ybor – Tampa, FL
February 7th 8pm
Tickets

Hard Rock Live – Orlando, FL
February 8th 8pm
Tickets

Ponte Vedra Concert Hall – Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
February 9th 8pm
Tickets

Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA
February 10th 8:30pm
Tickets

Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA
February 11th 8:30pm
Tickets

Track 29 – Chattanooga, TN
February 12th 8pm
Tickets

McGlohon Theater at Spirit Square – Charlotte, NC
February 14th 7:30pm
Tickets

Lincoln Theater – Raleigh, NC
February 15th 8pm
Tickets

Jefferson Theater – Charlottesville, VA
February 16th 8pm
Tickets

Calvin Theater – Northampton, MA
March 8th 8pm
Tickets

Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel – Providence, RI
March 9th 8pm
Tickets

Terminal 5 – New York, NY
March 10th 7pm
Tickets

The Future

Between now and the cruise I’ll be getting ready for the cruise. Between the cruise and the future, who knows. I’ve been invited to be a part of this new NPR puzzle quiz show called Ask Me Another (fb page) that seems like it’s going to be pretty fun, and we’ll be recording a few of those in front of live audiences in NYC and DC over the next few months. I’ll let you know more about that when I have more details. I’m working on putting together a tour for late spring/early summer where I headline again, and play full size sets the way I used to. Which leaves some time in the early Spring for me to lie about and look at pretty flowers and things. Maybe I will write some songs.

I hope your new year is already better than your old one, especially if your old one was pretty great.

This is to let you know that we’re getting down to our last few reserved cabins. We’ve been shuffling things around to keep as wide a distribution of cabin types as possible, but the ship itself is getting pretty full, and many stateroom categories are completely sold out. After December 6th we’re going to have to stop shuffling and begin to either sell through or give back all our rooms. So if you’ve been on the fence about going, or if you have friends who are dillying and dallying, now is a good time to pull the trigger. Not to say that nobody can book after December 6th, just that we’ll have a lot less flexibility than we do now.

This is also the time when I personally stop worrying about all the things I need to do to make the cruise happen and start to just look forward to it in a big way. We’ve got the last minute addition of John Flansburgh (who will be DJing a couple of dance parties for us), plus the already superbad array of fantastic performers and fun people. For the record, the complete list includes me, Paul and Storm, John Hodgman, Wil Wheaton, Vi Hart, John Roderick, MC Frontalot, Marian Call, David Rees, Paul F. Tompkins, and DJ John Flansburgh. We will have fruity cocktails together. We will all get horribly sunburned. We will wear fake mustaches. We will order club sandwiches delivered to our staterooms at 2 in the morning and it will cost us nothing.

THERE WILL BE BAKED ALASKA.

So if you like those things and don’t want to make Jimmy Whales cry (because everyone knows, whales and sea creatures in general LOVE cruise ships), then book now.

I’ve described this before, but since I’m sure people will ask, I’m singing into an audio plugin called The Mouth. I don’t know specifically what this particular setting is doing to my vocal, but it sounds to me like it’s interpreting the frequency content of the input and mapping that to a spread across several different octaves of the same note. So it creates an accompanying voice in multiple octaves of a single note. I control what that note is via midi, in this case using my monome (using it in the most boring way possible, to play midi notes, which is SHAMEFUL, but it sure does have pretty lights).

The red cowboy shirt does not affect the audio in any way.

NUMBER ONE
Today, November 8th, is the official release date for the Artificial Heart CD. It should be available now at Amazon and at other CD-buying places (I actually don’t know where those places are – “stores” maybe?). I have noticed that the title is misspelled on Amazon, which is GREAT. They’re fixing it.

NUMBER TWO
You brave and generous souls who pre-ordered the signed CD (Level Two Participants) should receive your CDs very soon, as in, this week (unless you’re in a far away country in which case it might take a bit longer). The warehouse monkeys tell me that they started sending them out yesterday. My hand is tired from signing them, but my heart is full of your love. Thank you.

Level Three will go out as soon as the shirts are done, looking like a couple weeks. Level Four will go out as soon as everything is done, still looking like early December. Thank you all for your patience.

NUMBER THREE
One of the things that has been keeping me so busy is that I have been making music videos. This isn’t like me at all – I couldn’t even remember how to log into my YouTube channel. Flansburgh and I made a bunch of them at once, and I think they all came out pretty great. Today I posted one for Nemeses that features John Roderick singing next to me on an iPhone:

And also one for Still Alive, the new version on Artificial Heart that’s sung by the delightful Sara Quin:

Yesterday Hodgman posted one of the two of us doing our classic ukulele/guitar duet of Tonight You Belong to Me (not on the album, but you know, what the hey):

And there are plenty more coming. With the exception of Still Alive, which was done months ago when we were recording the album, all these videos are also brand new live recordings of the songs, simple arrangements done as we were shooting. So eventually you’ll see videos of ALL NEW LIVE versions of Today with Your Wife, Sticking It to Myself, Nobody Loves You Like Me, Down Today, and Je Suis Rick Springfield.

NUMBER FOUR
As sad as I am to not be traveling with my friend John Hodgman on his book tour, I’m delighted to be out on the road again with They Might Be Giants. We’re west coasting it now, Vancouver tonight, Seattle, Portland, you know the rest. Come on out and see us – check my schedule for details.

NUMBER FIVE
And by the way, Hodgman’s new book is absolutely fantastic and you should all buy it and read it. I don’t know anything about an audio book version, though I suspect and hope that he’ll do one and invite me to participate. If you get the chance you should really go out and see one of his readings – and calling them readings fails to fully prepare you for the fact that they are entertainment spectaculars. Honestly, he’s at the top of his game these days, and probably the descent into booze and pills is just around the corner. So don’t miss it.

NUMBER SIX
Rock Band versions of a few select songs from Artificial Heart are coming.

NUMBER SEVEN
The cruise is still happening, in spite of all the other things that would satisfy any normal human as Enough Things Happening Already. It’s going to be great. If you’re still on the fence about joining us, you should know that the ship is filling up fast, and we’re running out of our allotment of rooms. So don’t sit on the fence for too long, or you will fall into the ocean!

I think that’s all. Is that everything?

Attention citizens of planet Earth:

I’m writing to let you know that today is the last chance to purchase one of the Artificial Heart bundles. At midnight tonight I’ll be closing sales for good, so I can get to the business of actually sending everything out. Inevitably there will be someone who doesn’t hear about this in time and feels sad that they missed it, but that is the way of things. After sales are closed, the album will be available for purchase in digital form through my regular store and it is in fact already available at iTunes, Amazon, Rdio, etc. (Spotify coming soon I hear – they have a backlog). If you or someone you know needs to have one of these once in a lifetime awesome things, here is the place to make that happen:

bit.ly/pdYyZE

In other news, I want to thank everyone who came out to see me open for They Might Be Giants in September on the first leg of their Join Us tour. What a blast! Big, excitable crowds, loud rock music, every show a delight. I will be back for more in November (see list of shows below).

To answer a couple FAQs about my touring schedule:
I don’t know yet about the They Might Be Giants shows that I am not listed on as the opener. This includes the Tulsa makeup show, the January/February leg, and a bunch of other odds and ends. You should consult my site and the TMBG site to figure out if I’m opening for any given show. And chances are if those sites say I’m not opening, that means either I’m not opening or I don’t know yet – believe me, I am not keeping these things secret. The only sure things right now are on the list below. And yes, at some point I will do my own shows again, with the standard eight hour set list that you have all become used to.

To answer a couple FAQs about the bundles:
Level 2 is easy enough to ship out since it’s just a signed CD, so that will happen first. I’m hoping to get those out to everyone in the next couple of weeks. I had to wait until orders were mostly done so I’d have some idea of shirt quantities, so Level 3 is going to take a little longer while I wait for them to get made – more news soon. Level 4 is still up in the air, it’s likely that they won’t ship until end of November at the earliest – yes, it’s killing me too. But there’s at least one item in there that I haven’t told you about that has a super long lead time, but I think is going to be pretty cool to have. I have plans to do fun things will all you Level 4 folks and your nemeses while we wait, so I’m hopeful that you will feel like you’re getting your money’s worth even before you get the box itself. If ever you are too annoyed by all this and you just want your damned money back, just let me know.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased and/or said nice things about Artificial Heart. I hear that today it’s on the iTunes “Rock on the Rise” list, which is kind of exciting. It’s also getting airplay on a few actual radio stations, also exciting. I have already purchased a few private jets in anticipation of it going quadruple platinum. Think ahead, that’s my motto!

Here’s the next round of touring. Let’s learn those new songs, people!

Nov 4 Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot

bit.ly/join-us-slc

Nov 5 Boise, ID – Knitting Factory

ticketf.ly/join-us-boise

Nov 6 Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory

ticketf.ly/join-us-spokane

Nov 8 Vancouver, BC – Venue

bit.ly/join-us-vancouverbc

Nov 9 Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo

bit.ly/join-us-seattle

Nov 10 Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom

bit.ly/join-us-portland

Nov 11 Arcata, CA – Van Duzer Theatre

bit.ly/join-us-arcata

Nov 12 San Francisco, CA – Fillmore

bit.ly/join-us-san-fran12th

Nov 13 San Francisco, CA – Fillmore

bit.ly/join-us-san-fran13th

Nov 16 Anaheim, CA – House of Blues

bit.ly/join-us-anaheim

Nov 17 San Diego, CA – Belly Up

bit.ly/join-us-san-diego

Talk to you soonish,

-j

Thing a Week 52: We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions

Unbelievably, we are here. Thanks to all of you who sent in hand claps – every one of them is in there. It was very charming how almost all of you apologized for the quality of the recording, and suggested that I just throw it away and forget about it if it was unusable. I have taught you well – always, ALWAYS doubt yourself.

I’m sad and relieved that it’s the end. It’s been a really amazing trip from 1 to 52, and I can’t thank all of you enough for the many different kinds of support you’ve offered me over this last year. If you bought a CD, if you bought a song, if you sent a donation, if you drew a picture, if you made a video, if you stole a song and passed it along to a friend, if you babysat while I recorded vocals, even if you just wrote me to tell me you like the music, you are one of the reasons that this lasted a whole year. The difference between my life then and my life now is enormous, and it’s all because of you. And while the standard rich and famous contract continues to elude me, in the ways that really matter I am filthy, stinking rich.

Thank you.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: The audacity! The nice thing about covering a song like this is that it takes the pressure off - you can always blame your failure to excel on the original being so iconic and irreplaceable. Though I think we did pretty well all things considered. Getting the hand claps from everyone felt absolutely correct, and the scope of the song is huge and epic, which seemed important. Once I’d hit on this as the final song, I couldn’t think of anything that fit better.

I couldn’t get the boom claps right, so I got them wrong in a different way. There are plenty of mix and arrangement problems I can hear, but boy was I tired of solving those! I love the way it veers into the instrumental section at the end of We Will Rock You with the slide guitar and the sweeping vocals. The slow picky arrangement of We Are the Champions works pretty well I think, and the understated nature of it gives the whole thing a fresh coat of poignant. Arranging it as a sad song is somewhat predictable given my tendencies, but still appropriate. It’s always sounded to me like a slightly depressing, “non-victory” victory song. “No time for losers cuz we are the champions of the world” - sounds a lot like a Jonathan Coulton character to me. Pathetic but proud, no self-knowledge, tragically sure of himself. Possibly a monkey or a robot (technically, you can’t tell if it is a monkey or robot or not, I’m just saying).

Just like in Thing a Week five years ago, here I am at the end and I’ve already said a tearful goodbye last week. What a relief! I’m not sure what to say, except thank you again and again and again. There was no reason at all to suspect that this ridiculous plan was going to work. The only reason it did was because of the various kinds of support I got from complete strangers all over the web and all over the world. I am grateful, always.

It’s a strange time for musicians and the business that lives around them. It’s a simple truth that For Sale competes with Free in the digital realm. That’s just the way it is. We don’t get to decide if it’s good for us or not, because we’ve already demonstrated that this is the way we want things to work. So now we have to figure out what to do.

In my experience, For Sale wins often enough that it doesn’t matter what’s happening on the Free side. This may not be true for everyone. You could argue that people only pay for things because the iTunes store came along and made it slightly easier to buy than to steal. You could suggest that the only reason it works for me is because I write funny songs about monkeys and robots. You could predict that in ten years, the downward trend of the value of a song in mp3 form will lead us to a place where music is free. I might grant you all of those things, but I still think we’re going to be fine. Music isn’t going away - it was here long before we figured out a way to make money from it, and it will be here at least until the day we all upload our brains into the giant universe-shaped computer and disappear. The music business is an accident, a side-effect, an unintended consequence; music comes from humans.

I’m immensely proud of Thing a Week, partially because of what I accomplished, but more because of what WE accomplished. My plan, if you can call it that, was to concede victory to Free at the start. You guys pay me anyway, almost as if you “like music” and “want to support musicians.” Dummies.

Thank you for everything.

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

I’m closing sales on all levels this Wednesday at midnight. At the same time I’ll be moving Artificial Heart to the standard store page here on my site. I don’t want any sad people to find out about these fantastic bundle purchase opportunities only after they’re gone, so if there’s anyone you know who should purchase these things, let them know that time is running out. Inevitably, and in spite of your best efforts, someone will tweet at 12:01 AM Thursday morning “OMG! I missed out! I wish I had known!” It’s just how these things go.

The album should now be available in most digital online stores, though I’m getting reports that the title is misspelled in a few places. Which is fantastic news! Gah! If you can’t find it in your favorite digital music store, you may want to search for Jonathan Coulton and then click on the album “Artifical Heart” [sic]. Jeepers creepers people.

For those of you who have purchased a bundle and have questions about shirt sizes, address changes, upgrades and the like, in theory Scarface should have gotten back to you via email. If not, let us know. We’re planning on giving everyone a chance to confirm shipping address and shirt sizes before we mail these things out. I’m choosing a shirt brand this coming week (it’s likely to be similar to American Apparel in fit and quality) and will let everyone know what that is and post sizing charts before asking you to reconfirm your size choices. You’ll be allowed to choose different sizes for different shirts. I don’t want any unhappy customers.

The Level Four box is going to be awesome. It will contain some surprise items. It will be a classy collectors edition type situation and you will be the envy of all your friends if you have one. I don’t have a timeline yet, but will let you know as soon as I have a likely ship date. In the meantime, you Level Four folks will soon have access to other fun stuff that is not in the box. We will entertain ourselves while we wait.

Speaking of which, has anyone figured out what all the symbols mean yet? Because I have.

Thing a Week 51: Summer’s Over

Isn’t it though? Here’s the thing – this is song #51, and the next one is #52 and I’m freaking out. It was very hard to write this one. You can imagine how much pressure I’m feeling at this point to wrap the whole thing up with a couple of really kick-ass songs about monkeys and robots, really blow everybody’s mind. As a result, I can’t think of anything really interesting to say about monkeys or robots. So this one’s just about somebody leaving somebody else at the end of the summer (hint: no it’s not, it’s about the end of Thing a Week).

It was especially hard because I knew something you didn’t, which is that this is the last song I’ll write for Thing a Week. Next week is going to be a cover. Why yes, it is a cop out. But really, I can’t imagine writing something that’s as appropriate as this cover song will be – you’ll see. It just feels right to me.

Speaking of which, I need a little something from you folks to make it happen. If you have the capability to record decently (no built-in laptop microphones please), I would like you to record a single hand clap and email it to me. Your best hand clap please, mp3 is fine as long as it’s a pretty decent bitrate. By doing so you agree to let me use it for whatever I want from now until the end of time without getting any sort of credit for it, ever. But you’ll be on a CD.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: Of all the songs that I can’t remember writing, this one feels the most like it was implanted in my history by space aliens. No idea. I was playing it close to the vest in the blog, keeping it light, but there was definitely some heavy emotional stuff going on about the approaching end of Thing a Week.

I’ve always had trouble with transitions. I get obsessed with the borders between things - everything that came before this moment was X, everything after will be Y. I can’t help but try to unpack that moment, savor it, hate it. Birthdays, graduations, moving day, they’re all terrible. All that stuff functioned as a multiplier for the standard weekly performance anxiety, which had been growing larger all year anyway. It was overwhelming. So I tricked me, and I made this one the last one. I basically left without saying goodbye (though technically I do say goodbye quite a few times in this song).

I have a vague memory of still having large gaps in the lyrics during the recording process, so I’m betting that this song really didn’t get started until Thursday or Friday. There are a couple of clunker lines in there, and sitting here with all this distance, they seem incredibly easy to fix. Or maybe I just write differently now. Anyway, I forgive myself for the melodrama with all the flowers dying and the cold wind, because I absolutely love the kicker lines at the ends of the verses. And the middle section with the lonely accordion and the a cappella singing group vocals sounds positively cinematic to me. All in all, it feels pleasantly unfamiliar enough to convince me that during this period, I was really WRITING in a way I never had before.

That bit about goodbyes moving in circles hits me hard here in this hotel room in wherever-I-am. Five years ago I was finishing Thing a Week, feeling proud and hopeful about the possibilities, but coming up on a scary stretch of unknown territory - what now? Hodgman’s first book was out and I was about to accompany him on his big book tour. I was just starting to do my own shows in other cities. I was gearing up to release all the Thing a Week songs as albums. I was ready to admit that this was my job. It was the end of TAW but the beginning of everything else, very much a time of LAUNCHING things. None of which was at all obvious to me at the time.

And now here I am in this hotel room in wherever-I-am, on tour with They Might Be Giants. They’ve got a new album out, I’ve got a new album out, I’ve got this new band, all these new songs about grownup things. Hodgman has another new book coming out and is about to start touring. So here we are again, five years later, and I’m truly grateful and amazed, but still facing the same scary stretch of unknown territory. What now?

I like to play the game where I imagine going back to tell five-years-ago me what was about to happen to him. There’s no way he would believe it. And I think that’s what really gets me about these transitions, the idea that the end of this thing you know is really just the beginning of this thing you haven’t met yet. It seems like there should be a way to see that new thing, to figure it out ahead of time instead of blindly stumbling across it. Of course you can’t - that’s precisely the difference between the future and the past. And here we all are, eternally stuck in the present, where all you can do is close your eyes, put your head down, and go.

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

Thing a Week 50: Pull the String

This appears to be about a famous person with a terrible secret. It’s not about anyone in particular as far as I know. Maybe it’s about you – Tom Cruise! Or you – John Hodgman! It kind of reminds me of Big Bad World One, mostly because of the A/E ambiguity in the verse. Believe it or not, that acoustic riff in the verse is an idea that’s been floating around in my head since I was about 17 – it’s a relief to finally get that one out the door. Who’s next!

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: I am listening now to this song for the first time in five years - I’ve never played this one live, haven’t really thought about it since the day I uploaded it. Love that E over A thing. I am realizing now it reminds me of the piano lick between verse couplets in the Donald Fagen song “New Frontier” (oops, sorry Donald). Mix needs a lot of help, I seem to have layered myself into muddy territory during the pre choruses. Whoa, right, forgot about this bridge - what the? Abrupt, chopped off ending for extra drama, got it.

OK. Some good and bad here. On the plus side, I think most of the music is coming from an original place, or at least I don’t hear the endless parade of standard JoCo tricks I usually resort to when I’m out of ideas. Maybe that’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve heard this song that I don’t even remember how to play it right now, but the chord changes sound kind of fresh but catchy, which is the whole point of a pop song. I like the textural change-ups a lot, the way it gets big and small and loud and quiet. I was ashamed of the bridge the first time I heard it again, but listening a second time I think it’s kind of nice - it’s all new territory within the song, and I think the buildup thing works pretty well with the noisy guitars and everything. All of that stuff sounds to me like at least I was still inventing things at this point. Guitars are not awful. Lead vocal performance actually has a nice vibe to it, as if I cared about what I was singing, which is not always something I am able to capture when I’m singing into a microphone.

The biggest problem for me is the lyrics. I fell into the classic trap where the song is just about one thing and every line is just another way to describe that thing in a not very interesting way. Those kinds of songs can certainly work, but this one centers on a pretty nonspecific and low stakes idea, and it simply doesn’t generate much heat. Also, there are a bunch of phrases in there that sound a little pat to me: “they all want in,” “underneath your skin,” “call your lawyer.” It sounds like a Glen Frey song from 1984, where you’re “in the night” and this or that thing is “dangerous” because something is happening “in your heart” or maybe “on the streets of this city.” Oy.

I’ve written a lot of songs like this in my life, ones that should be good but are not because they lack some essential unnameable thing. This is the one you leave off the album, or you put aside for a while and then try re-writing later once you have starved it of enough attention that it’s ready to play ball. With more time I might have solved the problem by finding something personal to write about - not me necessarily, any person would do (I know tons of secrets about ALL SORTS of famous people). As it is, most of it sounds like me filling up space until the writing is done, rather than being compelled to tell a story or explore a character that legitimately interests me. You don’t have to get mad to write an angry song, but it does help to think about a time when you WERE mad and play off the details. Specificity makes things interesting, even if it’s secret specificity that nobody else will understand but you. Sometimes especially if it’s secret specificity - am I right, Charles R. in Santa Fe?

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

Thing a Week 50: Pull the String

This appears to be about a famous person with a terrible secret. It’s not about anyone in particular as far as I know. Maybe it’s about you – Tom Cruise! Or you – John Hodgman! It kind of reminds me of Big Bad World One, mostly because of the A/E ambiguity in the verse. Believe it or not, that acoustic riff in the verse is an idea that’s been floating around in my head since I was about 17 – it’s a relief to finally get that one out the door. Who’s next!

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: I am listening now to this song for the first time in five years - I’ve never played this one live, haven’t really thought about it since the day I uploaded it. Love that E over A thing. I am realizing now it reminds me of the piano lick between verse couplets in the Donald Fagen song “New Frontier” (oops, sorry Donald). Mix needs a lot of help, I seem to have layered myself into muddy territory during the pre choruses. Whoa, right, forgot about this bridge - what the? Abrupt, chopped off ending for extra drama, got it.

OK. Some good and bad here. On the plus side, I think most of the music is coming from an original place, or at least I don’t hear the endless parade of standard JoCo tricks I usually resort to when I’m out of ideas. Maybe that’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve heard this song that I don’t even remember how to play it right now, but the chord changes sound kind of fresh but catchy, which is the whole point of a pop song. I like the textural change-ups a lot, the way it gets big and small and loud and quiet. I was ashamed of the bridge the first time I heard it again, but listening a second time I think it’s kind of nice - it’s all new territory within the song, and I think the buildup thing works pretty well with the noisy guitars and everything. All of that stuff sounds to me like at least I was still inventing things at this point. Guitars are not awful. Lead vocal performance actually has a nice vibe to it, as if I cared about what I was singing, which is not always something I am able to capture when I’m singing into a microphone.

The biggest problem for me is the lyrics. I fell into the classic trap where the song is just about one thing and every line is just another way to describe that thing in a not very interesting way. Those kinds of songs can certainly work, but this one centers on a pretty nonspecific and low stakes idea, and it simply doesn’t generate much heat. Also, there are a bunch of phrases in there that sound a little pat to me: “they all want in,” “underneath your skin,” “call your lawyer.” It sounds like a Glen Frey song from 1984, where you’re “in the night” and this or that thing is “dangerous” because something is happening “in your heart” or maybe “on the streets of this city.” Oy.

I’ve written a lot of songs like this in my life, ones that should be good but are not because they lack some essential unnameable thing. This is the one you leave off the album, or you put aside for a while and then try re-writing later once you have starved it of enough attention that it’s ready to play ball. With more time I might have solved the problem by finding something personal to write about - not me necessarily, any person would do (I know tons of secrets about ALL SORTS of famous people). As it is, most of it sounds like me filling up space until the writing is done, rather than being compelled to tell a story or explore a character that legitimately interests me. You don’t have to get mad to write an angry song, but it does help to think about a time when you WERE mad and play off the details. Specificity makes things interesting, even if it’s secret specificity that nobody else will understand but you. Sometimes especially if it’s secret specificity - am I right, Charles R. in Santa Fe?

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

Thing a Week 49: Make You Cry

Sometime in this week I found this guitar figure that hypnotized me into playing it for about a hundred hours straight. I wish I had picked something that was a little easier to play, because it drove me crazy during the recording process. My poor, stubby little fingers! I don’t think I’ve done a song for Thing a Week that’s just guitar and vocals, and this one seemed particularly suited to it, so there you are. It’s another love song from a crazy person – this guy wants to win the girl so he can punish her for not loving him. I guess. He certainly seems confused and angry and sad. Do NOT hang out with him.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: Yeah hey, this one’s a pretty song isn’t it? People ask all the time, which comes first, words or music? In this case it was definitely music, I spent the week pacing around, playing and building this guitar part long before I had any idea what the song would be about. This style of guitar playing reminds me of You Ruined Everything, Drinking with You, and also So Far So Good: picky and folky, thumb working the bass notes. It’s kind of a Bob Dylan via Paul Simon thing. It’s very satisfying to me musically because I get to do everything - it’s a real ARRANGEMENT, not just a bunch of strummy chords.

Guitar part is doubled and very hard to play, so it’s no wonder it took me a while to record. I’ve done this live a few times with Paul and Storm, and my fingers are still not great at playing it. Bridge: three part harmony, all bluegrass-like, brings a tear to my eye it does. There’s something about the sound of those simple harmonies that plugs right into my emotional ache center. All in all I’d say this is a pretty good effort.

This is one of many I’ve written in the category of “songs about assholes.” It’s a classic song writing trick - start from a moment where you were the wronged party, and then write from the perspective of the bad guy. “I broke your heart” is a lot more interesting than “You broke my heart.” And it’s perversely fun to try to get inside the head of someone who is clearly crazy, or evil, or otherwise out of balance. What this guy’s doing doesn’t even really make any sense, it’s just an extremely unhealthy obsession that’s probably super annoying to everyone involved. It’s a twisted concept, and set in such a sweet sounding musical context it crosses wires in all sorts of pleasing ways.

This is very near the end of Thing a Week. I’m getting sad all over again.

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

Many of you have been asking questions, and it seems that some of these questions have been asked more frequently than others. I’m going to take a look at these “QAFs” (Questions that are Asked Frequently) in the paragraphs to follow, and hopefully answer a few of them for you.

Here is the general plan: the album is for sale in its entirety right now through my website as a digital download in a format of your choosing. There are also some special bundles containing various physical objects. I am working on putting it in iTunes and all sorts of other digital stores even as we speak. I don’t have an ETA except to say that it will happen as soon as it is physically possible. Top men are working on it. Top. Men. I don’t have a specific list of the digital stores, but chances are the answer to your question that starts “Will it be available in [SOME ONLINE STORE]…” would be “Yes,” were you to ask it of me.

The bundles will be available for a limited time (more on this in a second). I wanted to do these initial offerings because: 1) I was tired of waiting for the gears to turn on the non direct sales side, let’s do this thing already! 2) I liked the idea of trying to cover the expenses of making this thing early on, so that I could maybe begin to relax – kind of a backwards Kickstarter strategy, and 3) I think it’s fun and exciting to have a special, celebratory moment at the beginning of this album’s life. In particular the level four participation and the various plans I have for it have become a fun creative play space for me. This is not a concept album per se, but it’s got some strong thematic undercurrents that are fun to mess with, hence the logo, the motto, the symbols, the evaluation questions, and other things yet to be revealed.

I do not always want to be in the business of direct physical sales, so I’m going to sell these things for a while and then stop. The CD and the Artificial Heart Shirt will be available for purchase after that, but these specific bundles, the signed CD, and all the other stuff that comes with Level Four will only be around for a little while – let’s say through the end of September, or while supplies last. Judging from the trend so far, I will make 1,000 of these and that will be all.

I actually had a meeting last week with the people who are making and assembling all the Level Four packages, and let’s just say we got plans – cool stuff is going to be in there, and it’s going to look great and satisfy you in that fuzzy, collector’s item kind of way.

Thank you all for the overwhelming support you have shown me over the years, even when I was not writing anything at all, but especially now as I publish what is really my first substantial new work since Thing a Week (eep). I hope you are enjoying listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Thing a Week 48: The Big Boom

Last weekend when I was staying with some friends in Pennsylvania, there was a very loud noise that woke me up. It was thunder. But it was crazy thunder – it seemed to last about a minute and a half, and it wasn’t a bang, it was this huge, diffuse roar. And after it stopped all the car alarms were going off. It sounded like the end of the world.

At least that’s what I thought when I sat bolt upright in bed and reached for my car keys and a weapon. My first thought, probably before I was fully awake, was that someone or something had scraped Philadelphia out of the Earth, and that I was going to have to grab some provisions, get in the car and head north. I don’t know why this would be my default explanation for a loud noise. I suppose it means I’m a little on edge.

At first this was about a loud boom that led to nothing, but it didn’t take long before I realized it would be better if it was about a loud boom that really did signify the end of the world. The Big Boom. And then I changed Philadelphia to Michigan because there are too many syllables in Philadelphia. The rest of it writes and records and mixes itself!

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: This track suffers quite a bit from my DIY home studio limitations. No drummer, that’s the worst part. The loop libraries I have usually let me get pretty close to faking it, but I can really hear in this track that it’s just canned drums, there’s just no blood and guts in there. I’m also just generally not good at rocking onto tape. Of all the styles of music I tried to produce during Thing a Week, this was the hardest to get right - I think there’s a lot more subtlety to the recording and mixing process with this genre than you might think. It also helps to have a real amp, and some people who can really play. I like to rock, I just don’t always know how.

Things I like: the riff in the verse, the background vocals in the chorus, the minor major 7th chord at the end of the chorus, the bass guitar’s solo moment at the end of the bridge/solo section.

Things I don’t like: the general lack of testicles, the reappearance of one of my favorite harmonic crutches (the walkdown from F# minor, as seen in Chiron Beta Prime), the meh bridge/solo section (I need 16 bars of something, STAT!), and something about the vocal that I can’t put my finger on but has a lot to do with me not knowing how to make rock music.

Lyrically it gets close, but I think there’s just too much exposition, too much specificity and not enough evocative language. The guy is explaining too much, he should be more emotional and less able to express clearly what’s going on. Or at least that would be one direction to try, it could just be a flawed concept.

I still remember that feeling of waking up that night, that thing where your body’s awake but your brain is not, where you’re all pre-mammalian impulse and you just want to GET OUT. I think it’s what people refer to as night terrors, and it has happened to me only a couple of times. I was under some stress - great things were happening, but a lot was still hanging in the air somewhere between success and failure. Thing a Week One had just been put up at CDBaby, I was doing a bunch of Hodgman book tour stuff, and I was just setting up my very first all-me, out of town show in Seattle. It was also nearly the end of Thing a Week. I was tired of my weekly songwriting deadline, but I was also staring into an uncertain void at the end of it, riding right into a wall of clouds.

Which is not dissimilar to how I’m feeling now. Have I mentioned this new album? I have? Well, it’s called Artificial Heart, and it’s available for purchase on my website, and coming soon to all your favorite digital stores. I’m very proud of it, and I’m getting great feedback from lots of people, but it doesn’t make me worry any less. The last few years have been pretty amazing, and the old songs know exactly what to do - these new ones are just babies. They could fall! On top of that, I’m still feeling a little stretched in the danger department, getting ready to travel around for three weeks with a band opening for They Might Be Giants (who do I think I am exactly?).

Fittingly for this post, this September leg of touring ends in Philadelphia - AS WILL THE WORLD!

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

You can take this as evidence of my efficiency and ability to multitask, or you can take it as an example of the many ways in which I often fail to draw a clear line between work and not-work. Mostly you can take it as a demonstration of what a FANTASTIC skim boarding technique I have, and how I need to lose about 15 pounds and maybe get a spray tan.

The song Good Morning Tucson is obviously not about going to the beach. At least, it didn’t used to be!

You can download this slightly higher quality, pre-YouTube-Compression version if you like, and well looky here, there’s the song itself, free to all. Those links will be live for a couple of weeks at which point they are timed to expire so that robots crawling the web of the future do not destroy my bandwidth. Get em while they’re hot.

Friday 9/2
1 PM – Geek a Week panel with Len Peralta at the Hyatt, Regency VI – VII

2:30 PM – Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (On Average) – LIVE podcast at the Hilton, Room 204

8:30 PM – The Artificial Heart Album Release Show, off campus at the Variety Playhouse. I’ll be playing old stuff and new stuff, both acoustic and with the band, and I’ll have the new CD and new Artificial Heart shirts available for purchase. Paul and Storm will open. This is not an official Dragon*Con event, so you’ll need to buy tickets to attend.

Saturday 9/3
During the dayish – I’ll have a merch booth set up in the band area at the Marriott, and I hope to take your money there (in exchange for music and TShirts). I don’t have a good sense for how the merch thing works at Dragon*Con, so this is one of the things I’m going to figure out on the fly. Follow @jonathancoulton on Twitter and I’ll send updates when I know more about specific times.

8:30 PM – Gonzoroo, an evening of musical delights featuring me, Paul and Storm, and lots of other stuff, hosted by megastar Ken Plume. I’ll be acoustic only at this show, and I’ll be selling STILL MORE STUFF after the show. All this happens at the Marriott, Atrium Ballroom.

Sunday 9/4
During the dayish – More action at the merch booth! Probably!

8:30 PM – Gonzo Quiz Show III: Beyond Thunderquiz, a celebrity quiz show panel show game show SHOW hosted by Ken Plume and Widgett Walls. Expect the unexpected.

Monday 9/5
Who knows! I’m going to be pretty tired and covered in dragon juice by then, hopefully will be able to take some time and actually SEE some things. Or I might be at the merch booth. Or I might be at the bottom of a Scorpion Bowl at Trader Vic’s. Watch Twitter for updates.

Really excited to finally be able to check this crazy thing out. I hope to see you there!

Thing a Week 47: I’m Your Moon

A few people suggested I do a song about Pluto, and I thought it was a fine idea. It was turning around in my head last week when the first line of the chorus came to me, as if from deep space.

As you certainly know by now, Pluto is not a planet anymore. Just yesterday the International Astronomical Union made it official by redefining “planet.” Pluto is a now considered a dwarf planet, along with a few other small, icy spherical things out there. Obviously very upsetting to Pluto. As you are also no doubt aware, Pluto’s moon Charon is kind of unusual: it’s about half the size of Pluto, which is pretty large for a moon. And it doesn’t orbit around Pluto, they actually orbit around each other, faces locked, like dancers. You wouldn’t be crazy to think of them as a double dwarf planet.

What I’m getting to is this: Charon sings this song to Pluto.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: This is probably an even more impenetrable riddle song than Under the Pines. I forget because it’s so obvious to me that it’s about Pluto, but listening just now I realize there’s not really any way you’d know that unless I told you. In spite of that, it’s become an important part of the repertoire, especially in the live acoustic show.

One reason for that is that it’s a better song. Actually in my opinion it’s a little hacky - it’s a “space song,” you know, I can hear myself dipping into the bag of tricks for stuff that sounds like that. The Aadd2, the slathered reverb and delay. But the concept works so much better - this song expresses a more specific and complicated sentiment than what’s going on with Leonard Nimoy and Bigfoot. So even if you don’t know the story, it still comes across as meaningful and sweet and kind of deep. Also there’s no style parody happening (just some slightly lazy writing and arranging). I give myself points for some interesting guitar playing instead of just strummy strummy all the time. And the way the bridge wheezes to a disorienting stop feels like a good choice. Less reverb was called for though, for sure.

This is one of those songs that a lot of people really latch onto. I just got a little weepy while listening to it because I thought of all the stories people have told me about singing it to their newborns and playing it at their weddings. I was just thinking about Pluto when I wrote it, but since it left my hands it’s been infused with the essence of all these other relationships. And so now the Pluto thing really is just a metaphor, and when I hear it or sing it I think about all those real people feeling things. Which is awesome - I love hearing that songs of mine have taken up residence in people’s emotional lives. That’s the point of songs, isn’t it?

I have no memory of writing this one either.

Listening just now, I realize that the lyrics and melody have evolved a little over the years of me playing this on the acoustic. Small changes, but they stick out - I think I’m more a fan of the acoustic version. That’s one of the side effects of the breakneck pace of Thing a Week, where the writing happened mere hours away from the final, permanent recording. (Yeesh, just writing it out that way makes it sound like a bad idea.) There was never any time for a song to sit and breathe and grow up. I still think this is a good song and I’m very proud of it, but I think it had more to give.

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

They will never open for me, they are rock stars.

Thing a Week 46: You Ruined Everything

I was having a conversation with a friend who had recently become a parent, and she reminded me of something I had forgotten about since my daughter was born. She was describing this what-have-I-done feeling – I just got everything perfect in my life, and then I went and messed it all up by having a baby. I don’t feel that way anymore, but the thought certainly crossed my mind a few times at the beginning. Eventually you just fall in love and forget about everything else, but it’s not a very comfortable transition. I compare the process to becoming a vampire, your old self dies in a sad and painful way, but then you come out the other side with immortality, super strength and a taste for human blood. At least that’s how it was for me. At any rate, it’s complicated.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: This is one of those songs that I feel grateful to have found. It’s by far the most directly personal song in Thing a Week, and probably in my entire catalog. I love it because it expresses how I really feel about this very important part of my life without ducking for cover cover behind a giant squid or a mad scientist character. It’s a love letter to my kids, one that I think has enough emotional complexity in it that they’ll understand it over and over again in different ways as they get older. Or not. My daughter recently asked me, “Daddy, is there a different kind of ruined?” Well yeah, sort of.

Personal songs feel perilous to me. It’s scary to reveal what I think and feel about something, even in conversation with a single person, let alone with the whole internet. There’s the risk that I’ll reveal something about myself that I think is universal, and instead everyone will finally know what a monster I am. That doesn’t seem to be the case with this one - I’ve heard from lots of parents that this hits pretty close to home, and even from some non parents who find that this describes their romantic relationships pretty well. Those fears aside, I find it very hard to say honest things about myself in a song without it sounding like the sappy, maudlin, navel gazing stuff I used to write in high school. Somehow I got away with it here, but usually if you describe how you feel about something and then just make it a song lyric, it stinks. That’s why it’s often easier and somehow MORE honest to start with an imaginary point of view and let your true self sneak in. 

I have no memory of writing this song.

If I have any regrets, it’s that I didn’t just do a plain old acoustic/vocal recording. I’ve been performing it live that way for years, and it just works better that way. It’s a simple song, and it communicates just fine without any bells and whistles. I like tucking it away at the end of the set, a little quiet moment when I can close my eyes and think about my kids, far away, fast asleep in Brooklyn.

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

Thing a Week 45: Mr. Fancy Pants

I tried to write something else, believe me. But this stupid line about Mr. Fancy Pants having the fanciest pants just wouldn’t get out of my head, so I was forced to follow it through to whatever this is. I’ll warn you, it’s a short one. A nice little amuse bouche (but for your ears). Even so I kind of like it – some kind of strange morality lesson about beating Mr. Fancy Pants at his own game. Or something. Anyways!

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS:

I remember a moment from this week when I was riding my bike around Prospect Park with the first line of this song stuck in my head, and wishing it would leave so I could get to work on WRITING SOMETHING. I would often ride when I needed to clear my head and find a new idea. I found that if I put my body into some kind of autopilot mode - riding, walking, driving - it would sometimes occupy just enough of my brain’s bandwidth to shut off the censors, and then something would bubble up. It didn’t always work, and in this case I ended up right where I started, with the same dumb non-idea I was trying to escape.

As it turns out, this song was a good one, though you never could have guessed. All I had was a bouncy feel, a not-really-rhyming line about pants, and an otherwise empty idea bin. I decided to try writing without a subject, just following the words where they led. In this case they led back to pants. It’s not about anything really, though it certainly pretends to be. I like how it leaves you at the end, with a hollow victory over who knows what, not really knowing how you’re supposed to feel or who the villain was.

I love the chords in the bridge. They’re something I found more with my fingers than with my brain. It’s almost like this song was generated by the non-thinking parts of me, by the systems level utilities - sitting down and typing gibberish until something gets traction. Strangely, it was the first time I tried this technique during Thing a Week, and I wish I had surrendered to it earlier. I relied on it quite a bit for this new album, and it often led to much more honest and personal expression than I could have gotten to otherwise. It’s very hard to write about nothing for very long, and the real stuff sneaks out of you when you’re not looking.

I was certainly thinking of They Might Be Giants once I got to the recording process - accordion plus electric guitar, keep it short and sweet, make it fun. I wanted it to sound like a marching band falling down some stairs. Of course the real magic in this song wasn’t released until I began performing it live on the Zendrum, at which point I was finally able to get to how it really sounded in my head when I first found it, which is to say “insane and kind of about pants.”

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

Thing a Week 44: Big Bad World One

Enough with the bigfoots and zombies, this one is pretty straightforward subject matter. The headline is “Sadsack Can’t Find Love,” which is just about as classic as it gets. I have spent more time than I would like to admit hanging out by the food table at parties, because it makes me look like I’m busy with something instead of just afraid to talk to anybody.

I like the way the title phrase sounds out of context – it seems like maybe it might mean something, but you can’t really say what. And I’m incredibly relieved to have broken out of the endless series of sad songs in the key of D that I appear to have been working on. It feels nice to do something a little different. This one’s in A, D and G! Crazy!

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: Right on. I love this song. Many classic JoCo tricks in there, but somehow it all adds up to something that sounds pretty fresh to me. Put down a nice crispy bed of doubled acoustic guitars and your pop song will sleep comfortably, that’s for sure. Our old friend the m7b5 chord is there (surprise!) in the kicker line of the chorus (“me zero”), but it’s not in the same role it usually is when I deploy it - I don’t have the patience right now to figure out what it’s doing there exactly, it’s probably best understood a substitution for something else. Doesn’t matter, it’s delicious!

(Requisite comment about the mix/arrangement: not enough dynamic range. Oh well.)

There’s a lot about this song I don’t quite get harmonically. It starts with this AM7 suspension thing (stolen from Code Monkey chorus, later redecorated for Pull the String) that’s weirdly ambiguous - it’s actually kind of an E chord played over A. By the end of the first line of the verse we’ve sort of shifted to D as the tonal center. And then in the prechorus we just bust into a section in G like it’s nothing. And then of course that great moment at the end of the bridge where the harmonies hold over the change from a Cadd6 to that AM7 thing. I just love all that wandering. There’s probably some nice music theory that can “explain” all this jumping around any number of ways (I mean, probably?), but what I like about it’s weird, but it’s still nice and pop-friendly. It’s rare that I sit down to strum on a guitar and come up with something that feels new.

The prechorus was a little atom that floated around in my ideas folder for a long time before this song got written, and it just kind of got sucked up into this song. Aside from that fact, I remember almost nothing about writing this one. I just remember how I felt in those weeks. I was out on the edge. Every song was a struggle that started with complete despair. I made decisions quickly and didn’t look back. I had no idea if what I was doing was good or not.

There were a couple of moments during the end of the writing process for this new album where I felt like that - and it felt good in that, “I’m running a triathalon, ow!” way - all tapped out and still somehow things coming out of me. Like getting food poisoning. I can’t possibly have anything left in there, can I? And then too I found the same strange room that I always forget about, the room where all the good songs are. Every time I find myself in that room I think “Well hmm, this is quite nice all these good songs lying around, why don’t I come here all the time?” It’s just that it takes an awful lot of effort and pain to get there.

The songs from this part of Thing a Week are my favorites, I think largely because of their mysterious origins. They came from outer space. They happened during the stretch when I was most able to forget about myself. Maybe I like them because they don’t feel like they’re mine.

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

I hope you like it, because it’s good, and so if you don’t like it then that means you have terrible taste.

Thing a Week 43: Under the Pines

Not many people know this, but when Leonard Nimoy did the Bigfoot episode of “In Search Of…” he and the creature hooked up one night and had this crazy fling. These kinds of things never end well, but Bigfoot in particular is a bit of a cad anyway (being mostly wild animal). As you might imagine, Leonard Nimoy came out of the experience somewhat worse for wear.

I’m almost sure that I have stolen this melody from somewhere, or maybe parts of it from lots of places, it sounds very familiar to me. And the bassline – hello? Blue Bayou? At first this was just a “bigfoot broke my heart” song, but I wasn’t getting a lot of traction. It wasn’t until I realized that it was Leonard Nimoy talking that it came together for me. There are just a couple of subtle references to Spock in there, and bigfoot’s name is never mentioned, so if you’re haven’t read this explanation you are either confused, or blissfully unaware that it’s about Bigfoot and Leonard Nimoy. Godspeed.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: Ah, a classic Thursday desperation song. Never in a million years would I have TRIED to write this song, rather I only would have ALLOWED it to happen in the absence of any other alternative.

Not that it’s so terrible. I actually think this one deserved a better place in JoCo history than it got. I like the melody, it’s simple but pretty solidly built. There are some nice moments in the lyrics, in particular I love the “bag of suet” joke, and I love the entirety of the third verse. In terms of solving the puzzle (describing a love affair between Bigfoot and Leonard Nimoy without mentioning either one) it succeeds very well. Here are the problems:

Arrangement - pfft. Not a lot there. It starts from style parody, which is always a dangerous game, especially when you veer away from the style and just start throwing stuff at the wall without caring if it sticks. The terrible chorus guitar in the choruses and those background vocals just don’t make sense to me, and they’re there only because I didn’t come up with anything else to fill the space. At the end of the day I really just copped a bassline.

Subtlety - almost nobody who hears this song figures out that it’s about Bigfoot and Leonard Nimoy. It’s too clever by half. I can’t imagine what you would think of this song if you didn’t know what it was about. It would just seem bizarre, unfunny, and not very interesting.

Goofballism - obviously I am trapped by this a lot. It’s rare to come across a song that is completely goofy and still emotionally stirring enough to matter to someone. Many would say that’s my wheelhouse, and in fact I just wrote myself a new bio in which I claimed that it was. I frequently try for that combination, and it feels wonderful when I hit it right, but the truth is I fail more often than not. When you write about goofy things, you’re giving all the other songs in the world a head start. I failed to back this one up with much of anything, and I think that’s why it fails to achieve liftoff.

To be clear, I am not anti-goofball. There’s nothing wrong with funny music, I don’t care what you say. I listened to Weird Al’s latest album Alpocalypse and was reminded that while there’s a ton of funny music out there, only a small fraction of it is done really well. Weird Al is the undisputed champion, and he elevates the genre like nobody else because he’s got a great musical brain and has honed the hell out of his craft.

It doesn’t matter what kind of music you’re doing, death metal or novelty songs, it has to be honest and it has to be great.

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com.

Wil Wheaton, Marian Call, and Vi Hart.

I trust this will please you. More announcements about more performers IN THE FUTURE…