Chevy Sonic morphs into a one-car band under OK Go's baton
 | Davey G. Johnson is a west coast-based senior online editor for Autoweek, a sister publication of Automotive News |
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Meme-hunting, retweeting, tumbling aficionados of cyberculture need no introduction to OK Go, the musical ensemble famed for its ludicrously inventive, charmingly elaborate yet lo-fi videos.
Aware of the band's tendency to rack up page views, General Motors supplied the band with a Chevrolet Sonic for its latest and perhaps most ambitious undertaking -- a jaunt in the California desert in which the car would be used both as a musical instrument and play musical instruments during a performance of "Needing/Getting" from 2010's Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
Festooned with microphones, cameras and appendages, the subcompact bounds through the arid landscape whacking pianos and tonally tuned tubes, then takes a solo, courtesy of a line of Gretsch guitars strapped to a fence.
Front man Damian Kulash availed himself of stunt-driving lessons to pull it all off, and the whole project took four months from stem to stern, including the four-day video shoot.
The result is as endearing and stupefying as all get-out. It's no wonder that Chevy decided to include a piece of the finished product as part of its Super Bowl ad blitz.
