I understand why they fired me, but did they have to get so fucking cold and ruthless about it?
\n\u2014Doug Hopkins (Rolling Stone, 1993)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/users\/sammymaudlin\/blossoms_site.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/div>\nDISCLAIMER: The Gin Blossoms<\/strong> were the<\/em> bar band in Phoenix during my post college years. So many weekends were spent drinkin’, smokin’ and dancin’ up a sweat with The Gin Blossoms<\/strong>. Point is, I may be biased. But hear me out. Let’s talk about defeat snatchin’ before critical upgradin’. But let’s stop using “n'”s first. Sorry.<\/p>\n ALL the songs, and the best, that got The Gin Blossoms<\/strong> to the national stage were written by Doug Hopkins. Doug started the band and played lead. Lost Horizons<\/em> and especially Hey Jealousy<\/em> and Found Out About You<\/em> were the tunes that got these guys a major label deal, radio and MTV play. These were the popular bar hits as well.<\/p>\n Lost Horizons<\/a> Problem was that Doug was an alcoholic. If memory serves correct, I think they were banned from at least one Phoenix club when he chucked a beer bottle at an audience member’s head. The story is that he was “difficult” (read “wasted”) during the recording sessions for New Misearable Experience<\/strong><\/em> and A&M gave them an ultimatum: Fire Doug or get dropped. So they kicked him out of the band. The founder, lead guitar player and hit song writer, kicked out of the band.<\/p>\n This is a perfect trifecta of defeat-snatching. Doug snatched it, The Gin Blossoms<\/strong> snatched it and A&M snatched it.<\/p>\n A week or so after being handed a gold record for Hey Jealousy<\/em>, well after his dismissal from his own band, he snuck out of detox, bought a gun and shot himself.<\/p>\n a0O0wWk_zh0] The Gin Blossoms<\/strong> tried miserably<\/em> to continue on without Doug’s talent and at one point were even partnered with Marshall Crenshaw to write songs. Last I heard they were playing Indian Casinos.<\/p>\n As far as critical upgrade…I’ve always loved New Miserable Experience<\/strong><\/em> and I know that my personal experience can’t be extracted from that appreciation but I stumbled upon a context for The Gin Blossoms<\/strong> that puts them in line for an upgrade.<\/p>\n I got a hold of the 1980 Stiff release of Where All the Nice Girls Are<\/em> by Any Trouble<\/strong> a few months back. These guys were pretty cool but suffered from comparison to Elvis Costello<\/strong> as the lead singer Clive Gregson not only sounded kinda like him but also wore big black glasses. <\/center> I realized that The Gin Blossoms<\/strong>, with a little cleaner production, wouldn’t have been out of place on the Any Trouble, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker<\/strong> end of the Stiff label. <\/p>\n I’m not saying that they deserve an upgrade to the level of Nick Lowe but as they seem to get relegated to the 90s MTV has-bin<\/em>, I think they deserve a bit more respect.<\/p>\n What say you?<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I understand why they fired me, but did they have to get so fucking cold and ruthless about it? \u2014Doug Hopkins (Rolling Stone, 1993) There is beyond an excellent chance that I was in this crowd. DISCLAIMER: The Gin Blossoms were the bar band in Phoenix during my post college years. So many weekends were […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[82,61,81,80,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/ins><\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nHere’s a deeper Hopkins tune from the album. Hold Me Down<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/users\/sammymaudlin\/P10783.JPG\" "\\"\\"")
<\/div>\n
\nBut in hearing tunes like these:
\nPlaying Bogart<\/a>
\nTurning Up The Heat<\/a><\/p>\n