Episode 56: Bob Sweeney
Bob Sweeney shot a live concert video of my old band, the Sobriquets, back in 2010. He shot the record release of The Way Home in 2012. I'm not sure if I even met him when he did those things. But we reconnected at Nicklas Hughes' release show, and it was pretty clear he had to be on the show. We just hit it off so easily, talking movies and music (we both have a huge love for Sonic Youth and Matador Records, to just scratch the surface).
I love talking about the work that goes into making things. Bob works very hard at making music videos for countless Philadelphia artists, and he's worked very hard at building up his network of artists he's worked with. One of the coolest things we talk about is his time in Scranton after college, where he just made films, and created a small independent film collective with some other like minded filmmakers in town. They would show their short films as part of the areas commercial movie theatre. Before you could upload your phone videos to YouTube instantly, they went out and found an outlet for their work. I think it's key to remember that outlets for creative work were harder to come by, even just five or six years ago. You had to go find it. You had to toil and create under the notion that no one was going to see your work outside of your particular group of friends. And you still would do it anyways. It's how bands did. It's how filmmakers did it. It's how writers and painters and all kinds of artists did it. It was great to talk about that kind of work being done.
Cheers,
DD