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Ask Jonathan Coulton About the Transformation From Code Monkey to Internet Star
Even though he created the definitive guide to enjoying yourself outside, Jonathan Coulton is best known for the programmer anthem Code Monkey, his Thing a Week project, and writing the theme song to Portal. In 2005 Coulton left his programming job to pursue his music career, and has since become a successful one man music label. Jonathan has agreed to answer your questions about robots, life, and internet stardom. Normal Slashdot interview rules apply.
Some current stars have made a career out of much less than what you have simply by signing a record deal with a label. Your song "Still Alive" from the Portal Soundtrack could easily have some filler phoned in around it for a 10 track album. Have you ever been approached by a major record label with a multi-million dollar signing? If not, what would be your response to such a proposal? Since you've already experienced success, would you admit to a point in your career when you would have been vulnerable to such an offer? Have you considered throwing your lot in with an independent record label? There are hundreds in Brooklyn, what stops you from joining one or forming your own to foster more artists like yourself?
My work here is dung.
You've released a number of studio albums, where are they recorded? Your own place? Do you have sound engineers or is it all DIY? If you have sound engineers, how do you reimburse them? How did you fund your setup if you use it yourself? Are things like an expensive mac hardware, isolation booths and Pro Tools a requirement to get decent sound quality or do you just wing it with whatever and some Sure microphones?
My work here is dung.
Who is Jonathan Coulton?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
In music theory, there are a lot of things that tempt developers to "algorithmize" it. Coming from a programming background, did you/do you experiment with that? What about making your own patches or tweaking audio effects? Do you still code at all or is all of your time devoted to music and writing now?
My work here is dung.
I have seen you perform live and have often thought you would make a fantastic musical guest for Saturday Night Live. Have you ever been approached by them and if you were, would you be interested?
I like his zombie song called "re: Your Brains".
You've done many parody songs like the recent song about Tom Cruise being crazy as a Scientologist. Have you faced any lawsuits because of subject matter or parody? How have they been resolved? Have you ever been forced to discontinue with something for fear or threat of litigation?
My work here is dung.
Will you write a song about me?
Where you promised cake for completing "Still Alive?" Did they deliver?
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
Han or Greedo?
So is it "maybe I'll stop feeling so bad" or "maybe I'll stop feeling so GLaD"?
You've released some (all?) of your music under the CC-BY-NC license. What are some of the coolest things you've seen done by other people with your songs?
Why does your website only say Error establishing a database connection? This seems an odd way to sell music. :-)
Slashdot 101 - Beef up your webserver prior to doing a interview
Love your music BTW.
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
While the contents of "Code Monkey" probably shouldn't be taken as a sort of moral compass or serious life guidance, I can guarantee you there are people reading this on Slashdot who feel like "boring manager Rob" is their boss. Any advice for a current code monkey, who maybe doesn't have any other skills or internet-sensation status to fall back on? How does one deal with the pressures?
I've been to a dozen of your shows and I'm always left wondering, why aren't you writing more songs about giant squid or other intelligent mollusks? If you're going to have one (and I don't count Octopus because it really isn't about... you know, an octopus) why not go all in? As everyone knows, the giant squid is the unofficial marine invertebrate mollusk of the current pro-nerd trend that has contributed so much to your popularity, and deserves more recognition in song form.
Haven't the giant squid suffered enough? Can't you find it in your heart to reach out an additional tentacle and maybe feature a super-intelligent robotic cuttlefish or a nautilus that has realized that it's species hasn't evolved in 25 million years?
Perhaps you'll be the one Mr. Coulton, to help America, and the world, put this sad chapter of not writing more songs about squid behind us.
Reposting my accidentally-anonymous question from earlier:
You've released some (all?) of your music under the CC-BY-NC license. What are some of the coolest things you've seen done by other people with your songs?
"Still Alive" is considered by many to possibly be, "the best video game song ever." Were you surprised by the acclaim that it has received, and did that put any additional pressure on you while creating a song for Portal 2?
Which I heard as the soundtrack to these youtube videos:
"The Future Soon"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDiDK_yBCw0
"Code Monkey"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA
The general truths about loss of freedom as a coder working for others brought some tears to my eyes, after having had to stop running our own company making educational software and work at IBM Research for a time (even if, as places go, that was a nice place to work). It's also easy to turn to junk food when you are under stress -- even as eating a lot of vegetables, fruits, and beans, and getting adequate vitamin D is what keeps us healthier and more productive in the long term (along with stuff like omega-3s and iodine). Did you have any deeper comment in mind about food issues when you wrote that? It really seems like a lot of young programmers don't eat well.
And The Future Soon really gets at some truths about the transhumanist movement. I've sent that link to at least one. I'm not sure if you meant it specifically about transhumanism though?
I guess everyone probably asks you where you get your ideas for those two, or what sorts of things you may have meant, and sometimes art is intentionally ambiguous, so I'm not saying you may want to answer to those questions. I applaud your decision to make that stuff available for free, rather than create more artificial scarcity.
So, I guess my question is, did you have any thoughts when you made those and put them under a free license that someone would make great videos to go along with them? Do you have any comments on the videos?
Also, I'd love it if you did a song in relation to my sig line, which in it' full form is "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity." Feel free to do what you want with that idea if it goes under a free license. :-)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I guess I'm "noone" then because I've not only heard of him but I have several of his albums and have seen him in concert (which I recommend wholeheartedly btw).
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
you are incorrect, of course.
Lots of people have heard of him. Just because you haven't doesn't mean nobody else has. Everyone that attends PAX certainly has.
Did you ever hook-up with that receptionist?
You people and your slight differences disgust me! - Prof. Farnsworth
What are your thoughts on Performing Rights Organizations? Do you collect royalties, and if so, how does it interact with Creative Commons licensing?
Josh Woodward
No mention of that one from the L4D series?
Laughed my ass off the first time I heard it. Definitely my favorite track from him.
Now that you've stooped to epic lows and have arrived at Slashdot, how did you arrive at our nerdy doorway? Do you find that you represent a generation of solitary coders, or are you actually a cool person disguised as a nerd? In other words, do you feel comfortable talking about how many cycles various move instructions take and whether the x86 instruction set is at once one of the universes's greatest achievements and also a momentous failure?
Lastly... have you ever met your southern doppelgänger?
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
He was interviewed on Planet Money (NPR) a few weeks back. "In 2010, Coulton's music brought in about $500,000 in revenue"
I think a few people know him.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/14/136279162/an-internet-rock-star-tells-all
You made Code Monkey several years ago; do you ever intend to revisit this unfortunate soul to see how he's developed in his career? By now he may have progressed from a code monkey to a legitimate software engineer.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
[Who?] are you and why should I care
Umm, let's see...
Even though he created the definitive guide to enjoying yourself outside, Jonathan Coulton is best known for the programmer anthem Code Monkey, his Thing a Week project, and writing the theme song to Portal. In 2005 Coulton left his programming job to pursue his music career, and has since become a successful one man music label.
Is that not clear? He's a guy, he used to be a programmer-geek type, and now he writes songs for a living instead.
Slashdot summary pretty good for once, read it.
...interested in more about Mr. Coulton, NPR did some pretty coverage on their Planet Money blog:
Internet Rock Start on NPR
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
I get the impression that although a lot of your songs might be viewed as being "nonsense songs" you could relate your own personal experiences to a lot of them. Do you really feel sorry for Tom Cruise and Betty and Me... where did your inspiration for that one come from?
Luke
What kind of dirty tip did you have to give to end up in my browser window?
I guess I'm happy to be a "noone" then. But then again I'm a nerd, and proud!
My six and nine year old daughters are huge fans (we do avoid a few songs, First of May for obvious reasons and Creepy Doll because it makes my six year old sob and scream in fear), they are hoping to meet him at PAX this year.
If you could change one thing about copyright/IP law in the USA, what would it be? If you can't think of only one thing, two or three would be fine. You license your music under a Creative Commons license, which is great as I support Creative Commons and other, similar licenses very much.
Second, optional question: Who are some of your favorite independent musicians (like you)?
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
If so, what kind and at what public venue should I drop it off?
Using the standard personality categories that psychologists say everyone can be divided into, would you say you're more of a Cave, a Chell, a GLaDOS or a Wheatley?
Jonathan, how does it feel to have you site slashdotted just minutes after your slashdot interview goes live? Does slashdot or Geeknet offer any sort of compensation to replace your poor little melted-to-slag web server?
TODO: Insert witty sig
It's my understanding that if I by music (in a store or online) that the musician only gets less than 10 cents out of every dollar. As a do it yourself act, what are your costs like in proportion to your revenues? I don't want to know how much you're making, I want to know the costs/revenues ratio. Say hello to Scarface for me.
You used to work as a code monkey. Now that you don't have that job anymore, do you ever write code in your free time, or are you happe never to use a compiler again?
:}
ps: Are there any plans for rock band 3 pro mode guitar for some of your existing songs (Please
What's your favorite sexual position? Also, how do you feel about fisting?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I was introduced to your music through Rock Band.
Do you plan to release more of your songs on Rock Band?
Will they have Pro Guitar support?
Thanks,
You can't take the sky from me
At some point in your childhood somebody, possibly a parent, should have informed you that you are not everyone.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Noone has ever heard of him.
I don't know who Noone is, but even my father-in-law's heard of him, man. You've probably been down in the basement with the shop vac and didn't hear.
I am not a crackpot.
Your year of "Thing a Week" resulted in many great songs. With classics like "RE: Your Brains" on week 26 and "Code Money" on #29, from the outside and in retrospect it seems obvious you'd already reached serious momentum halfway through. Was this apparent to yourself, and did you ever consider ending the experiment early based on that progress? I think it's interesting to consider schedule vs. goal oriented development as something applicable to a self-improvement context.
He's such a star, and yet I haven't ever heard of him.
Fixed that for you. It's true: people who don't sign with the labels don't get quite the same level of incessant, annoying publicity and radio coverage, so you're less likely to hear about them. Mind you, this is his second slashdot mention, so I guess he's doing all right. And as of today, you have heard of him, so there you go.
Seriously, though, Jonathon Coulton is awesome, and I'm pretty sure he's popular because even I've heard of him, which appears to be the real test. He most famously wrote the ending theme to Portal, and if you haven't beaten Portal, I believe I have grounds to revoke your geek card. That song is available as downloadable content for Rock Band, so yeah.
What are your top 4 favorite songs that you created?
Mine are:
1: Mandelbrot Set
2: Chiron Beta Prime
3: Todd the T1000
4: Blue sunny day
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
I mean, we all know how subjective taste is, and though I didn't much take to Still Alive, I was quite taken with a couple of others, Your Brains and Code Monkey. These two captured something about the corporate IT experience better than I have ever seen, from a perfect Gen X-y mentality, which it also seems to brilliantly parody.
The thing Your Brains did which I have never seen before was to couple the corporate manager killer mentality (eg. Office Space), with such an all around, nice, likable guy, and it is the combination of the two ("hypocrisy") which is the true killer.
My question is did you ever find the use of humor to sustain you in stone-walling their bs insufficient to carry you through? I mean, I have had this fail in other corporate fields, where I was normally terminated, but since I hit IT, so far, so good!
Also, great line/delivery with: "This job fulling in creative way, such a load of crap." I know that in truth it is some of the most creatively satisfying work ever, though ultimately canceled by the crucifixion factor. The thing is though, the Code Monkey just can't fathom that situation (ie. what ultimately kills it (pleasure) for him), which is his un-doing.
I keep thinking the Gen-X perspective will eventually pass, but it always seems to resurrect itself with such stuff as yours. Do you see any movements on the horizon showing promise to supplant it? And do you agree with my perception that you parody it to a degree, exaggerating its softness and corporate squeezed/coerced optimism and suppressed angst?
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
What do you Jonathan think about fanmade music videos?
Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE
As some one whose career has pretty closely paralleled the "popularization" of geek culture (and perhaps benefited from it), how do you feel on the subject?
There seems to be a strong divide amongst nerds about public acceptance of larger swaths of what are traditionally "outcast" culture, and not a little bit of backlash against it (a'la Patton Oswalt). As a nerd who can't help but benefit from the continuing popularization (and, perhaps bastardization) of nerd culture, what are your insights?
Thanks.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Are you worried that at some point you won't be able to support your family by writing (and performing) music? Do you have any plans for that situation?
When you're writing a song, how much research do you do into it it ensure accuracy? For example, in the Mandlebrot Set song (excellent analogy "Rorschach Test on fire", BTW), were you just playing the odds, or do you KNOW that it wasn't an unseasonably warm November evening for his birth? Thanks for all the great music.
Another favorite group of mine, They Might Be Giants (whom I think you like too), has been active for almost 30 years now. Do you envision continuing like you are for that long; do you think your style or content will change as you go?
Oh yeah, Johnny and I go way back.
Chuck Norris song requests anyone ?
PS: posting AC for fear of Chuck Norris
Your body of work seems to have a remarkable split personality. A lot of your songs are perfectly kid-friendly, while others are rather raunchy. ("It's the first of May, first of May...") Does that ever get you into trouble?
For example, do you ever look out into the audience at one of your posted adults-only shows and see kids? If so, what have you done? Have you ever had to decide on the spur of the moment to "redact" an R-rated song from your playlist at a show?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Manager is an idiot, boss is a fool. Secretary is hot, and pretends to be interested in what you have to say.
Honestly, I think she's a little creeped out by the way you hang around the desk.
Being delusional comes with the job, and you start to think she might be interested in you, but she's not.
Work is miserable. And it doesn't matter if you're the lowest technology guy on the totem, or the highest.
No matter what you do, you'll always be a codemonkey as long as you're here. Underpaid, never appreciated, and locked away in the closest cubicle to the printer closet. Count your blessings, they could have stuck you in the basement.
You keep on working because you find solace in this.
The code is a easy, and it's an escape from the reality of the job.
The worst part is, that the art of it is completely inconsequential.
Nobody wants art. You've been shot down every time you ever try to improve something, and now you save invention for your own time. It'll pay off one day, but you can't see the end in sight yet.
They want fast.
So you give them fast.
Then they decide they don't want that either, but you're good enough at what you do not to piss them off enough to fire you.
Then there's the new guy who hasn't been totally dehumanized yet; the one who feels the constant need to talk about standards, and clean code. The one that has aspirations of being appreciated. At the end of his third day of training, he tells you how your code is technically sound, but very ugly.
You can't help but laugh to yourself about it. You used to be him. It's so long ago now that you can barely remember yourself though. He's a code monkey too. Or he will be, soon enough.
You tell him to wait two years.
His code won't come fast enough for management either.
As for you... nobody realizes it yet, but you're on your way out.
And the only way out is to find a business guy out of college who will worship your technical ability, and do something new yourself. Soon, it'll be time to reclaim your soul from the soulless marketing company or devil of a corporate entity you sold it to all that time ago.
Soon, you'll be free.
In a decade, the company you've left won't change one iota.
If they survive that long.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
I guess my definition of "star" is a little off. Apparently a "star" is someone who most people have never heard of. I've never played Portal so I didn't hear the song. What would someone like Micheal Jackson (what I would consider a "star") be, a "supernova"? Mr. Coulton may have written the best song I've never heard, but calling him a "star" is a bit much.
He's a star, duh.
Hell I didn't know he made $500,000 my bad. Bringing in that kind of cheddar he is definately a star.
I don't have a basement. Tell me who your father-in-law is so I can better understand how out of touch with stardom I am.
Just listened to some of his music and I'm not surprised your children are big fans.
Since I am everyone what makes you think I would listen to them.
Being a code monkey what languages did you favor/code in...and i guess the big question would be "were you any good?", was music a greater passion or was the stresses of deadlines and problematic code the push that made you decide on pursuing (and on that note succeeding) on a music career?
From wikipedia:
Thing a Week One (2006)
Thing a Week Two (2006)
Thing a Week Three (2006)
Thing a Week Four (2006)
Artificial Heart (2011)
You went from writing a thing a week for 4 albums in a year to a 5 year break from new material. What happened?
"Long time listener, first time caller."
This question intentionally left blank.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
I suspect he'd secretly wish that the copyright-police were near-all-powerful and could crush anyone who illegally copied some work that was released under a less friendly license.
That way the demand for CC licensed music would go way up.