Meet Jonthan Coulton, brilliant musician, insanely smart and funny lyricist, and geek balladeer. Coulton — or “JoCo” to his legions of fans — is an artist who gets the power of Internet communities. He’s built a thriving, nigh-rabid fan following by creating his “Thing A Week” podcast back in 2005 (in which he released a new song each week for a year), and performing all over the country.

Coulton’s witty songs about science, supervillains and zombies have not only earned him respect, but paid gigs writing/performing for Popular Science magazine projects, and — perhaps most famously — creating the song “Still Alive” for the video game Portal.

But back to zombies. One of Coulton’s most popular songs, “Re: Your Brains,” is a satirical salute to both the inevitable zombie apocalypse and American corporate culture. And while Coulton has performed this song live countless times, he wasn’t prepared for the undead invasion that occurred this past weekend in Las Vegas, as he sang for a crowd at the New Media Expo convention. As he strummed and sang … monsters emerged from the audience … and … oh gahd, watch the video below to behold the horror!

(We recommend watching the entire video if you’re new to Coulton’s work, so you can enjoy the wit and whimsy of “Re: Your Brains.” If you just wanna get to the madness, zip forward to the 5:45 mark.)

The dude was an incredibly good sport about these worshipful undead minions crashing the party (a small horde led by podcasting legend Evo Terra, no less), and — according to reports hailing from the New Media Expo — was one of the highlights of the convention.

JoCo has several free ringtones available at MINE’s sister site Myxer.com, including one for “Re: Your Brains.” Click the player below to listen to the ‘tone and send to your phone. (RSS/mobile readers can click here.)

More from Jonathan Coulton at Myxer

And thus endeth the tale of the brilliant balladeer who was consumed by his own undead creations. However, if you’re curious to learn more about Coulton’s terrific music, here are a few more examples of his work — an awesome A/V experiment called “Flickr,” and a very funny infomercial-style viral video.

Mined by: J.C. “I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you” Hutchins, via FunAnymore