Jonathan Coulton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jonathan Coulton
Background information
Born	1 December 1970 (1970-12-01) (age 39)
Origin	Brooklyn, New York City
Genres	Rock, Geek rock, Folk rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, banjo, ukulele, zendrum, tenori-on
Years active	2003 - present
Associated acts	Paul and Storm Kristen Shirts John Hodgman Molly Lewis Ellen McLain Ze Frank RiffTrax
Website	www.jonathancoulton.com

Jonathan Coulton (born December 1, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter, famous for his songs containing themes of geek culture as well as his rise to popularity through the use of the Internet.

Contents 1 Career 1.1 Licensing 1.2 Thing a Week 2 Discography 3 References 4 External links 4.1 Official sites 4.2 Interviews

[edit] Career

A former computer programmer and self-described geek, Coulton tends to write quirky, witty lyrics about a variety of topics such as science fiction and technology: a man who thinks in simian terms, a mad scientist who falls in love with one of his captives, and the dangers of bacteria. He does not often write topical songs, but he did release a song titled "W's Duty", which sampled President George W. Bush, in 2005 and another called "Tom Cruise Crazy" in 2006. Most of Coulton's songs feature Coulton's vocals accompanied by guitar, bass, and drums, though they often feature the various other instruments Coulton plays, including accordion, harmonica, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, or glockenspiel^[1].

A graduate of Yale and former member of the Yale Whiffenpoofs^[2] and the Yale Spizzwinks(?), he is now the Contributing Troubadour at Popular Science magazine, whose September 2005 issue was accompanied by a five-song set by him called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms.^[3] He is also the Musical Director for The Little Gray Book Lectures.^[4] Coulton's best known works include his light-acoustic cover of the Sir Mix-a-Lot hit song "Baby Got Back" and original pieces such as "Still Alive", the theme song for the video game Portal, and "Code Monkey", which has been featured on Slashdot^[5] on April 23, 2006 as well as linked from the webcomic Penny Arcade.^[6] It is currently the theme song for an animated show on G4 called Code Monkeys. A video set to his song "Re: Your Brains" was a featured link on Good Morning Silicon Valley, and his work has also been featured on NPR's All Things Considered.

Coulton accompanied John Hodgman on his list of "700 Hobo Names" promotional track for Hodgman's book The Areas of My Expertise as the guitarist (he was referenced as "Jonathan William Coulton, the Colchester Kid" in said work). Coulton also can be heard throughout the audiobook version of the same book, playing the theme song to the book, playing incidental music, and at times engaging in witty banter with Hodgman, who reads the audio version of his work. Coulton has also been referenced in Hodgman's work with The Daily Show; a Jonathan Coulton of Colchester, Connecticut is Hodgman's pick to win an essay contest on overpowering Iraqi resistance to American invasion.^[7] The winning entry, as set to music, was then played on the program; this song, about dropping snakes from airplanes, was written and performed by Coulton. He also appeared on the tour for Hodgman's newest book, More Information Than You Require.

Coulton also has released other songs under "The Little Gray Book Lectures". In 2006, Coulton began touring with and co-wrote a song with comedy-duo Paul and Storm entitled "Your Love Is", which appeared on their album News to Us. They have since toured together almost exclusively, rarely appearing with any other artists.

Coulton wrote and performed a song titled "Still Alive" for the ending credits of Valve's 2007 video game Portal, with vocals by Ellen McLain. On April 1, 2008, Harmonix made this track available as free downloadable content for the game Rock Band.^[8] A version with Coulton's vocals was also included on the Orange Box Original Soundtrack,^[9] in addition to the one heard at the end of the game.

While he was originally working on songs for a new album, titled The Aftermath, Coulton has since decided to forego the album structure, releasing new songs as he can. Also, a DVD & CD of a concert performed February 22, 2008 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, entitled "Best. Concert. Ever." was released in 2009. At the concert, Coulton played the aforementioned song "Still Alive" on its Rock Band version, along with guest "musicians" and geek/celebrities Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann and Veronica Belmont.^[10] The songs "Still Alive" and "Re: Your Brains" can also be found in a jukebox in Left 4 Dead 2.

[edit] Licensing

As an Internet-based performing artist, he has attracted a group of fans who promote him. Since Coulton uses the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license, others are free to use his songs in their own noncommercial works. As a result, a number of music videos have been created using his songs, including such machinima as the ILL Clan's video for "Code Monkey".

[edit] Thing a Week

"Thing a Week" is the name that Coulton gave to a creative experiment which ran from September 16, 2005 to September 30, 2006. In this project, Coulton undertook to record 52 musical pieces in the course of a year, one each week. This target was achieved. The objectives were: (a) to push the artist's creative envelope by adopting what Coulton describes as a "forced-march approach to writing and recording"; (b) to prove to himself that he was capable of producing creative output to a deadline; and (c) to test the viability of the Internet and Creative Commons as a platform capable of supporting a professional artist financially. Early indications are that the experiment succeeded in generating a large number of high quality songs, boosting sales of music downloads, expanding Coulton's public presence and enlarging his fan base. The success of the financial objective is more difficult to judge, but Coulton was quoted in a September 2006 interview as stating that "in some parts of the country, I’d be making a decent living".^[11] In a February 25 2008, interview with This Week in Tech, he stated that he made more money in 2007 than he did in his last year of working as a programmer, 40% of it from digital downloads and 40% from merchandise and performances.^[12]

[edit] Discography

• Smoking Monkey (2003)
• Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow (2004)
• Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms (2005)
• Thing a Week One (2006)
• Thing a Week Two (2006)
• Thing a Week Three (2006)
• Thing a Week Four (2006)
• Jonathan Coulton Unplugged (2006)
• JoCo Looks Back (Greatest Hits compilation) (2008)
• The Aftermath, which is the umbrella title he uses for new song releases.
• The Orange Box Original Soundtrack

  19. Still Alive

• Best. Concert. Ever. [Live] (2009)

Most of Coulton's songs are published on his website as MP3 and FLAC downloads. Many of them are free, and none of them are subject to digital rights management. All of his original songs fall under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License. "Still Alive" is the only exception to this, as Coulton gave all rights for the song to Valve. Along with "Still Alive", Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains" appears in jukeboxes in Left 4 Dead 2, another game designed by Valve.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Official sites

• Jonathan Coulton's website
• Jonathan Coulton at MySpace
• Jonathan Coulton at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] Interviews

• Part One of productivity satirist Mike Vardy's interview with Jonathan Coulton at Effing The Dog
• Interview with Jonathan Coulton on TMF prior to UK tour 2009
• Audio Interview with Jonathan Coulton on Tech Talk for Families Podcast discussing his career and family
• Jonathan Coulton on creativity and the creative process, an interview with about-creativity.com April 19, 2007
• Jonathan Coulton was musical guest on 7/22/2007's Operation BSU, a call-in interactive podcast talk show. (NSFW.)
• Video interview of Jonathan Coulton by Zadi Diaz of EPIC FU, weekly web show that covers online pop culture (June 4, 2008)
• Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog, a profile of Jonathan Coulton in the New York Times Magazine dated May 13, 2007.