I Shit Music

You gotta give it to Wavves’ front-wonder-boy, Nathan Williams. The kid seems to take no qualms in coming off like an utterly obnoxious So-Cal burn-out, essentially because that’s who he is – but he totally is pulling it off to massive victory. He’s become the most synonymous name with the modern surf-pop, dream-punk sound. He’s dating Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast – the synonymous female name with the genre. He loves weed, and does nothing more but post videos of him puffing the ganj. And he pulls off a move like nailing “Liquid Swords” with the mother-fucking GZA.

I’m not sure how many hip-cats in the music scene really watch a lot of Fuel TV, but apparently they have some music clip thing called the Daily Habit where really good, relatively unknown bands come and play. There’s a killer Black Lips cut on there somewhere. Anywho, Wavves completely crushes the background groove – fairly unreal, Roots-like, kind-of-nail, and the GZA is just pimping out his swag on the top. And maaad props go to bassist, Stephen Pope, for rocking the brand new Grateful Dead tye-dye in the midst of it all. Classy move of tri-musical convergence bud, seriously. Watch the clip below. And just in case you’re clueless on Wavves and how obscure this cover-move is for them, the video for “King of the Beach” is underneath. (I told you the boy likes Grass…pause it at 9 seconds in to see their very own Wavves pot-grinder.)

So tomorrow, Tuesday March 8, I know you all like myself will be racing down to your local tape shop to pick up the new Raekwon album – Nah, that ain’t true, but can you believe that Only Built 4 Cuban Linx came out 17 years ago? If you like hip-hop and grew up anywhere in the tri-state area, Wu-Tang  is bound to tug at a tight notch in your heart. And if you’re overwhelmed by the assault of digitized dancehall beats and over-hyped crock-rap that try to cling to the idea of a popular hip-hop scene still existing in the mainstream, well then Rae and Ghostface are one of your best places to turn. There’s not too much of the rap made by the heavy hitters that still gets me excited these days, but I can’t say I wasn’t really feeling it when I saw these guys on Jimmy Fallon last week. The hook on this first single, “Rock N Roll” is a little weak, but the groove instantly reminded me of the old classic, “Ice Cream.” It’s like a spiritual resurrection of that same swagger they’ve been running with since the start. And an homage to rock is essentially them claiming their allegiance with the morality of the music of yesteryear.