Hey, ‘member last year when Weezer put out a cover of Toto’s “Africa” after being bugged to do it by a twitter account?
Well, it was so successful that they decided to suprise-release an entire cover album. It’s a very “middle-aged karaoke” selection of songs, and they’re all recreated rather faithfully, just with fuzzier guitars and punchier drums (and Rivers Cuomo’s voice). One of the songs that got the most buzz is TLC’s “No Scrubs.” Well, here it is.
If you’re somehow out of the loop, let me briefly run it down for you: earlier this year the musical geek folklorist (and incredibly bearded) Jonathan Coulton, similarly-bearded comic book writer Greg Pak (known mostly for his work on the Hulk books in the late 2000s, and who is now writing Batman/Superman), and beardless illustrator Takeshi Miyazawa (who drew many issues of The Runaways) teamed up to make a limited series comic book based on Jonathan Coulton’s songs. They launched a Kickstarter campaign that ended up raising almost $350,000!
Well, this week the first issue of the resulting comic book became (digitally) available!
Code Monkey Very Simple Man, with Big, Warm, Fuzzy, Secret Heart. Code Monkey Save World.
You can get it from ComiXology here. YOU SHOULD DO THAT. Unless you funded the Kickstarter, in which case you had access to this about a month ago. In which case you should have already done that.
Undecided? You can see a preview of the first few pages. Then you should get it.
Link of the Month: My Wish List
‘Tis the season to give me lots of presents! #shameless
Album of the Month: One Christmas At a Time by Jonathan Coulton & John Roderick
Jonathan Coulton (of Jonathan Coulton fame) and John Roderick (of The Long Winters fame) set out to collaborate on an album of traditional Christmas albums. They quickly found this boring, and were more entertained by the jokes they were coming up with than the traditional songs. So they made those jokes into all-new Christmas songs and recorded them instead. The results is a delightfully daffy while still very mucially polished collection of songs about relatives ruining Christmas and wanting an Atari 2600. There’s a very accurate, old-school country song about Christmas in jail (it reminds me a lot of a Three Ninjas song) and an hilarious song about the dangers of celebrating Christmas based on past experiences, or projecting the current Christmas into next year’s. Very funny and very catchy stuff. Get it!
Movie of the Month: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
An unconventional Christmas movie, Rare Exports is an extremely straight-faced parody of arctic monster movies (like John Carpenter’s The Thing). Some wealthy American is digging up a mountain in Lapland because he’s certain that it is actually the world’s biggest burial mound. A young boy in the nearby village does some research and comes up with a theory about what (or who) is buried there that turns out to be surprisingly accurate. The results are darkly comedic, with a surprising third-act reveal, and the epilogue is delightful (and explains why the film is called Rare Exports).
Jonathan Coulton‘s latest album. I still haven’t picked it up for some reason. I even saw him live on stage since it came out! I’m a bad slacker person.
Prom Queen is one of Leeni‘s side projects. It’s got a creepy 60s-ish mellow vibe, like something you’d listen to in the dark, eating a cheeseburger and drinking a milkshake while wearing a circle skirt (if you’re a girl).
Robb Benson is an uber-talented Seattle musician who has been in a half-dozen bands in the last 10 years. We saw him perform live once in 2000, and have kinda picked up some songs by him here and there. We recently re-discovered him via The Glass Notes and now are totally stoked to go see him play sometime soon.
By the time you read this I will have most likely gotten some of these. So, y’know, there’s that.
So what am I missing, folks? What other musics should I pick up?
It was a very good show and a very fun everning! Of particular entertainment were an epic version of “Ana Ng” (which I don’t think I’ve seen them do live in a decade), and the Avatars of They performing “Spoiler Alert.” They did a very good job of mixing the olde and the newe in their set.
We hadn’t actually had a chance to go see They for many, many years, so it was great to have They back (on the other hand I think I’ve seen JoCo four or five times in the last couple of years—not that I’m complaining).
My Wish List
One Christmas At a Time by Jonathan Coulton & John Roderick
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
by Childish Gambino
by Jonathan Coulton
by Cocorosie
