How I Found JoCo

BrobeCagre

Well, I just figured, as a new member of this forum, I'd share how I got into Jonathan Coulton. A few years ago, late at night, I stumbled upon a show called Code Monkeys, (which I quite enjoy, even now), and I really liked the theme, Code Monkey. Shortly after that, I bought Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms, and just felt the need for more. Now I'm the proud owner of the Thing a Week albums, Smoking Monkey, and Artificial Heart. I found JoCopedia recently, looking for tabs, (as if I could actually play like him), and noticed this forum, and I said to myself "I need to join."

dantes

I discovered the show Code Monkeys because of Jonathan's intro theme, but it's a great show nonetheless. Glad you found about about JoCo through it.

librarian

My gateway drug was The Sound Of Young America podcast. It was so long ago I don't even remember what songs JoCo played. Maybe Shop Vac and You Ruined Everything? Re: Your Brains? I was hooked INSTANTLY. 

BrettGlass

I don't know if I found JoCo so much as his work was trying to find me. First place I recall hearing one of his songs (Skullcrusher Mountain) was at OVFF. It was played by Tony Fabris (accompanist for Marian Call, Michele Dockery/Vixy, Seanan McGuire), who was somewhat of an evangelist for JoCo in the early days of his career. The circles at OVFF are jams, so I wound up playing bass on it, reading the chords from the guitar. Later began to hear JoCo on Dr. Demento (just before radio stations stopped streaming his show) and receive links to videos based on his music. Discovered that I was one degree of separation away from JoCo (and also Paul and Storm) through something like a dozen acquaintances and friends, most of them musicians (e.g. Eric Schwartz and Luke Sienkowski). Finally met all three of them the first time they played The Soiled Dove in Denver.

Angelastic

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but I discovered Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms through the MASSIVE database of maths and science songs. Thing a Week was in progress, or at least it was by the time I decided to check out what else this guy had done, so I subscribed to the podcast without really looking at the blog (it was years before I discovered there was a video to go with Flickr.) Some time later I went back to the website and downloaded the Things I'd missed and everything else that was free. And now look at me; going on a Caribbean cruise once a year and paying a premium to play an online game I don't even understand against a nemesis I'll never know. CURSE YOU, FREE MUSIC!

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised more people didn't discover him through Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms. Popular Science a pretty popular magazine, right? I mean it even says Popular in the title. And Science. SCIENCE!

skyen

Still Alive. 'nuff said.

elliomeg

Rather damaging to any geek cred I have, but I found him through old media: the article in the New York Times back in 2007

Thalandor46

I was a CS major in college.  One of my friends somehow came across Code Monkey and shared it with us.  We all had a good laugh.  Sometime later, Re: Your Brains came into my awareness via similar means.  From there I considered myself a casual JoCo fan.  Still Alive was of course another highlight.  I think it was when Skullcrusher Mountain was released on Rock Band that I realized I wasn't terribly familiar with much of his vast library.  So I hit the internet and came across the spiffworld videos, and subsequently came across such a video for The Captain's Wife's Lament, introducing me to Paul and Storm.  From there, I grew into a huge fan.

As to how I found JCCC, I saw JoCoPaSto in person for the first time at DragonCon last summer.  At both the amazing podcast and the fantastic show, there was mention of JCCC2.  While I've been a long time fan of their songs, I honestly had not paid much attention to their other going ons.  So I looked into this amazing sounding cruise, and long story short, I am now a certified Pre-Monkey!

BrettGlass

I'll be on the cruise as well. At the first JoCo/Paul and Storm show I attended, I saw that they'd collected a very unique and interesting tribe of followers. (This motivated me and my wife to volunteer to do merch when they returned to Denver later. By working the merchandise table, we had a chance to meet a bunch of them.) Those contacts, in turn, got me interested in spending some more time with the same crowd (and some other folks whom I'd only "met" via the Net).

It's actually a bit awkward for me that the gathering is on a boat rather than at a hotel or resort on land.... I have a business that requires me to stay in touch with the office to handle technical problems, make sales proposals, etc. And my wife won't be able to take the cruise, because it's not scheduled for a holiday or long weekend and she is taking tough college classes that are offered but once a year. She just can't be away in the middle of the semester. But I'm training my employees to handle every possible contingency in my absence, and will be in touch with home via the Net during the trip.

averageJon

I heard an interview with him on Morning Edition back in ought-six (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6603466).

It was right after Sunday Puzzle, and I was making breakfast.  I wasn't really listening at first.  Me played "Code Monkey", and I thought it was cute, but it didn't make much of an impression.  Then they played a clip of "Shop Vac", and I thought it was really catchy.  

Then they started talking about "You ruined everything".  My son was a few months old at the time, and we were gone through all the stuff that inspired it.  When he played it I was hooked. 

   

bethbny

I heard RE: Your Brains on a knitting podcast (Cast On) a few years ago. Who knew!

librarian

A knitting podcast?? I think you win the prize (so far) for the least likely way to discover JoCo. 

BrobeCagre

Wow. It's really amazing how so many different people discovered his music in so many different ways. I love his witty lyrics and whimsical topics. As a bassist, the music isn't exciting for me to play, but I still enjoy it thoroughly. 

BrettGlass

The original bass lines on most JoCo tracks are very simple, but it's possible to liven them up. In this MIDI arrangement of Tom Cruise Crazy, for example, the bass takes over the riff just before the chorus. It also does a syncopated "Charleston" rhythm in the middle of the chorus. (I discovered that this went surprisingly well with the New Orleans jazz style I used.) Fun!

BrobeCagre

Ooh. I like that. I wouldn't have thought to use a Charleston rhythm with that song. I'll have to experiment with some of his other songs.

BrettGlass

BTW, The Charleston rhythm isn't used for the whole song; just two bars of the chorus. (It's traditional, in swing, to jump in and out of it.) By the way, if you can't play WMA files, I've also posted it in MIDI.

ehcool

i found him after i listen to RE:your brains in the l4d2 jukebox found code monkey and from then on i was hooked to his music planing on buying the everything bundle on the store for xmas

weirdojace

I found him when he was doing Thing a Week, just after he posted Baby Got Back.

harpo787

He found me.  Actually, Paul found me.  I work with Holland America.  A few weeks before JCCC1, I somehow learned that it was happening.  I was unaware of what it meant, and thus unmoved by this info.  When I got home I looked it up online and found that Wil Wheaton and a few MST3K folk would be on board and so I made a point to bring in a few DVDs for some autographs.

While standing outside doing my HAL job, I was approached by some guy with a beard, claiming he was there for JCCC and that he needed to get on board with all his boxes to set up the greeting area for JCCC.  That was Paul.  So I pulled a string or three and managed to get him and his boxes of swag on board.  He gave me a JCCC badge for the effort.  So I attended JCCC1 vicariously!  Or something like that..

...oh and I had not seen Wil Wheaton with a beard and would never have recognized the guy, but he caught a glimpse of his image on the cover of Stand By Me and did the funniest double take I ever saw.  Got the autograph (and Kevin Murphy, too).

Angelastic

I keep seeing comments about Wil Wheaton with a beard, as if that's a new thing. I don't think I've ever seen him without one since first found out he existed about three years ago. He has a beard in his w00tstock icon and twitter icon too. Paul, however, I first saw with a beard at the sign-in desk for the cruise, and I had to observe for a while to make sure it was really him.

srdownie

I probably accidentally Googled "shop vac" some time in Naught Eight. At the time, I also might have been cleaning up a workbench or crying in the upstairs bedroom.

Kay

Spiff's youtube videos, and I will be eternally grateful to him for that!

mtgordon

I'm pretty sure I first heard about him on Slashdot many years ago.

harpo787

Angelastic:  no Wesley Crusher experiences for you?  This is the image many of us were initiated with: http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/e/e6/WesleyCrusher2366.jpg  Some even go as far back as this: http://media.hamptonroads.com/cache/files/images/blogs/74701.jpg

St_Trousers

I've mentioned this else where. 

Initially a friend of mine who is in the advertising business and works with IT and media showed me this Shop Vac video as a great example of kinetic typography (great concept and there are some amazing other ones out there). Well I am really into music and the tune is, whilst not one of his best in my opinion, snappy enough that I was interested. I looked him up on spotify but I believe at the time there weren't too many songs on there or the search function was it's usual banjoed self, so didn't go much further at that point. 

Then a year or so later, I came across RE Your brains in several different ways almost like something was saying look at this. Well a quick search around tipped my back to the Shop Vac vid again, the connection was made, I went back to spotify and this time found all the TOWs plus a few other tracks and Robert is as they say your Mother's Sister's live in lover.

Never looked back since and he's not often of the spotify when we are in the house, I must have raised him literally dollars in revenue by now.

It's just a shame I missed him in his ascendency and so much of the early cool stuff, he really is right up my beanstalk.

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skyen

You haven't missed a thing, it's all there on the Internet.

Seriously, go look up some of his earlier performances online, then contrast 'em with his semi-snarky, almost quasi-confident self on stage nowadays. It's fun

BrobeCagre

I find it really entertaining to see videos where his fans appear to know his songs better than he does. 
Like here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfo7CPFVLVY&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLAAB6CE49E3657AB9

Oboewan

I think I mentioned this is some other thread but it was WAAAY back when he opened for Paul and Storm at either Jammin Java or the Birchmere.......

Scoti_Garbidis

I am a huge RockBand fan and still play quite often on Xbox 360.  Last year I was looking through the Rockband Network songs and saw a song called "Re: Your Brains."  I checked out the demo and decided it was worth a try and purchased the song.  I immediately enjoyed playing the song and my sons also enjoyed singing along.  I decided to check out this Jonathan Coulton guy's other work and was hooked immediately.  I have nearly all of his songs in my RockBand song list including his most recent RockBand song "The Stache".   I went to go see him open for TMBG and he was great. I am looking forward to a future tour where Jonathan headlines so I can see him perform a longer setlist.