Bouncing Souls: Hopeless Romantic
1999
Epitaph Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Hopeless Romantic 2. '87 3. Kid 4. Fight to Live 5. Bullying the Jukebox 6. You're So Rad 7. Night on Earth 8. Monday Morning Ant Brigade 9. ¡Olé! 10. Undeniable 11. Wish Me Well (You Can Go to Hell) 12. It's Not the Heat, It's the Humanity 13. The Whole Thing
I discussed yesterday how much Bouncing Souls 1997 self-titled album is synonymous with my first year of college, and oddly enough, "Hopeless Romantic" brings back vivid memories of the end of my college career...
I roomed with my friends Josh, Bruce, Joe, Jens and my brother Jason at the time...We lived in a set of cabins that the owner rented to college kids in the winter months, but during the summer the place was a resort on the shores of the mighty lake Huron...I remember reading the brochure with my friend Scott and we both got a great deal of amusement from the description: "200 square feet of white Sugar Sand Beach..." Picture the phrase said in the most calming radio voice you can imagine ...
But yea....It didn't look like the picture above when I was there...Trelawny, as I knew it, was a bitter cold place...The beach covered in autumn leaves or a blanket of snow...
Yea! That's how I remember it!
Near the end of the school year, we got a brief glimpse of its beauty during the Spring thaw, but then it was time for us to go home...
Oh my God....I stole most of these photos from their facebook page...This is giving me serious flashbacks...This is what the inside of the place looked like...Only imagine it strewn with beer cans, Taco Bell wrappers and empty cigarette boxes...
I can recall getting this record when it was new... The rest of my roommates had left for home already, but I had stuck around for awhile longer to hang out with my friend Eric Bock (R.I.P). My brother was supposed to pick me up but there was a freak blizzard that spring (although I remember there were often "freak" blizzards in Michigan...Still this one was especially severe and unseasonably late), so I was left alone in the cabin...snowed in...stranded...Eating cold cereal and listening to Sunny Day Real Estate and the new Bouncing Souls CD...
"Hopeless Romantic" was a bit of a weird album to be listening to in a blizzard...Or maybe an appropriate one...The fun, shout-long anthems are perfectly suited to sun-filled summer days...It's also a noticeable improvement from their self-titled album...The songs are fully formed and they dabble in all kinds of new genres...There's even a noticeable Adam Ant influence in songs like "Bullying the Jukebox: and "Monday Morning Ant Brigade." So hell yea...
Lots of good stuff...You've got the meat and potatoes pop-punk tracks like "'87" and "Kid." There's also the stomping soccer chant "¡Olé!" (which I was very surprised didn't turn into a huge hit for the band...I was half expecting some sort of Offspring "Smash" style takeover of radio playlists everywhere, but it never happened...). I've also always loved "Undeniable " I think if that John Hughes would have come out of retirement back in 1999 this song would have been a shoo-in for the soundtrack...For some reason, this has Molly Ringwald and Ducky written all over it...
Sure, the album kind of peters out at the end ("Wish Me Well (You Can Go to Hell)" is just flat-out awful...The helium-voiced chick saying "good bye" for ten minutes makes me want to puke...) but it doesn't matter...I'm so sold by that point that nothing can stop me from declaring this my favorite Bouncing Souls album...
Let's check out "Fight to Live" by the Bouncing Souls,...Enjoy...
This is by far my favorite album by them! Night On Earth is the best song by far! I really like The Whole Thing too! The pictures of Trelawny bring back a lot of memories! Hey check out Freeway by Kurt Vile. I can't stop listening to it! Check out The Fags too. I think its some good pop/punk. They were the guys from Hoarse and they we're out of Detroit. Remember Hoarse? I still have their album. Its good!
ReplyDeleteYes, I have the Hoarse album too. I love that one! I had heard they started a new band called the Fags, but I only heard it on that CD you made me, but it was bad-ass...That reminds me, I should try to find a copy of that on Amazon or something...I really enjoyed it...I was happy to find the Trelawny photos...We were looking at the cabin pictures trying to figure out who lived in which cabin...I think we got it...My favorite night at Trelawny was when that drunk guy just randomly walked into our house and ended up hanging out there the whole night...I think that was the first time I ever drank wine mixed w/ Vodka...I can't believe I woke up and went to school the next morning...Doing that would probably destroy me now! I can still see Steve walking around in his conductor's hat and overalls yelling, "Lil Bit!" That guy was pretty awesome! I liked the fact that we could just work on the roof and get money taken off the rent! I wish I could do that now!
ReplyDeleteYeah I remember that night! Didn't he bring a case of Rolling Rock to? I remember to he fell out of a chair in me and Jason's cabin. Didn't we end up over in that trailer looking for more booze? Damn we had some good times! Yeah Steve was a good guy. I remember we called him Steve Trelawny and that wasn't his last name. Looking at the layout of the cabins if i'm right the picture is taken from you and Josh's cabin, Me and Jason's was to the left but you can't see it, Jens was the one to the left and Bruce's was to the right but you can't see his. That place was awesome! You're right about the rent. That was nice to work for him.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think his real name was Steve Davies, but I had to look that up...I only knew him as Steve Trelawny! You're correct that we went back to the guy's cabin to get more to drink...I can remember watching him stumbling around his cabin and becoming vaguely concerned when he disappeared for a few minutes and we were just standing in the doorway...I also have this extremely fuzzy memory of tossing an inflatable raft onto Bruce's roof, but that was a different night, but I'm trying real hard to get some context for that moment...I can also remember hanging out in the pool room a lot and Jason had some key that opened the pool balls...There was some weird 70's 7-11 sign that said "Fill 'er 'em up!" or something that I couldn't make heads or tails of...I became super-fascinated by that sign and ended up recreating it in Son of Shed....
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