Words and artwork by Julia Shuster

My entire family stepping into the Gizzverse was not on my bingo card for this past year and I can only credit Nathan for making it happen. Now, with all of our collective energy tuned in to the full frequency of station KGLW, I am convinced that this summer we are about to embark on the most unbelievable journey as a family, beyond our wildest dreams. It starts with an (unintentional) pilgrimage to a pronounced spiritual location for Gizz (Greece and Hydra, location of the “Ice V” video), ending with a trek to Forest Hills to rage the Rave set (and the other shows of the run, of course).

The first memory I have of Gizz is dancing in my living room, late 2016, with my then two-year-old daughter and five-year-old son. They had quite the fetish for the show Ninjago, snakes and all the like. In steps the “Rattlesnake” video and their hyperfixation with it. “Rattlesnake” at the time was simply just a fun lil’ distraction (over and over and over) during the day-to-day of raising toddlers. It is to be noted that I had been dedicated and obsessed since my youth with another band that shall remain nameless (yes, hyperfixation runs in the family—what can I say, other than obsession is good for ya) and while my family tolerated and understood this passion, it was not an experience they shared with me. So, Gizz remained to me some random band with a cool video about rattlesnakes embedded in my kids’ childhood. These memories faded to the back of my mind as my kids grew older, outgrew Ninjago, and entered new timelines themselves.

My first Gizz show was Asheville 2019. Having lived in Germany much of my life, and therefore having an appreciation for metal and krautrock, I had a great time but was not “hooked.” Many people between now and then tried to get me into Gizz, always meeting the same response from me: they are amazing artists, just not my taste for day-to-day listening. Thanks to my pathological demand avoidance, nobody can recommend anything to me, it all has to be on my brain’s terms. Then, as if magic this past summer (2025), every time I would tune in to my favorite radio station (public radio from France, FIP), Gizz was playing. All it took was for me to hear “Change” a few times and I had a completely different understanding of the band. The significance had changed. I feverishly started listening to Gizz’s catalog. One major detail had been missing from anything anyone had told me about Gizz these last few years… their adopting of synths. In stomped Nathan and the Rave sets of Fall 2025. My husband (being a true East Berliner) and I have long been fans of modular synths (I mean he practically grew up on techno), so when we saw a random clip of Gizz suddenly improvising on a sexy, oozy, melty, messy cabled, mod synth table, our brains exploded. We then played it for our 15-year-old son (who, raised by German culture, was always deep into techno), our 12-year-old flute-playing daughter (we had already fallen in love with crafting to Paper Mâché Dream Balloon together in the summer, but… um… a flute connected to a mod synth… whaaaaat?!?!) and all I can say to describe our experience since then is bye-bye Shanghai, we’ve become butterflies. That’s all it took to fall down the gator hole. We’re on an adventure—we are now seeing things in the Gizzverse exactly as they are (also fair to mention here we are all dedicated practitioners of the Babe Rainbow philosophy, a total sidequest in the Gizzverse).

This past winter (2026), a little over a year after Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville and surrounding regions, many folks were having PTSD brought on by an ice storm. People were rightfully freaked out, remembering with deep sorrow and fear a time still not long enough ago. In the face of this storm, we as a family chose to support our nervous systems via dancing, laughter and celebration. As the storm raged, we purposely listened to “Ice V” on repeat, and frequently watched the gloriousness that is Joey dancing in the song’s video, all while painting, puzzling, and pursuing as many distractions we could, hoping the lights stayed on. Luckily they did, and we celebrated and switched timelines to a place where storms can turn out ok. Not to be disregarded in the mix of all of this is our family’s affinity for vocal stims, and the opportunity Gizz songs allow for engagement in them. This turned out to be an unexpected soothing tool at the time; we bounced phrases off each other such as “hot water,” “drip, drip from the tap don’t slip,” and “trapdoor”… and of course the now-revived “rattle, rattle, rattle,” resulting in a common and lasting love language amongst our brood. Gizz got us through and we would never forget.

And at these thoughts, I am truly breathless at how beautiful my entanglement into the Gizzverse has been, and how promising it looks to be… everything and nothing, a rainbow unfurling across the sky. (Yeah, we all have differing opinions on Han-Tyumi in my family, ranging from absolute dread to absolute empathy… what a fun dinnertime argument to have.) It was during the ice storm when my son said to me he could barely wait until his first Gizz show and the ability to go to as many Gizz shows as possible. I had never heard him express a desire to go to a concert, let alone multiple. The 15-year-old in me was quick to connect to this desire in him, seeing as my first big concert experience (Grateful Dead, Pittsburgh ‘95) was also at that age. He only had to mention it to me once. Luckily Gizz had announced FOV2, but more importantly for us, Forest Hills and the Rave set. I surprised him and bought us all tickets.

During the pandemic, we told our kids that after 6th grade, they can pick anywhere they want to go in the world. Our son with my husband, our daughter with me. This summer it is my daughter’s turn and she chose Greece. We head out in June. When she chose Greece, long before we tuned in to the Gizzverse, we of course had no inkling that Greece was a spiritual place for the band. When researching the trip, we landed on an island, Hydra. Having no motorized vehicles and known as the island of cats, it spoke to us. My daughter and I, upon learning this, were immediately in. For some reason it just dawned on me about a week ago to look up where Joey did that dance. Come to find out, this is the island where “Ice V” was filmed, the song that provided so much healing, that stitched my entire family together over time, space, generations, multiverses, holograms. We get to be there on summer solstice and we intend to swim, smile, and shake our money makers with our shadows.

As we find ourselves on the cusp of the first new album since Phantom Island (or are we counting Mango Sticky Rice… I’m a noob, y’all are the experts so correct me if I’m wrong) that is teased to be Nathan-forward, I find myself also standing at the cusp of possibly the best summer of my life: the most meaningful, the most spiritual… the most Gizzful. So to say I am oh so joyous about this upcoming summer is an understatement. I’m scratching an itch I never knew I had. Once the river flows, you’re in the zone, and we are all in the zone of the Gizzverse now. As my individual hyperfixation for that other band wanes, our fam’s hyperfixation for Gizz swells, and we are going to trust in the river. This river is bringing us closer as family, reflecting a set of values we all resonate with: values embedded in an international scope, built upon a creative and collaborative spirit. This river is driven by ideals promoting self-exploration, environmentalism, open source art and music, open discussions of mental health, taking a stance on toxic masculinity while caring about a greater collective community, and within that community, allowing yourself to be weird and building spaces for others to be even weirder. These are the pillars we want to expose our children to and raise them upon.

I probably missed many opportunities to weave Gizz lyrics into this narrative (mostly from The Silver Cord, perhaps you can connect pieces together yourself and get some relief)… I am new and learning. But, that is an amazingly glorious place to be, especially as it is with my family. We all get to discover, grow within, and build upon this Gizzverse together. We get to learn all about Gizz yesterday, today, and dream about tomorrow. We get to delve, discover, and dissolve, all with the help of KGLW.net as a resource. Wow, after all these years in hyperfocus on a single band, in isolation within my family, I never could have imagined this would be the reality we manifested. We get to grow wings and fly. We get to transcend this life together, not fishing for fishies (we are vegetarians after all). If everything that lives and dies is a hologram, I’ve found the place for me with my frequency tuned into the Gizzverse, with my family.

-xoxo Julia

(Oh, btw, on a side note, I call Nathan my boyfriend and my husband fully supports the affair… in fact we both are in a relationship with him, together. Don’t worry, the kids are fine, in fact I’d say it enriches their lives. See y’all at FH.)

Julia Shuster is the host of the Rhombus Connection, a weekly radio show on the JEMP Radio platform.