Too Much Joy

Too Much Joy is an American indie music group. The band formed in the early 1980s in Scarsdale, New York. The members are high-school acquaintances and were inspired to form a band by the music of The Clash.

Members

The original members were Tim Quirk (vocals), Jay Blumenfield (guitar, vocals), Sandy Smallens (bass, vocals) and Tommy Vinton (drums). Smallens departed on amicable terms in 1994; producer William Wittman joined on bass guitar and vocals after Smallens's departure. Blumenfield was also in Fields Laughing (who released an EP in 1985 on Stonegarden Records) and Smallens was also in Beauty Constant (whose "Like The Enemy" LP was issued in 1987), Wittman continues to play with Cyndi Lauper.

History

The band, originally called The Rave, took the name Too Much Joy after a phrase Quirk found written down after his first mushroom trip. [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:lsjc7i5jg78r~T1] After the success of their third album "Cereal Killers", TMJ released several other studio albums, but none achieved the same popular success. In 1997, TMJ announced a hiatus, saying that the commercialism of the music business had taken the "joy" out of performing. Too Much Joy emptied its vaults in 1999 and 2001 to produce the album "Gods and Sods," comprised of studio outtakes and demos from the period between "Mutiny" and "...Finally"] and the live album, "Live at Least". The later incarnation of the band briefly reunited in the early 2000s to record the one-off holiday single, "Ruby Left a Present Underneath the Christmas Tree." Although TMJ remains inactive, if not technically defunct, its members have since formed the sometimes overlapping subprojects The ITS, Surface Wound, and Wonderlick. TMJ found themselves with celebrity fans Penn and Teller, to the point where Penn directed the video for "Donna Everywhere", [ [http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/penn-n-teller-faq.html Penn and Teller FAQ] ] . Penn liked the guys in the band so much that he took the opportunity to jam with them in the studio when the opportunity presented itself. [ [http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/penniphile/roadpennsession.html Penn's diary account of jamming in the studio with Wonderlick/Too Much Joy] ]

2007 Reunion

While never officially broken up, the entire band performed for the first time in 10 years on May 4th, 2007 at the Knitting Factory in New York City. The opening band, The Final Stand, included Tommy Vinton's son Tommy on drums and Sandy Smallens' son Ziya on bass, followed by New Jersey's The Impulse. Both TMJ bassists, Sandy Smallens and William Wittman, took part in the performance, trading between second guitar and bass. The concert was a celebration of drummer Tommy Vinton's retirement from the NYPD.

Legal issues

Bozo the Clown lawsuit

TMJ were sued by Bozo the Clown for including a sample taken from a Bozo the Clown album in the intro to the song "Clowns" on the independent release of "Son of Sam I Am". The five-second sample ("I found something in one of my pockets. It was about as big as your shoe, but it was shaped like a rocket!") was pulled from the track when the album was re-released by Warner Bros. Records. [ [http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=FreedomExpression.html&tipe=text/html Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity] ] Ironically, the song "Clowns" went on to be used in the soundtrack to the movie "Shakes the Clown" (also without the sample).

Florida arrest

In 1990, the members of Too Much Joy were taken aback to learn that hip-hop group 2 Live Crew had been arrested on obscenity charges in Florida, and that a record store owner had been arrested for selling their music. In response, the band planned a protest concert in which several acts would cover a 2 Live Crew song in Miami. Failing to drum up much commitment among other bands, Too Much Joy themselves played a number of selections from the Crew's "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" album, and wound up spending a night in jail. Tim Quirk recalled the incident in an interview with "The Onion A.V. Club". [http://avclub.com/content/node/22889]

ecret Service

Lead singer Quirk was detained by the Secret Service after a performance where he made a joke about strangling President Clinton. Although the band believed that President Clinton's daughter, Chelsea Clinton was in the audience at the time; reality was that the Secret Service contingent was there to 'protect' an obscure foreign ambassador. It being a longstanding Too Much Joy tradition to tell an obvious lie in the break section of their version of the L.L. Cool J song, That's A Lie, Quirk explained at some length that the band was well aware of the presence of agents with coily cords in their ears and that the Secret Service was "not famous for their sense of humor". So it was explained further that the song was called That's A Lie and that the band is known to tell a lie at this point in the song at which point "my friends will jump in and sing 'that's a lie'... so If I were to, for example, say that I voted for President Clinton but when I see him eviscerating the Bill of Rights it makes me want to strangle him, you'll understand that I don't mean it because..." and then the band came in singing "that's a lie". This would have been the end of the story but apparently the Secret Service felt obligated to take it as a serious "threat". And 2 hours later, at the end of the show, they detained the band and questioned Quirk until they were satisfied that the band was not in fact on a mission to assassinate Clinton. Apparently they never heard, over the noise of the crowd, that Tim had announced the next song (I Want To Poison Your Mind) as I Want To Poison The President. [ [http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=FreedomExpression.html&tipe=text/html Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity] ]

Reviews

TMJ was compared to musical contemporaries They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies because of its unconventional style, grassroots fan appeal, and quirky yet honest and insightful lyrics like:

We sleep on floors and live on crumbs,
We're a bunch of ugly bums.
A great idea when we were smashed...
Turning anger into cash.
To create, you must destroy.
Smash a glass and cry... Too Much Joy
"Theme Song", (Cereal Killers, 1991)

"Green Eggs and Crack"

The band's first LP, entitled "Green Eggs and Crack" was released in 1987 on the small Stonegarden label; it collected material the band had recorded during the previous four years during college breaks. All Music Guide describes the album's songs as "often extremely clever and catchy," although "clearly the work of over-educated, under-employed, upper-middle class kids with far too much time on their hands". [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:64jqeal64x07] When the album was re-released in 2002, "The Onion" called it "a thinly produced, underwhelming record recorded by teenagers, and charming mostly for reasons revolving around sentiment and potential", while the band's Quirk described the long out-of-print record as the perfect
http://www.avclub.com/content/node/11489] But college radio's attraction to quirky songs like "Drum Machine" paved the way for a wider reception for the band's subsequent recordings.

"Son of Sam I Am"

The band's next release, on the independent Alias label, was "Son of Sam I Am" in 1989. This album was Re-released by Giant/Warner Brothers in 1990 with two extra tracks: "If I Was a Mekon" and "Seasons in the Sun" and minus the introduction to Clowns (see above).

This album features the crowd favorite L.L. Cool J cover "That's A Lie" and was always performed with "The Big Lie", which was a lie composed for the show or tour that seemed reasonably plausible (throwing keys into the audience for the after party at the Holiday Inn for example).

"Cereal Killers"

Too Much Joy's 1991 LP "Cereal Killers", released by Warner Bros. Records, met with some popularity on college radio and alternative radio stations rotations all over the U.S., with the song "Good Kill" featuring the rising hip-hop star KRS-ONE. The single "Crush Story" made it to #17 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart in 1991. This album features the epicenter of the "Joy" universe by offering "Theme Song" which is sung drunkenly at the end of Too Much Joy shows by band and fans alike.

Discography

*"Green Eggs and Crack", 1987, self-release, re-released 1997 on Sugar Fix Recordings
*"Son of Sam I Am", 1988, re-released in 1990 on Giant Records label
*"Cereal Killers", 1991, Warner Bros. Records
*"Mutiny", 1992, Giant Records
*"Dr. Seuss Is Dead" EP, 1994, JoyBuzzer fan club-only release
*"...finally", 1996, Discovery Records
*"Gods and Sods", 1999, Sugar Fix Recordings
*"Live at Least", 2001, self-release

References

External links

* [http://www.sayhername.com/ Official site] for Too Much Joy and its sub-projects Surface Wound, Wonderlick, and The ITS.
* [http://www.goodbyeohio.com/ Goodbye Ohio] , a comprehensive Too Much Joy fan site
* [http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/toomuchjoy "Rolling Stone" bio] on Too Much Joy
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:5kq3g4jttv3z~T0 All Music Guide: Too Much Joy]
* [http://www.earcandymag.com/rrcase-toomuchjoy.htm In-depth article] on Too Much Joy by Sean Koepenick on "Earcandy Magazine" as part of the "Rock and Roll Case Study" series.