Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

by J. Scott McClintock
In the middle of 2005, the Brooklyn/Philadelphia-based Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were being touted as the hottest unsigned band in the U.S. Their self-titled debut was self-produced, self-released, self-promoted, and self-distributed, with a great deal of help from the grassroots indie blog machine. There was so much online interest in the band that NPR even did a feature on the emerging phenomena of Internet band buzz (using CYHSY as the prime example).
Alec Ounsworth, Lee Sargent, Robbie Guertin, Tyler Sargent, and Sean Greenhalgh coalesced into a group after Ounsworth and Tyler Sargent laid the initial groundwork in Massachusetts. After the group moved to Brooklyn (with Ounsworth in nearby Philadelphia), songwriting work began in earnest. A four-song demo was followed by their debut full-length in 2005 (and the subsequent Internet hoopla followed hot on its heels). Rolling Stone championed the cause further by heralding the group as "Hot New Band" for 2005. By the end of that year, CYHSY signed with U.K.-based Wichita Recordings. Ounsworth dabbled with his side project Flashy Python and the Body Snatchers while Greenhalgh's Guns N' Roses tribute band Mr. Brownstone packed it up in June 2006. The rest of that year found the group (and new label) leaking out a few EPs before they hit the shelves with their second full-length, Some Loud Thunder, in 2007.