PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Ok, so, here comes Jonathan Coulton
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Welcome Mr. Coulton!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): The Concert last night was awesome! Wish you guys could have been here!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): PHrag (snakesbodyguard): Question: Will be there Still Alive song from portal on Guitar Hero: World Tour as DLC? Please, add it...
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): PHrag (snakesbodyguard): Question: Will be there Still Alive song from portal on Guitar Hero: World Tour as DLC? Please, add it...
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Sorry about the delay guys -- we have a French laptop her out Frence and JoCo is taking it all in stride as he figures out the foreign keybard. ^^
JoCo (incolas): You may be surprised to hear that I'm not the boss of Guitar Hero. I'd be thrilled for something like that, but i'm not sure if anything like that is in the works. I can tell you though that skullcrusher mountain is coming out in rockband...
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): (NSE)Cmdr.Sonic (sonicjon): Question: Is it funny listening to your song every time it plays on G4's Codemonkey?
JoCo (incolas): It's always incredibly weird to hear my music played anywhere other than in my own head. And when it's on television or radio it is kind of crazy.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): [vG]Mike_Mullen (mikevg3): Whats was the name of your first song?
JoCo (incolas): The first song I ever wrote was called Skylight (I think) and it was a very sad song about being sad. Something about foggy gray days and sadness. Very sad. I think also a lot of big words and pretentious jazz chords.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): ShadowJ (sh4dowj): Question: How did you find moving from one career to another and was it always an ambition to become a musician?
JoCo (incolas): It was always part of the plan I think, I used to talk about moving to nyc and becoming a rock star. Just forgot to get around to it for several years, and got a decent day job by mistake that turned into a career. And making the switch was pretty scary, it took me a long time to get to a place where I even felt comfortable talking about it as a possibility, once I was on the software track.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Niall (niallr): Question: How did you end up working with Valve?
JoCo (incolas): Kim Swift who was on the Portal team came to see me play a show in Seattle and afterwards came up to say hi. She asked if I'd be interested in writing music for Valve and I jumped at the chance. Always have been a huge fan of their games. And then I went to visit their offices and they showed me Portal, and it seemed like exactly the right thing for us to collaborate on.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): (NSE)Cmdr.Sonic (sonicjon): Question: Do you think your songs appeal to gamers everywhere?
JoCo (incolas): No.
JoCo (incolas): Just kidding.
JoCo (incolas): I think the language barrier is certainly an issue, but it's true that I get a lot of fan mail from people out of the us. I'm actually doing a tour of th eUK and ireland this October, and I hope that will later lead to more european trips...
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): [Xfire] Gamma (gammasts): Question: Do you like cake or pie more?
JoCo (incolas): I think the best pie always beats the best cake. If there is ice cream.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Dark Chili (darkchili): is there a reason for all the monkeys in your songs? does this tie into an evolution theory or are monkeys just cute or something?
JoCo (incolas): I have no idea. I think maybe monkey is my goto funny word or something, because often when my brain is flailing around looking for an idea, it lands on monkeys. But yeah, monkeys are kind of awesome don't you think? Like little hairy cute humans.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): (NSE)Cmdr.Sonic (sonicjon): Question: Have you seen the World of Warcraft Rendition of your Code Monkeys song?
JoCo (incolas): Indeed, I know Spiff well and have met him several times. I'm a big fan of his work, and he really makes some great stuff. He always seems to find extra angles and plot lines in the videos he does. And technically it's sort of amazing what he's able to accomplish using wow as the medium. I keep telling him he should write a book.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Dark Chili (darkchili): will digital media superceede traditional disc media or will the discs still exist cause people have the warm fuzzy feeling of actually having a physical product in their hands?
JoCo (incolas): I think the disc as music delivery device will not last too much longer. We're still stuck with physical things for a while (at least until the whole metaverse/singularity future craziness thing happens), so you know, you'll still have to "get" your music using a thing, like an ipod or a phone or a computer. Someday it will all go directly into our brains. Hooray!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats):
†Ð®€ÅM‹›ÄÑG€L† (kingdag): Did you ever imagine code monkey to get as famous as it is today?
JoCo (incolas): Not really, it was always a surprise to me which songs became hits and which didn't. Sometimes I'd release something and be sure it was going to scorch the internet with it's awesomeness, and then nobody would care. Other times I'd feel just terrible about what I was releasing, and then it would end up on slashdot.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Riobux (lostchances): Question: What are your future projects?
JoCo (incolas): I'm currently working on a live concert dvd, that I hope will be out by the end of the year. And I'm still writing songs (slowly) and releasing them as I do. Eventually I guess there will be enough to put together in some kind of album (or something) and "release" it. But who knows, still waiting for the next big project thingie, a larger umbrella under which to put a bunch of songs.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Dark Chili (darkchili): JoCo, I am an aspiring songwriter, how would I go to become successful and have people listen to my music and have crazy fans dressed as zombie monkeys?
JoCo (incolas): A lot of people ask me that as if I have some kind of secret knowledge about being a successful musician. Honestly I think a lot of it is luck. But you can certainly give yourself the best chance by making your music as available as possible. Creative Commons is a great way to declare your desire for people to pass your music around, and the internet is certainly your friend in this area. Be really slutty with your music, put it everywhere you can, and hopefully the people who like it will find it and pass it along to other people who like it. Obscurity is your greatest enemy. Get a million fans, and THEN worry about how you're going to make a million dollars.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): [Xfire] Gamma (gammasts): Question: What is your favorite instrument to play? to write for? to listen to?
JoCo (incolas): No question, i'm best on acoustic guitar. I do almost all my writing there. And I'm always a sucker for acoustic instruments, especially finger picky ones. Bluegrass is great, really complicated musically, virtuosic, but also a TON of heart and emotion. It's like jazz that makes you cry.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Kurosaki,Ichigo (naruto20): Question: Will we see a return to still alive in the next portal?
JoCo (incolas): I don't know, I actually haven't been in too much contact with them about the next version. I'd be happy to do something if there's room for it, but it's a little daunting. The first one ended up working so well, it's hard to imagine how you could do it again and have it not be kind of a let down.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Ð???e?[BFE] (mariobob): Question: What was it like meeting and playing with Ze Frank? How did that start? and have you seen him since "The Show"?
JoCo (incolas): Ze is great. I met him at a conference a few years ago, and I was really inspired by how he had sort of reconfigured the universe so he could just mess around on the internet and that was his job. Crazy. So then when he asked me to do versions of his songs on the show i was thrilled. And we had so much fun that day, just sitting in his living room goofing off and calling it work.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): We have many users asking about trips to Europe (Spain, UK, France) -- so, to condense, when will you be performing in Europe?
JoCo (incolas): I'll be in the UK and Ireland in the last week of October this year. Probably in 2009 I'll come back for a more extended trip, if everything goes well. Those of you who are in countries and waiting for me to come there, please go and sign up for a demand at Eventful.com so I know you're there. It really does help me plan a trip, know where I can find an audience, and convince club owners that this guy they've never heard of can actually sell tickets.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Riobux (lostchances): Question: What is your personal opinion of how PAX has worked out for you?
JoCo (incolas): PAX is a great deal of fun. It's one of the most fan-centric conventions I've ever been at, and it's really just a big party by and for geeks And it's been amazing for me to play to audiences here, because it really feels like ground zero for coulton fandom. I could go out on stage and take a nap for an hour and people would still tell me I put on a great show. And there's something really amazing about seeing all these fans in one place, singing along, shuffling like zombies, etc. I never feel more like a rockstar than I do here.