Too Much Joy: Dr. Seuss Is Dead EP (1994/Joybuzzer)

Too Much Joy was a punky power pop quartet with a sense of humor. Lead singer Tim Quirk wrote wonderfully witty lyrics and was able to touch upon young adulthood as well as the best in the field. The band had the unique ability to sound loose while in fact being a rather tight outfit thanks to the crack rhythm section of bassist Sandy Smallens and drummer Tommy Vinton.  They had an-almost MTV hit with "That's A Lie" (a rap-to-rock cover of the LL Cool J song) and a few hit singles on Billboard Modern Rock Tracks in "Donna Everywhere" and "Crush Story" (the latter of which deserved to be significantly more well-known than it ultimately became). 

                                    TMJ relaxing on the set of the "That's A Lie" music video


Too Much Joy was dropped by Giant in the Autumn of 1993 after the Forever In Your Face Tour and this was released during the big dry-period following the 1992 album Mutiny and preceding ...finally in 1996. This was issued by the official TMJ fanclub newsletter Joybuzzer in the Summer of 1994. It was offered to both new-subscribers and renewing-members, which was a pretty sweet deal. Joybuzzer was run by Clive Young and was all-around excellent zine.
 
"Just Around The Bend" sounds like a great lost early 90's TMJ single. "Never Work" is good but isn't done much justice by the soundcheck recording. "Hey Merlin" has cool would-be psychedelic lyrics but suffers from a clumsy arrangement (or perhaps that was just the performance). "Outtakes" for this EP are "Death Ray Machine" (later on Gods & Sods) and the great "Sunroof" (a Gods & Sods download-only bonus track via eMusic).

This blue 7" vinyl EP (at 33 1/3RPM) is pretty rare. It was a limited pressing of 500 or 1,000 copies. It was mastered directly from DAT to vinyl. Only "Hey Merlin" has since appeared in a digital format on Gods & Sods, but all three-tracks are available for a very inexpensive download from toomuchjoy.com. If you can find this nifty release, by all means, pick it up.


Here's the video review:

 Special thanks to: Clive Young of Pro Sound News and Joybuzzer Zine.

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