Last night my sister Lali and I went to the Roy Zimmerman house concert at the lovely home of Freethought Society president Margaret Downey. I have to give Margaret a thousand thanks for putting on such a wonderful event. The accomodations were great and Roy was fantastic. He played mostly songs from his new album Real American, many of which I was hearing for the first time. He certainly hasn't lost his touch. I think that songs like The Orange County Rolling Acres Senior Center Cannabis Club and Buddy, Can You Spare a Trillion Dollars? will be fan favorites for years to come. And of course he played several of his classics; his final encore was Defenders of Marriage, which he nailed. If you're unfamiliar with the song, here it is
After the show, we got a chance to sit around and have a conversation with Roy about politics, his music, freethinkers, and other topics. I again must thank Margaret for being such a gracious host. It was really nice. And we even got to pose with Roy for a couple of pictures.
As you can see, we're all wearing our towels (if you remember from yesterday's post, it was Towel Day). Roy was quite tickled to finally meet a couple of the people involved the collaboration video covering his song Creation Science 101 (see Roy sing it here)
Our part begins at around 1:12 and we sing the line "which means they must have been incestuous". Roy appreciated the joke, but I must confess that I am not in fact incestuous--although that will come as a shock to all of my family members that I've hit on. (For those of you who've never seen Roy play live before, he will often introduce one of his songs with the joke "I'm not gay, although that will come as a shock to several members of the audience who I've been hitting on.")
Anyway, the concert was great and if you ever get a chance to see Roy Zimmerman perform, do it!
Last night I went to see Roy Zimmerman perform and tonight I will be going again with my sister Lali. The shows are sponsored by the Freethought Society. Full report to follow tomorrow.
Last Wednesday (April 2nd), Jonathan Coulton played a concert in Philadelphia for the very first time. Or perhaps I should say that he played a concert in Philadelphia proper for the very first time. He was joined once again by Paul and Storm for a show at the World Cafe Live. This a larger venue than the last few times I saw him. Jen hooked me up with a ticket (her ticket--she couldn't make it--thanks Jen!) at a table near the front and center with some friends Caroline, Arthur, Jeanne, Kathy that was absolutely fantastic. This may be the best show I've been to yet. Unlike past shows where I brought props related to JoCo songs, I decided to honor Paul and Storm at this show: I brought panties (you'll have to check out the video to see what I'm talking about.)
Speaking of Paul and Storm, they played (with full cathedral echo) their very fun song Nun Fight. I'm sorry that I wasn't recording at the time.
But I was able to get some footage of the concert. Below is the playlist of the songs I recorded. It's not the complete set they played, but it's a decent chunk of it.
Opening Band
Watch the panties fly.
Nugget Man
An homage to a great inventor indeed.
IDEAL jingle
If you're not a 30+er from the Philly area, you won't get this one.
The Future Soon
Hey popular girls! Remember to treat the nerds nicely or this is what they'll do to you.
I'm Your Moon
Love song to Pluto from its moon Charon.
Flickr
This is the first time I've heard this song with the proper accompanying video. It's AOK!
Code Monkey
Needs no introduction.
Soft Rocked By Me
Jonathan sings about what it's like to be a total pussy.
Creepy Doll
Paul and Storm really rock on the back up during this song.
I Feel Fantastic
The song is fantastic.
Mr. Fancy Pants
Watch a grown man have fun with a $1000+ toy.
Dance Soterios Johnson, Dance (partial)
Unfortunately, due to my camera running out of memory and an emergency refill, I was only able to get the last verse. Luckily (for JoCo), what was lost was mostly screw-ups since this song was a special request that he hadn't rehearsed or played in like forever. Still, I felt that the performance was important enough that it needed to be posted anyway.
Still Alive
I added some "TRON" FX to this song written for the video game Portal. JoCo couldn't help laughing during the song because most of the audience members were holding up their cell phones (lit up). I guess cell phones are the "lighters" of the twenty first century.
Skullcrusher Mountain
What's with all the screaming?
Re: Your Brains
Even someone like me who couldn't sing to save his life can be a zombie for this audience sing-along.
First Of May
The JoCo classic about the coming of Spring (adult themes).
Sweet Caroline
Since I recorded this from the audience, I must apologize for the loud, off-key singing from the crowd. Oh wait, that was me ... (Note to self: sign up for singing lessons)
Here's the video (total playing time 58:52)Enjoy!
UPDATE: The Voice of Free Planet X has a podcast with some highlights from the show as well as interviews.
In the past — way back in the mid-’90s, say — artists had only occasional contact with their fans. If a musician was feeling friendly, he might greet a few audience members at the bar after a show. Then the Internet swept in. Now fans think nothing of sending an e-mail message to their favorite singer — and they actually expect a personal reply. This is not merely an illusion of intimacy. Performing artists these days, particularly new or struggling musicians, are increasingly eager, even desperate, to master the new social rules of Internet fame. They know many young fans aren’t hearing about bands from MTV or magazines anymore; fame can come instead through viral word-of-mouth, when a friend forwards a Web-site address, swaps an MP3, e-mails a link to a fan blog or posts a cellphone concert video on YouTube.
So musicians dive into the fray — posting confessional notes on their blogs, reading their fans’ comments and carefully replying. They check their personal pages on MySpace, that virtual metropolis where unknown bands and comedians and writers can achieve global renown in a matter of days, if not hours, carried along by rolling cascades of popularity. Band members often post a daily MySpace “bulletin” — a memo to their audience explaining what they’re doing right at that moment — and then spend hours more approving “friend requests” from teenagers who want to be put on the artist’s sprawling list of online colleagues. (Indeed, the arms race for “friends” is so intense that some artists illicitly employ software robots that generate hundreds of fake online comrades, artificially boosting their numbers.)
A-list stars are made by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns; the B-listers need to build their network from the ground up. This has kind of always been the case. What the internet has done is change the nature of the network. This new breed of stars is able to, at once, get more personal with their fans while expanding the size and geographical distribution of that fan base.
Of course, the featured artist in the article was none other than Jonathan Coulton. Click on the above picture to see Jonathan Coulton explain Code Monkey (drawing by Len)
I've blogged about Jonathan before (being a fan) so here it goes again (that reference will become clear soon enough). JoCo has managed to build up such a grassroots network, and much of its success is not due to anything he did or planned himself.
Coulton’s fans are also his promotion department, an army of thousands who proselytize for his work worldwide. More than 50 fans have created music videos using his music and posted them on YouTube; at a recent gig, half of the audience members I spoke to had originally come across his music via one of these fan-made videos. When he performs, he upends the traditional logic of touring. Normally, a new Brooklyn-based artist like him would trek around the Northeast in grim circles, visiting and revisiting cities like Boston and New York and Chicago in order to slowly build an audience — playing for 3 people the first time, then 10, then (if he got lucky) 50. But Coulton realized he could simply poll his existing online audience members, find out where they lived and stage a tactical strike on any town with more than 100 fans, the point at which he’d be likely to make $1,000 for a concert. It is a flash-mob approach to touring: he parachutes into out-of-the-way towns like Ardmore, Pa., where he recently played to a sold-out club of 140.
Let me just say that I'm one of those fans that Clive spoke to at the Ardmore concert, and indeed my first exposure to JoCo was through a Spiff video. (Although when I went to JoCo's website for the first time and started listening to all the music, I realized that I had heard Mandelbrot Set before but didn't know who sang it.) I really like the idea that many of these fan created videos have sort of become the "default official videos" for those songs--cool!
Speaking of cool homemade videos, the article also talks about the band Ok Go which is actually signed to a major record label (along with all the marketing machinery that comes with it) but became in instant internet sensation by employing some of these same tactics.
This confluence of forces has produced a curious inflection point: for rock musicians, being a bit of a nerd now helps you become successful. When I spoke with Damian Kulash, the lead singer for the band OK Go, he discoursed like a professor on the six-degrees-of-separation theory, talking at one point about “rhizomatic networks.” (You can Google it.) Kulash has put his networking expertise to good use: last year, OK Go displayed a canny understanding of online dynamics when it posted on YouTube a low-budget homemade video that showed the band members dancing on treadmills to their song “Here It Goes Again.” The video quickly became one of the site’s all-time biggest hits. It led to the band’s live treadmill performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, which in turn led to a Grammy Award for best video.
Just in case you haven't seen the video yet (perhaps you've been living in a cave but somehow managed to find this insignificant blog), I've embedded it below. Quick note: Damian Kulash is the tall skinny guy with the red pants. The one you see lip-syncing the lead vocals is the band's bass player (and childhood friend of Kulash) Tim. Not only do these guys rock, they have a sense of humor. Awesome!
I just found out that Bobby "Boris" Pickett, the singer of The Monster Mash, has died. I'm sad not only because I have a soft spot for composers of goofy songs, but because Pickett was an ardent environmentalist. A couple of years ago, Pickett reworked his old classic with new lyrics to benefit Defenders of Wildlife. Take a listen to Monster Slash.
Len from Jawbone Radio has begun the second phase of Monster by Mail. This time the theme is Fictional Movie Monsters. You come up with the name for a horror/sci-fi flick, and he'll draw you a monster from that movie (and mail it to you). This opens up avenues that didn't exist with the single word description.
The other difference this time around is that the "making of" video is no longer free--it's ten dollars extra. I can't blame him for raising the price, though. Puting together the videos takes time. Plus, the first phase of the project (150 monsters) sold out in a week, and this phase only exists by popular demand. UPDATE #1: I may have misspoken. It seems the YouTube videos are still free like the last time; the $10 gets you a hard copy of the "making of" video. This should be a higher quality than the flash video from YouTube. I'm not sure whether it's just this or if the hard copy includes a non-time-lapse version of the video. I'll let you know when I get mine in the mail.
UPDATE #2: I just got my high quality mp4 version of the YouTube video. It looks really good in full screen mode!
Anyhoo, here's the one I ordered: Attack of the Probing Mantis from Mars (Click on the picture to see the "making of" video.)
Len from Jawbone Radio has been busy with his latest project Monster by Mail. To raise money for his new baby he set out to draw 150 monsters on demand.
For a limited time only, I am offering original hand-drawn monster sketches, delivered right to your doorstep. Not only that, but you'll be able to watch your monster be drawn and colored through the magic of VIDEO!
Simply write one word to describe your monster - greasy, stinky or melancholy, for example. If you write more than one word, I will only use the first one, so choose carefully! Click the Paypal button and your word will be automagically sent to me. When I get your word, I'll draw a monster based on the word, slap a stamp and your address on the card and you'll have AN ORIGINAL PIECE OF ART IN YOUR MAILBOX within a few days! You'll also be able to watch a video of the creation of your monster.
I've been having a ball watching the videos as they come out. I've even been turned on to some musical artists I hadn't heard of before (ex--The Ropes). Luckily I got in early because he sold out quickly.
Thanks for making Monsters By Mail such a huge success, Thanks to your support, we met our goal in UNDER ONE WEEK. However, due to the overwhelming response, I have closed up shop to meet the demand. But not to worry. Monsters By Mail will reopen soon and I'll continue doing original monster art for all! Huzzah!
It would be awesome if he brings it back, because I noticed a dearth of bugs! How can there not be more bugs?!? Or perhaps a monster that some people would actually find scary, like "PeanutAllergy." Anyway, for now he's not accepting any more submissions but he's only about half way through the monster orders, so there's still plenty more videos to come.
Here's a few of my favorites (click on the picture to see it being drawn).
Thermonuclear
Latina
Gothy
And last but not least, the drawing I comissioned for my sister's birthday: Happy Birthday, Titi!
On Friday I went to see Jonathan Coulton with Paul and Storm at the Milkboy Cafe for the second time. I think his star is on the cusp of exploding and it may not be long before you can't see him up close in a small venue like this. If you'll recall from the last time I went to one his shows, I brought along a poster of the Mandelbrot Set. For some reason I thought I had to do something similar for this show. So I made a doll depicting the story in the song Under The Pines. (That's right, I'm one of those weirdos; give me funny looks and tell your daughters to stay away from me.)
My choice couldn't have been better. If you look at the picture below from Friday's concert, you'll see that Paul (from Paul and Storm) is wearing a tee-shirt with Bigfoot on it.
It turns out he wasn't the only one wearing a Bigfoot tee that night. To explain what inspired my doll, here's Jonathan's description of Under The Pines.
Not many people know this, but when Leonard Nimoy did the Bigfoot episode of "In Search Of..." he and the creature hooked up one night and had this crazy fling. These kinds of things never end well, but Bigfoot in particular is a bit of a cad anyway (being mostly wild animal). As you might imagine, Leonard Nimoy came out of the experience somewhat worse for wear.
And that is why my Leonard Nimoy doll is also wearing a Bigfoot tee-shirt. And it worked! Jonathan Coulton had never played the song live before (never even rehearsed it), but he was so impressed with my Spock doll (or maybe he was just really scared of me--I can't be sure which), that he played it on stage. You can hear it as well as other songs from the Jonathan Coulton/Paul and Storm show at Jen's podcast A Thousand Times No. Enjoy!
This guy is amazing! I have trouble making mellifluous fart noises with my armpit; I don't know he can be so melodic with just his hands. Here's his own explanation for the video.
this is my tribute to the california guitar trio! their version of bohemian rhapsody is second only to queen's! i was recently asked by these three genius's to play this song live at one of their concerts. i made this not to audition. but, to show them i could play their version! they have allowed me to post it so you could also see it too! remember, i play these songs straight through with no editing! so, 5 minutes 30 seconds of squeezing. very hard to do! thank you cgt! see you next time you're in michigan!
