In Defense Of All Things

I’ve been seeing Joyce Manor live since Barry Johnson started blacking out his arm. Every time I saw them, I knew to expect a different drummer and a new piece of his sleeve to be hidden away forever for only him to remember and the press photos of the past to keep safe.

I listened to the new record, I Used to Go to This Bar, but I think my issue is I prefer my Joyce Manor messy and semi-juvenile They are older, cleaned up, clearer but they are wearing the titular new leather jacket. A fortress of self, years of the same thing repeated over and over, when it hits, oh, does it hit, but it hasn’t hit the veins like it used to in a while.

There’s a good balance of this on Cody, which is probably the last time Joyce Manor truly hit for me with a new release. “Stairs” is a struggle with it all, you are young and punk but one day your parents will die. It will all change, it is changing right now. It feels as if it was written for you, everything feels deeply intimate until you hear it in a room of 500 people who all know the words in the same way.

But I want to talk about my favorite record of theirs — the one everyone else hates.

There’s a soft spot in my heart for band’s rebellious “experimental” records. Congratulations by MGMT and their self-titled record jump to mind as records intended to rebel against the fans and expectations set, MGMT being a more direct example. I remember the night that they performed “Your Life is a Lie” live on Letterman, premiering the track and the lukewarm response from all ends. You can hear the audience not sure how to react after the band finishes the giant cowbell-laden performance¹ that seemed like a hyperbolic parody of The Flaming Lips.

Not every band has this record but when they do it feels so special. A product of a different type of angst and anger, trying to create anything but what they know, successful or not.

Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired is a piece of my heart that I hold tight. It’s the most intimate Joyce Manor record in the way it feels like a band practice slammed together, playing what they want, as fast as they want, stopping when they want, suddenly or not at all.

“See How Tame I Can Be” has been my favorite Joyce Manor song for as long as I’ve been a fan. Driven by a drum machine, it sounds nothing like anything they have released before or since. It’s a sore thumb in the discography in such a good way. A wound you tend to, bite at, and re-open. The track was later reworked as “Tame” alongside another Of All Things rework, “Bride,” on their split with Toys That Kill. It’s less exposed and more refined like the ones that came before it were an embarrassment not ready for the world.

I can’t talk about this record without talking about the “Video Killed the Radio Star” — their Cap’n Jazz “Take On Me” moment. It’s tongue-in-cheek, it’s sloppy, you can’t really tell if it is mocking the original track or celebrating it, the irony was lost and muddy before it was even recorded. I remember this track being the initial draw for the record for me. A song I know has gone emo adjacent! Wow! This was the track I played trying to convince people to get in on the train, which admittedly is a horrible choice for that. Just play them “Constant Headache,” man. It’s that easy.

I could keep going on about the record but I’m not going to make you read a piece about 3x as long as the record. Just listen if you want and don’t if you don’t want to. You are not me and you are probably not 16 anymore — will it scratch that itch on a fully formed brain hearing it for the first time in 2026?

In a few months, I will see Joyce Manor perform on the biggest stage I’ve ever seen them on and for the first time since October 29th, 2017³. I’m not sure I have it in me to sing along every word anymore and the new ones escape me because my memory for lyrics doesn’t quite work like it did when I was 16 and fiending for every piece of information about a record that I could⁴.

I remember seeing faces at the shows I went to in Texas, repeated, more aged than the last⁵. Will any be at this show besides myself as I stand thousands of miles and 8 years apart? Maybe.

My dad took my too enough shows that he still asks me “How is Joyce Manor doing?” like that’s my old friend. I always say great of course.

¹Andrew VanWyngarden stops playing the giant cowbell at one point and reveals it was making barely any sound. Take this as you will.

²I scanned it in for your viewing pleasure.

³I also saw them October 28th, 2017. I followed them from Dallas to Houston on their co-headline tour with Wavves. At that point I had convinced myself I had outgrown Wavves but now that the Zach Hill collaboration record has graced the internet after being literal lost media, I feel a rediscovered faith that’s not quite a faith in the future but more of a faith that the past can be reinterpreted and relived in ways that are unique.

⁴Did you know Phoebe Bridgers does backing vocals on “Do You Really Want to Not Get Better?” I know that you know that’s Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan on the cover of Never Hungover Again.

⁵The first time I got rockegnized from online in real life was at a Joyce Manor show.