King of the Beach

In the world of lo-fi Nathan Williams is somewhat the infamous celebrity. Ask anybody what they know about his band Wavves and they might tell you about a war of words with Psychedelic Horseshit’s Matt Whitehurst, a bar-room brawl with Black Lips in New York or, maybe the time in Barcelona when, onstage at Primavera, Nathan and his drummer got into a huge argument that led to a drug addled breakdown in front of thousands of festival-goers. If Brooklyn’s punk scene had a version of Heat Magazine, Williams would be its Kerry Katona.

In the world of independent music, learning on the job is frowned upon. It's easier than ever for kids to make professional-grade records and have them heard, but any sign of weakness-- a lackluster stage show, a questionable interview, a dud follow-up-- and listeners will let you know how duped they feel. Few people know this better than Nathan Williams, who made his buzzy second album Wavvves at his parents' house and spent the rest of 2009 on a badwill tour (live disaster, canceled tour, fistfight) that earned him Lohan/Hilton-levels of derision in certain circles.

Nathan Williams’ sophomore album, released in 2009 under the moniker Wavves, seemed to approximate our shattered notion of “indie”: a computer-aided record cobbled together in a garden shed with next to no production values. The blogosphere—and crucially, independent label Fat Possum—went silly over this gutsy display of lo-fi DIY, particularly for its revelation that Williams was actually no ramshackle poseur, but a semi-talented artist for whom catchy pop hooks and mastery of the multi-track are part and parcel. Moreover, Wavves proved a welcome antidote to an “indie” scene gutted by the deluge of vacuous ‘80s electro-pop imitators.

There were a lot of bats in Nathan Williams' beachside belfry (many of them wearing press laminates), and you could see it coming. He didn't get apprehend by police at a McD's drive-in or anything, but even a cursory glance at his behavior set off all kinds of alarms, leading up to his final onstage "meltdown" that made music "reporters" feel really, really "important" for a day or two. I remember a particular clip where he's being followed around by a camera crew for a "feature" (really more of a "stalk"), and he starts laughing a little too hard with a friend and mentioning something about a "weed demon." There's a demented twinkle in his eye, one that I've seen before in bar owners who are about to torch their tavern to the ground for a tidy insurance profit: they know things are getting out of control, and they want to bail out.