Friendship Bracelet: Winter Beach

Friday, February 6, 2009

Winter Beach

So WAVVES is "beach punk," right? Well lately (and for the next few dates) they (Nathan Williams and his drummer Ryan Ulsh) have been ditching those sultry California surf spots in favor of the single-degree icebox which is the Northeast. Last night they hit up Matthew's Mug in Vassar College's student center in Poughkeepsie, NY with San Francisco dudes NODZZZ and Fuck It Tapes dudes Woods and impressively kicked.

I caught NODZZZ first. They're a three-piece, they're very friendly and talkative, they gave out free posters, and they played a bunch of their signature short songs including my favorite one by them "In the City (Contact High)," which you can check out on their Myspace. They're decidedly fairly nerdy (in the best way possible). I've also got to mention their names they've given themselves on the Myspace: Anthony Atlas, Sean Paul Presley, and Eric Butterworth. The first names are believable, and while the last names aren't, I'm down anyway. Apparently Anthony almost went to my current stomp, UMass, but chose Evergreen or something like that in Olympia instead. They played a couple new songs at the end, which the setlist called "True Too Life" and "Good Times Crowd," respectively. If you really want, you can check their blog but it really doesn't get updated often.

WAVVES came next. Just a guitar and drums, but damn were they loud. They blasted through all the jams like "So Bored" and "Wavves," and honestly sounded way better then their recordings, even on borrowed amps. The Vassar elite even got a bit rowdy, or at least as rowdy as someone in the middle of nowhere in New York State can get. While I couldn't discern many of Nathan's vocals, I did hear quite a few chants of "MULLET FADE!" from similarly hairdoed members of the crowd. This venue, by the way, was in the basement of the student center, which comprised of a small room with a bar, cubbies to deposit your coats, and some dim Christmas light glow. I'd consider heading back, but only if the show's guaranteed to be awesome cos it's a crazy long drive from Amherst. Check the WAVVES blog too, but who knows how often it'll be updated while he's on the road "hangin out and havin fun."

Woods, who I honestly hadn't heard til last night, were really quite good. From what I could tell they were a four-piece, some guitars, drums, and a dude on the floor with something in his mouth which I assume made noise. They did a Dead Milkmen cover to finish off the set and even though I'm not sure what Milkmen song it was, it was great.

Photos coming A.S.A.P.

EDIT: HERE'S PHOTOS CLIX THE PIX TO MAKE EM BIG: