Jonathan Coulton, a Day in the Life

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."

Video Interviews

There was a two-part interview with Coulton which was actually fairly interesting. Part 1 [themerlinshow.com]. Part 2 [themerlinshow.com].

100 messages a day?

No one in the history of time has ever received that many emails a day.

100 a day?

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."
 
And now you've gone and slashdotted the poor fellow. Here come his 15 minutes and there goes all his prexisting fan base.

Stick it to the man

All on one page, no ads:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13audie nce-t.html?ei=5090&en=1d5b4728dc04dc8d&ex=13367088 00&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print [nytimes.com]

Coulton Rocks :D

I must say, I did email Mr. Coulton after purchasing a number of his songs one day. I just fealt like explaining my quirky selection and justifying my buy. The next day (I sent the email late at night) I received a nice and well thought out email in response.

We really should support artists like Jonathan. He's talented, his songs are interesting (bills, bills, bills or creepy doll for instance) and funny (such as code monkey), and best of all when you buy them, he gets every cent. (well, most of it. Paypal takes 2.5% :P but that's a far cry from the premiums that record labels extort from their artists). Also, you can listen to all of his songs before you buy them. The whole thing. Not to mention quite a few of his songs are free downloads.

Check out http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ [jonathancoulton.com] today! :)

/advertisement ;)

Excellent article

Refreshing. FTA:

Indeed, running a Web store has allowed Coulton and other artists to experiment with intriguing innovations in flexible pricing. Remarkably, Coulton offers most of his music free on his site; when fans buy his songs, it is because they want to give him money.

I had never heard of him but I am definitely going to take a listen. What's remarkable to me is that people find the idea that people will pay for value ... remarkable. The whole article is peppered with great examples of how Coulton embraces people using his work -- he even says it is a way to get him exposure. Most excellent.

Re:Excellent article

I think there are a lot of musicians that have this mindset and that it is not necessarily unique

I'd second that. As a musician/composer myself, I have found that the advent of the internet (combined with my growing a little older and hopefully more mature) has changed my goals as an artist. In 1989, all I wanted to do was get my band signed to record deal so we could open for Guns N' Roses on their next world tour. Now? I'd just like to license enough songs to filmmakers/producers or sell tracks to people who dig cool/interesting/unique music and make a decent middle class living (as I do now in my day job).

I used to think I wanted to make millions of dollars with my music. Now, while I wouldn't turn down the millions, I'd feel like I hit the lottery if I could just provide a decent living for my family by exclusively selling/licensing music. It's no longer wildly optimistic for this to happen with the internet. It makes it possible for an unknown to become known. It also makes it possible for people to contact others in the industry that they would not otherwise have been able to get in touch with. I've made a number of good contacts in television and independent movie forums that would've been next to impossible 10-15 years ago, all because I took my old piece of crap Compaq and made it a server to host my own website [mikeiscool.net].

Hey, it hasn't happened yet, I still need the "straight job" to help pay the bills, but it builds every day. Hopefully, I'll garner enough interest to be able to quit and concentrate on making music and being a father. With guys like John Coulton leading the way, there's hope for guys like me.

Sick feedback loop

I guess if you think every little thought passing through your head is worth publishing to the world it might get a little weird when the world responds in an equally sycophantic manner.

 

Losing His Segment

John has to know that with popularity will come the pressures of fanmail. Do not answer all of it. Pick three a day, MAX, that are worthy of response, and archive/backup the rest (mainly for legal reasons).

You have to delegate your time when you're a public figure. Don't waste it by talking to people who idolize you. At the very best it will make them STILL LOVE YOU. At the very worst, it could break the illusion of your stardom and cause them to lose interest (and you lose your fan) -- or even cause them to get a wrong vibe from you that could lead to some serious personal safety ramifications.

Sometimes stars need to be up in the sky. At night.

Re:Losing His Segment

Speaking from personal experience in both directions, I'd have to disagree.

I'm certainly no Jonathan Coulton in terms of unusual Internet celebrity, but I do semi-regularly receive what might be termed "fan mail" from people in certain circles, I've been approached at conventions by people who dig my work, I have been recognized on the street, and I once got to autograph a particular body part. I'm also famous enough that a stranger started a Wikipedia article on me, though not famous enough to escape said article being deleted for non-notability. Taking all that with the massive grain of salt you should take with any Internet celebrity's assertions of their own Internet celebrity status, read on..

Since I really am grateful to hear from people who like something or other I've done, it just wouldn't feel right to leave these things unanswered. You think I rock? Thanks for thinking so! You think I suck? Thanks for letting me know why! Any input from outside is valuable in some way, especially on the Internet where there's such a massive glut of material and a post about the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything can get lost among a set of photos of one's cats. Feedback is the main payback for most of what I do (thanks, Slashdot mods!) and what drives much of the Internet's independenty-produced free content.

You talk about "breaking the illusion" of one's stardom.. personally, I love breaking whatever illusions come about from my peculiar brand of noteriety. A good friend of mine named Mark Lyons once said "the higher a pedestal someone has you up on, the easier it is to knock you down from it." I don't crave pedestals at all, and I'd much rather promote an honest image of myself to the world rather than letting people paint some People Magazine bullshit with my face on it. I really don't have any interest in the amount of work and deception it would take me to live up to some glamourized image loosely based on me, and take every opportunity to throw whatever monkeywrenches I can into that sort of goings-on. Have illusions about me, good or bad? I would like to smash them!

I'm never going to control whether people like or dislike me or my work, but so long as people base their judgments of me on something that actually has to do with me, they've come by their opinion honestly. And what's more, I've made some of my best friends this way. And this isn't the MySpace/Livejournal/Web2.0 definition of "friendship" which basically means "I clicked on your name once" but the real-world definition about the privilege of having great people involved in one's life.

Looking at this from the other perspective, I've had the pleasure of corresponding with people I've been a fan of for whatever reason. I don't expect personal replies back because of the realities of the situation, but that makes the few that do stand out so much more from the rest, and simply strengthens my support of whatever made me write them in the first place. I've even made some good friends this way as well.

Wow, twice in one day

First there is the doubt about iTMS being a video distributor and now an artist is finding out that the Internet will actually let you interact with your fans. Wonder why the **AA never thought of that? Who knows, this 'intarweb thingy' might just catch on yet.

In other news, politicians are finding out that the Internet will allow their fans _AND_ foes to interact with them... whether they participate or not.

The Internet is changing the world, faster than we may realize. It's good to see that at least artists are figuring it out. I can only hope that the **AA start to catch on soon.

Ze Frank

Coulton also collaborated with Ze Frank [zefrank.com] on one of his last shows, singing a number of Ze's songs while Ze provides facial expressionary commentary.

Just a damn good guy overall

Jonathan demonstrates that rare quality of just being a hell of a guy. I've made a habit of manning his merchandise table at all of his shows at Milkboy in Ardmore, PA, and he always takes the time to chill with me and whoever I've brought along for a little while after the show. I'm really glad to see him getting the fame he deserves. Music needs more nice fellas.

Rude?

Answering that many emails a day is a labor of love and decency. You often can't get people you work with to answer more than a few emails a day and they're paid to do that. Think about that...

A thing a week

JoCo got lucky with A thing a week and it really helped the fanbase, each week people would go back to get a new song, while they aren't all great they are all worth listening to at least once. So as his skills grew and he tried different styles the followers also changed and grew in musical tastes he tried.

I wish the guy much luck but I wish he'd do a Thing a week again if only to see how he continues to evolve with easily defined timelines.

Good for him - he deserves it.

Coulton is a very talented performer, very supportive of his fans, and a nice person over-all. He is an excellent example of how you don't need to submit yourself to the slavery of the big record companies by showing that the independent musician route is, indeed, a viable alternative. His support for Creative Commons licensing has only helped to further demonstrate the power of less restrictions.

If each Slashdot member were to purchase just one of his songs from his website (they're 99 cents), it would send a clear message to all musicians out there that you don't need the RIAA.

Jonathan deserves all of the good press he gets and I can't think of a better independent musician to lead the way.

And his music is great, too...

Coulton's success isn't just a "right place at the right time" sort of thing, either... his music is actually very good. The lyrics are witty and original, the progressions are more than just I-IV-V-I, and his tracks are extremely well-produced. My favorites include "Bacteria" (which uses a KFC training tape as the source material), "That Spells DNA," "Ikea," "Shop Vac," "Creepy Doll," "Under the Pines," many of which are geeky and most of which are funny. But he very often churns out more serious stuff: "When You Go," "Drinking With You," a cover of Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat," and "I'm Your Moon," a song sung by Charon to Pluto reassuring the newly-christened dwarf planet that it's still the most important thing in Charon's life. (Okay, that one is geeky, too, but just you try listening to it without getting a little lump in your throat.)

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.

Responding to your Fans

Responding to all your fans when the write is a rare talent. I know a few authors, published and Internet, who do exactly that -- and admire them all. After all, every performer needs an audience as much as every audience needs a performer!

Ouch.

So let me get this straight...

The guy is having trouble keeping up with the influx of mail and responds to everyone, so you slashdot his mailbox?

Harsh.

Poor bastard

He's already having trouble keeping up, and he gets slashdotted.

The Best of the Bunch

I have to say that the best of Coulton's songs has to be First of May. I first heard Ikea and was interested. Once I heard First of May, I was sold. That is by far the best song in his catalog:
"...bring your favorite lady, or at least your favorite lay."
For the uninitiated: Mp3 and more information here [jonathancoulton.com].

This Sums It Up;

...slowly building new fans online, playing live occasionally, making a solid living but never a crazy-rich one.

1. I'm old enough to remember when that's exactly what punk rock was and most not-pop music genres still are.

2. I happen to interact with a number of musicians and a few actors who had what most people would describe as "celebrity" scale careers. There are a few that can _only_ talk about themselves with everything they do pretty much is about them. They can be no fun if you don't pay attention to them exclusively. Putting two in the same room is just like high-school drama. What's worse is they have children. No, 24-7 nanny care doesn't mitigate the damage. That said, there are many who are decent creative people that happen to act/perform for a living. This guy sounds like he fits the latter.

Today's lesson: there's definitely a group of celebrities that actively pursue the drama and trivial hoopla that's so popular.

Brevity is the soul of wit

"[Coulton]'s replies have grown more and more terse

Lame.

"to the point where he's now feeling guilty about being rude."

Jerk.

Interesting

I've never heard of him before, but now I'll have to check it out.
This is the "model" I've wanted to take, using the Internet for distribution and exposure, and certainly I'd give some songs under the Creative Commons - not all songs are hit material, even from the very best musicians.
If nothing else, this is one thing the music consumer is benefiting from in the digital age: he/she can now pick and choose the specific songs he/she wants to pay for, and not get stuck with the traditional "album filler" that was prevalent in the past. (While I'm not sure the bands themselves viewed these "lesser" tunes as album filler, the general public almost certainly always has. Part of that is due, I'm sure, to the artist mindset of everything they create being "their baby" to some extent.)
I just wonder how long before the RIAA finds some silly reason for a trumped up charge to hit Coulton and his contemporary peers with, seeing how they're not getting a piece of the action here.

The more things change...

I remember a time when an up-and-coming author named Terry Pratchett [wikipedia.org] would frequently respond to posts on alt.fan.pratchett, and even posted his email address there. (I believe I had a question about the speed of light on Discworld.) But that was before "the September that never ended", as well as before repeated major international bestsellers. Nowadays, even with the post-spam/post-web reduction in Usenet's popularity, I doubt if Pterry even tries to keep up with that newsgroup, and I suspect that his personal email address is only shared with close friends. Not to take anything away from this songwriter-I've-never-heard-of, but this is, I think, an old and oft-repeated story, and one that could probably be told about thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people that have come to celebrity in the last couple of decades.

Re:Who?

His most popular song of late is called Code Monkey [youtube.com]

Personally, I like re: Your Brains [youtube.com] better and the WoW version of Code Monkey [youtube.com] as well.

Re:Who?

I remember hearing about Johnathan Coulton from various geek podcasts a few years back. His songs were particularly popular with the geek circle because 1) his songs were all under creative commons, and 2) people related to his subject material - geeky things.

I pleasantly suprised to see his popularity grow. I suppose exposure in /., Penny Arcade and Digg really helped on top of the geek podcast inner circles.

Coulton is One of Us!

Because frankly anything relating to Jonathan Coulton counts as "news for nerds". He is the quintessential geek bard, with song topics ranging from Mandelbrot sets (he actually turns formulae into song lyrics) to genetics to having a T-1000 as a roommate. His love ballad "Laptop Like You" honest-to-Gawd makes me cry, and I'm a stone cold mo'fo'! I just happen to really love my laptop. :-)