OK go
| OK go | |
|---|---|
 2006 at one gig |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Power pop , indie rock |
| founding | 1998 |
| Website | www.okgo.net |
| Current occupation | |
| Damian Kulash | |
Guitar, keyboard
|
Andy Ross (since 2005) |
| Tim North Wind | |
| Dan Konopka | |
| former members | |
guitar |
Andy Duncan (1998-2005) |
OK Go is an American rock band from Chicago , best known for their singles Get Over It , A Million Ways and Here It Goes Again and for their creative music videos . Musically they were influenced by bands like Cheap Trick , T. Rex and Queen . OK Go shares management with They Might Be Giants , who they toured with before signing with Capitol Records .
The band was also the house band for This American Life radio program on the show's fifth birthday tour. Ira Glass , the show host, wrote her first official bio, calling her “living catnip” and her songs as “part indie rock, part stadium rock, part straight up pop with the occasional whiff of Weezer or The Cars or Elliott Smith ”described.
Band history
Singer Damian Kulash, bassist Tim Nordwind and former guitarist Andy Duncan have known each other since high school. Kulash played in a band called Load when he was in school and founded a very small record label called Level Records. While studying at Brown University , he played in at least three bands - A La Playa , Calixto Chinchilla, and Square . In his senior year at university he released three CDs, one of which, called Appendices , already contained an original version of the song Bye Bye Baby , which was later found on OK Go's debut album.
While Kulash was at Brown University, Duncan and North Wind studied in Chicago. There the two formed a relatively well-known band called Stanley's Joyful Noise together with drummer Dan Konopka . After finishing his studies in 1998, Kulash moved to Chicago and also became a member of Stanley's Joyful Noise . The group renamed themselves OK Go , and Kulash was now the front man of the common band. After the release of the second album Oh No and the rapidly growing success, guitarist Duncan decided to leave the band a few weeks before the start of the first big tour, for which he would have had to be on the road for a long time. So a replacement had to be found as quickly as possible, who had to learn not only all the songs in the repertoire, but also the dance choreography within a short time. Andy Ross (born March 8, 1978 in Worcester, Massachusetts) was selected from over 30 competitors and has been supporting the band since 2005.
Music videos
The band's second album, Oh No , was recorded in Malmö in autumn 2004 and produced by Tore Johansson ( The Cardigans , Franz Ferdinand ) and was released in autumn 2004. The video for A Million Ways was recorded on a low budget and in one piece shows the band in the backyard of their singer Kulash performing a dance devised and choreographed by Kulash's sister Trish. The video, shot on a camera borrowed from a friend, cost less than ten dollars and was released on the Internet without the knowledge of her record label, Capitol Records. Since then this dance has become her trademark at concerts. The band has also shown this choreography live on television several times, including on the British TV show Soccer AM . On December 31, 2005, a short live appearance was shown on the big screens in New York's Times Square .
The video for A Million Ways is not the first of its kind. You can also watch the ping pong instructional video on their homepage . There are also various short films on the Federal Truth In Music Project . On July 31, 2006, the band released the video for the song Here It Goes Again . It consists of a dance routine filmed in one piece and performed on eight treadmills.
In the videos mentioned, Kulash, the actual singer of the band, doesn't move his lips to the text. Instead, this is done by the bass player Nordwind. On August 31, 2006 OK Go got the unique chance to show their dance routine for Here It Goes Again on treadmills live at the MTV Video Music Awards . Since the VMA appearance, sales of the album Oh No and the single Here It Goes Again have soared that on September 5, 2006 they already reached number 11 for the single and number 2 for the album in the iTunes Music Store . A limited CD / DVD set was released on November 7, 2006, consisting of the already released Oh No and a bonus DVD. For Here It Goes Again , OK Go received a Grammy in the Best Short Form Video category. In addition, the song and part of the video appear in drawn form in the Simpsons episode Scenes of a Marriage .
For the video for The Writing's On the Wall , the band uses the principle of anamorphosis as a consistent means of style and play; like the other videos, this one was shot as a one shot.
The video for This Too Shall Pass is a gigantic Rube Goldberg machine that runs synchronously with the music and is very reminiscent of the film Der Lauf der Dinge by the Swiss artist duo Fischli / Weiss .
In the video for Upside Down & Inside Out , they used the short-term weightlessness during parabolic flights .
The video for The One Moment was shot in just 4.2 seconds and played back in slow motion for the video, stretching it to the length of the song.
Media use of songs
The single Don't Ask Me was used by EA Sports as the soundtrack for the computer game "MVP Baseball 2003". Also, Do What You Want , was also from EA, in video games Burnout Revenge and NHL 06 is used. In addition, the Nintendo DS game Guitar Hero: On Tour is advertised with this song and can also be played there. The song Here it goes again was played, among other things, in the seventh episode of the 19th season of the series The Simpsons and in episode 1 of the sixth season of the series Scrubs and the pilot episode of the series Las Vegas .
Don't Ask Me appeared on the Smallville soundtrack CD . The title of You're So Damn Hot appeared on the soundtrack for The OC and Men in Trees . In 2009 Shooting the Moon appeared on New Moon's soundtrack CD .
Discography
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Albums and EPs
- 2000: Pink EP ( EP )
- 2000: Brown EP (EP)
- 2002: OK Go
- 2005: Do What You Want (EP)
- 2005: Oh no
- 2006: Oh No Special Edition (including bonus DVD)
- 2010: Of the Blue Color of the Sky
- 2011: 180/365
- 2014: Hungry Ghosts
Singles
- 2002: Get Over It
- 2003: Don't Ask Me
- 2003: You're So Damn Hot
- 2005: A Million Ways
- 2005: Do What You Want
- 2006: Oh Lately It's So Quiet
- 2006: Invincible
- 2006: Here It Goes Again
- 2007: Do What You Want (re-release including new wallpaper video)
- 2009: WTF?
- 2010: This Too Shall Pass
- 2010: End Love
- 2010: White Knuckles
- 2011: The Greatest Song I Ever Heard
- 2011: All Is Not Lost
- 2012: Needing / Getting
- 2012: Skyscrapers
- 2014: The Writing's on the Wall
- 2014: I Won't Let You Down
Compilations
- 2004: This Will Be Our Year from the Future Soundtrack for America Compilation
- 2006: Letterbox from the Hello Radio: A Tribute to They Might Be Giants Compilation
- 2006: This Will Be Our Year from the John Tucker Must Die Soundtrack
- 2006: Father Christmas from the Unaccompanied Minors Soundtrack
Awards
- 2006: YouTube Award in the Most Creative category for Here It Goes Again
- 2007: Grammy in the Short Form Music Video category for Here It Goes Again
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Here It Goes Again. okgo.net, July 31, 2006
- ^ The Writing's On the Wall. okgo.net, September 5, 2014
- ↑ Upside Down & Inside Out. okgo.net, February 11, 2016
- ↑ Bastian Küllenberg: New video for "Upside Down & Inside Out". ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. February 11, 2016
- ↑ bento.de: The new video of "OK Go" takes just 4.2 seconds - and was as elaborate as never before 11.24.2016
- ↑ a b Chart sources: UK US
- ^ Caitlin Johnson: YouTube Presents First Awards. cbsnews.com, March 26, 2007
- ^ Past Winners Search. grammy.com
