nothing about the iPhone

posted by jack at 17:20 CET in / music

I'm going to resist the urge to blog about the iPhone by instead blogging about a man named Jonathan Coulton, who could just as well be me in an alternate universe. Jonathan has a burgeoning career as an internet troubadour going on, with an impressive online song catalog, most of which turned up during a one-year period from September 2005 to September 2006, in which time he recorded a song a week, every week. Some people sure do have spare time!

I just heard about JoCo (as his fans call him) from my old friend and collaborator Paul Hagstrom about a week ago, and I have to tell you that the nuthole household has been revolutionized by the power of JoCo's music. Finally, music that both my children, my wife, and I all think is entertaining, catchy, and rewarding to listen to! JoCo's songs wander across all sorts of genres, and many of them are obvious homages to one well-known group or another; most of them are also very, very funny. Some of my personal faves:

• Code Monkey
• Tom Cruise Crazy
• Soft Rocked By Me
• Curl
• Chiron Beta Prime
• Shop Vac
• The Town Crotch
• Skullcrusher Mountain
• Ikea
• Millionaire Girlfriend
• First of May
• A Laptop Like You

And those are just the best 50% or so of what I've listened to SO FAR! I'm sure by the time I've listened to all the songs, I'll have over 30 "faves". Oh well.

So, why do I think that JoCo is actually an alternate version of myself? For one thing, similar dashing good looks:

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separated at birth?

Then, there are the startling similarities in our musical histories. A little background info is in order. Consider this narrative, which I did not write but which pretty well describes a chunk of my teen years:

I played quad drums in the high school marching band, which was fun, but did not attract any girls (even when I played my tender quad arrangement of "Flight of the Bumblebee"). 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.

Now consider this direct quote from Jonathan's bio page:

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.

The discerning reader may notice a number of similarities between these two life stories.

In any case, I hereby declare Jonathon Coulton an honorary Nuthole Boltmaster (the first ever!) and send the rest of you off on your way to pay tribute.

OK, obligatory bloggage about yesterday's big product announcement. I'll just say that iWant an iPhone. That's all I have to say about that for now.