Jonathan Coulton

Yep, it’s true, I’ll be opening for They Might Be Giants for a few east coast shows in March. Apparently all you have to do is cover one of their albums in its entirety at one of your own shows, and then they ask you to open for them. Very excited about it. I think I’ll probably start with “Opening Band” and end with “The Captain’s Wife’s Lament.”

NOTE: None of these are the family shows they’re doing, they always do those without an opening act.

Birmingham, AL – The WorkPlay Theater
Thursday March 4 at 7 PM
Opening for They Might Be Giants
Tickets: bit.ly/tmbg-birmingham

Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
Friday March 5 at 8:30 PM
Opening for They Might Be Giants
Tickets: bit.ly/tmbgatlanta

Nashville, TN – Exit/In
Sunday March 7 at 8 PM
Opening for They Might Be Giants
Tickets: bit.ly/tmbgnashflood

Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
Tuesday March 9 at 9 PM
Opening for They Might Be Giants
Tickets: bit.ly/tmbg-asheville

Charlotte, NC – The Visulite Theater
Wednesday March 10 at 9 PM
Opening for They Might Be Giants
Tickets: bit.ly/tmbg-charlotte

Richmond, VA – The National
Thursday March 11 at 8 PM
Opening for They Might Be Giants
Tickets: bit.ly/tmbg-richmond

And then, back to your regularly scheduled JoCo programming…

Every now and then I’ll get an angry email from someone who is offended by I Hate California, usually someone who is from California, and who hasn’t ever heard of the “unreliable narrator” concept. I always patiently explain that the song is actually about a girl, and if they are from LA I explain it to them very slowly. <--joke

On the contrary, I quite enjoy California. This last weekend trip to San Francisco was even better than expected - both shows were great, and Saturday night featured this incredible Mr. Fancy Pants battle with the astounding Kid Beyond:

But it was particularly nice to have a couple of days to just hang out in San Francisco. And you know, when you’re super-famous like me, “hanging out” means kicking it with other super-famous people, famous-style. If you follow me on Twitter you will have already seen me dropping names and photos of myself with my fellow superstars, but please allow me to do so again. Observe:

BAM!

KAPOW!

On top is Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame, one of the sweetest and most awesomest television personalities I have had the pleasure of knowing. He showed us around the set at Mythbusters and those jars in front of us are filled with various kinds of animal poo, so that’s pretty great. You may recognize comedy song duo Paul and Storm in that second one, I see them a lot actually, meh. But there is also Chris Hardwick of the inimitable Hard n Phirm, and of course HOLY CRAP IT’S WEIRD AL YANKOVIC!

Most of the time I try to play it cool when it comes to these sorts of encounters (see photo 2), but I was a complete dork for much of the weekend (see photo 1 – thumbs up for animal poo!). I am still surprised when people think that I am dork-out-worthy, but listen: if you meet me and can’t think of anything to say, and suddenly feel awkward and uncomfortable inside your own buzzing idiot head, I know exactly what you’re going through.

Next big trip is to Dallas, Austin, and Houston on Feb 4, 5, and 6. You have some big shoes to fill, Texas. I mean, do you even HAVE famous people?

1.
Oh man you guys, I forgot how exciting it is to play in a market for the first time. I don’t know why it took me so long to get to Florida, but I’m glad I did. I was sorry to leave, especially since it was just getting warm – I had to wear my winter coat at Disneyworld! (Don’t let anybody tell you it isn’t hard to be a rock star, because it is.)

2.
And not to overlook the kind people of Atlanta who actually bought all available tickets at the Variety Playhouse. That’s 750 people, which is nuts. That’s like Seattle numbers. Well done Atlanta, here is a cookie: O

3.
Twitter followers and obsessive types will already know this, but the tickets have finally gone on sale for Houston February 6th at Zilkha Hall – BUY THEM HERE. There were various problems that kept this from happening until way too close to the show – I’m hoping it’s not going to be a complete disaster. If it is, the 15-20 of us will still have fun, just, I will have to sleep in a box that night.

Welcome back everyone! Here we are in the shiny new future world of 2010, and doesn’t it feel good? As long as you haven’t been laid off or blown up by terrorists I mean?

As you know, I am a fan of the future. That is why I will continue to tour there. Look for my flying car at the following places and times:

Orlando, FL – The Social
Thursday January 14 at 7 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/3Teu0M
Note: There is no seating at this show, so bring your feet. Avoid service charges by buying at the box office M/W/F, or pay only $1 service charge when you buy at Park Avenue CDs.

St. Petersburg, FL – Nova 535
Friday January 15 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/2Zr956

Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
Saturday January 16 at 8:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/1Wfbbo
Note: Service charge only $2.25 when you buy through the venue’s ticket club, or $1 for credit at the box office, or $0 for cash at the box office.

San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
Friday January 22 at 9 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/3uE2HO
Note: Service charge only $1 at the box office.

San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
Saturday January 23 at 9 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/585J7N
Note: Service charge only $1 at the box office.

Dallas, TX – Grenada Theater
Thursday February 4 at 7 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/5xUH5E

Austin, TX – Antone’s
Friday February 5 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/mhGdL

Houston, TX – Zilkha Hall
Saturday February 6 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: on sale soon

Scottsdale, AZ – Martini Ranch
Thursday February 18 at 7:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/83BHEu
Note: Limited GA seating

San Diego, CA – Anthology
Friday February 19 at 7:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/8gx5KW

Los Angeles, CA – Largo
Saturday February 20 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: Call box office at 310-855-0350

Los Angeles, CA – Largo
Sunday February 21 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: Call box office at 310-855-0350

Vancouver, BC – Rio Theater
Thursday February 25 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/6v7It8

Seattle, WA – Moore Theater
Friday February 26 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/6q1UIw

Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater
Saturday February 27 at 8 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/6sQSkR

Alexandria, VA – The Birchmere
Friday March 12 at 7:30 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/4TgXNf

Boston, MA – PAX East
Somewhere there in 3/26-3/28
Details TBA

bit.ly/4QUIVa

New York, NY – Highline Ballroom
Friday April 2 at 7 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/83dtU0

New York, NY – Highline Ballroom
Saturday April 3 at 7 PM
With Paul and Storm
Tickets: bit.ly/7ocm6D

That’s all for now. Happy new year to everyone, and see you soon…

I am not dead, I am just resting. Sometimes I don’t have anything to say, or at least anything that’s longer than 140 characters. My life has been a bit chaotic recently because earlier this year we moved into this new house, and over the last few months there’s been a lot of construction – drywall, tiles, table saws, plaster dust everywhere. I have no closet or real bedroom. Since April my wardrobe has consisted of whatever was in the one box of clothes that I unpacked and put next to the bed, which is in the room that is supposed to be the living room, but right now is the fake bedroom and soon will be my fake studio. All my gear is still mostly in boxes, though some of it is piled and tangled up on a desk that is covered with a plastic sheet. So that’s been nice. Not really the most inspiring environment for a sensitive creative soul like myself. Those of you who have lived through construction will perhaps understand: the chaos seeps into everything, so that every aspect of my life feels MAKESHIFT. Also the children repeatedly need to be fed and bathed and dressed and soothed, and they are frequently covered in plaster dust, or drinking paint, or eating drywall screws.

But I want to tell you a few things. Recent (and not so recent) shows have all been wonderful. And though I didn’t say anything about it here, the UK trip was pretty fantastic too. The last show of the year was last week in Brooklyn, and I look back now on yet another amazing stretch of touring, generously supported by all you people who continue to surprise me by showing up at all. I have made it through another year pretending to be a rock star. Thank you.

Thanks also for participating in my poll about the cruise idea. The investigation continues, but I can tell you that based on all of your very helpful feedback I’m now looking at options that are not as long and expensive. This means it probably won’t be this Summer, and it probably won’t be out of Seattle, so you can all resume planning your Summer vacations without me. I would really like to do it, I just need to find the right situation. I’ll keep you all posted and give you plenty of advanced warning.

Already it’s time to start talking about touring plans for 2010, and if you look over there on the shows page you’ll see it starts in mid January with Orlando, St. Petersburg, Atlanta, and then continues with San Francisco, and then Dallas, Austin, (Houston?), and LA and Seattle and Portland and yet another run at Vancouver. I’ll write a proper mass email soon, and of course you can subscribe to the mailing list or the RSS feed so that you are certain to hear about all the details.

Some new songs would be nice, don’t you think? It’s been a long dry spell for me and I’m not sure exactly why. No doubt part of it is the seeping chaos situation described above, but I’m sure it’s more complicated than that. I look back at some of the Thing a Week songs that happened in spite of whatever inconvenient circumstances I was dealing with at the time, and many of them are much better than they have any right to be. A few of them are great. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that I’ll ever get into that headspace again, that desperate, wide-open, WTF state of mind that leads to something like “Re: Your Brains,” which quite honestly I can no longer remember writing. The more distant those acts of creation become, the more they seem like accidents or miracles, things that happened to somebody else. It’s daunting sometimes. I worry that I can’t compete with me. And I know the way through it is to write, or as Merlin says, to make the clackity noise. If there’s one thing I learned from Thing a Week it’s that, but my lizard brain continues to resist the solution. And I can come up with any number of excuses, but they aren’t real; I haven’t been writing because I haven’t been writing. The why of it isn’t nearly as important as the physical act of sitting down and getting to work.

Whoops, gotta go, Robocop 2 is on!