The Bollard Bulletin for June 23, 2025
Local Music Monday: Joe Sweeney and me
Local Music Monday
Don’t be alarmed — especially if you’re Joe Sweeney — but I’m beginning to think Joe Sweeney is me. Not actually me, mind you, a la Like Father Like Son or any of the other ’80s comedies premised on people magically swapping bodies. More like an alternative version of Chris Busby, the person I’d have become had I not made one fateful choice or another after high school that set me on my current course. I’m sure you’ve considered the same idea, like what your life would be like now if you’d married Phil Intheblank and moved to Otherville. It’s both fun and frightening to ponder all the potential other yous out there.
I get this feeling about Joe for several strong reasons. We’re both gray-haired dudes who grew up in Upstate New York in the ’70s and ’80s, watching the same cartoons and listening to the same classic-rock stations, etc. Listening to his lyrics, I realize we have the same sense of humor, the same pop-culture references, the same sense of despair that the prosperous and peaceful adult world we were raised to expect turned out to be this one, and the same response to this existential disappointment: merry-hearted mockery of the whole shit show.
I didn’t write Joe Sweeney’s Spotify bio, but I could’ve: “After surfing on ska’s third wave with the Buffalo group Mexican Cession, Joe Sweeney quit music for a few decades, emerging in 2023 with a ukulele in his hands and some sad, weird songs in his back pocket. He lives by an old amusement park in Maine, where his plans keep getting foiled by a bunch of stoned teens and their dog.”
Sweeney’s first full-length album, Clawing Back, released this February, does indeed contain sad, weird songs small enough to fit in your faded 501s. They’re simple ditties, modestly sung by Sweeney while he strums his uke accompanied by bassist Michael Krapovicky and drummer Fen Ikner (great name!), who also sings some backup when they’re not in the Star Wars universe.
The short title track opens the album and sets the tone, a delicate balance of bitterness and levity tilted slightly but crucially toward the latter. “I was swimming backwards when you trapped me / Took me away from where I oughta be,” Sweeney begins. “Rubber bands on my claws / Had me forgetting who I was.” I won’t spoil the punchline; may it suffice to say Sweeney appreciates his freedom, lonely though it can be sometimes.
The writing is wicked sharp throughout — if I do say so myself! “Got a voice higher than Barry White / A lower one than Beaker,” Sweeney croons on “Mr. Mediocre.” “Nicer than a house cat / Meaner than a retriever.” His mix of personal and political observations is spot-on, too. Later, he concedes, “My songs won’t change the world / But they’re not torture,” and the sly reference to our nation’s “enhanced interrogation” policies would make me terribly jealous that I didn’t write it myself had I not quite possibly done so.
By the time we reach “Valleys,” third-way through the record, we begin to see Sweeney’s sweet heart slipping out of his sleeve. He’s at peace with his lowly place in life and wants us to know it’s OK for us to feel that way, too. “Peaks are overrated / It’s cold up there and really hard to breathe / Valleys can be beautiful / If you admit they’re what you need.”
The regulars down at The Whaler already know this. Joe’s eponymous ode to the Old Orchard Beach townie bar is my favorite song here, which is no surprise given that drinking cheap beer at townie bars is also my favorite pastime. I was gobsmacked, by the way, to discover that’s acclaimed conceptual artist Amy Stacey Curtis on backing vocals. Those aware of what Curtis has overcome in recent years will be similarly impressed and thrilled to hear her angelic voice again.
“Climate Change” deftly and deliciously subverts whatever you expected Sweeney to say on the topic. “I’d rather think about climate change / And the war in Ukraine … Instead of dwelling on how we are estranged,” he sings. I can definitely relate to my doppelgänger’s experience here. Conversely, I’m so grateful I’m not the lonely Joe Sweeney in “Talking to Squirrels,” regardless of my deep admiration for this bit: “Greetings little guy / I know it’s impolite to stare / But you’re lifting 50 times your body weight over there / I hope your colony is in good repair / I’m having a picnic and you’re welcome to share.”
I hope you also highly enjoy this album I might’ve made if Heidi didn’t dump me during her semester in London. And Joe, hang in there, buddy. You never know when a new love will slide a PBR your way.
Highlights
The rock-doc It’s All Gonna Break provides an inside look at the early 2000’s Toronto music milieu that coalesced into the indie band Broken Social Scene, with archival footage and new interviews by director Stephen Chung, who was in the scene from the jump, camera in hand. It screens at SPACE (538 Congress St., Portland) at 7 p.m. Tix: $10.