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.

A month ago, we reported that Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber was nominated for the extremely prestigious Time 100 Most Influential People In the World list.

Calling Pitchfork the “Pravda of indie rock,” the Time pitch wrote of his website’s incredible influence over popular opinion. Despite the support of his indie brethren, Schreiber didn’t make the “Scientists and Thinkers” portion of the Time 100 list. Oh well, the competition was stiff as he lost out to neuroanatomists, computer-science researchers who invented multi-touch sensing screens, progressive business philanthropists, and other impossibly erudite folk.

Complete list available here.

Holy shit. Ryan Schreiber, founder of Pitchfork Media, has been nominated as a finalist for The Time 100 Most Influential People in the World. Alongside Vladimir Putin, Pope Benedict XVI, Robert Mugabe, Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh sits our very own indie compadre Mr. Schreiber. The article reads:

“His music-culture website Pitchfork is the Pravda of indie rock, steering opinion (and sales) with its infamously forthright record reviews; even its detractors can’t help but look at it three times a day. Among Pitchfork’s early finds: Arcade Fire, Interpol and Relevant Elephant.”

We always knew Wavves and Will Oldham were going to take over the world, we just didn’t know when. So it seems clear now, our cultural coup d’état is occurring with great fury! The zeitgeist of the 2009 will not be remembered for any sort of economic collapse, political strife or military engagements, but for the popularization of music freed from commercial interests and agendas! All Hail Bradford Cox!

But seriously, that’s awesome and great for Pitchfork. Here at the The Tripwire, we encourage write-in entries for our very own Derek Evers.