Lost Joy

By Camden Joy

Book Overview

Lost Joy collects the writing that first brought Camden Joy wide attention in the mid-90s, when he wheatpasted his "manifestoes" around New York, excoriating the music industry and celebrating unsung... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1891241060
• ISBN13: 9781891241062
• Release Date: July 2015
• Publisher: Verse Chorus Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A rare find

Writers like Camden Joy are, sadly, all too rare today. The essays in Lost Joy have earned him a reputation as an astute and iconoclastic observer of the contemporary music scene, and of life in general. Clearly, Joy has spent a lot of time outside of music's (and life's) mainstream. He cares passionately about bands you probably haven't heard, people whose paths you probably won't cross, and events that aren't likely to catch your attention. One of his gifts is his ability to make you care, too. Joy wears his musical heart on his sleeve, fearlessly. And, as the reader of Lost Joy learns, he isn't always content to share his thoughts through conventional means. For example, he assembles a group of like-minded writers / music fans who communicate their thought-provoking views on hand-made posters which they paste all over the lower east side of New York. Whether protesting an upcoming music industry convention or exposing the world to a little-known (but brilliant) band called Souled American, Joy's guerilla approach to music criticism is both unconventional and refreshing. Book critics who attempt to describe Camden Joy's writing style invoke the names of writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Lester Bangs; for me, Frederick Exley and Richard Brautigan also come to mind, and you'll probably have your own additions to this list. In any event, while such comparisons give prospective readers a sense of Joy's style, ultimately they fall short of describing the uniquely intense, subversive and passionate voice Joy employs to draw you into his essays. I wish Lost Joy could have been twice the length.

This poster will change your life.

ADVERTOCRACYROCK TEACHES YOUTH TOBACCOAND TATTOOESTHIS AIN'T ROCK AND ROLLTHIS IS GENOCIDEAn absolutely brilliant book.