• Meet Zach Williams (and let's all move to New York).

  Nov. 2, 2008 at 2:43pm

  We just added a new song to the MySpace playlist... 
  
  i'd never heard of Zach Williams until my friend Jon Tyson invited me to see him play last Tuesday in NYC. Jon is one of my heroes and his text said "Trust me" and since i'd never heard him say that, i pretty much had to go.
  
  i went to see Zach play at Rockwood Music Hall, which is a tiny perfect room in Manhattan's Lower East Side. It turned out to be one of the best shows i've ever seen in my life. i keep telling people about it and i'm pretty sure i sound like an idiot because i can't begin to explain it and i just go on and on. For me, it was everything i love about music and so much of what i hope to find in this life. The packed tiny room was also a picture of community. When Zach sang "Take me to Brooklyn", his friends screamed and it was obvious that Brooklyn is them and theirs and they are a gang of the best kind, the kind we were meant for.
  

  
  

  The band was incredible and the songs were honest and gospel, songs about the South and love and dreams and pain and change. There was laughing and dancing and i think half the room cried when Zach introduced the song "Hospital". There was a sense of urgency and that really hit me because it's something you almost never see in these days where cool is king. The best songs, the best bands and nights - they remind you you're alive. They remind you it's okay to cry, okay to celebrate and dream, okay to push and move and change. Okay to believe. 
  

  
  For me, Zach was singing those kinds of songs and this was one of those nights...
  
  

  Meet Zach Williams. Give the songs a listen and do say hello.

  
  i hope you find something true and moving, here or somewhere soon. More important, i hope you find a gang as good as Brooklyn, and moments as bright as the nights in New York City. We were meant for it. 
  
  Peace to you.
  jamie
  
  PS: i met a girl after the show and she told me that she was there, that she had found a home among these people, because she read this blog the day Heath Ledger died. She said that this was her community now. My friend Joel said a similar thing before the show and he added that this community saved his life. It meant so much to hear those things.

  Posted in Music by jamie tworkowski

Comments (8)