Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
From left to right: Tyler Sargent, Robbie Guertin, Lee Sargent, Sean Greenhalgh, Alec Ounsworth
Background information
Origin	Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Genre(s)	Indie rock
Years active	2005 - present
Label(s)	Wichita Recordings
Website	Official website
Members
Alec Ounsworth Robbie Guertin Lee Sargent Tyler Sargent Sean Greenhalgh

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is an American indie rock group based in Brooklyn, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, comprised of Alec Ounsworth, Lee Sargent, Robbie Guertin, Tyler Sargent, and Sean Greenhalgh. Their debut album, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, was self-released in 2005.

The band, whose members met at Connecticut College, started out by playing weekly shows at Pianos ^[1] in Manhattan. They are notable for achieving their initial fame and commercial success via the Internet rather than through a record label. Shortly after the release of their first album they received attention from numerous MP3 blogs and a favorable review from Pitchfork Media, who gave the band a "Best New Music" commendation. The ensuing demand for the album was so great that the band was forced to repress the CD, as the initial production run was too small. They garnered even more press after David Bowie and David Byrne were spotted at some of the band's shows in 2005. ^[2] ^[3]

Most recently, they received praise from Rolling Stone as the 'Hot New Band' for 2005. On October 3, 2005, they were signed to Wichita Recordings in the UK.

The band members live in Brooklyn, with the exception of Ounsworth who lives in Philadelphia.

Ounsworth has a side project (Flashy Python and the Body Snatchers), a solo project, and is said to be forming an "indie rock supergroup". ^[4] Meanwhile, Greenhalgh moonlighted as the frontman for Mr. Brownstone, a Guns N' Roses tribute band, until their breakup in June 2006.^[5]

The band has a faily extensive repertoire that expands outside their two-album parameter. Several non-album songs are frequently performed at live concerts, most notably, "My Papa's Waltz" (Also known as "Cigarettes" or "We Met at the Cemetary"), "Me and You Watson," "The Sword Song," "The Chinese New Year," and "Wet Dynamite." They have also been known to cover the ballad "Helpless," written by Neil Young. On November 11, 2006, the group partook in a tribute show for "The Music of Bob Dylan" at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. They performed the Bob Dylan song "Love Minus Zero / No Limit" from the 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home.

The band will release their second album, Some Loud Thunder on January 30, 2007, as reported by Pitchfork Media. ^[6]