Background
There are a lot of different types of relationships you can have in life. You can have casual connections, like the regulars you chat with at a coffee shop, or you can have the super close, yet irritating, relationships that only brothers and sisters can ever really have. There are best friends, wives, husband, parents and raising children. They’re all special.
But, playing music with someone is different….
When it clicks, and you play really well together, it’s something really special. After years of playing well together, it becomes a sort of intimacy. It’s different than sex, different than love. It defies gender norms. It’s a special connection, and you’re lucky if you ever get to experience it.
I was lucky, and I got to experience this feeling in a particularly strong way with Ben Urban (drums, keyboard) and Royce Cleveland (guitar) in a band called Swing Heil. That’s not to downplay the connections I had with the rest of the band, or with our fans. In the mid-to-late 90s we were young, angst-filled, curious, raucous, strong-willed, and we wanted to engage the world. We wanted to be creative, build something with our own hands, and impact people’s lives. It was more than entertainment to us, but also entertainment. It was an innately social bond we wanted to build amongst ourselves, but also with our fans. The word family isn’t quite right, but it was something innocent, naive in the best way possible, community-like, and special.
I’ve had most of this stuff sitting in my basement in bins for years and years, and I’ve decided to share as much as I can, something akin to a digital high school reunion of sorts. If you have more photos, or even comments you’d like to share, please send me a note at [email protected], or make a comment here in this blog!
Music
These are all YouTube playlists, so you can skip back and forth in order, pretty much like an album.
This first collection was recorded in the basement of Adam Edwards’ house in the summer of 1995 if I recall correctly. I have hilarious memories of Adam and I teaching Chris how to play upbeats in ska while recording that first song! 🤣
We recorded this collection in the basement of my (Scott) house on Riverside in Akron, OH, right as the band was breaking up. It was a similar story to the band Refused 🤣 but we broke up before we could finish our first “real” album. I’m pretty happy with the sound quality for 1999 on a Tascam 8 track if I recall correctly. Someday, I’d like to get Jared together and record vocals for the song D&D Dork (I’ve been saying this to myself for 25 years now) 🤣
Band Photos
Let’s start with some band photos. Ahh, how young we look….
Fliers
I remember sitting around brainstorming, and sketching flyers for hours to make what we needed to advertise shows. It was also nice when promoters would make them sometimes! There’s even a flier in there from when we played Undercurrents in 1998.
Media Mentions
- Maximum Rock’n Roll 1996
- We used to get air play on the local DIY radio
Merchandise & Memorabilia
Looking through all of this old stuff really brought back memories. All of the screen printing we used to do for t-shirts, patches, and even the folders we used to track stuff. The blue binder is where we kept our receipts for everything, contact information for promoters and club owners, etc. It was the CRM of Swing Heil 🤣 In the sheet of Swing Heil records with six of them on the page, you might notice that we actually laid those out on paper with tape and glue. Back then, it wasn’t just a cut and paste. It was kind of cool because there were six different kinds of stickers when we’d make copies of that sheet onto sticker paper. At the time, that was the only way we knew how to make stickers. Not like nowadays, when you just send an image off to some printer!
Home Videos
This footage is from From Peabody’s Down Under in the Flats in Cleveland in 1998. It was the largest show we ever played and had about a 1000 people. It was the record release party for a local band that was really good called Monster Island. To draw people we put a line-up together with 6-7 bands. Regrettably, I don’t have a flier from the show, and I only remember the three largest bands: Monster Island, Saxatromba, and Swing Heil. At the time, we estimated that our band drew about 300 of those people. I’m sorry, I have to call these “Home Videos” because when they’re made with an old camcorder, that’s a home video! 😂
Recording #1
Recording #2
Meta
Given that Barcelona has had such a profound effect on so many so many writers and artists, including Orwell and Hemingway, it seems only fitting that this is where I’m at as I compose this scrapbook (July 2024). There’s something cathartic about rummaging about in my own brain for these memories, while I gaze out the window of our second floor apartment on the corner Carrer de Sardenya (photos of this street) and Avinguda Meridiana.
When I got home to Akron, Ohio, I ended up going through the old box of Swing Heil stuff and making sure I had captured all of the fliers, etc. The box itself is still in my basement.
One comment on “Swing Heil Scrapbook”