The Switchboard Sessions ran from 2010 to 2013. For it, I interviewed a number of bands—some bigger, many smaller—who found themselves seated beneath the umbrella of punk-rock. While I had them on the phone, I asked them to record stripped down versions of some of their songs.
There’s nothing more interesting to me than hearing artists talk about their art. It seems to me that, if they do it right, artists leave a piece of themselves behind when they create. There’s a story behind every painting, poem, photograph, sculpture, or song that enhances its meaning, regardless of our personal interpretations as the Public.
The Switchboard Sessions is a collection of such stories as told by musicians that I feel are doing something interesting or important. I hope that you will find these features, in some way, meaningful, revealing something insightful about these artists.
The songs available to stream and download with each feature were recorded over the phone when I interviewed the musician. Yes, the quality is poor; no, I don’t expect that you will want to listen to these songs more than once.
The purpose, though, is to capture a song in its rawest, most spontaneous form. In its imperfection, I hope that you can perceive the intimacy and honesty in each offering; I also hope that you can hear, even when the quality of recording is intentionally reduced, that the quality of songwriting cuts through.
About the Author
My name is Dane Erbach. I'm a freelance music writer from the Chicago area and a high school English teacher. I try to write as much as possible despite the demands of being an educator.There’s nothing more interesting to me than hearing artists talk about their art. It seems to me that, if they do it right, artists leave a piece of themselves behind when they create. There’s a story behind every painting, poem, photograph, sculpture, or song that enhances its meaning, regardless of our personal interpretations as the Public.
The Switchboard Sessions is a collection of such stories as told by musicians that I feel are doing something interesting or important. I hope that you will find these features, in some way, meaningful, revealing something insightful about these artists.
The songs available to stream and download with each feature were recorded over the phone when I interviewed the musician. Yes, the quality is poor; no, I don’t expect that you will want to listen to these songs more than once.
The purpose, though, is to capture a song in its rawest, most spontaneous form. In its imperfection, I hope that you can perceive the intimacy and honesty in each offering; I also hope that you can hear, even when the quality of recording is intentionally reduced, that the quality of songwriting cuts through.
Music and writing have always been passions of mine. I'm not sure where or when I got the idea to write about music; it was probably in college when I was bored of writing papers comparing Victorian poetry to Romantic poetry. Music seems to be the only thing I'm interested in writing about these days, which allows me to combine these two passions. So that's good.
Feel free to contact me at dane.erbach {at} gmail {dot} com with any questions or comments. And, if you're one of those Blogger nerds, you can check at my profile here.
Sometimes, I write reviews for other podcasts, websites, or publications. You can find some of them here. You can read my "Best of 2011" list here and my "Best of 2012" list here.
