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1857
Jean-Francois Millet paints Blue Man Group while they use a funnelator slingshot to cast paint balloons against an abandoned barn. The Blue Men come out disappointingly small on canvas and not properly centered. Millet remedies the situation by adding peasants to the foreground, thereby balancing the composition. No one had ever painted peasants in the "grand style" before this piece, which he calls The Gleaners. The painting causes a scandal and Millet catalyzes a revolution in artistic subject matter.
1888
In 1888, van Gogh paints a portrait of Blue Man Group at a tavern in France. The resulting painting (Night Cafe) offers a glimpse into how much influence Blue Man Group's presence had on van Gogh's emerging style. In a letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh writes: "When looking into the eyes of Blue Man Group today, I could almost feel an energy radiating out of them. Could this energy be painted? Tonight I should like to try an experiment on the tavern lanterns to see if such a thing is possible." Indeed, the resulting lamps look more like eyeballs than lanterns, and the radiating painting experiment, apparently viewed by van Gogh as a success, informs all of his following work - including Starry Night (1889).
1890
Blue Man Group finds a new bar in which to hang out: the Moulin Rouge. It is here that Blue Man Group develops several small indoor pieces for the first time. Toulouse-Lautrec captures this historic period in his painting At The Moulin Rouge (1892).
1900
Throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century, Blue Man Group develops new material at places like Dixon Place, Performance Space 122 and on the Vaudeville circuit. They appear several times on the same bill as the young Marx Brothers. One of Blue Man Group's pieces, called "Shadows," is the inspiration for the classic mirror scene in the Marx Brothers' film Duck Soup.
1928
Sculptor Constantin Brancusi experiences a Blue Man Group performance that expresses the soul's desire to "soar upward" with a show called "Exalted Moments." Brancusi had been working on his Bird In Space series, which deals with similar themes of ascension. In the piece, performed at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Blue Man Group jumps up and down incessantly for twenty minutes. That night, Brancusi writes in his journal, "Blue Man Group was very brave, but the piece was pathetic." As a gesture of encouragement, Brancusi gives Blue Man Group his lesser known piece Bird In Palmolive.
1931
Blue Man Group develops their first full length theatre piece called "Untitled" (they are the first to do this). The image shown here, depicting a scene from the play, appears on the cover of the Playbill. This clearly inspires Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory from the same year. Blue Man Group's theatre set, however, is in no way intended to evoke hidden subconscious symbols. Instead, the sagging clocks and unusual background are the result of Blue Man Group's love of cool images and things that are gooey.
1940
In the 1940s, Blue Man Group develops a series of rooftop performances where the group stands on chimney pipes for hours at a time. Alberto Giacometti cites this photograph as the source of inspiration for the elongation of his sculptural subjects – the signature style of his greatest works. He writes: "When I first saw Blue Man Group standing on the slender smoke stacks, my response was that the elevation emphasized their isolation from each other." In 1948, Giacometti pays tribute to his muses with his work Three Blue Men Walking.
1950
Blue Man Group spends the summer of 1950 in the Hamptons as the guest of Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner. Although Pollock never publicly admits to having had any help with his work, the photo at the left speaks for itself.
1960
When Yves Klein gives Blue Man Group a tour of his studio, one of the Blue Men accidently brushes against a blank canvas leaving behind a blue smudge. Klein writes: "When I saw the Blue Man's smudge on my canvas I thought - at last, the life force transmitted directly to a painting, unmediated by the artist's hand!" Klein explores this idea further, leading to his infamous Anthropometry series, where he paints his subjects and then presses or drags them against large white canvases.
1967
Throughout the late 60s, Blue Man Group develops some of the pieces that later become part of their show "Tubes." It is in this period that some of their experiments with black light and spiral paintings take place. Earth artist Robert Smithson, attends one of Blue Man Group's early "happenings" and upon seeing one of the spiral paintings, asks if he could take this idea into another medium. The result is the 1,500 foot long Spiral Jetty Smithson builds in Salt Lake, Utah in the early 70s.
1988
On May 20, 1988, Blue Man Group performs "Funeral For The 80s," a symbolic burial of the decade two years early. Included in the coffin are Postmodern and Deconstructionist art theory. Surprisingly, the funeral works. The next day, artists all over the world agree to stop making art based on these misguided concepts.
1990
In the 90s, the story of Blue Man Group's influence on modern art is being told for the first time. Many of the pieces mentioned here are on display in the lobby gallery of the Briar Street Theatre in Chicago.
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1930
Blue Man Group lives near Robert Johnson, where they learn how to beat rudimentary rhythms as Johnson plays guitar. Johnson plays on a level so advanced that the Blue Men can’t keep up with him. Johnson seeks out far more sophisticated musicians and never plays with the Blue Men again. Always feeling guilty for ditching his less talented friends, he may have associated sorrowful music with the color blue.
1956
Blue Man Group’s first experiments with the Dogulum on “The Steve Allen Show” (with a basset hound) never air because the crude sound equipment on the soundstage isn’t sophisticated enough to pick up the dog’s vibe. When the basset hound roams onstage during Elvis Presley’s appearance, the superstitious King, scheduled to perform “Jailhouse Rock,” switches to “Hound Dog.” He interprets the hound as a sign that he’d chosen the wrong song.
1959
In Detroit, the Blue Men are hired by "Ivory" Joe Hunter to be in the first line-up of The Funk Brothers, the legendary Motown house band. After showing up late to several of the notoriously punctual sessions, Hunter has no choice but to fire the Blue Men and replace them with drummers Benny Benjamin, Richard “Pistol” Allen, and Clifford Mack. The Blue Men find employment in New York’s Brill building writing catchy hooks for the songwriting team Lieber/Stoller.
1961
Blue Man Group takes a sabbatical on the California coast to pursue one of their new interests, surfing. They join a community of bands playing simple, catchy songs celebrating cars, girls and California. But because Blue Man Group’s surfing lyrics refer to the Internet, this period of their work is not fully appreciated or understood until the mid-1990s.
1965
While hanging with Bob Dylan backstage at the Newport Folk Festival, the Blue Men are suddenly inspired to encase his acoustic guitar in Jell-O, convinced that the visual effect would be radical and stunning. Dylan loves the idea at first, but his attempts to actually play the guitar fail repeatedly. As a last resort, he is forced to borrow an electric guitar, which outrages much of the traditional folk audience, but delights others and paves the way for "folk rock".
1966
The Haight/Ashbury scene in San Francisco. The Blue Men form a band called Blue Man & the Holding Company, hiring a lead singer named Janis Joplin. The powerful entertainment manager Albert Grossman decides to get rid of the Blue Men because he feels that Joplin gets too crowded by all of their big drums and tube instruments.
Keith Moon catches a performance of paint drumming at a small London pub. At this point, the Blue Men don’t use any paint, feeling that the colorful life force that naturally emanates from the drums would dazzle audiences. Alas, audiences has no ability to see imaginary colors. Since the piece had been promoted as "a percussive explosion of color" the audience boos loudly at the end of the piece -- except Moon who yells, "I can see it! It's beautiful!" After this performance, the Blue Men begin pouring paint on their drums to help give the audience an approximation of what they are missing. Moon pursues a purist path and creates thousands of incredibly colorful air-paintings.
1967
During a 10-day tour of America, the members of Pink Floyd attend one of Blue Man Group’s full-length theatrical productions. The Blue Men select Pink Floyd’s front-man Syd Barrett to be the audience participant for one of their Yves Klein-influenced painting rituals. The Blue Men pour paint over Barrett and then swing him upside down against a canvas. The resulting painting is one of the best ever. After this incident, the Blue Men decide they’ll always use protective helmets on the audience volunteers when performing this piece.
1968
Director Dennis Hopper chooses an early version of "Rods & Cones" for the soundtrack to the famous "cruising down the highway" scene in Easy Rider. He runs into difficulties in the editing room, though, when the song triggers an unusually intense acid flashback each time he listens to it. He is forced to use his second choice, "Born to be Wild."
1969
The Blue Men spend the summer painting and jamming with Joni Mitchell in Paris. Most rock historians agree that the Blue Men taught Mitchell to appreciate how color and music could be effectively intertwined. Were it not for her newfound fondness of color, one of her most popular songs might have been released under its original name, "Big Taxi."
1971
Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers invites the Blue Men onstage at the Fillmore East to catch gumballs and marshmallows during the song “Whipping Post.” The Blue Men have trouble getting into the zone and it takes them more than 20 minutes to have a successful catch, forcing the band to improvise a furious jam with extended solos. When the crowd goes nuts, the Allman Brothers vow to play this new long version from that point forward.
1972
Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers invites the Blue Men onstage at the Fillmore East to catch gumballs and marshmallows during the song “Whipping Post.” The Blue Men have trouble getting into the zone and it takes them more than 20 minutes to have a successful catch, forcing the band to improvise a furious jam with extended solos. When the crowd goes nuts, the Allman Brothers vow to play this new long version from that point forward.
1977
Blue Man Group visits Morocco to explore the music of various Sufi sects and meditate on prayer rugs. Blue Man Group pays tribute to this experience in their piece "Sects and Rugs and Rock 'n' Roll." Ian Dury’s misinterpreted cover version of the song goes on to become a hit. By the time someone points out the error to Dury, it is too late, and an entire generation of rock fans is given the wrong recipe for mental and physical autonomy.
1978
Members of Queen attend one of Blue Man Group’s first performances with piano smashers. Blue Men line up 10 pianos and then proceed to smash, pound and jump on them for 40 minutes straight. This is only partly successful since they have not yet mastered the technique of tuning many strings all to the same note, but it is good enough to inspire Queen to create the beat for “We Will Rock You” by stomping on a piano and clapping their hands.
1980
While visiting Grandmaster Flash in his Bronx apartment, Blue Man Group splash paint all over Flash's living room, including on some rare vinyl on his stereo. They attempt to clean the LP while still on the turntable, which produces a rhythmic scratching sound through the speakers. Grandmaster Flash is blown away by this and begins experimenting with this strange new technique, eventually perfecting his own much-copied scratching style.
In the early 1980s, Blue Man Group makes a series of humorous "sound collages," which involves splicing tapes of heavy metal guitar solos with pop tunes by Air Supply and Barry Manilow. 80s "hair bands" such as Whitesnake, Warrant and Tesla don’t get the joke and start incorporating this practice into their own music, and the "power ballad" is born.
1988
The Blue Men venture to Seattle to perform impromptu jam sessions with local bands. Dressed for a reforestation project, they play in flannel shirts, big shorts and work boots. The alternative/hipster audience is outraged by this deviation from their strict punk/new wave dress code and throw fruit. When the Blue Men win them over by catching the projectiles in their mouths, audience members and Seattle musicians adopt the look.
1995
At a music convention in Orlando, Florida, the Blue Men purposely set out to stage the worst music show ever. They hire several local teenaged boys to bounce around the stage with no band in sight, singing along with a backing track. At the end of the piece, the audience is so moved by the sheer horror that they silently ruminate upon a dismal life without real musical performance. A lone audience member begins applauding wildly, while yelling, "I love it!" over and over. It’s later discovered that this man was Lou Pearlman.
2001
After a long string of failed relationships with lead singers, Van Halen finally settles on Blue Man Group to serve as front men for the band. The Blue Men take a minimalist approach, paring back on theatrics and spending most of their time shining light on guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who exclaims to the press, "Finally, I’m happy!"
2003
Blue Man Group finishes recording The Complex and begins preparing for a rock tour with the aim of incorporating all they have learned about rocking audiences over the years into an exciting multi-media concert experience.
This look at Blue Man Group's influence on rock was compiled by Blue Man Group and rock historian Gary Mezzi.