Too Much Joy

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...