Boredom, sound waves, police? The US fireworks mystery and its many theories
The summer has arrived with a bang, literally, across the country this year as thousands of complaints about fireworks have been called in, from Ohio, to Aurora, to California. In Boston, complaints went up 64-fold compared to last year, meanwhile in New York, 12,582 calls have been to the 311 line regarding illegal fireworks since 1st June this year, in comparison to just 17 for the same period last year, according to the city’s open data source.
New Yorkers wanted to get their frustrations across to Mayor Bill de Blasio last night, and drove to his residence in Manhattan in protest. Despite living in “the city that never sleeps”, they honked their horns into the early hours outside Gracie Mansion chanting, “We don’t sleep, you don’t sleep.”
On top of the ongoing noise disturbance, it is likely adding more anxiety to an already very anxious moment due to a pandemic and ongoing protests against police brutality. Add that to the fact that that no one seems to know what the reason for the increase in nightly explosions is and, of course, theories have bubbled up across the internet, trying to nail the reason for the surge. Here are a few.
It’s the sound waves, bro
Some have surmised that fireworks have not increased, it’s just that people are hearing them more. They point to the fact that cities are experiencing a lower level of background noise at the moment due to the pandemic, resulting in sound traveling further and faster.
But with a scattered approach to shutdown orders across the states, and with eye-witness reports showing fireworks going on into the early hours, that theory likely can’t tell us the whole story.
Retail fireworks for shows are being sold off
In a number of places experiencing heavy numbers of complaints, there is a blanket ban on the sale of fireworks. Some experienced fireworks technicians have pointed out that the fireworks seem too professional and expensive for the average punter, and so, with mass gatherings held off in some of these cities for quite some time, people have begun to speculate that retailers are selling fireworks on some sort of black market. Retailers of course dispute these claims – but there is a boom in legally purchased pyrotechnics.
The police are just messing with you
A conspiracy theory is not quite complete without involvement from high-up government officials, and, of course, the police. To be fair, if the police are involved, it wouldn’t be the first time that US police have engaged in dodgy tactics to spy on protesters and to surveil black people in particular.
So as fireworks task forces are being set up across the country, some are speculating the fireworks are a manufactured spectacle, hoping to encourage people to feel they need the police again – or even as an attempt at psychological warfare. These claims are currently unsubstantiated. Others have claimed that police are willingly ignoring complaints to prove their worth after weeks of protests and calls to defund police departments. The NYPD said it has made eight arrests and seized a few dozen fireworks since the noise complaints began – meanwhile, some have questioned why police are unbothered by the issue when it is on their own doorsteps.
New York firefighters were also caught on film setting off fireworks in a Brooklyn neighborhood last night. But it is not clear that police have necessarily been lax in their approach. Buzzfeed reported this morning that dozens of police arrived in riot gear to quell fireworks in Brooklyn on Monday, threatening arrests.
Or maybe people are just bored
The New York Times ran a reported piece over the weekend, attributing the fireworks to a mixture of boredom, relief and protest across New York.
Everyone from kids in the streets to firefighters have been seen setting off fireworks, following months of shutdown across the world, widespread protests, mass unemployment and unusual working hours. So, it could also just be that. Of course, that begs an even more important question: can’t people just go back to playing Animal Crossing, instead?
gents incomprehensible to outsiders. The band’s writing process, which Les describes as “sort of an exquisite corpse type thing”, consists of sharing Logic audio files back and forth, taking on the labour 50:50 with ease despite being in different US states. “We just keep adding more shit on to it as we go along.” This is the first group project for Les, who previously released solo music under the moniker osno1, with nightcore vocals – pitch and tempo sped up by 10-30% – about her lived experiences as a trans person. “I’m very possessive with music,” she says. “I wouldn’t have wanted to start a band with anyone other than Dylan.”
The nature of the mashup of sounds has meant the past year has consisted of critics and fans dissecting their project. “It’s so flattering, I think, that people would even care enough to go deep into it,” says Les. But has the flipside meant people have got them wrong? “The ironic thing is the biggest non-true thing,” Brady pipes up. Les agrees: “We’re not doing this to be ironic. The opposite resonates as really true. There are people who say: ‘They’re just expressing a love for music, all sorts of different kinds.’”
If 1000 Gecs was the logical conclusion of the late-2010s’ post-genre experimentalism, the remix album is that worldview taken to its absurdist extreme. It is the sound of every musician in your iTunes forced to work together. Or an already-boiling circuit board fizzing and snapping as it sets itself alight. They decided to make it after releasing stems to their songs for fans to remix, and included some of those contributions on the album;
Brady in particular loved seeing his music “shredded and sucked into the internet in a crazy way”.
So 1000 Gecs and the Tree of Clues was very much made in this spirit of collaboration. Highlights are the deadpan presence of Charli XCX on Ringtone and a joyous vocal introduction to Hand Crushed By a Mallet by Patrick Stump of emo greats Fall Out Boy (“That one was shocking, I thought there was no way he’d do it … Absolute madman,” says Brady).
What does the remix album add to their bizarre experiment? “We were building the extended Gecs cinematic universe,” says Les proudly. While fans search for clues on the remix album, Gecs will write new music for rescheduled 2021 shows. They will also be online considering their newfound platform, and the responsibility that comes with that.
“We just do our best not to be jerks,” says Les. “If we can push that agenda, that’s a good agenda: don’t be a dick – and we can try to live up to that.” The PENOGT surely awaits. 1000 Gecs and the Tree of Clues is out this summer