Summerfest organizers want your thoughts on their annual festival, and they are willing to provide you with a free pair of tickets in 2010 in exchange.  Simply fill out the survey on their site and you can check out the state’s biggest festival next summer.

Due to the horrible weather last night, I was not able to make it to Madison to catch the Jonathan Coulton concert – a show I was anticipating since his last gig here nearly a year ago.  I keep hearing about the concert from friends that were there, and really wish I could have seen it.  Since I could not be there in person, I am now trying the next best thing.

This is a bit of a social experiment to see if I can find the concert in its entirety on the Internet.  Mr. Coulton is quite wonderful about letting patrons record his show and toss it up on the web.  I’ve already got two friends that have told me they recorded part of the show (“Mr. Fancy Pants” and “Famous Blue Raincoat” – which was one of my twitter requests).

So this leaves me with two dilemmas – determining the rest of the set list, and finding videos of these songs online.  I think it can be done.  If you know where I can find either, please post in the comments or hit me up on twitter (The_Dean) with links.

As for Mr. Coulton, he will be compensated in this endeavor.  If I can pull this off, I will make a donation to him via his website and pick up BEST.CONCERT.EVER. on DVD once it is released.  Any help in this experiment would be awesome and greatly appreciated.

More on Jonathan Coulton.

This is Coulton’s first return visit since his May 2 show last year.

Known for his lyrics involving super-villains, math, zombies and technology, Coulton has established himself as the premiere geek folk singer of his time.  He recently traveled with Jonathan Hodegman (best know as “PC” from the Mac vs. PC ads) to help him promote his book “More Information Than You Require.”

To listen to Coulton’s complete collection for free, check out his website.  Also, check out my Cap Times article prior to his last appearance for more fun information.  A quick review of Coulton’s May show can be found here.

When opening band Paul & Storm asked the audance to produce a 20-sided die, you could see numerous people in attendance frantically searching their bags to try and find one. When Coulton himself took the stage, a fan was able to produce a power adapter for his Apple Powerbook that was low on battery life.

Such is the audience at a Coulton concert.

This is the second time I’ve seen Coulton with Paul & Storm opening. It’s less a matter of an opening act and a headliner as two bands that work together well. Paul & Storm provide backup for many of Coulton’s song.

The end result – three hours of laughter and music in the key of geek.

Related links:

My interview with Coulton for 77 Square – “Songwriter embraces lyrical nerdiness”

Madisonite John Kovalic of “Dork Tower’s” cartoon about Coulton’s show tonight.

A link to Mr. Coulotn’s music online.

Those days may be over.

Last week mega-group Radiohead announced their new album “In Rainbows” would only be available online, and consumers would choose what they would pay for it. Want the album for free? It’s yours!

Today, after a recent tirade against record companies, Nine Inch Nails dumped their record label. A post on their website states:

I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.

Tech site Gizmodo has a great writeup about the changing face of labels:

If two of the biggest acts in the industry can see the digital writing on the wall and totally embrace it—that the old way of doing business is broken—why can’t the labels? What Radiohead and NIN are showing is that the business model “of the future” feared by entrenched interests isn’t arriving some time in the horizon. It’s touching down now.

Read the Gizmodo article

I have never picked up a Paisley album before, so I was not sure what to expect. I have enjoyed most of the songs that get radio play, but were those the only good songs on the album? After listening to it, I’ve determined it is the best country album since Big & Rich’s “Horse of a Different Color.”

Don’t even think about clicking “read the full story,” unless you want to miss one of the coolest music videos of all time.

The album starts off strong and hard with the song “All I Wanted was a Car,” which leads into the first single off the album, “Ticks.”  “Online” is the funniest song of the album with a great video (below). Mr. Policeman starts “Hey hey, Mr. Policeman, bet I can drive faster then you can,” while the song “I’m Still a Guy” is the new official theme song of MidwesternBoy.com.

The CD has some slow songs as well, but most are at least interesting and not the kind of song that is recorded so it will sell an album just to be played at a wedding.

Overall this is just a great album, that resurrects some of my faith in country music.