My friend Jeannie posted about the band OK Go a while ago, but I my internet was down at the time (thanks, Qwest) so didn’t watch the video she embedded. It took me until hearing about them on NPR (here’s the story) to look them up again. They have ditched their label (EMI/Capitol) in favor of independent internet distribution–a very cool business model for bands who are well known enough to get away with it. And others, too, who have the ambition, stamina, and talent to get to a high level of recognition on their own. OK Go is clearly set. They write good, catchy tunes, and their videos range from very good to amazing and get viewed many millions of times each, on Youtube. They tend to use a single, long shot to catch an elaborate, surprising sequence. I’ll put in three below. Two are for the same song. The first is the EMI version, and the second, with the Rube Goldberg machine, is their independent version, financed by State Farm. It took 60 takes to get, and they only counted a take if they got past the dominoes and ball-bearings-on-the-tabletop sequences, which they called “very flakey.” It sounds like they recorded different versions of the song (“This Too Shall Pass”) for the videos, too.

Oh, right. The NPR story was partly about how EMI is not letting anyone embed their version of the video… Well, you can still use this attempt to embed as a link to the video on Youtube:

Rube Goldberg version:

The Treadmill video, also financed by EMI, so you’ll have to use the link: