The Golden Age: Gayngs

Gayngs is the new side project of approximately 1,000 people from the Twin Cities/Eau Claire/Upper Midwest scene, including members of Solid Gold, Doomtree (POS, Dessa), Lookbook, Leisure Birds, Bon Iver, and Megafaun, not to mention Happy Apple’s Mike Lewis and Ivan Howard of the Rosebuds. With their debut album Relayted, to be released in May, the super band’s purpose is to create “a collection of drugged-up keyboards and slick bedroom production almost exclusively inspired by 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love.’” They somehow manage to sound like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. They are dead serious.

Well, probably not dead, dead serious. Irony is still more fun than reality in hipster culture, and the reality is that this could be an absolutely terrible idea. But whatever the sounds that may emanate from this beast, it’s the idea of the thing that’s most intriguing.

Musicians don’t form gangs here in the Twin Cities. The music scene is connected, all right, and everyone is aware of a loose federations of bands and side people that could, if asked, play the hell out of each other’s music. But everyone usually stays quiet about it. They let their instruments do the talking, which makes our eclectic music scene one of the most underrated in the country. And of course, everyone likes it that way, because we are, after all, in the Midwest. Say Shh.

But sometimes scenes must represent. You know, big up your territory, overtly. And though Rhymesayers has been doing exactly that for quite some time now, it’s the crossover appeal of Gayngs that makes it a music scene coming out party of sorts. There’s the upstart Eau Clair scene, with members of Solid Gold calling upon Justin Vernon and his brother, already working hard to build up the scene in their hometown, to participate in, produce, and promote the band. And then there’s the Minneapolis scene, heaving almost its entire indie heft into the project, displaying loud and clear the gesture that it needs to make: we are the Twin Cities, we’re here, and we’re ready to break some shit.

The coasts produce not just gangs but armies of material, and talk loudly about it. And while there’s not necessarily a reason for us to upgrade our forces from special ops, it may just be a good thing that we finally have a Gayng on the loose to stake our territory, albeit with soft rock/smooth R&B. Perhaps, in the political spirit of the times, the polar sides will be forced to listen inward, and the middle will have its say.

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- The Golden Age is a weekly column written by Erik Martz.