I think there’s also something to the idea that Millennials, perhaps more so than earlier generations, are aware of what gen z is doing and interact with them because of the internet. There’s always been generational mixing within certain scenes and sub cultures but the way people consume algorithmic content these days means the average 40 year old can and does get into flame wars with the average 25 year old more often. That, plus the fact that nostalgia is cool now and everything is backwards looking, might be part of the reason it’s harder to tell what’s being made for who. Instead of pretending it’s 2005 and they’re 20 again, Millennials can, in a way that is at least confusing if not convincing, cosplay what they imagine being 20 is like now, and some of that is being into a band that has some gen z cred that still reminds them of music their own past.
That being said Geese did kind of sweep my gen z friend group. So I think there’s some genuine gen z fans. Plus there’s plenty of aging millennials who seem pretty crotchety about them, which is always a reliable sign it’s for younger people. Myself, I don’t really have any substantial critical opinions about music but I think they’re fine.
The media was saying the same shit about the Strokes some years back....you would have thought they were the second coming of the fucking Stooges!
Geese fucking sucks and we all know it. They sound like some shit you'd hear at a bar in Sacramento and then walk out going, "meh." If these nerds are "geniuses" then Roky Erickson is a GOD.
I've watched a lot of unfamiliar bands on the SNL music segments across the decades. The performance I saw by Geese was perhaps the most sad-ass guitar band I've ever seen.
I'm usually quite forgiving and polite with my reviews, never having been paid for rock criticism and preferring to emphasize the positive. Even though I'm not a professional musician either, I still strive to heed the advice of the Musicians 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of other musicians." But enough is enough. Geese is a disgrace to the Tradition.
Geese, getting destroyed by a semi-obscure Boomer band from 50 years ago:
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon is a very fun read. Where Chaos errs on the side of journalistic caution, McGowan indulges in full blown paranoia, but even if he’s right about 10% of it…My 15 year old son put on a playlist the other day, and it was full of Replacements, 60s folk rock, emo. The newest thing I heard was Tame Impala and that Joy Crookes song Feet Don’t Fail Me Now. I’m not even sure he has any sense of the timeline those songs sprang out of. The way he encounter music, everything is new. The timeline has been flattened. btw Washington, DC, has to get some credit for Jonathan Fire*Eater, who had like half a dozen legitimately great songs.
Hi yes I'm crotchety about Geese and have no repressed Freudian obsession with a would-be zoomer Geese listener. (I listened to a Geese album because of this essay, which I found because I enjoyed your Vollman polemic.)
I'm accustomed to Obama-era lofi rock that has soothing guitar riffs and bridges that give the listener an unearned sense of grandiosity. I don't really care that the grandiosity was unearned (all my dopamine between the ages of 18 and 30 was unearned), but I will say that it's resulted in a situation where I can't do guitar riffs-unto-discordant screaming. I can't do could-be-Matt-Berninger-but-too-irony-poisoned. And I especially can't do crescendoes that end in tinny little synth-beeps. I was raised by people who love Credence Clearwater Revival and Bruce Springsteen and sentiment: this I've been told makes me "chuegy," and that's fine.
The only people my age I've known who've claimed to have hacked 100 gecs grew up more online than me and have continued to take drugs at a pace I've long since abandoned.
I'm a zoomer who was managing a college radio station when Geese's second album, 3D Country, came out. I was by far the biggest fan at the station. Most of the other students were tired of the Americana trend by that point, and preferred their first album which was a more straightforward post-punk type of deal. Watching the band break containment with what I found to be a pretty disappointing record has been really interesting. Almost everyone I know has their take on the new album (opinons vary drastically), and I have a friend who is only tangentally into rock music but bought Getting Killed on vinyl. Anecdotally, the band has definitely struck a chord with Gen Z through this throughly ~just okay~ album. I don't entirely get it. For the college radio station crowd, our defining Gen Z band was probably Black Midi. Their first album has gone down as a generational hallmark for me—a distinct Time and Place I can look back on—and actually conveyed the sense of an exciting new sound when it came out in 2019. I remember listening to a KEXP interview with Geese shortly after their first album came out, and Cameron Winter explicity said they wanted to make music that sounded like Black Midi. Which made sense because seemingly everyone wanted to make music that sounded like Black Midi! Thankfully, broader culture did not catch on. I pray the millenials at my job never discover the Geordie Greep solo album and start asking me about it.
I think there’s also something to the idea that Millennials, perhaps more so than earlier generations, are aware of what gen z is doing and interact with them because of the internet. There’s always been generational mixing within certain scenes and sub cultures but the way people consume algorithmic content these days means the average 40 year old can and does get into flame wars with the average 25 year old more often. That, plus the fact that nostalgia is cool now and everything is backwards looking, might be part of the reason it’s harder to tell what’s being made for who. Instead of pretending it’s 2005 and they’re 20 again, Millennials can, in a way that is at least confusing if not convincing, cosplay what they imagine being 20 is like now, and some of that is being into a band that has some gen z cred that still reminds them of music their own past.
That being said Geese did kind of sweep my gen z friend group. So I think there’s some genuine gen z fans. Plus there’s plenty of aging millennials who seem pretty crotchety about them, which is always a reliable sign it’s for younger people. Myself, I don’t really have any substantial critical opinions about music but I think they’re fine.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING MY PIECE AND THANKS FOR THE SHOUTOUT!
This was gas tbh. I’m a zoomer and i still haven’t heard one geese song. The only zoomers I know who like them are ironic red scare listeners
The media was saying the same shit about the Strokes some years back....you would have thought they were the second coming of the fucking Stooges!
Geese fucking sucks and we all know it. They sound like some shit you'd hear at a bar in Sacramento and then walk out going, "meh." If these nerds are "geniuses" then Roky Erickson is a GOD.
I've watched a lot of unfamiliar bands on the SNL music segments across the decades. The performance I saw by Geese was perhaps the most sad-ass guitar band I've ever seen.
I'm usually quite forgiving and polite with my reviews, never having been paid for rock criticism and preferring to emphasize the positive. Even though I'm not a professional musician either, I still strive to heed the advice of the Musicians 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of other musicians." But enough is enough. Geese is a disgrace to the Tradition.
Geese, getting destroyed by a semi-obscure Boomer band from 50 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDXMOxpAsqA
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon is a very fun read. Where Chaos errs on the side of journalistic caution, McGowan indulges in full blown paranoia, but even if he’s right about 10% of it…My 15 year old son put on a playlist the other day, and it was full of Replacements, 60s folk rock, emo. The newest thing I heard was Tame Impala and that Joy Crookes song Feet Don’t Fail Me Now. I’m not even sure he has any sense of the timeline those songs sprang out of. The way he encounter music, everything is new. The timeline has been flattened. btw Washington, DC, has to get some credit for Jonathan Fire*Eater, who had like half a dozen legitimately great songs.
Hi yes I'm crotchety about Geese and have no repressed Freudian obsession with a would-be zoomer Geese listener. (I listened to a Geese album because of this essay, which I found because I enjoyed your Vollman polemic.)
I'm accustomed to Obama-era lofi rock that has soothing guitar riffs and bridges that give the listener an unearned sense of grandiosity. I don't really care that the grandiosity was unearned (all my dopamine between the ages of 18 and 30 was unearned), but I will say that it's resulted in a situation where I can't do guitar riffs-unto-discordant screaming. I can't do could-be-Matt-Berninger-but-too-irony-poisoned. And I especially can't do crescendoes that end in tinny little synth-beeps. I was raised by people who love Credence Clearwater Revival and Bruce Springsteen and sentiment: this I've been told makes me "chuegy," and that's fine.
The only people my age I've known who've claimed to have hacked 100 gecs grew up more online than me and have continued to take drugs at a pace I've long since abandoned.
I'm a zoomer who was managing a college radio station when Geese's second album, 3D Country, came out. I was by far the biggest fan at the station. Most of the other students were tired of the Americana trend by that point, and preferred their first album which was a more straightforward post-punk type of deal. Watching the band break containment with what I found to be a pretty disappointing record has been really interesting. Almost everyone I know has their take on the new album (opinons vary drastically), and I have a friend who is only tangentally into rock music but bought Getting Killed on vinyl. Anecdotally, the band has definitely struck a chord with Gen Z through this throughly ~just okay~ album. I don't entirely get it. For the college radio station crowd, our defining Gen Z band was probably Black Midi. Their first album has gone down as a generational hallmark for me—a distinct Time and Place I can look back on—and actually conveyed the sense of an exciting new sound when it came out in 2019. I remember listening to a KEXP interview with Geese shortly after their first album came out, and Cameron Winter explicity said they wanted to make music that sounded like Black Midi. Which made sense because seemingly everyone wanted to make music that sounded like Black Midi! Thankfully, broader culture did not catch on. I pray the millenials at my job never discover the Geordie Greep solo album and start asking me about it.
I got aged out chillin with zoomers at a Chat Pile show. It was cold, raining, and I was tired, so I old man left.
Geese is 90s nostalgia for people who didn't experience the 90s.
It would make me tired if I read any more of it than enough to realize it would make me tired.