Damian & Bonerama on Letterman Tonight

Damian and Bonerama will be on the Late Show with David Letterman tonight, Monday, February 11th. They´ll do a song from You're Not Alone, their brand new EP. The one you should buy because all of the proceeds go to help New Orleans musicians. And because it's good. Get it at iTunes.

A Big Exciting NYC Show To Remind You About Voting

Feb 5th is Super Tuesday, when a bunch of states hold primaries. Feb 4th is Super Monday, when OK Go plays a show to celebrate voting at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. It's being billed as a Voter Awareness Show for Barack Obama, but fans of the rock who aren't fans of Barack should still go. It'll be awesome. Other performers include Nina Person (from the Cardigans) and Craig Wedren and Nathan Larson from Shudder To Think, one of Damian's all-time favorite bands. The boys of Stella host, and word is that a lot of famous people might talk. Get your tickets.

Also, in case this isn't obvious: We think you ought to vote in your primaries. You have our permission to skip school, work, and delay drinking practice to go and pick your leaders. Just remember you probably need to register first. It's real easy. Register now.

Exclusive VIP Tix Available for DC Show

An Exclusive VIP Deal has been set for the Feb 2nd OK Go/Bonerama show in DC. Sixty bucks gets you two drink tickets, a post-show meet 'n' greet with the boys, plus entry to the VIP Viewing Area with its celestial snack spread. Before you freak out, please understand it's a benefit show and the boys have no interest in maintaining a tiered service that reserves the best rock for the richest people, except when all the money goes to New Orleans musicians who really, really need it. If you've bought tickets already, we're told you can upgrade. Buy Tickets.

New EP Feb 2! Special shows in New Orleans 1/11 & DC 2/2

You´re Not Alone

OK Go spent the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans recording with the trombone soul monsters Bonerama, and soon the world will hear the insanely swaggering result: A benefit EP called You´re Not Alone that comes out Fat Tuesday of Mardi Gras with this tracklist:

Rock 'N' Roll Suicide (the Bowie tune)
A Million Ways
Oh Lately It's So Quiet
It's a Disaster
I Shall Be Released (the Dylan Tune, with "Carnival Time" Johnson on vocals)

The EP will be available only on iTunes, and 100%--every last penny-- of the proceeds will go toward rebuilding the New Orleans music community, which was devastated by Katrina. Awesomely, iTunes agreed to donate their share as did IODA, who helped us digitize and promote it. Money goes to Sweet Home New Orleans,  an incredible organization, and also to build a new home for New Orleans R&B legend and amazing person Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, who lost everything in the storm and post-storm floods.

The band believes so strongly in this cause that they donated weeks of time and effort and resources that would otherwise have gone to making a new album or teaching Tim to talk to girls. Why bring this up? To convince you to buy the thing. It´s worth your money, all of which will go to helping out talented people in very real need. Do us, them and yourselves a favor and buy a copy.

SHOWS IN NOLA AND DC

OK Go & Bonerama are playing two benefit shows to celebrate the release. Buy a ticket to either and you´ll get a free download of You're Not Alone as a gift from OK Go. The first show is this Friday. Get on it! Buy plane tickets! Help build a house while you´re there!

Jan 11 -- New Orleans, LA – Tipitina's
Feb 2   -- Washington, DC – 9:30 Club

Again, every cent raised goes straight to the cause. If you can't make a show, you can still prove your awesomeness by donating to Sweet Home New Orleans right now.

Finally: Huge thanks to Music Travel Management, Horizon Entertainment Cargo, Sennheiser USA, and Gibson, who all made generous donations so these shows could happen.

Fuse Says We Rocked The World. Also, Nirvana.

Fuse has dedicated an episode of Videos That Rocked The World to OK Go's very own Here It Goes Again, a video you may have seen once or twice. The episode debuts Thursday, November 29th at 10 PM EST and repeats at 1 PM EST the next day.

Here's something to tackle while you wait: Fuse has set up a wiki page for each video, which lets you log in and add your own comments, info, photos, videos, etc. Right now it's pretty bare. I say we attack.

Bonus: Here's a video that rocked our brains:
OK Go on The Simpsons


And here's one that will rock yours:
OK Go at KOKO in London

The Boys Get A Simpsons Shoutout Tonight!

I've been looking everywhere for a clip of the TV promo, but can't seem to find it. So this image of Marge in gym clothes will have to do. I'm sure the OK Go shoutout is only a 2-second passing shot, but pretty exciting nonetheless.

OK Go Sorta on Oprah

Oprah will be doing an entire episode about YouTube tomorrow and word on the street is that she'll show some part of the Here It Goes Again video, and maybe talk about it. There were rumors about an interview or a performance from the boys, but in the end OK Go lost out to Diddy, Paul Potts and 2004's person of the year: Tyson, the Skateboarding Bulldog. Learn more about the episode on Oprah's site. Learn more about the concept of skateboarding dogs in the world's most unnecessary wikipedia entry.

You Should KOKO

OK Go will be performing in London on Nov. 22nd at KOKO, which has perhaps the fanciest-fonted website of all the clubs OK Go has played. The show is part of the Smirnoff Electric Cabaret, which promises to mix rock music with"aerial acrobats, magicians, beat-boxers" and a cubic kilometer of Smirnoff cocktails. Sounds like the recipe for the fun kind of a disaster. Buy your tickets now.

OK Go at Incheon Pentaport

Here's video of our boys performing in front of a couple of tens of thousands at the Pentaport Rock Festival in South Korea last month. Now doesn't that look like fun?

A Letter From Damian

Hello people,

It's me, Damian, in Australia. We're getting ready for a short little tour here, which is exciting because, like absolutely everyone, I'm super into marsupials, and it's a rare chance for a boy like me to watch the toilet flush backwards.

I'm writing to ask for your help with a little good old-fashioned world-saving. My close friend and former band-mate*, Oliver, is one of the brains behind DonorsChoose.org, one of the coolest non-profits I know of. They're finalists to win a huge grant from the American Express Member's Project and they need your vote -- it'll only take a couple minutes of your time, and it'll do a lot of good.

DonorsChoose.org is a website listing public school teachers' best ideas for classroom projects. Public school teachers, who are so chronically under-funded that they often have to pay for books and materials out of their own pockets, submit projects they need money for, and real people like you and Jorge and my mom (bless her heart) can browse the various submissions and choose to directly help fund the ones that strike a chord. It's an ingeniously simple system that actually helps the people who need the help; 100% of the money ($13 million so far!) goes to classroom projects, unless donors specifically earmark their donation to help keep the lights on at DonorsChoose.org.

The AmEx grant is huge (up to $5 million), and chosen by an online vote open to all AmEx cardholders. If we vote DonorsChoose.org to victory, every penny will go to fund the more than ten thousand classroom projects in their database; DonorsChoose.org won't keep a dime. Which is pretty cool.

Right now, our heroes are in 2nd place behind a project that's semi-secretly funded by Procter & Gamble (a $68 billion pharmaceuticals/manufacturing mega-corporation with 140 thousand employees), who want the grant money to help distribute their "Pur" water filtering system. This affiliation isn't mentioned on the site, but the NY Times wrote about it last week. Here's the article, and here's another one from Consumerist.com.

So, if you have an American Express card (or one of these other ones), do me (and 250 thousand public school kids) a favor and vote for vote for DonorsChoose.org.. And if you don't have an AmEx (or an advanced Hogswarts degree in computer hackery), forward this email to people who might.

In any event, you should check out DonorsChoose.org and see what it's all about. We found a few projects that seemed particularly awesome and put them in this registry. Browse those if you like, or search for your own. Only good things will come of it.


Thanks all,

Damian

PS: If reading a whole post about things that are good and positive and completely wholesome messed with your brain, sorry. To set it back to normal, here's a photo of the creepiest person I saw during our visit to Taiwan. Oops, here he is again.

*Wiki-nerds, start your engines. We were called Calixto Chinchile, and we existed for about 3 months in 1996. Or maybe it was 97. Somewhere out there, there's a recording of us playing the very first version of "Hello, My Treacherous Friends."

OK Go Sets In The East

Over the next few weeks, OK Go will be scattering scrawled out setlists on the stages of South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Japan, five of our staunchest allies in the everlasting War on Rock That's Kinda Meh. OK Go will prevail, but only with your help. Hit the shows page for details. If you're in the area and want to help promote the shows, head to the Juggling Club.

Finally: Earlier today the boys played the Pentaport festival in South Korea. Quick question: Did they have any trouble adjusting to their new environment?



Short answer: No