Discography

Punchline has recorded a delightful sonic plea to their fans in the form of “Just Stay Home.”

During this unprecedented time in humanity’s history , where the most we can do is nothing, Punchline have both embraced and technologically defied quarantine to record this new song remotely.

Hello dear friends— This strange window in time gave us a creative window to bring this song to life. Some songs take years to write and some come out in nearly real time. “Just Stay Home" was the latter. STAY HOME PEOPLE! This feels like 9/11 if someone told us that 9/11 was gonna happen, but not for 2 weeks, meaning there’s a chance we could save thousands of lives by not leaving the house.

It’s a lot to process. Mentally, it’s been a tough few weeks. It hasn’t hit as hard here yet in Pittsburgh, but following what’s going on in New York and Italy and in so many cities - it’s crushing. We hope this song gives you the feeling of hope and love. We’re thinking about yinz. 💕

We always talk in our band about how, in times of grief and confusion, we’re thankful to be obsessed with music, which gives us the luxury to open a recording session and get lost in recording a song. It’s wondrous thinking about all the books you’re writing, the meals you’re whippin’ up, the nintendo points you’re scoring, the miles of timelines you’re scrolling lol - it’s ok. We’re all doing it (Is it okay though??)

Thanks for listening. Please enjoy. Written and recorded by Punchline. Mixed by Marc McClusky. Mastered by Dan Coutant. Photo/art by Brendan Walter. PS Would it be cool if we made a music video for this out of footage submitted by all y’all of yinz in your homes? Let’s hear your ideas. <3

Benjamin Gibbard has released a new song called “Life In Quarantine” to benefit Aurora Commons, a Seattle-based non-profit that provides a safe space for people temporarily experiencing homelessness.

The airports and train stations are full of desperate people
Trying to convince the gate agents that not all emergencies are equal
But no one is going anywhere soon
No one is going anywhere soon

Wash your hands and keep your distance. Stay safe everyone.

In episode #158 of Reply All, PJ Vogt tracks an ear-worm lost to time. I don’t want to spoil anything because the story is really good, but this episode ticked a lot of boxes for me.

A man in California is haunted by the memory of a pop song from his youth. He can remember the lyrics and the melody. But the song itself has vanished, completely scrubbed from the internet. PJ takes on the Super Tech Support case.

While perusing a thread about The Starting Line on Chorus.fm today, I noticed a comment by one Matt Metzler who had an interesting url in their bio—anberlinforever.com.

The site itself is a splash page for a series of essays about Anberlin written by Matt. The history spans 12 years, from saGoh 24/7 through the end of the group’s recording career. The essays are well written and includes a lot of great detail. The website and essays (published on Medium) feature artwork by Tyler Davis.

I reached out to Matt to extend my appreciation and ask for some background. Here’s his response:

I wrote this from 2014-15 and published it in 2015. When Anberlin announced they were breaking up, I really wanted to do something to show how much they meant to me, so I started working on this project and shared it with the guys from the band that summer on Warped Tour. I had envisioned it being a published book someday but some of the guys plus the band’s lawyer didn’t seem to want to go that direction, so it turned into a website. Stephen was so supportive all the way through, and made himself available for my questions whenever I had them.

How I missed it when it was pushed live, I’m not sure—but I’m impressed by the passion and work put into the project. Fans of the group will want to check this out.