Ever since Wavves aka Nathan Williams had a little mental breakdown on the Pitchfork-curated stage at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona a few weeks ago, the music site has taken a not-so-subtle negative stance towards Williams whenever it sees an opportunity. It began with the actual news story of Wavves bad Primavera show, which Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber himself began with this little cat scratch directed at the Best New Music-earning band…
Over the past six months, the San Diego no-fi outfit Wavves has notoriously made a better bedroom project than live band.
… and finished with a suggestion that Williams and drummer Ryan Ulsh might kill each other before they even made it to Pitchfork’s own music festival on July 18th. The latter bit of blood lust has proven itself to be untrue with the passage of time, but the former seems an odd assertion considering Schreiber is presumably the one who booked (or approved the booking of) Wavves at both Primavera and the Pitchfork Festival. We’ve also seen Wavves several times in venues both large and small and he’s never failed to be pretty awesome, if not more accessible than he is on record.
So what are we to make of Pitchfork’s recent Wavves-bashing editorial direction, which culminated today in a post that quotes Black Lips’ Jared Swilley talking wildly about Williams in a Norwegian radio interview, crescendos (yeah, blog posts crescendo) with “it should be noted that this is not the first time a band has talked shit about Wavves” (yes, clearly should be noted) and mentions both bands will be at Pitchfork’s festival and ends with “Feel the drama!” (really?)?
We’d like to hear what you think in the comments section. Has Wavves one bad show earned the ire of music’s biggest critic? Is Pitchfork just trying to pump up its festival’s ticket sales? Or is Pitchfork just being a dick? Let’s hear it.
