Two v’s.
I must admit.
If there’s a plethora of l-o-v-e directed at a new act coming from a seemingly endless line of salivating, robotic lemming-types [at least that’s how the whole scene is concocted in my head], I tend to hit the ground running in the other direction. I guess you could call me a hater. My roommates would prefer to call me a music “elitist” but I don’t think that’s true.
In fact, a lot of times, I’d call it pure stupidity. I mean, if the bandwagon has been formed, there’s probably at least something worthwhile going on.
Take Wavves [Nathan Williams] for example. The explosion of indie’s new-age poster boy at SXSW after a few months of piqued interest on the internets [gorilla vs. bear and company leading the parade] left me a bit puzzled. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was turned off before even allowing myself to find the light switch. So I sat in the dark and ignored it. Until one day, I was sifting through the infinite mess of files I’d downloaded lately, and found Wavve’s “Friends Were Gone.” So I gave it a ride, and well jesus h. christ, the masses were right. The accolades were not misplaced—the guy can really do a lot with a distorted guitar, so looping electro-drum beats, and a killer, droning voice that fits in just nicely.
The “new” [if I may use the term for reference] way of going about business in the “indie” [again, reference] is to slam that lo-fi and slide through songs with as much monotone and haze as possible. Wavves takes that delirious smog experience and injects a bit of fragmented color into the mix—a run of the vocals, interesting, looping guitar riffs, and always that kicking snare.
So, while it may be the un-hipster thing to do, I just might be caught dancing right on top of that Wavves bandwagon.
not convinced?
