Jonathan Coulton talks coding, Creative Commons and becoming a web based rockstar (video)

There are few ways of endearing yourself to the geek world more quickly than writing a song like “Code Monkey.” The developer-friendly track was considered one of 52 released as portion of Jonathan Coulton’s year-long “Thing every week” project and was later adopted because the theme song for a similarly-titled G4 program. The songwriter was just adhering to that old adage of “writing what you realize,” having worked as an entire-time computer programmer earlier than giving the music world a go — though, as he readily admits, he still keeps it real by coding for his own site. We sat down with Coulton as a part of this month’s Engadget Show , discussing his midlife crisis-driven decision to quit his day job and the adventure that the web played in making him a celebrity. We also discussed the musician’s favorite tech, his love of Creative Commons and using gadgets to make music. Coulton also treated us to 3 songs, including “Still Alive” from the Portal soundtrack and two tracks off his present day record Artificial Heart. Video of all that once the break.