Too Much Joy

Too Much Joy were saddened by the news this week that the Hartsdale Cheesery has gone out of business. To pay tribute to this hometown institution (technically, it was an institution of the town next to TMJ’s hometown, or, if you were Tommy, who grew up in Eastchester, the town next to the town next to your hometown), we are naming “Pride of Frankenstein” our song of the week, as it is the only commercially released song we’re aware of ever to name check the Cheesery.

Sadly, that may be the most notable fact about the tune. It’s not my proudest moment as a lyricist, and the arrangement is charitably described as busy, which may be why it was played live all of twice before being retired from the set.  Some fans seemed to like it, though — one sent me a letter with an essay he’d written for a high school English class about the song.

The dude the song’s about really existed, and really did used to wander around Scarsdale and Hartsdale writing down the license plate numbers of all the parked cars in a little notebook he carried around just for that purpose. The bit about throwing rocks at him is dramatic license — not that I never did anything cruel to sad figures when I was a kid; I just don’t remember throwing rocks at him, specifically.

In a semi-related bit of trivia, one of the rare arguments I’ve had with my wife happened one night during a Scrabble game, when I scored a bingo playing “cheesery” using a Y that was already on the board. She challenged me. Turns out it’s not in the dictionary.

And now it’s not in Hartsdale, either.

We tried to have this ready for Chanukah. But art takes time. So we are compensating for our tardiness by offering not one free download, but four – one from Too Much Joy, and one from each of the three side-projects that have sprouted like mutant limbs from TMJ’s trunk. Just click the button below to snag your tunes (you can also push the play button in the widget beneath to hear all four songs in their entirety — feel free to share with friends).

Free Downloads! (Merry Everything)

The TMJ tune is called “Mystery Limousine.” It was written in the early-‘90s, but never got recorded. Until now. In keeping with our holiday theme of family, love and forgiveness, the song features both original member Sandy Smallens (on bass and vocals) AND producer/replacement bassist William Wittman (on too many guitars), and was mixed by old friend and Son of Sam I Am producer Michael James (who may have added some guitars, too, but you can still hear Jay cutting through them all). The lyric, if you care, was written when the band was riding around in limos, and trying to process the disappointed faces of onlookers who were expecting someone more famous to emerge from said limos when they pulled up at hotels.

The Wonderlick tune is called “Easy,” and should be self-explanatory. It is one of several songs Wonderlick recorded recently with a live band – it’s a rough mix, which will evolve over time, and the first salvo in their third LP, which they hope to have finished by springtime. Besides Tim and Jay, the band features Ken Flagg on keyboards, Chris Brague on drums, Daniel Fabricant on bass, and the awe-inspiring Jean Cook on violin. Ken and Jean and a guy named Justin from the studio all shout along at the end there. More free rough mixes will be forthcoming before Christmas Eve are now available on www.wonderlick.com.

The Surface Wound song is a selection from their brand-spanking-new LP, The Kids Are All Gone (Acquired Taste). It’s called “Pretty French,” and features Sandy and Tommy from TMJ plus guitarist Steve Hamilton.  The horns come courtesy of ska band Edna’s Goldfish brass section (Gary Henderson on trumpet and Thomas Comerford on trombone).  NYC-area gigs are being slated for the new year.  You can stream and buy the album (for only $6!) and learn more about the band at www.surfacewound.com.

The Its song is called “You Are All That I Need.” That one’s basically Bill, Jay and Tommy from TMJ singing a lyric by Tim. It was originally written as a stalker anthem, but in this more festive context perhaps we should hear it as a cry of love from each Joyboy to the other. (12/19 update: turns out we had a mis-named file in the original package, so if you downloaded before 5pm on Friday, 12/18, the Its song you got was actually “Don’t Say a Word.” The problem is fixed, so just hit download again if you want a free copy of “You Are All That I Need.”)

Fah-hoo-doh-ray.

(The songs are yours for the taking, but if you have any desire to throw some digital coins in our metaphorical hat, you are welcome to do so — just click the button below):

I got something in the mail last week I’d been wanting for years: a Too Much Joy royalty statement from Warner Brothers that finally included our digital earnings. Though our catalog has been out of print physically since the late-1990s, the three albums we released on Giant/WB have been available digitally for about five years. Yet the royalty statements I received every six months kept insisting we had zero income, and our unrecouped balance ($395,277.18!)* stubbornly remained the same.

Now, I don’t ever expect that unrecouped balance to turn into a positive number, but since the band had been seeing thousands of dollars in digital royalties each year from IODA for the four indie albums we control ourselves, I figured five years’ worth of digital income from our far more popular major label albums would at least make a small dent in the figure. Our IODA royalties during that time had totaled about $12,000 – not a princely sum, but enough to suggest that the total haul over the same period from our major label material should be at least that much, if not two to five times more. Even with the band receiving only a percentage of the major label take, getting our unrecouped balance below $375,000 seemed reasonable, and knocking it closer to -$350,000 wasn’t out of the question.

So I was naively excited when I opened the envelope. And my answer was right there on the first page. In five years, our three albums earned us a grand total of…

$62.47

What the fuck?

I mean, we all know that major labels are supposed to be venal masters of hiding money from artists, but they’re also supposed to be good at it, right? This figure wasn’t insulting because it was so small, it was insulting because it was so stupid.

(more…)

Spinner.com just published a feature on bands with their own theme songs. They include TMJ at the end, so you have to scroll all the way down. Includes a gratuitous knock on the band. Sigh. Anyway, you can read it here: http://www.spinner.com/2009/11/18/band-theme-songs/

Also, NPR has been doing some end-of-decade coverage on their Monitor Mix blog. They surveyed a bunch of musicians and other industry-type folks. Today’s question is “What does “indie” mean to you. I answered that, and several others on earlier days, and theoretically some more to come, if you want to check it out.

The Cover Music Podcast

“Coverville” has set the standard for great music podcasts. Imagine, a downloadable show where you can hear a vast array of covers by all sorts of bands.  They’ve featured TMJ in the past a few times, and now they’re going to be debuting Surface Wound’s brand new cover of that synth pop classic by Yazoo, “Nobody’s Diary.”

Check it out right here.

You may notice that the vocals are even more growly than usual at the end of the song — that’s because the very sexy and gravel-throated George Fullan (from LI hardcore band Three Years Older) sings along on the last chorus.

“Nobody’s Diary” and 11 other (original) tunes all co-habitate on Surface Wound’s upcoming full-length debut, “The Kids Are All Gone” (Acquired Taste Music).  More fun premieres and stuff to come…

It took us a while, but we’ve finally created a lyrics section. You can browse lyrics by album, or by track title.

We’ve got just about every song Too Much Joy ever released in there. We left out covers, unless the band added some of their own words to it, or unless it’s “Seasons in the Sun,” because everyone always leaves off the third verse of that, and it’s the best part.

Let us know if you find any bugs in there — it’s got a bazillion links, and while we’re pretty sure they all work, we might not have double-checked every single one.

We didn’t know it at the time, but the shows we did while touring on the re-release of Green Eggs and Crack in 1997 would be the last gigs we played for ten years. And the last of those were two shows in one day in San Diego. The first was an afternoon set at some street fair; the second was a way more inebriated affair at a complete dive called Homer’s.

Tommy dug up this footage recently, which was shot by friends or fans using his camcorder. Here’s a surprisingly tight version of “Poison Your Mind,” which includes shots of a three year-old Abby Quirk dancing (which she does about as well as her dad).

The first new Surface Wound track, “Blowed Up,” has been posted on Eclypse’s MySpace page.  It’s OK, since Eclypse rapper L.E.D. guests on “Blowed Up.”

Surface Wound’s full-length album (whatever that means these days) comes out this fall on Acquired Taste Records.  It is called “The Kids Are All Gone.”

Longtime friend-of-TMJ Bill Wikstrom just launched his own TMJ flotsam-and-jetsam site, Map Like Mine. We’re both flattered and a little weirded out by just how much stuff he’s collected over the years — the site’s crammed with things none of us have, including but not limited to old press kits, T-Shirt order forms, and a skeptical …finally review from Magnet.

Not sure when this is from, but here’s Twisted Sister singing the praises of Too Much Joy’s “Donna Everywhere” video, presumably on MTV.

The guy on the right, Jay Jay French, actually approached the band about managing them at one point. Tim and Jay had an introductory meeting with him at his Manhattan apartment, which was decorated with all kinds of Twisted Sister memorabilia. He struck us as very smart and generous, but unfortunately he tried to bond with us by showing off his gear, and Too Much Joy know little and care less about guitars and amplifiers (one night I had to use Jay’s spare SG when my red Telecaster wasn’t working, and I was amazed by how much easier it was to play. When I shared my amazement with Jay after the show he just said, “I know! Why the hell do you think I use an SG?” Jay’s response pretty much sums up Too Much Joy’s approach to equipment selection).

Anyway, Jay Jay had some rare old guitar he was very proud of, and we were doing our best to act impressed. I think it was a Les Paul, but it was made of some unique kind of wood they only used once and was one of like three in the world or something. And to prove how special it was, he held it under Jay’s nose and told him to sniff it, because you could smell the special wood finish.

There were a lot of challenging moments in Too Much Joy’s career, but keeping a straight face while the dude from Twisted Sister made Jay smell his guitar was one of the hardest.