MK.GEE: AMPED UP
The origin stories of the late, great Jimi Hendrix and modern guitar polymath Michael Gordon—aka Mk.gee—share some remarkable parallels. Prior to his ascent as a rock game-changer, Hendrix toiled as a sideman for the likes of Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, and Wilson Pickett in the mid-’60s before getting the, um, axe from his employers for being too idiosyncratic, eschewing the protocols of hired-gun orthodoxy.
Similarly, New Jersey-bred Gordon, who came of musical age during the early 21st century heyday of genre-be-damned file-sharing, tried his hand as a touring guitarist, only to bow out of that world, declaring to DAZED magazine, “I don’t think I was suited for the specific style of playing [the artists] were looking for… it was a lot of plug-and-play with these fucking corny songwriters, but that was just what I had to do at the time.”
Soaking up influences like The Black Keys, Perfume Genius, Sly Stone and the Isleys, Gordon relocated from the East Coast to Los Angeles to attend the prestigious USC Thornton School of Music before dropping out to pursue a career as a recording artist. He soon began self-releasing his atmospheric, deliciously distorted lo-fi jams featuring innovative guitar voicings, woozy synths, and quirkily melodic, R&B-informed songwriting reminiscent of his hero, Prince. A series of acclaimed EPs and mixtapes, notably 2020’s A Museum of Contradiction, garnered praise from the likes of New Musical Express’ Rhys Buchanan, who declared, “Mk.gee is an artist with a natural ability to pair his emotional palette with vast musicality. A release that feels like an important steppingstone—you sense stardom is looming large here.”
If Mk.gee’s 2024’s debut album, Two Star & the Dream Police—released on the Stem-distribbed indie R&R—is any indication, Buchanan’s prediction should prove prescient. The new guitar maverick can count many modern and legacy superstars as fans, including Frank Ocean, Eric Clapton, Justin Bieber, Tyler, The Creator, John Mayer, SZA, Doja Cat and others. He sold out the Fonda Theater and Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles this year, and his current tour is boasting robust attendance figures throughout North America. The intense buzz on Two Star has many expecting it to earn a Best Alternative Album Grammy nom, while the track “Are You Looking Up” is being widely touted for both Alternative Music Performance and Best Video.
Several songs from the album have reached over 10m streams on DSPs, and since the fall 2023 release of the “Candy”/“How Many Miles” digital single, Mk.gee’s monthly listeners have grown by 250%. This impressive spike was aided by key DSP placements from Stem, which has secured 105 placements total. This Includes five key playlist covers: Spotify Pollen, All New Indie and Untitled, Apple Music’s Superbloom and YouTube’s Fresh New Indie Playlist.
Two Star & The Dream Police, and many of its songs, have already been featured across the Best of 2024 So Far lists by NPR, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Vogue, New York, Complex, Stereogum, the Los Angeles Times and more. Mk.gee’s buzz is too loud to ignore—and he keeps turning it up.
PHOTO CREDITS: Bradley Calder, Danica Arias Kleinknecht
