Diatribe Of The Day: In Defense Of Nathan Williams (Wavves)


Wavves @ SXSW 2009

A few weeks ago, Wavves had a meltdown on stage at a big music festival in Spain which Pitchfork called “the most epic onstage meltdown a band of their small size could conjure”. Ever since being awarded “Best New Music” from Pitchfork earlier this year, Wavves had become the target of scorn for being over-hyped from both critics and other musicians, and this latest fiasco has helped villianize the 22 year old San Diego dude behind this project even further. Since I was digging Wavves‘ records before Pitchfork even began its lovefest, I figured I would talk down the mob a little bit and put this tabloid-esque drama in some perspective. If you don’t care about Wavves or any of this hooey, then you might want to skip this read.

First, for those of you who don’t read Pitchfork regularly, let me catch you up to speed. The Wavves backlash began culminating at SXSW this year, embodied by a band called Psychedelic Horseshit wearing “Wavves Suxx” t-shirts and then giving a novel sized interview about how much they hated Wavves and fellow lo-fi acts that you can read here. Then, a few weeks ago my twitter feed was overloaded with twats from P4K’s Ryan Schreiber detailing the Wavves meltdown as it was happening as if it was the Iranian election. I then had to read it all again in a lengthy news post. Then just as I was heading to Bonnaroo, I see P4K giving news headlines to an interview with Black Lips‘ Jared Swilley where he completely trashes the kid for his meltdown. The pile-on against Nathan Williams has been so massive, that Grizzly Bear was joking about the situation:

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Ohmpark Mixtape #8: May Daze

Technically summer doesn’t start until next month, but my long tenure in college and regular association with students leads me to consider May as the beginning of the summer. To celebrate the coming of the season, I’m about to take a nice little week vacation at the beach, so I figured I would leave you readers with a summery mixtape to jam while I’m gone. Here at Ohmpark we have some exciting things coming soon. Bonnaroo is now less than a month away and we will have total coverage for you. Then Corndogorama is right around the corner. And after that I’ll be blogging on the road for all of July. So keep it here and we’ll keep bringing you the best music from the ATL and beyond. Thanks for reading and enjoy some hott tunage:

Harlem Shakes : Nothing But Change Part II
Buy Technicolor Health
Still Flyin’ : Good Thing It’s A Ghost Town Around Here
Buy Never Gonna Touch The Ground
Wavves : Beach Demon
Buy Wavvves
Crystal Antlers : Andrew
Buy Tentacles
Animal Collective : Summertime Clothes
Buy Merriweather Post Pavilion
St. Vincent : Laughing With a Mouth Of Blood
Buy Actor
Camera Obscura : French Navy
Buy My Maudlin Career
Jeffrey Lewis & The Jackals : Bugs & Flowers
Buy ‘Em Are I
Akron/Family : Sun Will Shine (Warmth Of The Sunship Verison)
Buy Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free
Sufjan Stevens : You Are The Blood (Castanets cover)
Buy Dark Was The Night

SXSW 2009 Wrap-Up & Final Thoughts

One last post about South By Southwest 2009 to rule them all. I’m sure everyone who didn’t go is sick of hearing about it by now, but it is pretty much the greatest festival in the world, so one final discussion is warranted. If Bonnaroo is the Super Bowl of fests, SXSW is the World Cup, March Madness, and the Olympics all rolled into one. There simply isn’t anything else like it. So I’m going to ramble on about what I took from this year’s event after a photo journey through our SXSW 2009:

All photos by Clint Miller:

Anathallo:

Port O’Brien:

Loney Dear:

Wavves:

Anni Rossi:

M Ward:

Department Of Eagles:

St. Vincent:

Camera Obscura:

Oh No Oh My:

Arizona:

Bell:

Women:

Evangelicals:

Mt St Helens Vietnam Band

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SXSW Day 4 (Saturday): One Last Night To Get Dirty

Clint got a little earlier start on the final day than me, and went to see Still Flyin’:

After I awoke from a too short slumber I headed out to the 40 Watt showcase at Side Bar. Our gracious host Larry dropped me off and I went inside to catch a proper Still Flyin’ set, something I wanted to do since I caught their acoustic set the other night at the Todd P. party. To my surprise D.J. from Still Flyin’ did a short hilarious rap set as his alter ego Excalibrah. It was a nice change from the serious rock shows I had been catching during SXSW. After that Still Flyin’ came on stage with too many members to count. I really enjoy the beach music meets big family band thing that they do. The stand out song was “Rope Burn” which shows they have the power to craft incredibly catchy indie pop songs similar to their sister band Je Suis France. As soon as the set ended I hoofed it to Waterloo Park to meet up with the rest of the Ohmpark crew.

Excalibrah:

Still Flyin’:

After that we met back up at the Mess With Texas free mini-festival in Waterloo Park. This event features two big stages and showcases bands that have been playing SXSW shows all week.


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SXSW Day 1 (Wednesday): Return To The Center Of The Universe


All photos by Clint Miller

We left Savannah, Georgia a few hours after the St. Patrick’s Day parade and made the cross country trek to Austin, Texas. Upon arriving at SXSW around noon, everyone in our crew was already exhausted from traveling, but there is certain adrenaline that carries you through upon arriving to such a magical experience, and we were poised to tackle the day regardless of our condition.

We started things off at Paste magazine’s day show, and it was a fantastic way to kick this thing off. First up, I finally got to see Anathallo and they were everything I had hoped for. They churned out a set mostly made up of Canopy Glow tunes, and they sounded spectacular. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start the day.

We hung out a little while and then checked out Port O’Brien. I had listened to their last album and enjoyed it, but it didn’t really blow me away. Live, the songs took on new life, and the dueling solo contest between the two guitarists was fun to watch. In typical SXSW fashion, the band had arrived in town about 10 minutes before their set and even said their manager was driving their van around in circles during their set because they didn’t have time to find a parking spot. It was apparent they were “winging” the set, but it sounded tight despite that.


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I Heart Wavves

When I was researching albums for my 2008 end of year lists, I came across the Wavves self-titled album and really dug it. I had it all set to be on My Top 50 albums until I was doing last minute fact checking and it appeared that the album hadn’t actually been officially released yet. Recently, I realized I punked myself because I mixed up his album from last year with a new album he has coming out next month. A casual glance at the name and cover of each is slightly confusing:

Wavves (2008)

Wavvves (2009)


For those of you unfamiliar with Wavves, it is the moniker of a dude from San Diego named Nathan Williams. The music is very similar in style to No Age, but of the millions of artists currently copping that flavour, Wavves is about as good as it gets. His second full-length is available on St. Patrick’s Day, so go pick up his first until then:

Wavves : California Goth

Wavves : Vermin

Buy Wavves

Pre-Order Wavvves

Wavves myspace

“So Bored” live: