Hail WHITE WILLIAMS

"Inevitably, Joe was saved by pop music."

It's about time that Cleveland comes back as a new music hub. The city and NE region of Ohio in general was, at one point in the not-so-distant past, exploding with musical creativity, whether through the experimental rock/proto-post-punk (you like that one?) of Pere Ubu, the mechanical meanderings and totally new, off-kilter synth explorations of DEVO (from Akron, actually), the more recent industrial creations of Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails, or uh ... Bone Thugs's ... ? No, maybe not that one.

You get the point (and you've established now that I'm definitely from Cleveland). It's refreshing, then, to see someone like White Williams, then. This guy, Joe Williams, made a name for himself as a happy hardcore, noise-rock mastermind (and as tour buddy of Gregg Gillis/Girl Talk who actually went to college at Case Western Reserve which resides in Cleveland -- woo!), but at some point he was completely and utterly "saved" by pop music. The result is a wonderful blend of the sweet, heartwarming and defiantly sincere lo-fi melodies of the Unicorns, the bizarre yet meticulous guitar noodling of say, Dirty Projectors, and the jovial quasi-funky fun of other flamboyant and colorful bands like Of Montreal.

This band is very good. Very, very good. Very solid. I can unfortunately only post "New Violence," but you really ought to buy the album when it comes out on Novermber 6 on Tigerbeat6!

White Williams - New Violence