Jonathan Coulton's uniquely skewed brilliance was on dazzling display last night at Antone's. South Austin Jody took me on as merch assistant at Coulton's set, which means I got in early and free, met Jonathan Coulton before and after the show, and hung out with the smartest audience in town on a mild Sunday night in Austin. Visiting central Texas for the South by Southwest Interactive Conference, Coulton fit right in at Antone's, performing almost his entire songbook with a youthful, geeky angst that can stand toe to toe with traditional blues anywhere, even at "The Home of the Blues". Coulton played melancholy ballads and weird,  cerebral compositions such as Mandelbrot's Set and Re: Your Brains and wowed his youngish audience of techy nebbishes, goths, and zombies. Somehow able to speak directly to and for people who work with data, his songs are among the few successful lyrical forays into the mind and spirit of the Web developer I've ever heard.

Awhile back I had become acquainted with Code Monkey, his pop anthem for introverted, sexually-frustrated software developers, by way of  Kim, my wonderful and talented tech team lead. More times than I can count we have begun another long day of design meetings and building evacuations with Kim and I silently mouthing to one another the endearing lyrics of Code Monkey across the table in some cold, flourescent-lit meeting room.  I'm not young; I've been toiling in the data mines for so long, I squint when I step outside. But I identify with Coulton's Code Monkey, so much so that you may have noticed "Code Monkey" is my Title on my OS profile. I simply love this song. And though I am probably one or two standard deviations from the mean age of his audience, as a longtime techy who could sing along with one of his hits, I felt completely at home.

Plus, Mr. Coulton (and the good folks at Antone's) graciously allowed me photograph his show, which gave me something to do with my hands, as I am all thumbs when it comes to the credit card machine and managed, under cover of event photographer, to stay completely away from the money at the merch table. And Antone's, the nightclub and Austin institution, was in fine form last night. The house was packed, the crowd composed primarily of SXSW Interactive attendees and other techy types, but peppered with several Austin politicos, notables and various beautiful people, and here and there the stray zombie.

Paul and Storm opened, with their clever send up of opening bands, entitled (fittingly) Opening Bands. Their zany brand of humor sort of reminded me of They Might Be Giants, a resemblance not lost on the duo themselves, as one of their CDs lists a song entitled If They Might Be Giants Were the Ice Cream Man. Although they didn't play it, they did play If James Taylor Were on Fire, which brought down the house.

For his part, Coulton gave his developer army a show to remember. He played a solid two hour set, interspersed with ironic rejoinders and playful repartee with the audience, and joined near the end by Paul and Storm. Best I could tell by the audience reaction, he played most of his hits, which were more numerous than I had supposed. My new favorite is Skullcrusher Mountain, a heartwarming serenade from a silence-of-the-lambs type supervillain to one of his "guests".  Skullcrusher Mountain pegged the needle on the old creep-o-meter. He also performed a tribute to the American presidents--entitled The Presidents, and including a line each about all 44 US Presidents--that combines history with hilarity and further establishes his credentials as a smart and funny man, who may have no peer in his highbrow singer-songwriter niche. Coulton makes it cool to be smart.

Coulton's played competent singer-songwriter guiter, but his most interesting instrumental moment came when he played a Zen drum, an instrument he used to devastating comic effect on Mr. Fancy Pants, a throwaway song composed for his "Thing A Week" series. I had never seen anything quite like the Zen drum, a synthesizer that allowed him to loop through the quintessentially silly song in a way that created entertainment out of thin air. A Buddha-curious free thinker myself, I have come to believe that if I had a Zen drum, even I could be a musician. Fat chance.

 It is a bit boosterish, I suppose, but I sometimes tell people they can come to Austin and have the concert experience of their lives on any night of the year; Jonathan Coulton's set is my most recent example of this unique phenomenon. I noticed early on that Antone's was the place to be in Austin last night, where artistry and genius were met with appreciation worthy of the effort. It was a bit of a surprise, when Jody called while we were on Hawaiian holiday to propose this treat, and I owe her for giving me the opportunity to see one of my mid-life heroes up close and personal at one of the town's premiere venues. Last night was sort of night minus 3 of the SXSW Music Festival, which doesn't officially begin until Wednesday, so talk about getting a head start. It will be all I can do to hang in there throughout the week, as my day job is unrelenting. But what a start! If you consider yourself to be any kind of computer nerd--Windows, open source, or mainframe--and you aren't a Jonathon Coulton fan... well, you ought to be. Jonathan Coulton is writing and performing the songs that tell our story.