It all started when…

Jeff Salzberger started a band with David Crohn, Jen Jones, and Jeff Hamm, called Adrenochrome. They rehearsed a few times and the band eventually fizzled out. Jeff met Louis Santos at Bard College as he was sitting in the Tweksbury lounge strumming his imitation Fender guitar. Jeff asked Louis if he wanted to play guitar in the new band he was starting. They quickly became friends but Louis was reluctant to join the band once he found out Dave was the other guitar player.

Louis’ roommate, James Fuentes, was originally slated to be the bass player for this new band but never showed up to practice. He joined a different band. Jeff Hamm, the drummer recruited his roommate Sam Provost to play bass and the punk band, Jeff’s Baby was born. The name came from one of the band members saying. “hey, this is not my baby, this is Jeff’s baby.” They practice a handful of times before playing their first show. This would only last for 1 semester after playing a total of 2 shows in the Old Gym. Their setlist consisted of 17 songs - 11 original songs and 6 covers including Looking Down the Barrel (Beastie Boys), Fuck the USA (The Exploited), Blitzkrieg Bop (The Ramones), 12XU (Wire), Just like Heaven (The Cure), Mollly’s Lips (The Vaselines).

It was their first show that the another campus band, Dirty Girl, who were upperclassmen took notice of them. This was mainly because Jeff's Baby gave away free beer, there was a mosh pit and the drummer repeatedly kicked a heckler off the stage. Jeff Hamm would later leave Bard at the end of the year leaving them without a drummer.

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Within this time, David wanted to transition away from the guitar and play the drums. He taught himself during the summer break between freshman and sophomore year. At the beginning of the school year, Louis went to the remaining 3 members of Jeff’s Baby and asked if they still wanted to play music. Everyone said yes. Dave would be the drummer, Louis the only guitarist, Sam the bassist and Jeff would still be the singer. It was in the Bard Paranoids (smoking section of the cafeteria) that a mutual friend, Josh Diaz suggested that they should call themselves Swerve On so they could use phrases like, “come and get your Swerve On".

The next few months they wrote and rehearsed in the basement practice space of the Old Gym. Louis once said, " it was cool being in a Punk band but we wanted to learn how to actually play our instruments." Sam Provost was the only proficient musician in the band at the time. It was during this period, Louis was influenced by the Talking Head’s, Stop Making Sense and Led Zeppelin’s, Fool In the Rain. Each member of the band had very different taste in music.

The band Dirty Girl that first took notice of Jeff's Baby reformed and was now called Monster Zero. When it came time to play their first show, they asked Swerve On to open up for them. Swerve On performed 7 songs including the covers, The Passenger by Iggy Pop and Story of My Life by Social Distortion. Kambui Olujimi who was Louis’ roommate became the official photographer for Swerve On until he left Bard College.

band practice in Audio Co-op

Their first show put them on the map of the Bard College music scene and for their 2nd show, they were invited to open up for the campus favorite band, the Boba Fett Experience at their house located @32 Broadway in Tivoli NY. For Swerve On, this was a great honor and they were excited and again nervous to play the show. They would go to perform 3 shows in total at the Boba Fett house.

Swerve On continued to practice and write more originals songs. By this time, they had quite a following and was invited to open up for The Malarkies and Boba Fett at Bennington College for their third show. They caravanned to Bennington and played to a pretty much empty campus. On the way back, the Swerve On rhythm section had a run in with the law.

As Dave, Jeff and Louis were entering their junior year at Bard, Dave proposed bringing on another guitar player; their mutual friend Barclay Saul who was also their roommate. They would practice and write two songs with Barclay, one of them being The Uprising of a Trench Mouth. This version of Swerve On performed their 2nd show at 32@ Broadway. After this show, tension between Barclay and the band grew and Barclay left Swerve On to start a new band called Variety City. Swerve On started becoming disenchanted with playing music and started practicing and writing less.

Their 5th show took place on Nov 4th at the Old Gym for their friend Josh Diaz’s birthday. They were hesitant when asked to play because they had not practice in a while. The set opened with Jeff and Louis performing a song before the rest of the band was called on stage. It wasn’t a particularly good show but a fun one for Swerve On. At this show, they performed the cover Pure by the Lightning Seeds and this was the first and only time Louis played bass during a show. He also cut open his finger while playing guitar on the song Ride and bled all over his guitar. He continued the show and then drank heavily afterwards. This show was very close to the end of Swerve On as a band. Personal issues, drinking/drugs and school was taking a toll on the band. Before the winter break, Sam mentioned that Jill Christensen was interested in playing keyboards and maybe second guitar for the band. The rest of band shrugged it off and went on break probably guessing there wouldn’t be a band after they returned the next semester.

After the winter break, the members of Swerve On returned to give it one last shot. They invited Jil to jam with the band to see if it clicked and it did. Jil added another layer that the band had been lacking. They started writing music together and elevated the songs to a mature level. David started taking drumming lessons from jazz legend, Thurman Barker at this time.

With Jil in the band, Swerve On would play a series of shows starting with 32 Broadway. This was a redefining show for the band because it showed they were maturing creatively and personally. They open the show with Louis introducing each member of the band just before they started playing what would be the chords to Those Magic Changes and Jeff singing Anarchy of the UK over the pop oldie. The next song was their classic Curtis The Lightweight followed by Mechanical Man, Dr Lloyd and the 13 thieves, a slow version of The Passenger, Come and See, Soliloquy of the First Child Molester, and the crowd pleaser, Porno Sam. For an encore, they performed Shitpole which they did not practiced.

***Side Note. Shitpole was the only original song that was played in both Jeff’s Baby and Swerve On. Sam Provost named the song after reading the book, Alive by Paul Read.

Their next show was a short billing at Bard Hall. This was the show where they played the song Skyline before it was completed as an encore. The following week, they played one of the biggest shows they’ve ever played at the Old Gym. They expanded the setlist to include more original songs such as Skyline and Return of Trench Mouth. It was during this show’s encore where they played an impromptu Story of My Life and Break You. Jil instantly fell in love with the song Break You for it’s harmonic intro.

The next show was opening up for Variety City at the Rhinecliff Hotel. It was a very mediocre performance by the band. At one point, Jil spilled beer in her keyboard and as she was cleaning up, the rest of the band did a short verse of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid which Jeff claimed was the ultimate dick tease. By now, they had been constantly playing around and on campus. This started to wear on the band a little.

During the spring break of 97, Swerve On would stay on campus to record their first c.d. at the Avery Music Center. This was the beginning of the end for the band. What started off as an exciting and new stage of their musical career, turned into a series of unfortunate events. The band had brought all their gear to Avery to setup for their recording session. They arrived later in the evening. As they were setting up, Sam noticed that there were no microphones in the equipment room at Avery. Due to some miscommunication of the schedule, all the mics had been signed out by John Morton to record Boba Fett in the NYC. They setup as much as they could before calling it a night. On their way home, it started snowing which turned into a freak blizzard in the middle of April that knocked out power to the three surrounding areas including all the power at Bard. It took a few days to restore power while the band also waited for the mics to return. This left them with only a few days to rehearse and record. It was the pressure, egos, first time recording, the storm and exhaustion that led to the band breaking up during this session.

Swerve On was a band that was made up of friends who cared for one another and loved playing music with one another. You never knew what was going to happen at their shows. And if you ever saw them live, they just looked like they were having a good time which made for a great time for the audience.

After the breakup, the band members went their separate ways. It wasn’t an easy breakup and their was some animosity and tension between the ex band mates. Eventually, they would forgive each other and go about their college studies.

The following year, Swerve On reunited for one show. They were asked to play Bard Hall with the Hallelujah Choir. They agreed to play the show. The show was alright. Bard Hall has always proved to be a hard place for a DIY show due to the acoustics. At this show, Louis, Dave, Sam and Jill would wear black pants, a white shirt and a black tie while Jeff wore a black cocktail dress.

For the last performance of the evening, Dave Jannick and Dave Crohn would setup their drum set with the bass drums facing each other for the Hallelujah Swerve to play a cover of What Goes On. It was a sonic mess but again very fun. At the end of year, many people graduated including Dave Crohn and it was finally over for Swerve On.

On December 5th 1998, Swerve On reunited again with the original lineup of Jeff, Louis, Dave, and Sam to play Louis’ farewell party from college. Louis and Jeff were still finishing up their last semester at Bard. Sam was living in Tivoli at the time and Dave had just returned from a trip overseas where he became ill and was hospitalized. Despite recovering from being ill, Dave played surprisingly better than ever. They had one or two rehearsals and played one of the best parties at Bard College. “Kickin Old Skool, a Farewell to Lou.” The line up included DJ Kirshna spinning trance music, Swerve On reunited, Arm 18 spinning hip hop and freestyle, Challenge of the Future (Boba Fett) from NYC, and closing the night with techno and dub, Dj Rollenbutta (jm229). Many alumni came back to Bard to hang out that weekend and catch up with old friends. It was a great night. This was the last official performance for Swerve On. They performed in crash helmets in front of a projection of the movie Rollerball.