Sunday Music Spotlight - Jonathan Coulton

To put it simply Jonathon Coulton is my hero. “That’s a bold statement” you say, “What could make him say such at thing?” He was a programmer (Hey, I’m a programmer!). He got fed up and quit his job to be a professional musician (Hey, I’m a musician!). He writes songs for geeks from a geek perspective (Hey, I’m a geek!). Ergo he’s my hero.

The story goes something like this: JC was writing database software in VB for executive recruiting firms when he decided to make a huge leap. With his wife’s blessing he quit his job to become a full-time professional musician. To help himself take his new career seriously he pledged to write one song per week for a whole year, and make the songs freely available on his website. Over the course of 52 weeks he wrote songs about programming, zombies, baseball, IKEA, a man reversing evolution and becoming a monkey, DNA, furry lobsters, al fresco sex, and other deliciously geeky topics (along with some great covers, including a soft-folk version of “Baby Got Back”).

Somewhere along the line he got hooked up with John Hodgman (who you may know as the PC from the Mac vs PC commercials, or his appearances on The Daily Show, or his book The Areas of My Expertise) which led to various collaborations, including one of his songs being featured on The Daily Show and the Little Gray Book lectures and podcasts.

In addition to his Daily Show exposure Jonathan has been featured on NPR, in the New York Times Magazine, and on QuickStopEntertainment.com.

In addition to writing cool music and hanging out with cool people Jonathan is a believer in allowing people to express their creativity with his music. He allows and actively encourages people to make videos, drawings, and remixes of his music. All of his music is released under a Creative Commons license which allows people to use it to create their own works (as long as they give attribution and agree to similarly share their works). This simply kicks ass. It’s the sort of behavior that shows an artist actually cares about their fans. Rock on Jonathan Coulton!

Enough about the man; on to his music:

Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey

I can certainly relate to this song, having been a Code Monkey myself (sadly now I’m more like boring manager Rob).

Jonathan Coulton - I Feel Fantastic

Gotta love a song extolling the virtues of the altered mental states provided by prescription medication.

Jonathan Coulton - Skymall

Boy oh boy do I love SkyMall. Because I truly think you should have your choice of three different hot dog cookers when you’re at 30,000 feet. Or be able to get a replica Lord of the Rings sword. Or a set of stairs to help your pet get into bed with you. How did civilization exist before SkyMall?

Links:
Official Site and Press Kit

NY Times Magazine Article

Buy Jonathan’s CDs at CDBaby.com OR buy electronic versions at his store.

BONUS:
Here’s a live performance of “Baby Got Back”