Rocket Ship Boys: A Love Letter to Geese

OK McCausland for The New York Times

When Sienna, Morgan, and I started Birdbath almost two years ago, I honestly expected it to amount to little more than a glorified shared Letterboxd page. We didn’t anticipate anyone would read it, but we were excited to channel our as-of-yet uncontainable passion for movies into some sort of centralized public forum of our own making. Which is strange, because when I look back on our catalog, specifically my own contributions, I realize that I’ve written almost exclusively about music. And sure, music and film are ancient bedfellows — they probably wear similar sizes and share a yard-sale coffee maker that’s long overdue for a deep-clean — but I haven’t necessarily been writing about music through the lens of it’s relationship with film. Like any other Birdbath contributor, I’ve just been writing about whatever media happens to be pulling my heartstrings the hardest around the time of each new issue. Which, for the past couple of years, suddenly and without much pomp or circumstance, has shifted nearly exclusively to music.

I still watch movies ravenously, but when my thoughts drift at work or I feel a feral, almost nuclear urge to channel my chronic restlessness and inescapable surges of static-charged anxiety into something tangible and hopefully beautiful (as I do most every day), I’m replaying a perfect moment of harmonic wizardry in my head, picking up my keyboard or bass and entering what feels on the inside like a kaleidoscopic fugue state, or sitting down to make art for my band’s latest record. Writing this out I feel like any other early-20s jackass with a DAW and a few musical instruments, and I absolutely am — there’s nothing inherently special about loving to listen to and play music — but I genuinely cannot overstate how much like life-or-death it feels when I hear a musical moment that hits me in just the right way. I feel it in every corner, crevice, pore, muscle, gland, and blood vessel. My body feels like it grows to fill whatever space it’s occupying, like a water balloon surging with liquid nitrogen until it can’t help but burst. It feels like nothing else in the world could possibly matter — no friendship, paycheck, or fundamental survival need is more deserving of my attention than the feeling of hearing a group of people tap into the booming, endless, and ever-present rhythm of the Earth.

In early 2022, while wandering the streets of Prague shooting a short film with some friends, I heard a song called “Low Era” that evoked that feeling with an uncharacteristic intensity. Knocking me sideways with its distinct, fresh take on post-punk, head-spinning dueling guitars, and staggeringly dynamic vocals, it found its way into my rotation pretty quickly, followed closely by another track from the same record a few days later — “Fantasies/Survival.” Together the two tracks were kept in rotation for the next few months, before I eventually headed back to the states. Fast forward nearly a year later, I’m driving through downtown Walla Walla listening to my Spotify Discover Weekly when a track called “Cowboy Nudes” comes on. I recognize the artist name, but fail to make the connection until a few listens later. This moment quickly becomes immortalized in my brain as the a distinct turning point — one eclipsed mere weeks later when the album for which the track was written eventually released.

My first listen-through of “3D Country,” Geese’s 2023 sophomore album (and suddenly a contender for my favorite record ever made), clearly marks the moment I knew with absolute certainty I could drop everything to spend the rest of my life playing music with my friends. It’s hard to articulate what exactly draws me so strongly to this record — the deeply insane and beautifully poetic lyrics steeped in cross-cultural mythologies and some just… some sicko imagery, the seamless blending of rock’n’roll, blues, punk, noise, and country, the expressive and immediately recognizable playing style of each member of the group, frontman Cameron Winter’s ridiculously expressive voice (and insane range), or perhaps just how chill and down-to-earth they all seem. Watching their tour diaries just reminds me of when my band was on tour last summer. And then watching them actually play… it’s like watching the fragments of a shattered universe fall into place. Tracks like “Gravity Blues” (the most underrated track on the album, in my opinion) carry this uncanny sense of trembling grandiosity, like the band is coming together to form some unwieldy giant beast whose footsteps boom beautifully across the wasteland as it gradually finds its balance, without ever losing their perfect synchronization with one another. Their wall of sound is mighty, but they’re also not afraid to embrace small moments of punctuative silence that make moments like the end of the title track, “3D Country” feel like you’re getting raptured.

It’s impossible for me to understate how monumental this album, this sound, this ragtag group of swagged-out, goofy, and mind-shatteringly talented teenagers has suddenly become in the context of my artistic identity — an identity which has always been rooted in dueling senses of fragile insecurity, gender confusion, and an unshakeable drive to literally always be making something out of nothing at such a rapid pace that the notion of sitting still feels like surrendering to the unfeeling hands of an ever-pursuant ego death. And somehow, Geese have captured everything I’ve ever dreamed of creating in one succinct statement (and an EP of incredible B-sides). This is the music that’s been playing on a loop in my brain since the moment I was born, these are the rhythms I would tap on lacquered desks and pencil cases from the moment I started kindergarten, the drum fills my fingers pound across café tables and misshapen steering wheels. I’m so grateful someone finally made it, and I’m so glad it was these guys. If you were to ask me what I’ve spent my entire life chasing, what I would be doing if I could do anything in the world, the legacy I want to leave, I’d sit you down in front of their live session, “Alive and In Person,” and as they kick into the opening of “2122,” say with unparalleled certainty, “That.”