What takes two miles of desert, four days of shooting, four months of prep, 1,000 instruments, a car sponsorship and a song? The new OK Go video, of course.
The Chicago rock act’s new single “Needing/Getting” features a Chevy outfitted with boom mics and retractable pneumatic arms that play upended pianos, guitars grafted to fences, bottles dangling from archways and such. The quartet sits helps noise-make in the car, with an impressive effort from frontman Damian Kulash, who sings and drives like a maniac (he took stunt driving courses).
The result is a total remix of the tune, with a hard-to-believe cacophony from outside the crash course. From a press release:
Each piano had the lowest 2.5 octaves tuned to the same note so that they’d play the right note no matter where they were struck. Two hundred and eighty-eight guitars, graciously provided by Gretsch along with 67 amps, were stripped down to two strings, each tuned the same, and to the appropriate note. In some cases, wood blocks were used as capos to get notes higher than could be tuned. The tubas were played by driving along a fire hose filled with air and the bass line in the solo is played by balloons blowing through accordion reeds with white mega-phone-like horns attached to them. As the car pulled clips off the balloons, they blew.
Two minutes of the vid bowed during the Super Bowl last night. The clip was helmed by Brian L. Perkins, who also directed the marching band-ish “This Too Shall Pass.”
“Needing/Getting” is from the band’s last album “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky,” released in January 2010. The record itslef may not have legs, but breathtaking clips like this make it go and go.