Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan William Coulton (born December 1, 1970), often called "JoCo" by fans, is an American folk/comedy singer-songwriter, known for his songs about geek culture and his use of the Internet to draw fans.

Among his most popular songs are "Code Monkey", "Re: Your Brains", "Still Alive", and "Want You Gone" (the last three being featured in games developed by Valve: Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, and Portal 2 respectively).

In the 1990s, Coulton was in a short-lived band, named SuperGroup, with television producer Eric Salat and best-selling author Darin Strauss.

A former computer programmer employed at Cluen, a New York City software company, and self-described geek, Coulton tended to write quirky, witty lyrics about science fiction and technology.

Most of Coulton's recordings feature his singing over guitar, bass, and drums; some also feature the various other instruments Coulton plays, including accordion, harmonica, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, zendrum and glockenspiel.

Coulton graduated in 1993 from Yale, where he was a member of The Spizzwinks and the Yale Whiffenpoofs.

Coulton's debut album, Smoking Monkey, was released in November 2003.

Several early podcasters discovered and made regular use of Coulton's music, notably Adam Curry of the Daily Source Code and The Wizards of Technology.

He was the Contributing Troubadour at Popular Science magazine, whose September 2005 issue was accompanied by a five-song set by Coulton called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms.

He was also the musical director for The Little Gray Book Lectures.

From September 16, 2005, to September 30, 2006, Coulton ran "Thing a Week", during which he recorded 52 musical pieces, one per week, in an effort to push his creative envelope via a "forced-march approach to writing and recording"; to prove to himself that he could produce creative output to a deadline; and to see whether a professional artist could use the Internet and distribution via Creative Commons to support himself.

Rare topical songs include 2005's "W's Duty", which samples President George W. Bush, and 2006's "Tom Cruise Crazy."

In April 2006, he lent his voice to one such podcast, The Spoilers, in which he and hosts Rick Yaeger and Bill Douthett provided a 2-hour fan commentary for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In a September 2006 interview, he said of the experiment, "In some parts of the country, I'd be making a decent living".

In 2006, Coulton began touring with comedy duo Paul and Storm.

Coulton initially opened the concerts, but as his popularity grew, he began headlining.

Coulton is also known for original pieces such as "Code Monkey", which was featured on Slashdot on April 23, 2006, and linked from the webcomic Penny Arcade.

It was also the theme song for an animated show on G4 called Code Monkeys.

Coulton accompanied John Hodgman on his "700 Hobo Names" promotional track for Hodgman's book The Areas of My Expertise as the guitarist (he was credited as "Jonathan William Coulton, the Colchester Kid").

Coulton also can be heard throughout the audiobook version of the same book, playing the theme song to the book, playing incidental music, and bantering with Hodgman, who reads the audio version of his work.

On April 25, 2006, Hodgman mentioned Coulton on The Daily Show: a Jonathan Coulton of Colchester, Connecticut, was Hodgman's pick to win an essay contest on overpowering Iraqi resistance to American invasion.

Coulton wrote and performed "the winning entry", a song about dropping snakes from airplanes.

Coulton appeared on the tour for Hodgman's second book, More Information Than You Require.

Coulton composed the title music for the show Mystery Diagnosis, and also has contributed other songs under "The Little Gray Book Lectures", a series of audio releases from John Hodgman.

Coulton had been working on his follow-up to the Thing a Week albums, tentatively titled The Aftermath.

He said the title was an umbrella term for unreleased tracks recorded after Thing a Week.

Coulton wrote and performed a song titled "Still Alive" for the ending credits of Valve's 2007 video game Portal, with vocals by Ellen McLain.

In a February 25, 2008, interview with This Week in Tech, he said that he made more money in 2007 than he did in his last year of working as a programmer, 40% of it from digital downloads and 40% from merchandise and performances.

On April 1, 2008, Harmonix made this track available as free downloadable content for the game Rock Band.

A version with Coulton's vocals was also included on the Orange Box Original Soundtrack, in addition to the one heard at the end of the game.

"Re: Your Brains" made an appearance as an easter egg in Left 4 Dead 2.

"Still Alive" has been called "the most influential game music".

A DVD & CD of a concert performed February 22, 2008, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, entitled Best. Concert. Ever. was released in 2009.

At the concert, Coulton played "Still Alive" along with guest "musicians" and geek/celebrities Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann and Veronica Belmont.

"The Aftermath" was then released in 2009.

In 2011, Coulton followed up the success of "Still Alive" with a new song at the end of Portal 2, "Want You Gone".

He also wrote the Portal-themed song "You Wouldn't Know" for Lego Dimensions.

He was the house musician for NPR weekly puzzle quiz show Ask Me Another from 2012 until its end in 2021.

His album Artificial Heart was the first to chart, eventually reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers and No. 125 in the Billboard 200.

Coulton's music tends to fit a folk rock style, with elements of pop and indie rock.