Joey Agresta

The Burlington, Vermont music scene has long cultivated singular figures within lo-fi indie rock, and one of the decade’s most distinctive arrivals was Joey Agresta, known among peers as Joey Pizza Slice. Early work issued as Son of Salami was captured on a worn tape deck whose erase head had been removed, allowing multiple overdubs yet preventing both monitoring and subsequent revisions. The resulting brief, jagged compositions, performed on inexpensive keyboards, addressed everyday habits such as cigarette smoking and rock & roll enthusiasm alongside themes of isolation and existential weight. Feeding Tube Records issued the debut full-length, A Study in Eraser Headless Tape Recording, in 2011; reviewers noted parallels to outsider lo-fi practitioners Gary Wilson and Daniel Johnston. Agresta traveled across the United States, performing the same real-time layering process live for audiences. Night People released the cassette Deli Days in 2012, and Goaty Tapes followed with Sontava Nights the next year; both titles appeared together on a Feeding Tube LP in 2014 under the name Salami Junior. OSR Tapes put out OSR #33 in 2015, credited to JPS and recorded via conventional four-track methods. That same year Wharf Cat issued a split 7-inch pairing Joey Pizza Slice with Parquet Courts, each act interpreting the other’s material. Post-Materialization Music brought out Salami Junior’s Bacon Street cassette in 2016. Feeding Tube issued the 7-inch EP A Man Who Can't Write a Song, attributed to Salami J.R., the following year. Also in 2017, Wharf Cat released Let’s Not Talk About Music, Agresta’s most intimate collection to date and the first issued under his own name.