Camden Joy
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Camden Joy is the pseudonym of American writer and musician Tom Adelman. Joy is the author of six books—including ''The Last Rock Star Book or Liz Phair: A Rant '' and ''Lost Joy,'' a collection of stories, pamphlets, and posters. In 1991, Adelman accompanied The David Lowery Band as they toured the country, first by Greyhound and later in the van as the band’s roadie. Adelman then spent several years researching David Lowery’s previous band,
Camper Van Beethoven Camper Van Beethoven is an American rock band formed in Redlands, California, in 1983, later based in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Their style mixes elements of pop, ska, punk, folk, alternative, country, and world music, among other ge ...
, interviewing band members, roadies, fans, producers, managers, videographers. Dissatisfied with the result, he started it over under the name Camden Joy. The result was a novel that included accounts of both The David Lowery Band’s road trip and
Camper Van Beethoven Camper Van Beethoven is an American rock band formed in Redlands, California, in 1983, later based in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Their style mixes elements of pop, ska, punk, folk, alternative, country, and world music, among other ge ...
’s break-up. Much later, in 2000, Harper Collins published the novel as ''Boy Island'' under its Quill imprint. In 1994, Camden Joy wrote two tracts (“Lost Pamphlets”) entitled ''The Greatest Record Album Ever Told'' and ''The Greatest Record Album Singer That Ever Was''. Joy moved from Los Angeles to New York in 1995, and attained a brief notoriety for his New York City postering projects and street manifestos. ''The Lost Manifestoes of Camden Joy'' were wheat-pasted around Manhattan and Brooklyn throughout the last months of 1995. ''This Poster Will Not Never Change Your Life'' { was a multi-poster project in 1996, as was the collaborative ''Dear CMJ...'' Joy’s final act of street postering occurred in the summer of 1997 when he unveiled the collaborative ''Fifty Posters About Souled American.'' Joy's essays, which were a combination of music criticism, memoir, and fiction, appeared in a number of periodicals, including the Village Voice, the Boston Phoenix,
San Francisco Weekly ''SF Weekly'' is an online music publication and formerly alternative weekly newspaper founded in the 1970s in San Francisco, California. It was distributed every Thursday, and was published by the San Francisco Print Media Company. The paper ha ...
, and
McSweeney's McSweeney's Publishing is an American nonprofit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. The executive director is Amanda Uhle. McSweeney's first publication was the literary journal'' Timothy McSw ...
and on This American Life. After hearing
Liz Phair Elizabeth Clark Phair (born April 17, 1967) is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Phair was raised primarily in the Chicago area. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1990, she attempted to sta ...
’s ''
Exile in Guyville ''Exile in Guyville'' is the debut album by American singer-songwriter Liz Phair, released on June 22, 1993, by Matador Records. It was recorded at Idful Music Corporation in Chicago between 1992 and 1993 and produced by Phair and Brad Wood. The a ...
'' in 1993, Joy wrote a novel, ''The Last Rock Star Book or Liz Phair: A Rant'', in response. Verse Chorus Press published the novel in 1998. In 2001, three new novellas by Joy were published by
Highwater Books Highwater Books was an independent comic book publisher based in Somerville, Massachusetts. Highwater began in 1997 and folded in November 2004 due to financial pressure. Artists published Notable artists published by Highwater Books included ...
: ''Palm Tree 13'' , ''Pan'', and ''Hubcap Diamondstar Halo''. An excerpt of the latter appeared in “
Best American Nonrequired Reading ''The Best American Nonrequired Reading'' was a yearly anthology of fiction and nonfiction selected annually by high school students in California and Michigan through 826 Valencia and 826michigan. The volume was part of ''The Best American Seri ...
2002” edited by
Dave Eggers Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. His 2000 memoir, '' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'', became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is a ...
. In 2002, Joy’s self-published tracts were collected as ''Lost Joy,'' which also contains short stories, record reviews, essays, and all of his NYC street posters. The book was published by Seattle's TNI Books.


Retrospective

On November 8, 2013, Joy appeared as the President's Keynote Speaker at the 55th Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A roundtable on Joy's work was held the next day, entitled "Ode to Joy: The Career of Camden Joy." Participants included Samuel Cohen, Trinie Dalton, Ben Bush, David N. Meyer, and Adam Wilson. Each spoke to the value of Joy's (by now) largely-forgotten works. Earlier the same week, a panel discussion entitled "Majesty of Impulse: On the Great Lost Works of Camden Joy" occurred at Housing Works Bookstore in New York. Justin Taylor joined the discussion along with many of the Milwaukee participants, each explaining how they first discovered Joy's works.


Reissues

On July 14, 2015, Verse Chorus Press of Portland, Oregon, brought "Lost Joy" back into print. Featuring an introduction by
Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His Debut novel, first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, ...
, a foreword by
Dennis Cooper Dennis Cooper (born January 10, 1953) is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the ''George Miles Cycle'', a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and describe ...
, and blurbs from Dave Eggers and Ira Glass, with a new cover designed by Mark Lerner at Rag & Bone Shop.


Recordings

On October 1, 2015, Camden Joy released a dozen original songs called "Hasta La Bye Bye." Joy recorded these songs with his friends under the name The Oswalds, reviving a band that had not played together since the late eighties. Critic John Burdick called it, "noisy, skittish, comic and profoundly imaginative." Between January 1, 2020, and March 4, 2022, Camden Joy released forty-eight songs. He wrote and produced all. The first batch "Updated Just Now" was released on New Year’s Day, 2020. The Addison Independent said, “ tevokes a sort of revolution-inspired passion with an overlay of more experimental indie-rock. Think Bob Dylan meets Pavement.” The songs elsewhere earned praise for their “poignant lyrics and powerful imagery.” The second batch “American Love” was released on the Fourth of July, 2020. The third and fourth batches “rerouting…” and “roaming on” were released on the Fourth of March, 2022. A music journalist in Burlington, Vermont called “rerouting…” a "hot and tangled mess of lo-fi primitivism, joyfully juvenile catharsis and deep, abiding sorrow.” A cultural critic in the weekly "Seven Days" described “roaming on” as “a record that plays out like a jumbled slice-of-life document, full of surprise and charm." Joy has been licensed to perform in Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace and frequently busks there.


Souled American

In 2023, Camden Joy became involved with
Souled American Souled American is an American alternative country band from Chicago that was active mostly in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The band started in 1986 with a quartet of musicians from Illinois. The initial lineup consisted of rhythm guitar/sin ...
as their manager. In the spring of 2025, he published a book about their debut Fe (Souled American album) entitled "35 Days of Fe."


Publications

* * * *"Rock 'n' Roll Love Letters An appreciation of the 'lost' manifestos and pamphlets of 'Camden Joy,' guerrilla critic.
By
David Futrelle David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...
, ''Chicago Reader'', July 4, 1996.
* * * * * * *Joy, Camden (2025) 35 Days of Fe. Seaside, CA: C. Joy.


References


Camden Joy

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joy, Camden Living people 1964 births