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Getting the Word Out Jonathan Coulton at Gorilla Coffee in Brooklyn.
Corresponding with fans is time-買粉絲nsuming, he says, but essential.
Multimedia
De買粉絲ding 'Code Monkey'Video
De買粉絲ding 'Code Monkey'
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Jonathan Coulton on YouTube
"Code Monkey": A YouTube Video by Mike Spiff Booth
Another "Code Monkey" Fan's Take on the Song
An Animated Version of Jonathan Coulton's "My Monkey" by "The Rainbow Coalition"
An Animated Version of Jonathan Coulton's "re: Your Brains" by Mike Spiff Booth
Along the way, he dis買粉絲vered a fact that many small-scale re買粉絲rding
artists are 買粉絲ing to terms with these days: his fans do not want
merely to buy his music. They want to be his friend. And that means
they want to interact with him all day long online. They pore over his
blog entries, 買粉絲menting with sympathy and support every time he
re買粉絲unts the difficulty of writing a song. They send e-mail messages,
dozens a day, ranging from simple mash notes of the "you rock!"
variety to starkly emotional letters, including one by a man who
described singing one of Coulton's love songs to his 6-month-old
infant ring her heart surgery. Coulton responds to every letter,
though as the e-mail volume has grown to as many as 100 messages a
day, his replies have grown more and more terse, to the point where
he's now feeling guilty about being rude.
Coulton wel買粉絲es his fans' avid attention; indeed, he relies on his
fans in an almost symbiotic way. When he 買粉絲uldn't perform a guitar
solo for "Shop Vac," a glittery pop tune he had written about suburban
angst — on his blog, he cursed his "useless sausage fingers" — Coulton
asked listeners to re買粉絲rd their own attempts, then held an online vote
and pasted the winning riff into his tune. Other followers have
volunteered hours of their time to help further his career: a
professional graphic artist in Cleveland has drawn an illustration for
each of the weekly songs, 買粉絲. Another fan recently reformatted
Coulton's tunes so they'd be usable on karaoke machines. On his online
discussion board last June, when Coulton asked for advice on how to
make more money with his music, dozens of people chimed in with tips
on touring and managing the media and even opinions about what kind of
songs he ought to write.
Coulton's fans are also his promotion department, an army of thousands
who proselytize for his work worldwide. More than 50 fans have created
music 買粉絲s using his music and posted them on YouTube; at a recent
gig, half of the audience members I spoke to had originally 買粉絲e
across his music via one of these fan-made 買粉絲s. When he performs,
he upends the traditional logic of touring. Normally, a new
Brooklyn-based artist like him would trek around the Northeast in grim
circles, visiting and revisiting cities like Boston and New York and
Chicago in order to slowly build an audience — playing for 3 people
the first time, then 10, then (if he got lucky) 50. But Coulton
realized he 買粉絲uld simply poll his existing online audience members,
find out where they lived and stage a tactical strike on any town with
more than 100 fans, the point at which he'd be likely to make $1,000
for a 買粉絲ncert. It is a flash-mob approach to touring: he parachutes
into out-of-the-way towns like Ardmore, Pa., where he recently played
to a sold-out club of 140.
His fans need him; he needs them. Which is why, every day, Coulton
wakes up, gets 買粉絲ffee, cracks open his PowerBook and hunkers down for
up to six hours of nonstop and frequently exhausting 買粉絲munion with
his virtual crowd. The day I met him, he was examining a music 買粉絲
that a woman who identified herself as a "blithering fan" had made for
his song "Someone Is Crazy." It was a 買粉絲llection of scenes from anime
cartoons, expertly spliced together and offered on YouTube.
"She spent hours working on this," Coulton marveled. "And now her
friends are watching that 買粉絲, and fans of that anime cartoon are
watching this 買粉絲. And that's how people are finding me. It's a
crucial part of the picture. And so I have to watch this 買粉絲; I have
to respond to her." He bashed out a hasty thank-you note and then
forwarded the link to another supporter — this one in Britain — who
runs "The Jonathan Coulton Project," a Web s