{"id":974150,"date":"2019-12-20T10:36:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T17:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=926422"},"modified":"2019-12-20T10:36:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T17:36:09","slug":"100-gecs-and-the-art-of-not-taking-things-too-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/100-gecs-and-the-art-of-not-taking-things-too-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"100 Gecs and the Art of Not Taking Things Too Seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"

100 Gecs<\/a> are learning how to play with fire. Inside a Manhattan magic shop, Dylan Brady\u2019s and Laura Les\u2019 eyes pop as they flip open a trick wallet that bursts into flames and click a secret button on a coffee mug that shoots forth a bright blaze. The shop also doubles as a Harry Houdini museum, and is filled with old artifacts: handcuffs, locks, posters, a coffin Houdini escaped from in 1907. In between tricks, Les recalls trying, and failing, to start a magic club in elementary school (no one else wanted to join), and she and Brady rave about the local magicians they\u2019ve had open some of their concerts. One, Magic Nathaniel, wowed the crowd<\/a> in Berkeley by solving a Rubik\u2019s Cube blindfolded while standing on a balance beam.<\/p>\n

Les and Brady beam when the proprietor asks if they\u2019d like to try on a pair of Houdini\u2019s custom handcuffs. The old shackles click around their wrists. Grinning, locked together, 100 Gecs stand on the tiny stage tucked into a corner of the shop, but they have one more request: Can they get a picture with the impossibly cute, Instagram-famous Pomeranian named Milk<\/a>, who just happens to be here for his own photoshoot and is presently sitting inside a top hat, tongue lolling out, mugging for an iPhone? Milk and his owner happily oblige.<\/p>\n

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Getting photographed with a famous dog while handcuffed to one another is far from the most surprising thing to have happened to 100 Gecs in 2019. They began the year as virtual unknowns and ended it as mainstays on critics\u2019 best-of lists<\/a> and the opening act on Brockhampton\u2019s current tour. In a span of five days in November, they played two nights at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, then headlined their own sweaty, eardrum-busting show at the Brooklyn club Elsewhere. Neither Les nor Brady could\u2019ve foreseen any of this when they released their wonderfully strange debut, 1000 Gecs, <\/em>back in May. \u201cI just knew that we liked it,\u201d Brady says. \u201cI didn\u2019t really think this would happen, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

1000 Gecs<\/em> has its roots in \u2014 of all places \u2014 two DJ sets Brady and Les put together for \u201cvirtual music festivals\u201d hosted in the online game Minecraft<\/em> in September 2018 and January 2019 (the events were dubbed \u201cCoalchella\u201d and \u201cFire Festival,\u201d respectively). With Les in Chicago and Brady in Los Angeles, they built their sets, and later their album, over email, sending Logic files back and forth, tinkering with songs until they were satisfied.<\/p>\n

The result is easily one of 2019\u2019s most fun and fascinating albums, a 23-minute barrage of sticky-sweet hooks pulled from every far-flung corner of the musical spectrum, cranked well into the red. Its brevity belies its density. Ringtone rap bleeds into pop punk bleeds into trance pop bleeds into abstract sound structures, epic power ballads, sad boy rap, Top 40 EDM, dubstep drops with dog barks, death-metal breakdowns and straight-up ska. Lyrically, Brady and Les chronicle the intimacies and anxieties of the digital age with the perfect mix of humor and pathos, in Auto-Tune-drenched voices that enhance the emotion and the delirium.<\/p>\n

For a band so young, with a discography of less than 20 songs, much has already been said<\/a> about the extremely online allure of 100 Gecs \u2014 future pop for a brave new URL\/IRL world, the promise of the universal jukebox realized outside the \u201cchill\u201d strictures of the streaming economy, music for LAN ports. Brady and Les don\u2019t exactly rebuff such deep readings, but they can be a bit coy about their intentions and approach.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the magician openers \u2014 they thought it would be fun \u2014 or their name, which Les previously said<\/a> came about after she tried to order one gecko online, but received 100 instead. Or consider the first 100 Gecs project, a self-titled EP recorded in the winter of 2015 and released the following year. At the time, Les was living and going to school in Chicago, and Brady doing the same in St. Louis. He made the trip to visit her and try something they\u2019d been talking about doing since high school: make some music together. But why then? What was the impetus? What burning creative desire were they finally acting upon?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do this when it was cold,\u201d Brady says, perusing a menu at an Irish pub down the street from the magic shop. \u201cI thought that\u2019d be funny, interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He seems to be joking, sort of, but not really. He also seems to be totally serious, sort of, but not really.<\/p>\n

Brady and Les grew up <\/strong>in Kirkwood and Webster Groves, neighboring suburbs just outside of St. Louis. Les took to guitar as a teenager, and the first thing she learned to play was a \u201cmusic-box song\u201d from Pirates of the Caribbean<\/em>. But from the start, music other people wrote didn\u2019t interest her. \u201cI didn\u2019t really like learning to play songs as much as learning how to play guitar,\u201d she says. \u201cI just wanted to make new stuff.\u201d She played with a few bands around town and recalls her early guitar heroics with a laugh: \u201cThere was a fair that I played once, and I did every stupid guitar-solo clich\u00e9 that I could \u2014 the gaudiest licks \u2014 doing it with my teeth and shit. I just tried to cram as many bullshit things as I could into one solo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady came to music later, enrolling in a high school choir class with more or less the same mentality that inspired that Chicago trip: \u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019ll take choir, that\u2019ll be fun,\u2019\u201d he remembers. \u201cBut it was actually incredibly fun, life-changing.\u201d The class and its teacher made music seem accessible, and soon Brady was singing, playing piano, messing around with ProTools, and producing tracks for some friends who rapped.<\/p>\n

Brady\u2019s and Les\u2019 tastes were formed during the peak of the peer-to-peer era and the start of the YouTube renaissance. They rattle off old memories of Limewire files downloaded long ago \u2014 Blink-182, Dr. Dre, Zombie Nation\u2019s stadium anthem \u201cKernkraft 400,\u201d Jimi Hendrix songs that weren\u2019t actually Jimi Hendrix songs. \u201cI downloaded the Bill Clinton voice several times,\u201d Les says, referring to the Limewire-era prank where purposely mislabeled files actually contained audio of Clinton\u2019s \u201cI did not have sexual relations with that woman\u201d remarks.<\/p>\n

Brady also tosses out a more unexpected source of discovery. \u201cI feel like hearing Auto-Tune on the Now <\/em>[That\u2019s What I Call Music<\/em>] commercials was more influential,\u201d he says. \u201c[Eiffel 65\u2019s] \u2018Blue,\u2019 I was like, \u2018Fucking hell, this shit is good!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Hampster Dance,\u2019\u201d Les chimes in.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Hampster Dance,\u2019 \u2018Blue,\u2019 [Daft Punk\u2019s] \u2018One More Time\u2019 \u2014 only three songs I need,\u201d Brady says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool dances had soundtracks I wasn\u2019t appreciating at the time,\u201d Les says. \u201cIn sixth grade, I\u2019m sure there was a dance that was like \u2018Stanky Leg,\u2019 \u2018Every Time We Touch,\u2019 and Fall Out Boy\u2026 Love \u2018Cotton Eye Joe.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of this music would\u2019ve been considered bottom-of-the-barrel stuff by the reigning critical class at the time, and even in the age of poptimism, it\u2019s hard not to imagine a requisite wink accompanying a mention of Eiffel 65. But Les and Brad obviously don\u2019t see it that way. Les remembers her teenage years as a constant churn of musical phases; what stuck was less Hendrix and more \u201cHampster Dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take itself too seriously,\u201d she says of the appeal. \u201cNot that it\u2019s lol-type shit, but it\u2019s just a good song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady and Les met as teens through mutual friends. As the story goes, Les was at a house party where Brady played a song he\u2019d been working on. \u201cIt was a break-beat, sample [thing],\u201d he says. \u201cI was digging for records at the time, trying to do that grind.\u201d Les thought it was so good that she got angry and left.<\/p>\n

They continued to hang out more after that, bonding over nightcore \u2014 remix tracks sped up to chipmunk-level speeds \u2014 and avant-pop like Oneohtrix Point Never. At one point, Les was primed to join Brady\u2019s punk band, but then she left St. Louis for Chicago.<\/p>\n

Between 2015 and 2018, Brady and Les focused primarily on solo projects. It provided both the opportunity to branch out and improve \u2014 \u201csharpening the blade,\u201d they say \u2014 and let their ambitions take hold. \u201cHigh school, I was just making tracks for no reason,\u201d Brady says. \u201cThen in college I wanted to be a world-class producer.\u201d He began to make a name for himself on SoundCloud<\/a>, producing other artists and, in 2015, releasing an album, All I Ever Wanted,<\/em> which featured Ravenna Golden, Night Lovell, and Brockhampton\u2019s Kevin Abstract. Around 2016, Brady dropped out of college and relocated to Los Angeles. He kept producing for others, but also released several EPs that bounced around genres until he hit his stride with Peace and Love<\/em>, released in October 2018 after he signed to Diplo\u2019s Mad Decent.<\/p>\n

Back in Chicago, songwriting offered Les a refuge: \u201cI was just pissed off and feeling like my life was completely worthless, and I was like, \u2018I wanna write some songs, do something, anything.\u2019 It was therapy.\u201d She released two EPs<\/a>, hello kitty skates to the fuckin CEMETARY<\/em> and i just don\u2019t want to name it anything with \u201cbeach\u201d in the title<\/em> in October 2016 and August 2017, first under the name Osno1, then later relisted under her own name. She cites hello kitty<\/em> as a breakthrough moment \u2014 \u201cThe first time I\u2019d assembled some tracks myself that I was really fucking with.\u201d The following year she released a remix album and a six-track project, BIG SUMMER JAMS 2018<\/em>, mainly comprised of collaborations. One track, \u201cfeels good,\u201d featured Brady, and it hints at the shape of Gecs to come with its mix of bubblegum pop, trop-house, and big-tent EDM speckled with a dog bark and some air horns for good measure.<\/p>\n

During these years, Brady and Les stayed in touch, bounced songs off each other and regularly floated the idea of getting their band back together. But the right opportunity never presented itself, until Les received an invite to play Minecraft<\/em> \u201cCoalchella.\u201d She immediately reached out to Brady, Brady immediately accepted, and the pair began to craft their set, files zipping between Chicago and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoalchella\u201d itself was the brainchild of<\/a> a loose collective<\/a> of Minecraft<\/em> players and SoundCloud musicians known as Thwip Gang. Minecraft<\/em> is a sandbox game centered around the idea of building whatever you want, with an online multiplayer mode that allows players to gather and play, or even launch their own servers where they can build as they please. Thwip Gang took advantage of all that to make \u201cCoalchella,\u201d building a big digital festival grounds where the blocky avatars of attendees could mingle while the performers\u2019 own blocky avatars hit the stage and had their music played to everyone in attendance.<\/p>\n

100 Gecs\u2019 \u201cCoalchella\u201d set would produce a few new songs, including one, \u201cRingtone,\u201d that would eventually end up on 1000 Gecs<\/em>, but the album really started to come together when 100 Gecs were asked back for \u201cFire Festival\u201d in January. That set \u2014 which can be heard starting at the 2:37:00 mark of this video<\/a> \u2014 featured several songs that would end up on 1000 Gecs<\/em>, including fan favorite \u201cMoney Machine.\u201d In the video, when the song starts piping through the digital festival grounds, one user wonders<\/a>: \u201cwhat the fuck is this?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Brady and Les, making music over email was a necessity, but it was also easy, due to the trust they\u2019d built up over the years. \u201cIf I send something to Dylan, there\u2019s no fucking way it\u2019s going to be worse when I get it back,\u201d Les says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSame,\u201d Brady adds. \u201cWe just go until we don\u2019t know what to do with it anymore, and then we hand it off and the other person figures it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a song like \u201cMoney Machine\u201d \u2014 a pop stomper that opens with the line \u201cHey lil piss baby\u2026\u201d \u2014 the process was simple: Brady sent a beat, Les added vocals, then Brady added more<\/em> vocals. Other tracks required more tinkering, but the process was never arduous, and the aim was always to enjoy it. \u201cStupid Horse,\u201d for instance, is a straight-up ska song, complete with gang vocals and a few expertly placed \u201cpick it up\u201d ad-libs. Les says Dylan sent her a voice memo of what the well-worn trope should sound like (\u201cI\u2019ve been saying \u2018pick it up\u2019 for a long time,\u201d he says), so she simply dropped the recording he sent into the song.<\/p>\n