Two Years Later: a documentary (and music video) 40 years in the making

Production on this documentary started in 2021 and spanned Wisconsin, Michigan, and Massachusetts, with all of my producing and editing responsibilities taking place remotely from Florida.

The premise was simple: my close friend, Matt Horowitz, had an amazing story about his brush with musical notoriety back in the ‘80s and how it took his band 40 years to finally record a song. We wanted to tell the story using interviews with the two founding band members (Matt, alongside Joseph Fusco) and archive footage of live performances.

I conducted the audio interviews separately over Facetime, and the resulting raw recordings were nearly four hours long.

It didn’t take two years to cut four hours down to 15 minutes, but after getting the doc about 99% finished, we had to shelve the whole project until the companion music video was complete, which didn’t happen until mid-2023 … conveniently 40 years from when the song was originally written back in 1983.

It’s hard to write this because I’m not sure there are words to properly express how important this documentary has been to me. It’s a passion project in the purest sense of the word — it’s a story about the creative process and creative expression, two things that are intimately important to me. There was no payment, and there will never be any profit — I did this work out of my love for the people and the story. Finally, I have a passion for documentary filmmaking, so this production really fulfills an essential creative desire in my own soul.

So, yes … a passion project, through and through.

Please enjoy the documentary (and the music video below), follow the links, and give the videos a like on YouTube.

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“Small Town Famous: A 40-Year Detour” is an intimate examination of how a local band blew up in the Boston music scene during the early 1980s. The Detours was the musical brainchild of Joseph Fusco and Matthew Horowitz. Lifelong friends Fusco and Horowitz met in elementary school in Lexington, Massachusettes, exploring their musical interests until the genesis of The Detours launched the duo to a new level, not just finding popularity but achieving small-town fame.

With a mix of rare archive footage, recordings of live performances, and one-on-one interviews, this documentary was produced and edited by creative wizard Jordan Krumbine, a master storyteller known for his novels, audiobooks, and video productions.

“Small Town Famous” is just the beginning! After forty years of not recording a song or producing a music video for The Detours, Matt and Joe have (finally!) finished “Stuck in My Car!” Originally written in 1983, “Stuck in My Car” has been recorded, remixed, and reimagined for 2023.