BTV117 Joey Sweeney & The Neon Grease : Catholic School

Joey Sweeney & The Neon Grease
Catholic School (btv117) cd/LP
Buy cd Online / Buy LP Online
Track listing:
SIDE A
1. On Monday (3:56)
2. Baptised in Vibe (2:57)
3. Polaroids on the Floor (3:55)
4. Black Ice (2:58)
5. It Ain’t Important Now (3:46)
SIDE B
1. Digital Light (3:59)
2. Son of a  Loser (3:51)
3. At the Mouth of Passyunk Avenue (3:07)
4. PG Tips (3:27)
5. And Soon (4:59)

Catholic School is the new album from Joey Sweeney & The Neon Grease, out now as a joint release between Burnt Toast
Vinyl and The Giving Groove.

Although this is Sweeney’s debut with his new band The Neon Grease, it’s far from his debut album. Over the past 25 years,
the Philly songwriter has become a staple of the city’s music and literary scenes… he got his start as an award-winning
music critic, before eventually fronting influential Philly bands like The Trouble With Sweeney and The Barnabys, as well
as recording and performing as a solo artist.

Produced by Ray Ketchem (Guided By Voices, Luna), Catholic School is album is so steeped in dad-rock influences
(and lots of sax) that it’s wearing a Members Only jacket and trying to get a job working for the city. It’s also an album very
much about cities, and the way Sweeney’s city or your city is changing. You could say the city is the central character, but
there’s also much about hope, falling in and out of love, being with your friends and not being with your friends… all set
against the backdrop of looking for some kind of grace while down the street, they’re tearing the old church down.

Sweeney’s new songs, which he’s been trickling out over the past year, draw inspiration from sources as disparate as 1970s
Philly nightlife and Denis Johnson’s The Incognito Lounge. Chiming 12-string guitars, classic rock sax solos and rainy bedroom Velvet Underground listening sessions all blend together… in these songs are little stories of triumph over dirty circumstance and grace under pressure, with the friendship of an urban family “street band” woven throughout.

“[Sweeney] mixes autobiography and fiction against the group’s 70s-inflected indie pop, resourceful— and unabashed—enough to digress into an E Street interlude or an AM-rock guitar coda.” – Pitchfork

“…rests somewhere between the raspy hope of Springsteen and dire heartbreak of Ryan Adams with unexpected flashes of
Robert Pollard’s melodic and harmonic sensibilities finding their way in through the cracks.” – PopMatters

“The riotous new LP from Joey Sweeney is full of jagged-edged, bristling Americana.” – Bandcamp Daily