Music Molly

through the portal at the king gizzard synth table pop-up

Much has been made of our current urban culture of line waiting. Frozen yogurt, matcha, pop-ups where you can try new beauty products, limited edition Trader Joes miniature tote bags. When I was in New York a few months ago, a street in Soho was shut down and segmented into several clamouring queues; when I asked a guy what the fuss was about, he helpfully responded, "Clothes."

I felt above it all. I thought waiting in line was a waste of time. But I finally found a line that felt worth it: a line for Stu and Joey from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who were playing a pop-up 'synth table' show at a record store in Pasadena. This was the line...that was mine.

My personal Gizzstory is that I went from thinking their name was too silly to entertain, to finding myself bored to tears at Harry Styles' mainstage Coachella set in 2022, walking with a couple of buds who insisted we see King Gizzard across the fields, and getting my brain ripped open by "The Dripping Tap." I've seen them three times since, each a delight. I was trying to find a pithy bloggy way to describe Gizz in a sentence and was having trouble, so I'll just quote a top comment on the band's video for their new song "LEVEL 5": "my favorite prog metal blues psychedelic jazz pop rock edm band."

After dabbling in twangy classic rock and orchestral rock over the past couple of years, the genre-hopping Australians are about to release Alien Metal, an all-electronic album born of their dealings with Eurorack, a modular synth setup. Here, you can see Stu on his new YouTube channel "my name stu" rockin out Eurorack style:

The day was hot and the line to get into Sibylline Records was long. I chatted with a couple of guys who were headed to Gizz's music festival in Colorado, Field Of Vision, this coming weekend. They said it was the cleanest fest they'd ever been to, with port-a-potties being serviced hourly (if you're a festival person you know this is unthinkable!) and no one strewing trash about. Makes sense, environmentalism is a big theme, maybe the biggest, in the band's work [demon voice: THERE IS NO PLANET B].

It became clear that there was no way more than a handful of people would fit into the store, so once the bleeps and bloops started, the outsiders, including myself, formed a clump around the door and listened to the jams. Everyone was respectful of each other's space, heads nodded gently. A couple of people had brought their kids. One guy was wearing a wizard hat. Someone surreptitiously sipped a can of beer, another person pulled a full size jug of Pure Leaf unsweetened iced tea out of their bag and took a pull. The people who wanted to blast cigs stood off to the side, and when people left the record store, the sidewalk folks parted ways and let them leave. Underrated in this current cutthroat concert age.

Nothing to say about Stu and Joey other than they were cooking. They're so good at guitar-type music that it's kind of amazing they bother dipping into electronic stuff at all. It's inspirational to see them trying new things and getting good at them in real time. As adults, it's easy to default to never trying new things again, because it's not fun to fail. But that's what keeps your brain loose and pliable and keeps you from turning into a cranky asshole. Trying new things is important, listening to new things is important too, and it's also nice that Gizz's fans seem to be following them down their various rabbit holes, no matter how far they stray from the garage/psych rock that was their baseline.

An elegant woman, maybe in her 50s, came up to the edge of the group and asked what the crowd was for. Everyone in the vicinity giggled because what do you mean it's a pop-up from two members of "King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard"? "King Lizard and the Wizard?" she asked, before getting it right the second time.

The set wrapped just as the heat of the day broke. All of a sudden it was one of those times where talking to a couple of strangers unlocked the secret social portal through which everyone feels like they're connected, and no one is a stranger at all. I waited for my rideshare and chatted with a woman wearing a cat t-shirt (it was a catloaf with the slogan FRESHLY BAKED) who was pushing around a sweet tabby cat in a stroller. Then my rideshare driver turned out to be an unbelievable hustler, who by the end of the ride was trying to convince me to pay him to teach us how to run our own independent car brokerage (?). I had to gently inform him that whatever skills you need to run an independent car brokerage, I have the opposite of those. I'm a music blogger, baby. He did have a sweet 2026 BMW and undoubtedly he got a solid deal on it. Anyway, thanks Stu and Joey and all the Gizz people for a beautiful night.