There are music nerds and there are Nerd nerds, and rarely the twain do meet. Seattle, however, is an exception. Microsoft employees moonlight as rock photographers; the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum snuggle up to each to each other in the same building. It seems surprising, then, that Nerd nerd troubadour extraordinaire Jonathan Coulton hasn’t found greater success with the Emerald City’s indie pop fans.
It is true that on paper Coulton, a 39 year-old Yale graduate who is best known for the theme song to the video game Portal and for headlining PAX every year, is not the kind of artist the typical indie fan is likely to rush to hear. He’s never done a Daytrotter session, and he doesn’t get much mention on Brooklyn Vegan. Searching for “Coulton” on the Pitchfork website returns zero results. And while this probably suits the majority of Coulton’s I’m-geek-and-I’m-proud fan base just fine, it’s really a shame for the music community as a whole. Coulton deserves an indie fan’s chance.
Now, I’ll be upfront: there are songs about fractals and robots. Many people think that’s awesome; some may not. The real gems of Coulton’s catalogue, though, lie outside the realm of the strictly nerdy. Even if they mention robots or giant squid, the robots and giant squid aren’t the point; the point is the very human sadness and doubt that they experience. Coulton has an acute skill for identifying and expressing grown-up angst, the fear and awkwardness that we hoped we’d leave behind with adolescence but never quite managed to fully shake. Despite his generally comic tone, many songs are in fact wistful and sad; some are even intensely depressing.
“Remember when there was a you and me? / When there was such a thing as gravity?” Coulton asks in “Always The Moon,” before lamenting that “The tides came in and the tides went out again / but the water got too high.” Most heartbreak songs boast lyrics that on paper make you cringe; these lines read as poetry. “Shopvac,” possibly Coulton’s best song, is a casually tragic tale of suburban angst and the tedium of marriage. “If you need me / I’ll be downstairs / With the shop vac… You can cry and I probably won’t hear you / Because it’s loud with the shop vac on.” Even the budding mad scientist in “The Future Soon” touches your heart, singing hopefully of the time when “the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away.”
Coulton acknowledges his “nerd musician” pigeonholing, but offers a relaxed and judicious response. “I try not to worry about that too much,” he told gaming blog Joystiq last year. “Sure, everyone sings along to the zombie song because everyone likes to be zombies. But then, there are pockets of people who really enjoy the sad song that I do about becoming a parent, you know and who might come up to me afterwards and say ‘That’s a really inspiring song. It spoke directly to my heart’ or whatever. It’s a nice thing. I get to be many things to many people.”
When Jonathan Coulton takes the stage at the Moore Theatre on Friday, his audience will consist primarily of the same demographic that crowds the halls of PAX every year: Dungeons and Dragons players, science fiction geeks, Xbox Live devotees. These are wonderful people, and these are Coulton’s people. Still, there are plenty of baristas, record store clerks, music bloggers, and other Cool People who could enjoy Coulton’s nerdified take on the human condition. Tickets are still available, Seattle. Go forth and let your voice be nerd.
