The no-fi/sunshiny/noise pop band Wavves is the creation of twenty-two year-old Nathan Williams (vocals) and is so named for his fear of the ocean. Not too long ago, he spent his free time skateboarding, writing a hip-hop blog, watching Cops and The Price is Right, gulping 40’s, recording music on an '80s cassette recorder and Mac, and clerking at a San Diego music store. He decided clerking wasn't for him, so he started a band.
Because he didn’t really know how to produce or record, he ended up with two albums of mangled, highly distorted songs. He ended up promoting his “in-the-red” sound on the internet and was quickly embraced as "the next big thing" by bloggers.
The band was originally rounded out by Ryan Ulsh (drums) and Zach hill (guitar). However, this line-up abruptly ended at the 2009 Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. The set should have gone off just like any other; however on that fateful day, Nathan completely and utterly self-destructed while onstage.
Nathan, who before the set took ecstasy and Valium, first had a very messy sound check, then fought on-stage with Ryan, then insulted the crowd who went on to pelt him with bottles and a shoe. (Click here to read more, or here to see meltdown video). He apologized the next day and canceled the rest of the tour.
In November 2009, he replaced Ryan and Zach with two members from the late Jay Reatard's band: Billy Hayes (drums) and Stephen Pope (bass).
Wavves third lp, King of the Beach dropped August 3, 2010 and has a cleaner production sound than the gritty distortion of his first two albums.
Click here for streaming King of the Beach. Visit the band’s myspace page here and website here.
Check here to see if Wavves have any gigs scheduled near you.
As always, whenever possible, please buy your music from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like Wal-Mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-Tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand). Incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the United States. That my friend, bites.
Wavves are nuclear.
If you agree, please visit wednesday-music.com! Then, join the once weekly (on Wednesday) mailing list or better yet, join the pep squad and get tons of free junk (actually, just wednesday-music stickers and pencils- but really great stickers and pencils).
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2010.