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GamesPosts Tagged: ‘Jonathan Coulton’
Yesterday’s episode of TechStuff was all about using the Internet as a platform to deliver content that you might normally find on more traditional kinds of media like television or the radio. The Internet has created opportunities for established artists and ambitious newbies to reach an audience without relying on an agent, studio or other third party.
It’s eerie that America’s most famous space exploration disasters have anniversaries so close to one another. The three crew members of Apollo 1 were killed in a fire on the launch pad on on Jan. 27, 1967. The space shuttle Challenger was destroyed during liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986. And eight years ago today, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during reentry, 16 minutes from home. NASA holds a Day of Remembrance every January to honor all three; This year it was held on Jan. 27.
During my vacation earlier this year, I heard John Roderick of The Long Winters, backed by Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm, sing the amazing song, “The Commander Thinks Aloud,” which commemorates the Columbia disaster. Here it is.
If I had been remotely diligent in this blog during the month of December, you might have noticed my conspicuous absence last week. But since I haven’t been diligent at all … last week I was out of the country on vacation. On a boat full of nerds. At JoCo Cruise Crazy.
Gearing Up for Dragon*Con: Tips for Con Crud Prevention
by Tracy V. Wilson | August 27, 2010
Here’s a nifty number, unless you hate crowds: The projected attendance at Dragon*Con 2010 is 40,000 people. And here are some less nifty numbers, unless you you’re into studying common pathogens: You can wind up with vomiting, diarrhea and cramps if fewer than 10 norovirus particles make it into your body, and you can get a cold off of one infectious rhinovirus virion.
That kind of puts con crud into perspective.
Before we dive in, I thought you might like a quick update on how things stand in the office. As I write this, our newly-renovated studio is nearing completion. Or, to put it in Star Wars terms, it soon shall be fully operational. Chris and I — and I imagine the other podcasting teams — are looking forward to recording shows in a real studio instead of an office. Click to read about what we covered in this week’s episodes of TechStuff!
They Might Be Giants Crowdsources a Homestar Runner Film
by Tracy V. Wilson | March 6, 2010
Last night, I and many of the other nerds in the metro Atlanta area headed down to Variety Playhouse to see Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants. It was a cool evening made cooler by accidentally choosing to have dinner at the same restaurant as both JoCo and TMBG. And then it was made cooler still near the end of the show, when the band asked the audience to get out our cameras.
Jonathan Coulton, The Web and the Art of the Legal Bootleg
by Tracy V. Wilson | January 20, 2010
I didn’t go to many concerts as a kid. I grew up in a remote enough area that most of the performers I wanted to see didn’t tour near my hometown. But when I did have the chance to see a show, the basic process was always the same. Today, that process — and the way people remember the shows they attend — is changing.
Jonathan Coulton Talks Music, Technology and uPlaya.com
by Robert Lamb | October 28, 2009
It’s possible I went a little overboard in writing this week’s Discovery News piece about uPlaya.com, the Web site that lets musicians upload a track for quick evaluation by music-savvy algorithms. The whole thing deals with AI’s designed to judge a song’s hit potential, and it goes a little into algorithmic musical composition as well. So I thought, “Who better to give a musician’s perspective on the whole deal than former programmer and overall Internet music sensation Jonathan Coulton?”
This past Saturday, geeky music fans in Chicago had a choice. They Might Be Giants was playing at Vic Theatre, as part of a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of “Flood.” (Rolling Stone has a great track-by-track retrospective about the album, which is ironic since the magazine panned it back in 1990.) TMBG has been touring most of the U.S. (except for Atlanta) and playing “Flood” from beginning to end, and the Chicago stop was scheduled for Oct. 10.
On the same night, Jonathan Coulton was scheduled to play his own show, along with Paul and Storm, at Park West. JoCo noticed the gigs’ overlap back in August and, knowing how many geeky people are fans of some combination of TMBG, JoCo and Paul and Storm, joked that he might have to play “Flood,” too.
5 (More) Questions and One Demand for ASL Singer Stephen Torrence
by Tracy V. Wilson | September 2, 2009
In May of this year, Stephen Torrence and cohorts wound up performing his sign language interpretation of the song “First of May” onstage with Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm. (It’s a song about springtime, and, in case you missed yesterday’s post and aren’t a JoCo fan, it’s not safe for work.) Stephen describes the performance as “one of the most exciting experiences I’ve ever had.”
Stephen didn’t start out making videos with the idea of becoming e-famous, though. His first ASL video, for “Still Alive,” was the result of a project for an ASL class at Texas Tech. He decided to put the song on YouTube and, in his words, “It snowballed from there.”
When I got in touch with Stephen, he suggested a video interview, since sign language is such a visual medium. I recorded the interview using iChat and a MacBook Pro, and our intrepid video team has scissored out the best parts into two videos.
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