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biography
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Too Much Joy was part of the explosion of collegiate comedy rock in the late '80s, distinguishing themselves with a more mature side than the Dead Milkmen and a simpler, speedier punk-pop approach than the arty King Missile.
Starting out via the independent route, the band spent several years on
a major label before drifting from view. Although they never had the
breakout MTV novelty hit that some of their peers managed, they had an
amusing ride along the way -- they were sued by Bozo the Clown over a sample, arrested in Florida for performing a set of 2 Live Crew songs, and had a song briefly adopted by Newt Gingrich's congressional campaign.
Too Much Joy
were formed by four high-school friends in Scarsdale, NY, a mostly
upper-middle-class suburb north of New York City in Westchester County.
Vocalist Tim Quirk, guitarist Jay Blumenfield, bassist Sandy Smallens, and drummer Tommy Vinton
first started playing together in 1981, when they were all in tenth
grade. Calling themselves the Rave, their repertoire initially consisted
of Clash
covers, but they began to work in original material when they realized
that their audience wouldn't know any better. When the quartet graduated
from high school in 1983, they split to attend separate colleges, but
kept the band going during their breaks from school, occasionally making
self-financed recordings in a small studio. Eventually they settled on
the name Too Much Joy, allegedly taken from a phrase Quirk had scribbled on paper while tripping on mushrooms.
Too Much Joy
reunited to give music a real shot in 1987, when all of them had
graduated from college, and compiled their recordings of the past four
years into a debut album. Green Eggs and Crack
was released by the small Stonegarden label that year, and the
smart-alecky humor of songs like "Drum Machine" helped earn them a small
collegiate following and a deal with the southern California indie
Alias. Their second album, the more consistent and musically
accomplished Son of Sam I Am, appeared in 1988, and featured a cover of LL Cool J's "That's a Lie." It also introduced the song "Clowns" with an unintentionally suggestive soundbite from a Bozo the Clown record; when the band explained the source of the sample in interviews, Bozo caught wind, sued them, and forced its removal from subsequent pressings of the album.
Son of Sam I Am earned Too Much Joy
a major-label contract with Warner subsidiary Giant, which re-released
the band's sophomore album in 1990. While waiting for their major-label
debut, Cereal Killers, to be mixed for release, the band caught a news report on the arrest of the 2 Live Crew by Broward County authorities for performing obscene material. As a protest against censorship, Too Much Joy flew to Florida and performed a highly publicized club show on August 10 that featured a generous selection of songs from the 2 Live Crew's As Nasty as They Wanna Be
album. They were duly arrested, thrown in jail for a night, and charged
with obscenity, giving a substantial boost to the release of Cereal Killers
in 1991. The single "Crush Story" was a college radio hit, and songs
like "Long Haired Guys from England," "Theme Song," "King of Beers," and
"Thanksgiving in Reno" helped expand their cult significantly. A
supporting EP, Besides, coupled the album's core ballad, "Nothing on My
Mind," with outtakes like the infamous "Take a Lot of Drugs."
Too Much Joy returned in 1992 with Mutiny,
which found both their lyrics and musicianship heading down a more
mature path (albeit with slightly less polished production than its
slick-sounding predecessor). The lead single, "Donna Everywhere," got
some more attention from college radio, but on the whole, the band's
cleverly ironic sense of humor was much less in evidence, and some of
the following they'd won with Cereal Killers began to lose interest. Giant dropped them in 1993, and bassist Smallens decided to leave in 1994; he was replaced by Mutiny producer William Wittman. Also in 1994, a Too Much Joy fan who was working for Newt Gingrich convinced the Congressman to adopt TMJ's
"Theme Song" as a campaign anthem; Gingrich agreed, but quickly backed
off when he found that the band also recorded songs like "Take a Lot of
Drugs."
After a long layoff, TMJ signed with Discovery and issued ...Finally
in 1996, which continued on the path to musical and lyrical maturity,
while returning them to the less polished punk attack of their earlier
albums. The band subsequently went on an unofficial hiatus, as its
members followed day jobs that took them to different parts of the
country. They did manage another release in 1999's Gods & Sods,
a collection of B-sides, rarities, outtakes, and the like that appeared
on the small California indie Sugar Fix (which also reissued Green Eggs and Crack with three new tracks from 1993). Although TMJ seems to be defunct (or at least "on hiatus"), masterminds Quirk
and Blumenfeld continue their musical explorations as the group
Wonderlick who released their self-titled debut in 2002.
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