Music Monday – WAVVES

By / September 8, 2014 / News

Yes, we’re still doing Music Mondays! We took a break to do things for the summer. It happens, everyone wants a vacation right. 🙂 So we’re ripping right back into some summer like grooves with that summer vibe. So Wavves is our pick to get back on track!

Start with some music from WAVVES while you read!

WAVVES with a double V for V not for Five V. But the band has been around for Five years, with Five Albums and are nearing their Fifth Anniversary of their First Album, marking that occasion this  Sept 30th. There’s some irony about being in GTA V there somewhere, but we’ll leave that alone. Wavves started as a band back in 2008 from a recording project by Nathan Williams. They released their first album on Cassette first, and then some 7″ and CD versions of the album. The album was a self title, and had songs such as “Intro Goth” “California Goth” Spaced Goth” “Lover” and “Spaced Raider” we’re just a few of the title names to songs they started with.. Goth being the lead word on the self titled Album as a Jab about the Goth lifestyle. Wavves gained some recognition from its first album and took to touring. They then released a second album in 2009 under the same self titled name of WAVVES. Music media industry companies such as Pitchfork, Spin and A.V. Club took notice of the band, and gave them a well received perspective of the band. 

Hot on the heels of his psych’d-out new song “Stained Glass (Won’t You Let Me Into Yr Heart)”, from his Summer Is Forever EP split with Best Coast, Wavves main bro Nathan Williams took to his blog over the weekend to give away another jam, “Mutant”

The split mentioned above, was a tour collaboration with the band Best Coast. During a leg of their european tour, some issues arose with singer Nathan Williams during the Barcelona Primavera Sound Festival. He was drunk on a mixture alcohol, ecstasy and Valium. Which lead to a fight with their drummer. The crowd became upset and offended at this, and began pelting the stage with bottles and other objects. Williams admitted the next day to having an addiction to alcohol, and the band cancelled the remainder of their tour. Unfortunately the drummer quit the band as well leaving the band in a very troubled state. They did however recover, and replaced their drummer a couple of times,  and added a new Bassist.  The line up settled down, and they produced their Third Album – “King of the Beach” which ranked 24th-best album of the year by Spin, and the 50th best album of the year by Pitchfork. Not bad for a recovery from a rough start.

One song called Post Acid from the Album King of the Beach received some special attention, as well made it into a 3 minute and fifty-second promotional cartoon of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the Animation” Which of course was broadcast on Adult Swim.. And if you’ve been following us, our Music Monday with Flying Lotus & Thundercat point out that Flying Lotus does the BUMP music for Adult Swim. Even Slink Johnson is the star of Adult Swim’s new show Black Jesus. Yet another tie to Adult Swim from GTA V. We’re pretty sure there’s more out there, we’ve yet to find them.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Animation – Listen to the intro, and ending for clips of “Post Acid.”.

The Bands Music is a unique sound, and it’s hard to totally peg it to a Genre, but California Beach Ball Gothic Mockery is as close as we can get to nailing one down. Someone might have a better one… But we’ll stick to it.

The Song “Nine Is God” by Wavves is featured in GTA V on Vinewood Boulevard Radio, and it’s sound is refreshing when you’re doing drive bys in GTA V! “A Bullet in the Head…. ”

You can follow Wavves on:
Twitter   –  @wavves
The Web – wavves.net
Youtube  – user/wavves
Instagram – wavvescybersquat
Facebook – Wavves
 

Biography from iTunes:
Named for his fear of the ocean, Wavves, the skuzzy project of San Diego slacker Nathan Williams, is a blend of distorted no-fi and refined sunshiny melodies. Charmingly messy, most of his lyrics, while difficult to decipher, generally revolve around the subjects of weed, boredom, and the beach — when he isn’t poking jabs at the gloomy subculture of goth rock (a common theme, found in “Goth Girls,” “California Goths,” “Summer Goths,” “Surf Goths,” and “Beach Goths”). Wavves was conceived just after Williams, at age 21, quit his job as a clerk at Music Trader, while he was dividing his free time between skateboarding, writing for his hip-hop blog, Ghost Ramp, and making music using an ’80s Tascam cassette recorder and Garage Band software. Due to his inexperience with the program, the result of one month’s worth of bedroom recording sessions was two full albums of songs: all completely mangled by overdriven inputs. Rather than scrapping the material, he embraced the in-the-red aesthetic and started promoting the songs online. Wavves was quickly embraced and touted as “the next big thing” by Internet music critics and fellow bloggers.

Many praised the immediacy and D.I.Y. nature of his work, and Williams capitalized on those aspects, continuously uploading free digital versions of his music — including two 7″ singles, a cassette, and an EP — all with simple self-drawn artwork or scanned photos for cover art. Wavves’ first LP, simply titled Wavves, became available around this time as well, and it was released in a limited run by Woodsist. The more confusingly titled Wavvves (note the third “V”) followed just after, and was planned for release by De Stijl before Williams jumped ship to Fat Possum. After the track list was revamped, the release date was pushed back a month and Wavvves was officially made available on March 17, 2009. After receiving mostly glowing reviews in April, Wavves got his share of bad press in late May. While performing live at the Primavera Sound Festival, assisted by drummer Ryan Ulsh, Williams had a minor meltdown and walked offstage. Later, he issued an apology, chalking up the incident to poor decision-making and a drug concoction of ecstasy, Valium, and Xanax.

In 2010, after recording a few tracks with indie drummer extraordinaire Zach Hill, Williams entered the studio with Grammy-winning producer Dennis Herring to record a straightforward and surprisingly polished album. Following the August release of King of the Beach, Wavves toured as a trio with Williams assisted by former bandmates of the late Jay Reatard, bassist Stephen Pope and drummer Billy Hayes. After parting with Fat Possum, Williams released a new EP in the fall of 2011 under the Wavves name, titled Life Sux, featuring guest appearances by Best Coast and F****d Up. He and Pope then began recording a new album with the production help of John Hill (Rihanna, Santigold), using their own money to finance the project. Mom + Pop signed the band and released the slickly produced, very ’90s-influenced Afraid of Heights in early spring of 2013.

 

**RSN Makes no claim to ownership of any content. The information here, is only as a fan resource. And not for our profit. Various resources have been utilized for information, but was combined together to complete some missing parts of their story.

About Author

Chicago Enigma

Rockstar Games Fan since GTA2 .. Following, playing and participating more actively in the community since 2008/09.

Back to Top