The Mistakes Are Part of the Show
Thank you to everyone who came out to see my sell-out (!) show at Boston City Winery. Now you understand why I carefully configure each night of music to include a number of egregious errors, usually right up top. It helps to humanize me so that I can better connect with the audience. See?
My tiny juggernaut rolls on, buckety-buck. I’ve added a second Boston show October 2 for those of you who didn’t get tix before the sell out, and I’ll also be playing NYC City Winery on October 26. Oh and Birchmere is this Wednesday, are you even ready? This is what the schedule looks like now:
Alexandria, VA – Birchmere
September 13
With Paul and Storm
Tickets
Amherst, MA – The Drake
September 29
Me just me
Tickets
Portsmouth, NH – 3S Artspace
October 1
Me just me
Tickets
Boston, MA – City Winery
October 2
Me just me
Tickets
New York, NY – City Winery
October 26
Me just me
Tickets
You know what they say about the schedule of Jonathan Coulton shows in New England: if you don’t like the schedule of Jonathan Coulton shows in New England, wait a minute. Mark Twain.
Shows, Actual Shows
This is one of those situations where I go to a place with a guitar and stand on the stage and play it and sing, and then other people hopefully buy tickets so they can sit in the audience and watch. Trying it out!
Boston, MA – City Winery
September 9
An evening with me just me
Tickets
Alexandria, VA – Birchmere
September 13
With Paul and Storm
Tickets
Amherst, MA – The Drake
September 29
Me just me
Tickets
Portsmouth, NH – 3S Artspace
October 1
Me just me
Tickets
Where I Been
I’m not even sure this thing still works. WHAT YEAR IS IT. I have some shows to announce, but first I have to say a thing (scroll down if you get bored).
I’ve been very quiet lately, and it’s been nice. Somewhere in the middle of one of the various dumpster fires we’ve been living through these last few years, I started to become uncomfortable with my compulsive behavior around social media use. It started with me deciding to post less, because I was aware of how much I craved likes and replies, and I didn’t like being controlled by some algorithm that was an expert at making me feel that way. But I was still reading, reading EVERYTHING, like it was my job. I followed a lot of reporters and politicians, which I maybe thought was going to help me solve all the world’s problems? Or at least guarantee that when a problem was solved, I would hear about it right away. This only resulted in me hearing every bit of bad news very quickly, multiple times per day, flavored with all of the arguments and bad feelings everyone else in the world was having. On top of all that, some family health issues cropped up that made it feel important to shrink my horizon down, in order to focus on a much smaller bubble of time and space that surrounds me and the people I love. (Everyone is OK now, don’t worry.) So I stopped using the sosh meeds entirely. Sorry I didn’t tell you!
It was a great relief. Often, a thing would happen in the world, and I would be able to imagine in great detail who was saying what about it, and what issues other people would take with what they said, and what kind of dunks were being served on the people who were wrong about the thing that happened, and how those dunks would never land in a satisfying way. I was still reading the news, but reading it like, IN THE NEWS, and so I was still hearing about everything that happened, but without all the compulsive behavior and near constant bad feelings. From what I can tell, not many problems were solved, and it’s not because I wasn’t constantly looking at Twitter. Pretty sure.
COVID cut off a lot of connections that used to just happen by themselves, and I took the extra step of removing social media, so I made myself a very tall, and rather dry club sandwich of isolation. It was definitely what I needed at the time, but I miss everybody. I miss your dumb jokes and your complaints and your pictures of cute animals. Not a lot of shows have been happening, and I miss those too. I’m OK, but it’s been a rough couple of years, and it’s been hard to really accomplish much of anything. I know a lot of people are in a similar place – I hope you’re OK! I don’t know what’s next for me exactly, but it will be something, and it will not involve me doom scrolling Twitter seven hours a day.
Here are some things I’m very much looking forward to already:
Saturday Dec 31
College Street Music Hall, New Haven
Opening for They Might Be Giants
New Years Eve baby! If this show sells out, I will wear a tuxedo. Tickets on sale Sept 21
Wednesday Oct 12 and Thursday Oct 13
Largo, Los Angeles
Aimee Mann And Friends
Finally, I’m a And Friend!
Tickets for one show and tickets for the other show are on sale now.
I think writing these paragraphs counts as a full day of work for me, so I’ll leave it there. See you in 36 months (joke)!
Some Guys Is Charting
“You mean Some Guys ARE Charting.” No, I do not!
The week of April 6, 2019, Some Guys is #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, #6 on Independent Albums, #9 on Digital Albums, #19 on Americana/Folk, and #29 on Top Album Sales. This is more than a little surprising to me! I expect I will drop off all the charts completely next week, as is my custom. Also, I’m not sure why my oldest, most nerd-pander-y photo is the one they’re using all over Billboard, but I wish I had gotten that T-shirt one size larger.
The Kickstarter was an amazing success, topping out at just over $150,000. At the time of this writing, I think that most if not all orders have been sent out including digital copies as well as the top tier Super Powered Mystery Boxes. It’s been officially released on all the digital music stores, and physical copies are still available through BackerKit for a limited time. Eventually this will transition to a physical merch store on my site, which I am busy setting up just as soon as I start doing it WHICH IS SOON. The vinyl LP edition is on Amazon as well, and the CD will be ALSO SOON. More links:
iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Spotify, and right here on this site
I really can’t thank everyone enough for the overwhelming number of positive comments about this album. I’m very proud of it, and I feel so lucky that my job is such that I got to turn what is kind of a dumb idea on paper into a real thing that seems to be bringing people so much joy. Thank you, and please keep telling everyone how great it is!
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