It’s day three of the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) up here in Seattle. PAX was started in 2004 by the guys behind Penny Arcade, a webcomic about gaming.
Nerdy rock music doesn’t often fill a 2500 seat auditorium, but it did last night. Nercore rapper MC Frontalot, songwriting duo Paul and Storm and gorgeous wonderful amazing hero of the world Jonathan Coulton (with whom I am TOTALLY NOT obsessed) packed out PAX’s biggest auditorium for five hours of songs about pirates, mustaches, and blogs.
- ANGELA WEBBER
- Nerd Rock
The highlight of the show was a performance of the viral “Double Rainbow” YouTube video. Only at PAX, as they say (start at 3:28).
Jonathan Coulton (still not TOTALLY OBSESSED with him) started recording his own nerdy sad songs a few years ago, and now has ballooned in popularity. He will host a Caribbean cruise with friends like John Hodgman and Wil Wheaton next January, and is recording a new studio album with They Might Be Giants’ John Flansburgh. His sound is now huge and electric—the nerds have earned a new, unabashedly geeky rock group.
Nerd rock music isn’t just normal songs about nerdy things. PAX concerts have demonstrated more levels of nerdy music than might seem possible: a band who rights writes songs in a dystopia based on the Megaman videogames (The Protomen), a group that uses videogame hardware to create electronica backgrounds for their songs (Anamanaguchi)—there were even a few performances, to that packed 2500-seat house, of people playing songs in Rock Band.
- ANGELA WEBBER
- Rock Band
Today on the expo floor we picked up some more tips: Duke Nukem Forever is a (not yet released) game about macho stuff and you can pee in it; Torchlight 2 is like Torchlight but with co-op multiplayer; and Dead Space 2 is scary as heck, like the first one.
“…a band who rights songs…” Editor, please! Of course writers who can spell correctly in the first place would be even better, but come on! An editor’s job is to catch these things before they reach the public.
@nwspirit yes sir sorry sir