Joey Sweeney has been writing songs and prose since the 1980s. Over the years, he has fronted the groups The Barnabys and The Trouble With Sweeney, as well as recording and performing as a solo artist. Meanwhile, he’s also written for a wide array of publications, including Salon.com, Philadelphia Weekly, the Philadelphia Inquirer and his daily perch, Philebrity.com, the cityblog he established in 2004 after a decade-long run as a rock critic.
His songs and records have received widespread critical acclaim over the years; he’s also garnered curse and praise as a writer of prose, having won the AAN Award for Music Criticism and appeared in Best Music Writing 2002. All the while, he has also continued to make music, gaining accolades from Pitchfork and American Songwriter, just to name a few, as well as continuing to write short stories and essays. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, the poet and editor Elizabeth Scanlon.