Too Much Joy, the irreverent New York state alt-rock band known for such late 1980s and '90s college radio faves as "That's a Lie," "Crush Story," "Donna Everywhere" and its cover of Terry Jacks' "Seasons in the Sun," is back with Mistakes Were Made, its first new studio album in 25 years, on March 19.
An early working title for Mistakes Were Made was Last Century because the band started this project by recording songs they’d written in the '90s but had never gotten around to recording.
That meant digging through old rehearsal, soundcheck, and demo tapes to find gems like “Snow Day” and “Just Around the Bend” (both of which date back to 1992) and “Camper of the Year” (vintage 1994).
“But the whole quarantine thing made us want to create new music,” says drummer Tommy Vinton, and TMJ was soon writing songs from scratch. Lots of songs. An IndieGoGo campaign to turn this flood of creation into an actual album had a crowdfunding goal of $5000. It netted almost four times that, and the band set up a practice of recording one old song for each new one, letting the old work and new work learn from each other. At which point there was another working title: The End of Time, “as the lyrics on both old and new tunes all seemed to revolve around memory and doom,” says singer Tim Quirk.
Turning those acerbic thoughts into singalongs — achieving “the Randy Newman fronting the Clash” effect that Quirk holds as an eternal quest — has always been Too Much Joy’s particular lane, viciously smart stuff that makes you laugh and think and fist pump or foot stomp. (Absurdist power pop, if you want a label.) Though the process was different this time out, because — well you know why, but also because Quirk and guitarist Jay Blumenfield live on the West Coast, while bassist Sandy Smallens, Vinton and producer/bassist William Wittman (Cyndi Lauper) live on the East Coast.
“We always write everything together,” says Blumenfield. “Fighting together makes for great art.” But that togetherness (and fighting) took new form in the pandemic era. Ideation was sometimes more individual and final creation collective, a way of making music that Smallens likens to The White Album. “Except the songs aren’t as good,” he adds. The White Album also did not involve insanely long email threads or group texts, which Mistakes Were Made did.
In the end, there were so many new songs that only three of the old ones made the cut.
"Too Much Joy songs try to be like public swimming pools," Quirk says. “They should have a shallow end and a deep end, and they shouldn't care which end you enjoy most.”
Track listing:
Blinding Light of Love
Uncle Watson Wants to Think
Oliver Plunkett's Head
Hair Shirt
Pong
Something to Drink About
Tranq it Up
Snow Day
Flux Capacitor
Camper of the Year
New Memories
Not Being You
Shouting Across the Ocean
More of the Stuff I Like
Just Around the Bend
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