Ok Go Teams With Designer Moritz Waldemeyer And Fendi For Groundbreaking Design Performance
OK GO TEAMS WITH DESIGNER MORITZ WALDEMEYER AND FENDI FOR GROUNDBREAKING DESIGN PERFORMANCE AT DESIGN MIAMI/, HELD DECEMBER 1st – 5th
Band’s New Single/Video “WTF?” Available Now On The iTunes Music Store; Upcoming Album, Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, Due Out January 12, 2010
(New York, NY) OK Go, the mind-bending band that gave us what is largely considered the decade’s most-viewed music video, the treadmill-manned “Here It Goes Again,” will join with Design Miami/, FENDI and technologically-pioneering designer Moritz Waldemeyer to stage a groundbreaking Design Performance at Design Miami/, the pre-eminent international fair for limited edition design. The fair will take place December 1st through December 5th in Miami Design District.
Waldemeyer, renowned for his extraordinary designs influenced by his background as a research scientist in mechatronics and LED lighting, will customize a selection of Gibson guitars with laser lights and FENDI materials, which OK Go will play live throughout the event. When played, the guitar’s lasers interact with a video wall and leave traces that illustrate the music in real time. The lasers emulate the strings of the guitar, and vibrations transmit beautiful visual interpretations of the sound.
“It's such a pleasure to be working with Moritz again. He's one of those rare and wonderful artists who's equally inventive in the domain of minute technological details and broad, open-ended creative ideas,” says OK Go vocalist/guitarist Damian Kulash, who was featured in Uniqlo’s recent international advertising campaign. “He designed the LED jackets that we wore in our stage show a couple years ago, and it was a perfect match. Our brand of performance – super-saturated, super visual, super fun – is precisely the right arena for his design. We knew right away that we needed to make instruments with him, and ever since we've been looking for the opportunity to realize our dream of playing guitars that are their own light show. We're incredibly excited, and thankful that FENDI and Design Miami/ have made this possible.”
The single and video for “WTF?” – OK Go’s Prince-inspired, odd-time-signature hip shaker – premiered on the iTunes Music Store earlier this week. The video, directed by the band and Tim Nackashi (“Gnarls Barkley – Live,” the award-winning documentary “Dirty Work,”) debuts this Sunday night/Monday morning on MTVu‘s “Subterranean,” airing at 2:00 a.m. E.S.T. “WTF?” is the lead single from OK Go’s upcoming album, Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, set for release on January 12, 2010 on Capitol Records. Fans who pre-order the album on iTunes will instantly receive an additional track, entitled “Back from Katmandu.”
Produced by ex-Mercury Rev member David Fridmann (Flaming Lips, MGMT), Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky takes its name from an 1876 book promoting the erroneous theory that blue light cures all ills. Both danceable and contemplative, the new album is introspective with a vein of surrealism running through it – a compelling follow-up to OK Go’s acclaimed 2005 release, Oh No. The band’s homemade videos for two of Oh No’s hits, “A Million Ways” and “Here It Goes Again,” set numerous viewing records as they helped transform the then-fledgling YouTube into a household name. “Here It Goes Again,” which won a GRAMMY® award for “Best Short Form Music Video” in 2007, was even parodied on “The Simpsons.” The band’s non-stop touring regimen took them to five continents in 31 consecutive months. In 2008, OK Go released the EP You’re not Alone, a swaggering collaboration with the trombone band Bonerama that benefited musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The band wraps up a series of Midwestern dates this Saturday and will embark on a U.K. tour in January.
Our new single and video, "WTF?" are out right now, enjoying their
world premiere in the US iTunes store. Yes, you read that correctly.
The "world premiere" is US only, but we've just been informed that
they'll be in all the iTunes stores soon, so if you're outside of the
states, do not fret. We'll let you know the moment they arrive.
A special note to you Americans: the rest of the world is catching up.
This is your moment! Buy the single and video here: http://bit.ly/okgowtf and pre-order the new album, too.
Nov 09, 2009
Brand New Video and Single Available Right Now
The last time OK Go released a new video, Jay-Z was a Mets fan, Barack Obama was being inducted into the United Federation Of Planets, and this song was a number one hit. Or at least it feels that way. Which is why today is such a very, very good day. The boys are proud to announce the world premiere of WTF?, their new single and video, in the iTunes store right now, right here.
Lets not beat around the bush. The song is awesome. And the video is face-melting. And for the next little while you can buy them together for $2.49. That's a savings of $0.50! So why are you still here? Get watching!
And listen to the new song right here! WTF? by okgo
Oct 24, 2009
The Notre Dame Marching Band is Amazing
The Notre Dame Marching Band is fantastic for lots of reasons, not least of which is that this afternoon they'll do their picture perfect cover of "Here It Goes Again" during the game against Boston College. It won't be on the TV, but if you go to NBC Sports (we're thinking it'll probably be here or here) you can watch the awesomeness go down live.
Sep 29, 2009
New Moon & 90210
Two new OK Go songs will be rattling around in your little head before you know it. Lucky you!
"Shooting The Moon" will be featured in the new Twilight movie, New Moon, and on the soundtrack, both of which come out October 20th. Pre-order here.
"I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe" will be on the soundtrack to 90210, which comes out Oct. 13th and is titled Soundtrack 90210. Now that's branding synergy. You can pre-order it at Amazon for cheap.
Sep 29, 2009
US Midwest Tour This November
The band will be doing a short run of November shows in the great American middle west, all of which should be on sale right now. Drop whatever you're doing--which we both know is sitting in your one-piece pajamas surfing Le Internet--and buy your hot little tickets right now. Details on the shows page.
Sep 23, 2009
OK Go Ready To Tread New Ground With Upcoming New Album
OK GO READY TO TREAD NEW GROUND
WITH UPCOMING NEW ALBUM
OF THE BLUE COLOUR OF THE SKY
DUE IN STORES JANUARY 12, 2010
(New York, NY) The mind-bending band that gave us what is largely considered the decade’s most viewed music video (even the Simpsons parodied it), the treadmill-manned “Here It Goes Again” is back. Never content to rest on their laurels, OK Go is preparing to tread anything but familiar territory with their upcoming new album, Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky releasing on January 12, 2010 on Capitol Records.
The 13-track opus is the long-awaited follow-up to their acclaimed Oh No, which spawned the 2007 Grammy-award-winning video hit “Here It Goes Again“ (setting numerous viewing records as it helped transform the then-fledgling YouTube into a household name).” Of the Blue Colour of the Sky is currently primed to kick off 2010 as one of the new year’s most buzzed-about releases. According to Kulash, the new album springs from a different departure point than previous OK Go releases. “It’s not so much that we headed in a new direction. I think we’ve just expended the guitar-rock ideas from our teens and we’re starting to get at more root-level influences. There’s a lot of Purple Rain on this record – an album I haven’t stopped listening to since I got it when I was eleven.”
Kulash added that record’s title comes from an 1876 book promoting the erroneous theory that blue light cures all ills. As fits a record influenced by Prince and crackpot 19th century arm-chair scientists, the record is both danceable and contemplative; it’s introspective, with a vein of surrealism running through it. There’s a song that considers the earth before it was round, one sung by a man who’s traded places with his reflection, and plenty of heartbreak and (attempts at) hope, mostly hung on a groovier backbone than we’ve heard from OK Go before. “We started these songs with a groove,” Damian says. “They started as base feelings, not chord progressions or lyrical ideas, and then we layered.” After 2005’s Oh No, recorded nearly live with minimal overdubs, and their swaggering 2008 EP You’re not Alone, backed by the trombone band Bonerama (a benefit for musicians displaced by hurricane Katrina), this new sound comes as something of a departure.
Funk-edged songs such as “Skyscrapers,” “All Is Lost,” “White Knuckles,” and the Prince-inspired, odd-time-signature hip shaker “WTF?” embody the album’s heady flow of adventurous undercurrents. “This album is the most layered production we’ve ever done,” says Damian. Produced by ex-Mercury Rev member David Fridmann (Flaming Lips, MGMT), Damian acknowledges that Fridmann’s singular production style and secluded studio environment in Fredonia, NY (‘you have to drive fifteen minutes for a cup of coffee’ he notes) added to the CDs emotive heft. “We were there to work, and for weeks on end it snowed and we just lived in the bubble with our songs.” Amazingly, the band’s original pool of song ideas numbered more than a hundred, with the group eventually narrowing the choices down to manageable double digits.
Kulash has also kept himself busy with an assortment of activist endeavors – he testified in support of internet neutrality before a Congressional Special Task Force. He and bandmate, Andy Ross, met with leaders on Capitol Hill in the spring of 2008 to advocate for the same. The band also met with then-candidate, Barack Obama, about the specter of access-limiting online practices, and other issues, with the group eventually appearing in ads in support of Obama. OK Go also took time from their non-stop touring regimen (31 consecutive months over five continents) to raise money in support of New Orleans’ music culture in the wake of Katrina. The band’s efforts with Bonerama raised more than half of the money for soul legend Al “Carnival Time” Johnson’s new home in New Orleans.
Damian and the rest of the band look forward to full-fan reaction to Of the Blue Colour of the Sky come January. “I think it sounds more like us than anything else we’ve done,” he says. “Its more like the music that’s in the back of my head, just out of reach, that I’ve been trying to get to for so long. And it embodies contradiction in a way I feel connected to. It’s both the saddest and the most hopeful music we’ve made, and both the danciest and most thoughtful.”
OK Go is Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka, Andy Ross.
New Shows: New York, London, South Dakota, Colorado
Brooklyn: The band will celebrate the VMAs with an All Ages show at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY on Monday, September 14th. Tickets are on sale right now. Buy them!
London: Next, they're hopping on their gold-plated Sea-Doos and cruising to London for a show on September 22nd at Cargo. Tickets on sale right here. This show is 16+.
Monolith Festival, Colorado: A few days later OK Go will be on the main stage at the Monolith Festival in Morrison, Colorado. They'll be playing on Saturday, at around 4:30pm. Tickets available here.
Aug 04, 2009
OK Go Nominated for a VMA!
The boys have been nominated for this year's Video Music Awards, in the category of Best Video (That Should Have Won A Moon Man). And MTV has kindly stacked the deck in our favor, by putting the boys up against a bunch of unknowns and never-wases like Dr. Dre, Radiohead and the Beastie Boys. It's an uphill battle so we need you to vote as much as you can, as often as the Internet allows you. Do it for us, do it for you, do it for the littluns.
Damian, Tim & Andy will play a short acoustic set tonight at Room 5 in Hollywood. It's part of an event called "Brown Unplugged" featuring musicians who went to Brown University.
The show starts at 7:30pm and RSVPs are required. Supposedly you have to know a Brown alum to get in, but the first 30 people to RSVP can claim they know Damian. RSVP Here.
