What do you want to ask JoCo? (was: What do you want to know?)

edited May 2008 in JoCo Fame
Is there anything you wanted to ask Jonathan?
If you were interviewing Jonathan, what questions would you ask?

This thread can work in a few ways:
  • Factual questions: Someone asks, someone else who knows answers
  • Questions only the man can answer: Someone asks, someone who knows where Jonathan answered the question references the interview, if there are none, *maybe* we ask the question to him (we don't want to send him hundreds of questions)
[Edited by Bry, in a fit of pique, to try and stop people from asking general questions in this thread.]
«13456

Comments

  • I know the story has been told quite a bit, but I'd love to know more about making the decision to leave his job and start making music full time. As someone who yearns to be able to make a living as a writer, but doesn't really have the guts to try, it is always helpful to hear an artist talk about such a thing.

    To go more along with the thread though... A question potentially someone else can answer: Does anyone know when JoCo started learning to play guitar and other instruments?
  • edited May 2008
    Did he know about XJ-9 being the name of the main character on My Life as a Teenage Robot, or is it a freak coincidence? The show pre-dates Todd the T-1000 by about 2 years, but I can't imagine JoCo having any reason to be watching Nick Jr yet.

    In general, I'd sit and pick his brain about comparing childhood reference memories, like Lady Aberlin.
  • I'd love to have a list of all the songs that were initially written for the Little Grey Book lectures. I suspect it's more than we realize, but it's not terribly well documented.
  • That's a fantastic idea, mtgordon! I only know the bits from the podcasts I downloaded online.
  • Are you working on any new songs at this time? If not, why not, and what bribe will it take to get you back in there writing?
  • "Would you rather be a rock or a pebble? Explain your choice."

    Ha. There's my contribution.
  • edited May 2008
    Mark: I was messing with the WayBack machine link found in the Bacteria thread, and I found this, which may or may not be the first listing of songs for LGB.

    ETA: It appears the first listing is 7/16/2003, which has Screwed, Mandlebrot and Future Soon listed.
  • LGB blows my mind, just cause of how abstract it is
  • I was "The Dog Wrangler" in the episode, ANIMALS:Friends or Foes?, for which Jon wrote "I Crush Everything."
    It was a brilliant series of shows. Truly missed.
  • What's JoCo's family like? Is it just him and his sister, or are there more siblings? Where does Dr. Coulton fall in the line-up? Enquiring minds want to know.
    * muckalarkuary Comment
    * Time1 day ago
    [snip]
    To go more along with the thread though... A question potentially someone else can answer: Does anyone know when JoCo started learning to play guitar and other instruments?
    @Mucklet: According to his bio, JC picked up guitar in high school:
    I played snare drum in the high school marching band, which was fun, but did not attract any girls (even when I played my tender snare drum arrangement of “You’ve Got a Friend”). I switched to guitar and wrote a series of sweet and sad songs about being a teenager and having a vague feeling of overwhelming sadness and sweetness. This worked only marginally better.
    That woulda totally worked on me. ;-) Instead, I dated a guy who played trombone in marching band. (I played the tall flag. <--dork)

    Like Mucklet, I too would like to know more about Dr. Coulton's musical background. In addition to the above, I seem to remember that he plays drums (but can't have them in his current apartment), accordion, keyboard, various stringed instruments (banjo, mandolin). Are there more? What was his emphasis at Yale? Voice? Composition? Something else?

    I guess these are all questions for our in-house JoCo expert, awryone. :-)
  • BryBry
    edited May 2008
    I seem to recall his music major being not in performance or composition but in Western music history... hm. Well, if we can trust various auto-translated versions of his interview in China Newsweek -- that's the first source I found to confirm.

    We do know what he has in his studio, of course, but I'm not sure what else he plays.
  • Yale only offers a B.A. in music, I think - I think their conservatory or music school or whatever is only for grad students. Not that that particularly clears things up, but I think an inference that can be made from that is that the education wouldn't be as specialized.
  • edited May 2008
    The Yale School of Music is definitely a graduate school. (I long to apply, but for several reasons, that ain't never gonna happen. More's the pity.) As for the undergraduate degree from the Yale Department of Music, the answer can be found in FAQ #2:
    2. Is the Yale College music major a degree in performance?
    Answer
    : No. The music major includes studies in composition, conducting, ethnomusicology, music history, music theory, and performance, which comprise a broad introduction to the art of music. There are many performance opportunities both in the classroom and as extracurricular activities.
    And now I know that much at least. I just assumed it was similar to UCLA. (Yes, I know about assuming.) Of course, this presumes that the music major hasn't changed over the last 15 or so years.

    ETA: @Shruti: UCLA also offers a BA in music rather than a BM, but one can still specialize. Mine's in music ed. (Dropped the voice specialization to focus on conducting.)

    [Edited to correct Yale School of Music link.]
  • God, Yale sounds fantastic. Like, that's what I would want out of a music major. Not practicing for five hours a day, not dealing with children, not expected to have previously garnered crazy composing skillz, just, you know, actually learning things about music as a whole. I wish IU had other music classes within the college of arts and sciences than stuff like "the history of rock and roll," about which I care exactly none. The presence of the music school screws over anyone who's not in it.

    Although I still begrudge such elitist private colleges for their lack of giving me money and/or admission, so I wouldn't actually ever go there even if I could get in...
  • edited May 2008
    Because of a bignormous anonymous gift, The Yale School if Music is free to all who are accepted. I am sad, because that happened when I was already about a year and a half into my accounting program. [sniff]

    ETA: I initially misunderstood Shruti's post.
  • edited May 2008
    Still, I wonder how JoCo learned guitar. I mean, he didn't have internet when he was a kid, and that's how I'm doing it. He also didn't have his own JoCo to inspire him.

    I also hear acoustic guitar is finally reaching its saturation point, and that it isn't sexy/sweet anymore. Gotta diversify.

    edit: also, JoCo is famous enough to be interviewed by China?
  • I long to study for a music degree too, but in Belgium it's not possible, because I've had too little formal training in music theory...
  • also, to add to my post above, how did JoCo learn to play all those chords with that weird thumb formation? Does he really have long thumbs? Is his guitar just smaller than mine? He claimed he had stubby fingers a few times. How does he have stubby fingers and yet do that thing he does?!! :-/
  • edited May 2008
    What's JoCo's family like? Is it just him and his sister, or are there more siblings? Where does Dr. Coulton fall in the line-up?
    He is the only child of his Mom and Dad. His mom remarried and had his half-sister Lacey, with whom he lived in Colchester.

    His father remarried and he has two half-siblings from that union. One male, one female, both younger than he (mid-twenties) I won't mention them by name, because I'm not sure what Jon's feeling is on this. I'll ask today, though.
    He is close to all three of his siblings. Lacey records with him often, back-up on Lady Aberlin, for example. And, his other sibs have been to shows that I've been to. His father and step-mom, too. And, his mom and step-dad. He actually wrote his Yale application essay about doing college tours with four parents. They were ALL involved. Yikes! Obviously, the essay worked. Also, his dad, and grandfather went to Yale...

    He definitely taught himself to play guitar and he wrote his first song on guitar in high school. His father played guitar, and I suspect he had been noodling on one since elementary school. There's even this great picture in his mom's house of Jon's dad holding a guitar and Jonathan as a baby, and his little baby fingers are reaching out for the guitar.
    However, he has been playing drums since fourth grade, when we all got to pick an instrument.

    What else?

    ET Address:
    also, to add to my post above, how did JoCo learn to play all those chords with that weird thumb formation? Does he really have long thumbs? Is his guitar just smaller than mine? He claimed he had stubby fingers a few times. How does he have stubby fingers and yet do that thing he does?!! :-/
    He does not have stubby fingers. He is self-effacing, to a fault. His hands are proportionate, if not a little slender. He taught himself, and that is why his playing style is unorthodox sometimes.
    To be clear, Jon could be the best at whatever he chooses to do. He is the brightest person I have ever met. He wrote software for a living, a good living, mind you, and NEVER took any schooling in that.


    ETA
    Other instruments? He just learns as he goes. If it looks cool, and he thinks it would be fun to learn...then consider it learned.
  • Thanks so much, awryone! His family sounds sorta like mine. :-) And you have confirmed (probably not for the first time) that he really is as awesome as we all imagine him to be. [sigh] ;-)
  • @awryone
    It must be really odd having an entire forum of people dicussing your friend that you have known for years.
  • I keep getting confused between awryone and askwho... Damn you beginning with the same letter...
  • There was a time I would have got confused between Jon Who and Ask Who....Damn you ending in the same word.
  • edited May 2008
    There was a time where I get confused. It's known as "constantly."
  • @kerrin
    It can get a liitle strange. But, mostly I am glad of it. His music is finally getting the attention I always knew it deserved.
    Plus, you guys are all our kind of people. Smart, geeky, music-lovers.
    I'm happy to be here.
  • There was a time I would have got confused between Jon Who and Ask Who....Damn you ending in the same word.
    Touch
  • There was a time I would have got confused between Jon Who and Ask Who
    Maybe they are related
  • edited May 2008
    There was this kid at my high school whose last name was Xu (it's Chinese and pronounced "shoe"), but for some reason, whenever he was called to the center desk for something, the secretary pronounced his last name "ex," like the letter X. (She also consistently butchered his first name, but that's beside the point.) He joked that he was related to Malcolm.

    Sorry, that's what that reminded me of. Carry on discussing more relevant things.
  • That's already been discussed I think.
  • I switched to guitar and wrote a series of sweet and sad songs about being a teenager and having a vague feeling of overwhelming sadness and sweetness.
    I want to know when he's going to record some of these songs.
  • I'm sure some girl has them in a shoe box somwhere as part of a mix tape
  • I'm sure some girl has them in a shoe box somwhere as part of a mix tape
    I do, too! About 25 songs from high school and early college. Even one titled "JD's Song" he wrote for me during a tough spell for me.
    But, alas, Jon has strictly forbidden their release.
  • Awww. Could he not remember if your eyes are green or blue?

    (Man, that's my second Elton John reference in two days. I'm feeling a little uncomfortable with my heterosexuality~)
  • But, alas, Jon has strictly forbidden their release.
    What can we do to convince him otherwise?
  • Get a ninja monkey to painlessly incapacitate him and take the songs. Works every time.
  • I said convince that would be doing it against his will. I also mentally removed getting lots of people to continuously e-mail him about it as we should do it in the nicest way. It would just get deleted or sent a set reply by scarface after the first load of e-mails about it anyway.
  • There are great "Ninja Monkeys" on the Cartoon Network show "Chop Socky Chooks", but I can't find a good image of them yet. Hang on :p
  • What can we do to convince him otherwise?
    He thinks they suck. So, there's nothing to be done.
    I do not think they suck. A few of them deserve an update from the 4-track recording, but otherwise stand up as good stuff.
    Perhaps part of a future box set?
  • Give us the songs Dr. Coulton!

    Give us the songs Dr. Coulton!
  • So the best strategy would be to encourage him to redo and de-suckify the ones that suck the least. Possibly the best way to do that would be to get him to do Things a Week until he's completely drained of inspiration.

    That, or disturbingly flexible ninja monkeys.
  • I still want to know what the song 'Overhead' means to him.
  • BryBry
    edited May 2008
    Simple, get him to commit to two more years of Thing a Week -- by about week 70, he'll be crawling back for any inspiration he can lay his hands on.
    (ETA: Argh, ninja'd -- haha...)

    In other news, I'm convinced that every Internet superstar who wants a devoted fanbase needs his own awryone. Josh, you're the man.
    (ETA: If I hadn't stopped to type that, I would've beaten Angelastic to the punch.)
  • Seriously. There is no meaning to it, other than he likes puzzles.
    Our friend Adam Sachs, blogger of note, coined the phrase, "Once in a while, I go out of my way, to kill you, a little."
    Jon thought it was great, and wrote a song around it. Like a challenge. That's it.
  • I still say it's about air travel :p
  • Then add it as a theme with Skymall and, uh, Podsafe Christmas Song (Adam Curry's helicopter). ;)
  • I at one point considered adding Podsafe Christmas Song and Skullcrusher Mountain together as a theme of "Golden Locations". :p
  • In other news, I'm convinced that every Internet superstar who wants a devoted fanbase needs his own awryone. Josh, you're the man.
    Someone (probably not JoCo, because that would lose the whole metaphorical thing) should write a love song which says, 'You're the awryone to my JoCo.'

    And then maybe, 'You're the Paul to my Storm' and 'You're the Paul and Storm to my JoCo' and then, just to really confuse people, 'You're the awryone to my Paul and Storm.'
  • I thought it was about overhead as in a businesses overheads (the ongoing operating costs of running a business) except his personal ones. Like he mentions "You buy some folding bed". And i thought killing it would be because you want to reduce your overheads as no one likes to pay for things that don't directly 'generate profit'. I think it fits better than air travel anyway.
  • At the very least, this thread has inspired two more Song of the Day entries for me :D
Sign In or Register to comment.