The Get Up Kids‘ classic 1999 album Something To Write Home About turns 25 this year, and the band is celebrating with an expanded reissue and a tour, and for the occasion, co-leaders Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic joined us on the BrooklynVegan podcast for an hour-long reflection on the album. They reminisced about how they evolved from their very humble beginnings and their 1997 debut album Four Minute Mile into the band that wrote one of the most influential emo albums of all time just two years later, the label feeding frenzy that followed Four Minute Mile‘s success and the decision to go with then-little-known label Vagrant, the longer demoing process that helped make Something To Write Home About a much more refined album than its predecessor (and that’s being immortalized with the second disc of demos included with this new reissue), their headlining STWHA tour with openers At the Drive-In, their 2001 support tours for Green Day and Weezer, the mainstream emo boom that Something To Write Home About heavily inspired and that The Get Up Kids moved away from with 2002’s On A Wire, and more.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and find it embedded below. We’ve also got an exclusive “violet & silver mix” vinyl variant of the reissue, matching the color scheme of the iconic album artwork, up for pre-order now in the BV shop. That’s limited to 500; get yours while they last.
If you’re reading this and you’ve never listened to Something To Write Home About or haven’t heard it in a while, it’s very worth changing that. It’s hard to think of a popular, melodic, 21st century emo band that wasn’t influenced by it, and it still holds up so well after 25 years. Pop punk-tinged emo rarely gets better than “Holiday,” “Action & Action,” and “Ten Minutes,” and the piano balladry and acoustic songs have proved just as enduring and influential as the rippers. It’s one of those albums that’s exactly as important as everyone says it is, and still somehow a bit of an underdog that’s constantly ripe for discovery.
The upcoming Something To Write Home About tour begins the same day the digital version of the reissue comes out (August 23), and it has support from fellow punky Midwest vets The Smoking Popes. That hits NYC’s Warsaw on September 28 and NJ’s Stone Pony on October 1, and leads up to the band’s appearance at Las Vegas’ new Best Friends Forever fest. The band is promising more STWHA dates in the US and around the world for 2025, so if you don’t see your city listed right now, stay tuned. All dates are listed below.
Pick up our exclusive vinyl variant of the STWHA 25th anniversary edition here.
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Watch the new/first-ever video for “Holiday” and stream the demo of the song that’s being included on the reissue:
Something To Write Home About 25th Anniversary Edition Tracklist
LP1:
1. Holiday
2. Action & Action
3. Valentine
4. Red Letter Day
5. Out of Reach
6. Ten Minutes
7. The Company Dime
8. My Apology
9. I’m a Loner Dottie, a Rebel
10. Long Goodnight
11. Close to Home
12. I’ll Catch You
LP2:
1. One Year Later (Demo)
2. Close to Home (Demo)
3. Out of Reach (Demo)
4. Holiday (Demo)
5. Valentine (Demo)
6. My Apology (Demo)
7. Red Letter Day (Demo)
8. Ten Minutes (Demo)
9. Central Standard Time (Four Track Demo)
10. Long Goodnight (Four Track Demo)
11. The Company Dime (Four Track Demo)
12. I’ll Catch You (Four Track Demo)
The Get Up Kids — 2024 Tour Dates
08/01 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Circo Voador
08/04 – Sao Paulo, Brazil – Oxigênio Festival
08/06 – Recoleta, Chile – Sala Metrónomo
08/09 – Mexico City, Mexico – Foro La Paz
08/10 – Monterrey, Mexico – Foro Tims
08/23 – Dallas, TX – Studio at The Factory #
08/24 – Austin, TX – Mohawk #
08/25 – San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger #
08/27 – Mesa, AZ – The Nile #
08/29 – San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park #
08/30 – Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour #
08/31 – Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour #
09/01 – Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour #
09/03 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall #
09/04 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall #
09/06 – Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory Spokane #
09/07 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall #
09/08 – Seattle, WA – Showbox #
09/10 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot #
09/11 – Englewood, CO – Gothic Theatre #
09/13 – Kansas City, MO – Record Bar #
09/14 – Lawrence, KS – Bottleneck #
09/15 – Lawrence, KS – Bottleneck #
09/24 – Columbus, OH – The Athenaeum Theatre #
09/25 – Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live #
09/27 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer #
09/28 – New York, NY – Warsaw #
09/29 – New York, NY – Warsaw #
10/01 – Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony #
10/03 – Boston, MA – Big Night Live #
10/04 – Buffalo, NY – Electric City #
10/05 – Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall #
10/06 – Detroit, MI – St. Andrew’s Hall #
10/08 – Milwaukee, WI – The Rave #
10/09 – Minneapolis, MN – Uptown Theater #
10/10 – Chicago, IL – Metro #
10/11 – Chicago, IL – Metro #
10/13 – Las Vegas, NV – Best Friends Forever Festival
# w/ Smoking Popes
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