Jonathan Coulton, a Day in the Life 68
The New York Times is running a look behind the scenes with singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, creator the somewhat popular "Thing a week" songs on his blog. Coulton describes a bit of how he got started and what daily life is like maintaining relations with his fans. "Along the way, he discovered a fact that many small-scale recording artists are coming to terms with these days: his fans do not want merely to buy his music. They want to be his friend. And that means they want to interact with him all day long online. They pore over his blog entries, commenting with sympathy and support every time he recounts the difficulty of writing a song. They send e-mail messages, dozens a day, ranging from simple mash notes of the "you rock!" variety to starkly emotional letters, including one by a man who described singing one of Coulton's love songs to his 6-month-old infant during her heart surgery. Coulton responds to every letter, though as the e-mail volume has grown to as many as 100 messages a day, his replies have grown more and more terse, to the point where he's now feeling guilty about being rude."
Re:Who? (Score:4, Informative)
Personally, I like re: Your Brains [youtube.com] better and the WoW version of Code Monkey [youtube.com] as well.
Stick it to the man (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13audi
And his music is great, too... (Score:4, Informative)
The article doesn't mention (I guess it's a little off-topic) that Coulton also serves as Popular Science's "Contributing Troubadour" and is good friends with John Hodgman.
Re:And his music is great, too... (Score:3, Informative)
I would add to your list of favorites:
Skullcrusher Mountain- a mad scientist sings to his captive.
The Future Soon- A junior high kid imagines his future as a cyborg
I Crush Everything- A giant squid that hates himself because he destroys the things he loves
Re: Your Brains- Imagine your most annoying coworker coming back as a zombie.
And of course the link: Where you can listen to them all. [jonathancoulton.com]