(from left to right: Tim Nordwind, vocals/bass; Damian Kulash, lead vocals/guitar;
Dan Konopka, drums; Andy Duncan, vocals/guitar/keyboards)
Here's the story of how I met my new favorite band, OK Go, as it appeared in the school newspaper.
On Sunday, September 15, OK Go played at Newberry Comics after their gig at College Fest. Formed in 1998, OK Go comes from Chicago and has spent this past year touring with the likes of The Vines and They Might Be Giants.
I had the good fortune to catch their last two and a half songs that day, the last of which was their current radio single, "Get Over It." Being short of stature, looking over the heads of the people in front of me was impossible, but I was able to stretch out my neck far enough to see a little to the side of the taller folks. From the little that I heard and saw, OK Go played with great energy and a lot of fun, and they were all dutifully and sincerely grateful to their (modest) audience.
After the show, they put away their instruments and sat down behind a table in another corner of the store to sign autographs and chat casually with the interested and extroverted. Clutching my OK Go CD jacket in my hands like a sacred relic, I immediately jumped in line behind two young women with blue hair for my turn to be blessed. (For a $2 deposit on the OK Go CD that came out on the 17th, I received a CD jacket, a sweatband, a patch, and a sticker.) When finally I reached the front of the line, I was so ridiculously star-struck that I could only stand stupidly in front of the table with starry eyes and a big smile plastered on my face, saying "hi" shyly each time my CD jacket was passed on to another band member. Finally it arrived at Damian, the lead singer, who reached across the table to shake my hand with a smile, introducing himself and asking my name like he really cared. On impulse and a sudden panic that my once-in-a-lifetime chance might go by without my having spoken two words to any one of them, I said, "I feel so young," with a nervous laugh.
"Why?" asked Damian politely.
I gave another small laugh, said, "Everyone's like taller than me," and then cringed inwardly at my complete lack of eloquence.
Damian laughed graciously and said something about how Tim, the band mate sitting next to him, was rather short too, "so he can relate." Tim looked up from his Sharpie, smiled, nodded, and assented with a "yeah." After Damian finished his autograph, he thanked me for coming out with a friendly smile and I said, "thank you," all smiley and still star-struck, wondering if my voice really sounded as high and schoolgirly as I thought it did.
From that day on, OK Go became my favorite band. There's just something about seeing a band perform in such close quarters and then shaking the lead singer's hand that can give you the sense of a personal connection with them. They become real to you, like they're actual people and not misty demi-gods floating around somewhere in the celebrity-worshipping imaginations of the masses. And whenever you hear them on the radio or see them on TV, you can smile and think to yourself, I met them, the lead singer shook my hand, the bassist smiled at me, etc., and all of a sudden they're no longer so far away in the sky of Hollywood stars. They become simply a bunch of nice guys who make music that you like to listen to. Call it a terrific marketing ploy (and I agree it was an effective one), but they've made a loyal fan out of me.
As for their music, OK Go's first CD (self-titled) is a wonderfully fun pop/rock record with witty, often poetic, always intelligent lyrics, excellent musicianship, and catchy melodies that repeatedly induce singing along. Though their chords and harmonies are sometimes reminiscent of Weezer, they lack the woeful pain that the emo genre is all about, replacing it instead with shameless delight. The loud vocals and heavy guitar-work on their current stadium-rock single "Get Over It" implies a slightly heavier record than this one actually is. Otherwise, the rest of the songs on the CD follow perfectly along with its clever lyrics and enthusiastic spirit. Subject matter ranges from an unexpected and irritating encounter with an ex-girlfriend in "Don't Ask Me" to more-ambitious-than-thou departing friends in "Bye Bye Baby." On several songs, such as "Shortly Before the End" and "Return," the band gets more serious and shows its emotional range, and on "There's a Fire," "C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips" and "Hello, My Treacherous Friends" they edge away from more conventional rock song formulas. If you're sick of morose and angst-ridden heavy metal or simply enjoy the sweet delights of happy, smart rock, OK Go is for you. If you find all pop music sickening and cannot stand any song that may have the least chance of qualifying as "catchy," then you might want to look elsewhere.
At any rate, a bright future lies ahead for OK Go. I'm just glad I can say that I was a fan from the start.
