Green Eggs & Crack

Too Much Joy | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 5, 1998)
• Label: Sugar Fix
• ASIN: B000007O6F
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #427,649 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Innocents Ablaze

2. Here's to Eternity

3. Map Like Mine

4. Grandma Went to Athens, Once

5. No Beer

6. James Dean's Jacket

7. Navigator

8. No Rope

9. My Place

10. Bored With Love

11. Someone Else's Jacket

12. Years

13. Drum Machine

14. King Fred

15. Don Quixote

16. The Otter Song

17. Drunk and in Love

18. Frustrated

19. Secret Handshake

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ahead of their time, March 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Green Eggs & Crack (Audio CD)

Forget Harvey Danger, Barenaked Ladies, Green Day and a host of others. NONE of them would exist without the profound influence of groundbreakers like Too Much Joy. TMJ made better records (especially Son Of Sam I Am and ...Finally) but this early work is essential to own for the genesis of it all; and it's fun in its own right. The bonus tracks prove these guys have more TRUE punk in their little fingers than their disciples have in their entire styled-for-MTV-bodies.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best self-released DIY indie album of the 1980's, September 3, 2005

By 

Bill Wikstrom (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Green Eggs & Crack (Audio CD)

Why yes, self-released, DIY & Indie do all mean the same thing.
Scarsdale, N.Y.'s TMJ (known previously as The Rave) recorded
this album while still in College inbetween semesters and on breaks over a four year period. Oddly enough, it's a cohesive, consistant, quietly bratty pop-punk classic. "Map Like Mine" is a college radio classic (or at least it sounds as such) and still is one of TMJ's best ever songs. "No Beer" is dramatic in a silly and genuinely odd way. "Innocents Ablaze", "James Dean's Jacket" and "Don Quixote" are light mid-80's sounding jangle-pop. "Bored With Love" is as poignant as it is humourous.
"Drum Machine" is the only song they kept from this album in their live repertoire. It's a mini-chuckle fest.
But the real unsuspecting whoppers here are "Years" (their best
alienation/angst song) and "Here's To Eternity" (easily their
best boozy song) which has the Son Of Sam reference "the dogs in my head" (a hint of things to come as well).
Both songs are TMJ classics.
The CD contains five bonus tracks - two from the Crack
era and three from 1993. The later period songs have no business being on here. As good as they may be, (esp. "Drunk & In Love") they make no sense being on here, thus messing with the cohesiveness of the entire collection.
These songs could've easily been released on Gods & Sods and would have really improved the truly lackluster ...finally.
It would've made a bit more sense to close the CD on the accapella delight "The Otter Song" as Tim says purposefully says "the end" at the end.

The initial pressing of 1,000 vinyl copies are pretty rare (of which I personally own a couple - like five or so).

Robert Christgau said the best thing about this album was the title and in the advertisement for the GE&C t-shirt I believe Tim's blurb under it read "the album's out of print but the shirts sound better anyhow"...these both read nice and are cutely
self-effacing but the album is quietly rocking, lightly irreverend and unsuspectingly great. Even though the band consistantly said that the album sucks. They were wrong.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The legend begins here!, January 25, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Green Eggs & Crack (Audio CD)

Not the best work they've ever done - which means it's only better than 90% of what's on the radio these days. Historians will curse the 20th century for having ignored Too Much Joy. If talent was fame, they would be beyond legendary. So think of "Green Eggs and Crack" as a post-apocalypse "Meet the Beatles!" Be warned that you will be compelled to roam cut-out bins and used CD stores in a quest for their later work. The extra tracks include a glimpse of what was to come in "Secret Handshake" - which is better than 100% of what's on the radio these days. Buy it, and you can be cool, too.