Last night I took myself off into Bristol for a concert at Colston Hall. It featured Jonathan Coulton as the headline act, with Paul and Storm as the support band. I wasn’t just there for the concert, however. My friend Marjorie had seen an online plea for people to help with merchandise sales at the gig and she had volunteered. She asked me if I wanted to help out. Hey, free gig, right? And while I wasn’t hugely aware of what these guys did, I knew that they were good friends with Neil Gaiman, so they came well recommended.

The music feels a bit to me like what happens when filk moves beyond the convention scene. Not that these guys actually filk much. The opening guitar riff of Paul and Storm’s first number sounded to me very much like Eric Clapton’s “Willy and the Hand Jive”, which would have been awesome, but they soon dropped into their own stuff and as you’ll see, they are serious musicians. Nevertheless, the material is very much like what you might expect from filkers. Many of them revel in geek culture, and those that don’t are still the sort of things that fans would enjoy. Here, especially for you, Chris Garcia, are Paul and Storm performing their fabulous “Nun Fight” song.

The geeky element stretches over into the merchandise. As well as the expected t-shirts and CDs, both acts had 2Gb USB drives available containing all of their recorded music. As you’ll see below, Coulton makes all of his music available under a Creative Commons license, which has allowed people to do all sorts of fun things with it. Paul and Storm’s USB drive is shaped like a candy bar because, as Paul said, everyone likes candy.

Everyone Likes Candy is the name of my Velvet Underground cover band.

Most of you are too young to understand that.

While I think Paul and Storm have a better stage presence (it helps having two of them as they can play off each other), Coulton has some wonderful songs. And, thanks to that Creative Commons thing, some great videos have been produced for them. Here is his answer to Charles Atlas (something else you may well be too young to remember), because who needs to kick sand in anyone’s face if you can build a robot army.

If that’s a little sexist for you, here’s another classic, “Skullcrusher Mountain”. While this one is narrated by the boy, it is very much from the girl’s point of view. And at least in the video she gets her own back. (This is also the song that gave me the title of this post.)

And finally, here’s me modelling some of the merchandize — the t-shirt comes with a free washable marker so that you can customize it. (You need to follow Scalzi on Twitter to understand this. Thankfully some of the audience got it, and John liked it too.)

Oh, what’s all that clapping? You want an encore? Alright then. This is my favorite Jonathan Coulton song, because I have sat through business meetings that are so very nearly like this.

Update: Whoops, nearly forgot. The boys are playing Manchester Academy tonight, and Union Chapel in London tomorrow. I think that there are tickets left for both gigs.