NPR Music

OK Go: Tiny Desk Concert

By Bob Boilen

Published June 3, 2013 at 2:00 PM EDT

The Tiny Desk has moved, and OK Go has helped make it so.

Earlier this year, we needed to figure out the best possible way to move my Tiny Desk from NPR's old headquarters to our new facility just north of the U.S. Capitol. We wanted to go out with a bang and arrive at our new space in style, so our thoughts naturally turned to a catchy pop band we love: OK Go, whose unforgettable videos have been viewed tens of millions of times on YouTube.

Bandleader Damian Kulash used to be an engineer at an NPR member station in Chicago, so we figured he'd be up for helping us execute a simple idea: Have OK Go start performing a Tiny Desk Concert at our old location, continue playing the same song while the furniture and shelving is loaded onto a truck, and finish the performance at our new home. In addition to cameos by many of our NPR colleagues — Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, David Greene, Guy Raz, Scott Simon, Alix Spiegel, Susan Stamberg and more — this required a few ingredients:

Number of video takes: 223

Percent used in final version: 50

Number of raw audio channels: 2,007

Percent used in final version: 50

Number of microphones: 5

Number of hard-boiled eggs consumed: 8, mostly by bassist Tim Nordwind

Number of seconds Carl Kasell spent in the elevator with OK Go: 98

Number of times Ari Shapiro played the tubular bells: 15

Number of pounds the tubular bells weighed: 300

Number of times the shelves were taken down and put back up: 6

Number of days it took to shoot: 2

Number of cameras: 1

OK Go played "All Is Not Lost" from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, with words tweaked by the All Songs Considered team. And so begins a new era for the Tiny Desk, after 277 concerts (counting this one) in our old home.

Featuring

Dan Konopka, Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Andy Ross

Credits

Producers: Bob Boilen, Mito Habe-Evans; Directors: Mito Habe-Evans, Todd Sullivan; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Assistant Producer: Denise DeBelius; Camera Operator: Gabriella Garcia-Pardo; Supervising Producer: Jessica Goldstein; Editor: Mito Habe-Evans; Assistant Editor: Gabriella Garcia-Pardo; Production Assistants: Lorie Liebig, Lizzie Chen, Gabriella Demczuk, Marie McGrory, Andrew Prince; Executive Producers: Anya Grundmann, Keith Jenkins; Special Thanks: OK Go and our cast and crew of volunteers.