This Is My Quest, To Follow That Star
A Jonathan Coulton show is where you fit in if you don’t fit in.
Jonathan Coulton (JoCo) is a singer songwriter much loved by a devoted fan base of mostly Millennial nerds. Although you’ve probably never heard of him, on the internet he’s a superstar.
Coulton makes a very good living recording and performing songs about social anxiety, dysfunctional relationships, zombies, and mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot. Imagine if Charles Addams and John Cheever fell in love and had a kid who wrote catchy pop tunes with quirky lyrics. That’s JoCo.
I heard my first Coulton tune on NPR (of course) fifteen years ago. It was “Shop Vac,” a fun little rocker about suburban angst. Although I was a middle-aged librarian and not a twenty-something code monkey, I fell in love with it. When he next played Philadelphia, my hometown, I went to my first Coulton show. It was, as the kids say, awesome. I didn’t want to wait for him to return to Philly to see another, so when he performed in New York City a month later, I went.
It, too, was awesome.
In concert, Coulton performs his cyber-hits and kibitzes easily with his audience, responding to their smartass nerd wit with his own smartass nerd wit. The crowd he draws is as odd and compelling as his songs; many of…
