25 years ago today, The Bigger Lovers—Ed, Scott, Bret, and me—released our debut LP, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying.” On that day, we played JR’s Lightbulb in Fayetteville, Ark. to around 13 people, most of whom were there for the headliner. We spent the night on the friend of an acquaintance’s floor. It gets better. As that was the last date of the tour, we were making our way back to Philly the next day when our borrowed van broke down somewhere in Missouri. We were towed to a one stoplight town where the local mechanic (also a deacon) had closed up shop for the day. So we spent the night at a motel whose logo should’ve been an OD victim in a bathtub, all of us crammed into one room watching “The Sopranos” and drinking beer. We drove 20 hours straight back home the next day, stopping for dinner at Subway. About a month later, our label lost its distribution, rendering our debut record DOA. A few months later, we almost drove another van off a steep hill in Virginia. Formative shit. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. And I remain extraordinarily proud of the album we released 25 years ago today.
*These artifacts are from my personal archives, which will one day be under the stewardship of
@lilynicks . Inquire within.
**I would be remiss if I did not thank Bruce Warren for his never-ending support (I can still remember the first time I heard “Summer of Our first Hello” on WXPN, in the parking of the Roxborough ACME), and Brad Newsom, the unsung musical hero of the ‘Worrying” sessions, for adding musical colors we couldn’t & engineering his ass off.
1 - Today
2 - 25 years ago
3 - Bret
4 - Scott
5 - Ed
6 - Miles (the bigger lover)
7 - Philly release show setlist
8 - An opener, just like The Strokes
9 - Euro CD single, Munich Records (nice Dutch folks)
10 - Billboard! Uncut!
11 - Still don’t think I play too loud
12 - As seen on the wall of (insert record store here)
13 - More press! (Thanks, Mike)
14 - “The bio”
15 - This was all my parents talked about at Marra’s
16 - At Ardent, w/Jody Stephens. Aggressively hungover.
17 - Frankenkit setup for ‘Worrying.’
18 - Attempt #1 at a press photo
19 - #2
20 - CD inlay. I miss that jacket. And that hair.
