Add this fact to your never-ending “Damn, I feel old” list: The Gin Blossoms’ New Miserable Experience turns 25 next month.
It’s already been a quarter-century since the GBs put the Valley on the map with their hit parade LP, and they’re celebrating the occasion with a vinyl reissue of New Miserable Experience and its 1996 follow-up, Congratulations, I’m Sorry.
See also: "Band on the Run"
Both LPs have their fair share of hits, with “Hey Jealousy” and “Found out About You” topping the charts after the 1992 release of New Miserable Experience. It's a bittersweet success story, due to the death of chief songwriter Doug Hopkins in 1993, who was fired from the band because of his drinking problems before the album’s release, a passing that becomes even more ironic and tragic, when you consider the fact that the band was named after the “gin blossoms” that can ravage a longtime drinker’s face.
The band titled their follow-up Congratulations, I’m Sorry as a nod to this tragic turn of events. While Congratulations never rose to the heights of its predecessor, it did deliver an indelible single in “Follow You Down.”
You can hear the albums that (for better or worse) turned Mill Avenue into a gold rush in a whole new way on Friday, March 24, when
The Blossoms aren't the only Mill Avenue export to get the vinyl treatment. In 2015, the Refreshments released their debut album Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy on vinyl.
