joco
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Jonathan Coulton, often called JoCo by fans, is an American musician. He writes his own songs, sings, and plays guitar, bass, drums, banjo, ukulele, zendrum, accordion, harmonica, mandolin, glockenspiel, and analog synthesizers. His main instrument is guitar. Aside from Artificial Heart and Solid State, he recorded all of his albums in his home studio, primarily using Pro Tools.
After graduating from Yale in 1993 with a music degree, he worked as a software programmer. He self-published his debut album, Smoking Monkey, in 2003, but it didn't sell well and so he continued working at his day job. In 2004, he was invited to play a few songs at a tech conference. This was also where he discovered Creative Commons, which became a central part of his future music career. In September 2005, he began a project called "Thing A Week," where he committed to writing and recording one song per week for an entire year. By September 2006, he had indeed recorded and posted 52 songs to his website, which had become very popular over the previous year. He published every song under an Attribution-NonCommercial license (CC BY-NC 4.0), and still uses this license today for all of his music. Around this time, he began frequently collaborating with John Hodgman on several of Hodgman's tours, audiobooks, and podcasts. Hodgman was the voice of the father/other father in Coraline, and he was also in Flight of the Conchords and Community! Which means that it was theoretically possible for JoCo to be in Flight of the Conchords and he wasn't, which is truly tragic.
Many people are familiar with JoCo's music without even realizing it! He wrote the ending songs for Portal (2007) and Portal 2 (2011), "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone." He also wrote a song for the Portal DLC pack for Lego Dimensions (2015), "You Wouldn't Know" - it's actually my favorite of the three! No one knows about it though. "Still Alive" was included as free DLC for Rock Band on April Fool's Day 2008, and his (non-Portal-related) song "Re: Your Brains" was included as an easter egg in Left 4 Dead 2 (2009).
Best. Concert. Ever. is a combination CD/DVD recording of a live concert in 2008 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. It was his first live album. In 2010 and 2012 he opened for They Might Be Giants on tour. In 2011, he released his first studio album, Artificial Heart, his first album with a full band. It was produced by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants and Marty Beller, TMBG's drummer, played drums. The album was recorded in the studio of Pat Dillett, who frequently collaborates with Flansburgh.
I SAW HIM LIVE!!!!
Here's the setlist (uploaded by me, because I have the setlist!!)
NEWS!
There is a new song! And a recording of it! The recording is from the 9/9/23 show at City Winery Boston, but he's played it at every show this year so far. (Being able to say that he's actively playing shows right now feels so weird lol.) So far it's being called "I Almost Moved to LA" here and on setlist.fm, but he doesn't give it a name in the recording. It's about how he and his family almost moved to LA recently (shocker, right?). I like it, it's nice. A wistful, straight-ahead ballad. Apparently he's been playing a different Billy Joel cover at each solo show this year, and you can really hear the influence in this. Kind of funny to think about how he got into Billy Joel the same year I did! It's a good, solid song, but it feels... too normie? I'm sure at this point he probably wants to move away from making silly songs a bit. Solid State was a concept album about big, serious ideas, but most of the songs were still funny or had at least one joke in them. I have a prediction that he's going to move even further in this direction for the new album. Fairly serious (or at least not silly), but disconnected from a unifying narrative like Artificial Heart. I'm completely sure I won't dislike anything he makes, but I'm a little worried it'll be my least favorite album. But I'm literally just guessing all of this from his general vibe and one brand-new still-in-progress song so who knows! Here's the song:
albums (i'm going to review them all)
Smoking Monkey (2003)
The first album! I honestly didn't care for this one much for a long time. It's only started growing on me in the last few months, but it's really grown on me. The mixing isn't great and is downright bad on a few songs (Kenesaw Mountain Landis...) but I love the songs themselves. Pure undiluted early JoCo, silly and so earnest.
Favorite tracks: De-Evolving, I'm A Mason Now, Overhead
Thing A Week One (2006)
The start of a long journey! Comically uneven - it has some of my favorites and some of my least favorites - but I'll cut him some slack. He's said in interviews that when he started TAW he only had about 4 ideas and immediately started having to scramble every week to get a song out.
Favorite tracks: My Monkey, Shop Vac, Someone Is Crazy, Brand New Sucker
Thing A Week Two (2006)
This is where he really started to get the hang of TAW. There's actually only one song I dislike which makes it really hard to pick favorites. Some of these were recorded/mixed while on tour opening for They Might Be Giants, which is why a few sound so "mixed on an iPad in 2006."
Favorite tracks: You Could Be Her, Chiron Beta Prime, Take Care of Me, Stroller Town, Re: Your Brains
Thing A Week Three (2006)
3/4 of the way through the whole year! Slightly less perfect than TAW 2, this is when things started to really speed up with touring/other projects. But there's some really great ones in here still. "Madelaine," the first track, is actually from a band JoCo was in from about 1996-2001, but he wrote it and wanted to re-record it.
Favorite tracks: Madelaine, Code Monkey, Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen cover), Not About You, Drinking With You
Thing A Week Four (2006)
The final stretch! Pretty much bangers only in this one tbh. He still plays a lot of these in concert! I don't really know what else to say, this one is just good.
Favorite tracks: Seahorse, Creepy Doll, Big Bad World One, You Ruined Everything, I'm Your Moon
Best. Concert. Ever. (2008)
I have to love this one a little extra because of the DVD. It's so fun, I love all the friends that join in! Also, contains an important moment in JoCo fan history: the great Andy Bates' "MESSAGE REDACTED" and legendary mouth-keyboard solo in "Chiron Beta Prime". The whole thing is linked below, so you can see it for yourself if you want to!
Artificial Heart (2011)
Artificial Heart my beloved!! So, so good. Basically a collection of tracks with very little flow between them but I simply do not care because they are awesome. The addition of a full band is a nice step up, though nowadays I miss the old way - he hasn't really gone back to his old solo workflow or played solo concerts since this album.
Favorite tracks: Sticking It to Myself, Artificial Heart, Nemeses, Glasses, Alone At Home
JoCo Live (2014)
The only officially released recording of "Blue Sunny Day" my beloved ♥
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Solid State (2017)
The concept album! His best work so far without question. I don't listen to it as much anymore because I need the upbeat silly stuff to give me a boost. If I had to recommend any of his music to someone who may not necessarily be into comedy-geek-folk-rock, it would be this album.
Some Guys (2019)
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live performances
here's some of my favorite live performances/concerts! the combination of his fanbase being early internet/tech geeks plus all of his songs being creative commons means there's actually a lot of live footage out there and it's mostly pretty good quality!
PAX Prime 2011
with marty beller of tmbg on drums! songs: code monkey, shop vac, artificial heart, sticking it to myself, nemeses (w/john roderick), mandlebrot set, good morning tuscon, alone at home, big bad world one, skullcrusher mountain, mr. fancy pants + want you gone (using zendrum), je suis rick springfield, the stache, still alive, re: your brains, i feel fantastic
Best. Concert. Ever. (2008)
literally just a rip of the dvd on youtube :D
"Mr. Fancy Pants" PAX East 2010
probably my favorite performance of mr. fancy pants! i only listen to live versions of it now because the addition of the zendrum really makes it. also at the end of this one he discovers you can trigger the zendrum by jumping close to it and so he does a jumping solo. it's so silly :)
Paste Studio on the Road: NYC (2021)
i like the small scale of this, it feels very intimate and chill. also this is the performance that made me love 'your tattoo,' which has never been one of my favorites. there's only 4 songs though :( shop vac, creepy doll, brave, and your tattoo
JoCo Cruise 2022
aimee mann is here to sing and play bass! she shows up a lot on tours, especially on joco cruises. he opened for her during her national tour in 2023! lots of crowd noise and chanting in this one; there are tons of inside jokes on joco cruises so most of it doesn't make any sense lol. songs: skullcrusher mountain, ikea, artificial heart, brave, square things (pretty rough tbh but it's a very hard one to sing trust me), shop vac, glasses, code monkey, sticking it to myself, big bad world one, still alive, mandelbrot set, re: your brains, i feel fantastic, all this time
Re-Recording "Code Monkey" for Slashdot (2010)
this is SO COOL!! i need to know what neat little devices he's using so i can get them too. i always love the ballad version of "code monkey" he does live sometimes, and this is a recorded version of that with some really neat electronic stuff and looping going on as well. can't believe he did that all in one take. when i record things it is my right as a music tech major to cut together each track from a million little pieces until it's perfect.
"Down Today" Music Video (2011)
forever in awe of the arrangement on this song. it's awesome. and it's really hard!! i've tried learning it! it's incredibly fun to sing though so i just play the chords. only bad part is when he turns away from the camera because you can't see his hands >:( come on man don't you know people are trying to transcribe tabs
"Midnight Train to Georgia" with Yale Whiffenpoofs (1993)
deep cut. from the yale whiffenpoofs cd from 1993 (when joco was part of the group), "take a whiff". i think this is one of the earliest recordings of him and it's really cool to hear how his voice has changed and improved. you can find more info on the album here, but he didn't have any more solos in other songs.
Monkey Shines (2008)
ridiculously deep cut which i will explain some other time. you would never guess in a million years who's in this. (hint: it's actual real neil gaiman)
"The Good Fight" Songs (2018-2019)
a playlist of most of the songs he did for "the good fight" in 2018-19, which is why it is all so very uhhh... 2018-19. they were supposed to sum up current events super quickly because the show was about the legal stuff going on in those current events. i think he hits some of his highest notes ever here? idk why he did all that but go off king i guess. contains the excellent lyric: "farewell to thee despisèd cartoon nazi frog"
Mr. Fancy Pants 9/13/23 Alexandria
never in a million years would i have thought he'd still be playing mr. fancy pants live. oh was i wrong. i love how over the years the intro has gotten longer and longer until now he summarizes the plot of the entire song and tells the story of its creation. the person who posted this calls it "particularly unhinged" and they are very correct.