REVIEW: Too Much Joy, Green Eggs and Crack (Sugar Fix)
- Tim Hulsizer
If you're anything like me, the wait between Too Much Joy albums is long and interminable. As far as I'm concerned, there's just nobody else playing their own, unique sort of...well, pop music. Not only that, there has always been a gaping hole at the beginning of my Too Much Joy collection, right where their actual debut album should have been. Until now.
That's right, the fabled vinyl-only album they first released in 1987, Green Eggs and Crack, is now available from the wonderful folks at Sugar Fix Records. And this is a revelation. Up until now, the album (if you could get a copy) suffered from the age/scratchiness of the vinyl you had, and also from the weaknesses of the mix itself. Now that it's on CD, one can truly appreciate where they were coming from at the time.
When they originally put the record out, they mostly sent them to college radio, press, and any pretty girl that happened to seem receptive to hearing a band of goofy guys having fun. This plan paid off. ...Crack is a time capsule, an aural picture of some young men learning how to write songs and actually play them. The most amazing thing about the record is that it's as good as it is! The lyrics, while juvenile, are vintage TMJ, and I think I love the instrumentation all the more because it's somewhat inept. And besides, I really don't think the band would find the term "juvenile" an insult. As singer Tim Quirk puts it in the liner notes, "our goal as a rock band was to blow up the balloon and pop it at the same time."
It all begins in high school, if you can bear with me for a moment. The band members knew each other, practiced, wrote some songs, went to college, and in between beer and classes, they met back home to practice some more. Oh wait, scratch the beer part, I'm not sure they were ever "between beers". Finally they record an album, it has a cool title, and it enters the pantheon of rock'n'roll legend.
All in all, Green Eggs and Crack is alot of fun to listen to. I've always preferred the wild-eyed rantings of young people to the refined thoughts of my elders, and this CD fits the bill. "Drum Machine" alone is worth the price of admission. What other song mentions Elmer Fudd? Very few, my friend. Even remastered, you can still hear the clank of beer bottles in the background, the terrific semi-singing of Mr. Quirk himself, and almost smell the atmosphere of the studio.
Tacked onto the end of the album are three tracks recorded 6 years later, in 1993. The band had just parted ways with their major label connection, and it shows. There's an energy that runs through these tunes that really connected with me. "Drunk and In Love" speaks for itself. It's not just a great lyric, but it has that amazing buzzpop sound they were wielding at the time (see the Cereal Killers / Mutiny albums on Giant Records for reference). "Frustrated" and "Secret Handshake" both bear the marks of the band/label split, and each refer to the music industry directly or indirectly. These three tracks are must-haves for fans of the band, and for non-fans it gives a nice peek at what the band grew into, post-_Crack.
So hey, this is good, but not the best Too Much Joy album. But we knew that, right? It's not about that at all. It's about looking at one of my favorite bands and seeing where they came from. It's about being a completist, and having all of the TMJ stuff I can get my hands on. It's about having fun. And as you'll find out when you put this disc in the player, Too Much Joy has always been able to deliver.
Sugar Fix Recordings can be reached at: P.O.Box 46361, Los Angeles, CA 90046-0361
