Cusumano, Joel

Cusumano, Joel

Waxworld

Dandy Boy

***Fiery debut power pop LP from a Bay Area underground mainstay! Though you, dear reader, may not know it, Joel Cusumano has played a huge role in the Bay Area underground scene for years—as songwriter and/or lead guitarist in a wide-ranging lineup of bands such as Sob Stories, R.E. Seraphin, and Body Double. Cusumano began writing the music that would become his first solo album, Waxworld, after a stint in a mental hospital treating his debilitating OCD: “It was bleak. For a year I could barely function, barely leave the house. After [the hospital] I recovered pretty rapidly. But instead of feeling relief, there was dread, like, ‘Well, what now’? You spend over a year falling off the deep end and you’re a different person when you hit the ground … I needed to write differently than I had before. I was looking around the world and not recognizing what I saw. The songs had to reflect that alienation. I was done with the ‘angry young man’ jilted lover stuff I’d been doing in Sob Stories. I was bored with that kind of boilerplate rock’n’roll topography.” A painful breakup at the end of writing process further sharpened Cusumano’s eye towards material reflecting his growing unease in a world in unrelenting flux. But despite weighty origins, Waxworld sound is, like all of Cusumano’s work, instantly fun, catchy, and accessible, if a little moody. Waxworld effortlessly weaves between guitar pop styles from bubblegum (“Push Push”) and post-punk (“Death-Wax Girl”), to straight power...

Cusumano, Joel

Appendix

Dandy Boy

***Less than a year after releasing his debut LP Waxworld, literate power popper Joel Cusumano returns with APPENDIX. Apropos of its title, Appendix contains material that existed in various stages of completion during the recording of Waxworld, and is a bleaker, heavier, more angular exploration of certain of that album’s thematic terrain—alienation, nostalgia, impotence, dread, and the inexorable structures that bind our lives.Says Cusumano: “During the writing of Appendix, I was recovering from a dark time in my personal life, and—not sure if you’ve noticed—the world happens to be on fire.” Unlike much of his previous work, the EP contains no explicit love songs or breakup songs, but plenty of the residual bitterness and cynicism of heartbreak. The songs also reflect Cusumano’s horror at the barbarism unfolding in the US and across the globe, all dressed in a driving, immediate 2-3 minute pop/rock packaging that evokes both ‘90s college rock and ‘80s post-punk, as well as groups such as The Replacements, Elvis Costello, and early REM.Collaboratively, in order to promote Waxworld and record Appendix, Cusumano assembled the most powerful band he’s ever played with: Brett Austin Eastman (ANDY HUMAN & THE REPTOIDS), Ella Keilt (THE LETTERWRITERS), Owen Kelley (CYAN POOLS), and Julie Barwick (LATITUDE). All members play on and arrange on APPENDIX, with assistance from Cusumano’s frequent collaborators Ray Seraphin (R.E. SERAPHIN, THE PENNYS), Matt Bullimore (THE MANTLES) and Rob Good (RYLI, THE GOODS), who also engineered the EP and will be joining Cusumano on a Fall 2026 European tour.