These New Jersey mooches… These Yoohoo-drinking, rooftop toilet-throwing, adolescent-minded seniors of punk are coming to Los Angeles in May… and we just secured tickets (Thanks, Kyle!). I can’t wait to hold an overpriced beer and spit snotty lyrics at top volume in the back of an overcrowded room along with this seminal band, surrounded by like-minded idiots of similar and sophisticated taste. It’s comforting to see these punk elders still arousing the crowd into a much-too-short “East Coast, fuck you!” call and response. (Photo cropped and ripped from my phone and provided by, I suppose, the Bouncing Souls?) Check ’em out.
Tag Archives: The Bouncing Souls
Souls
I remember visiting California in late 1999 from Wisconsin, and heading down to Huntington Beach for seafood and discovering a little hole-in-the-wall record shop adjacent to the staple restaurant. Ducking in while we waited for a table, I was floored to discover the rainbow of plush, punk records, cheap, and ripe for the picking. We didn’t have near enough time to dig through everything, but I was able to procure the first album by The Bouncing Souls, The Good, The Bad, and The Argyle. The picture presented here is the non-lyric side of that 1994 album’s insert.
Dusty Spin
Just received my, wait for it, “doublemint w/ purple haze” colored vinyl version of The Bouncing Soul’s 2nd studio album, Maniacal Laughter. Happy to have stumbled across this when I did (3x weeks ago) because this 125 record release is now officially sold out. I will note, though it’s no consequence, that my sealed copy arrived very, very dusty. Perhaps tiny polyvinyl crumbs were left over from the pressing machine. Either way, a good cleaning is definitely in order before the windows start shaking and the neighbors start banging on the walls.
Random Blended
A few months ago, The Bouncing Souls rereleased their 2006 album, The Gold Record, on a very limited pressing of 250 “random blended” colored vinyl. This was preordered some months back, forgotten about when the package was received, and has been sitting in the jenga closet until its rediscovery last week. Currently sitting in the “next to spin” pile, one can never go wrong with New Jersey’s The Bouncing Souls, regardless of the record color.
Summer Vacation
Ironically, it was after How I Spent My Summer Vacation that I actually took a vacation from these New Jersey mooches. Looking back, I think it was my palette that shifted and not the band’s, because when I spin HISMSV now, it really doesn’t anger me that much. It’s certainly not as good as Maniacal Laughter or their self titled album, but now that I’m older, and presumably wiser, I’m happy it is a part of my collection.
Day Drinking in Pedro
I’m excited to see New Jersey’s finest, The Bouncing Souls at the 3rd annual Horton’s Hayride this afternoon. An odd choice for the event, but I’m on board. Here’s to day drinking with coworkers down in San Pedro!
The Argyle
I’m still a bit confused about the details surrounding tomorrow night’s show, but APPARENTLY, both Pennywise AND The Bouncing Souls will be playing the Palladium. Knocking off work early to attend, so let’s hope Friday isn’t a mongrel bitch. BTW, The Good, the Bad, and the Argyle is arguably the best Bouncing Souls album ever released… here’s hoping the band thinks so too.
Soulwise
This one was a bit of a challenge to figure out, but after some nervous and speedy research, The Bouncing Souls, and not Pennywise will be performing at the Palladium on March 10. Ticket purchased, and early work exit email draft started. Bring on these East Coast fools!
Hopeless
“I’m a hopeless romantic. You’re just hopeless.”
Maniacal Laughter
When anger and rage are your evening companions, a little Maniacal Laughter is certainly in order. Falling under the ever-growing nostalgia umbrella, East Coast pop-punkers The Bouncing Souls returned to the mid-90s middle class punk scene with their sophomore effort, 1996’s nearly perfect Maniacal Laughter. One of my early introductions to the band was this and their first, 1994’s The Good, the Bad & the Argyle, but for me, Maniacal Laughter is much more sophisticated than its predecessor, while still managing to embrace the slick, lighthearted, bratty aura that made them fan favorites all across the world. If you haven’t seen The Bouncing Souls live, you most certainly should. They’re a hell-of-a lot of fun… or, at least they were 20 years ago. We all may be getting older, but we’re never too old for some hearty Maniacal Laughter.
Pure Gold… Polyvinyl Chloride
Last year, and 17 years after the initial release of Jersey brats, The Bouncing Souls’ self-titled, and 3rd album, Epitaph released this gorgeous gold vinyl reissue exclusive to their online store. Limited to only 500 copies, I’m a bit surprised to report that this little gem is still available directly from Epitaph. (Here is a link if you’re interested.)
The Bouncing Souls is a very contagiously energetic album, falling in line with their debut The Good, The Bad & The Argyle, and their sophomore effort, Maniacal Laughter. Their 4th offering, 1999’s Hopeless Romantic is brilliant in its own right, but sees the band maturing a bit, or as much as a pop punk band from the east coast can mature over two years. All in all, the first four efforts by this disorderly group are unmistakably essential, and a little color never hurt the cause, either.
No MTV
Yeah, this pretty much sums it up. DIY, kiddos!!
Milwaukee Nightlife
Gone are the leisure-filled days of stopping off at the local record shop on the way home from school to snatch, if no necessary deals were found, free mock-ticket ads for upcoming Milwaukee area shows. This particular night in May of 2000 featured a masked gimp stage diving and picking fights with select, drunk patrons (Dwarves), a wall-echoing, room-filled chant of East Coast pride (“East Coast F— You” by Bouncing Souls), and an eager and overly-excited pop-punk-loving Milwaukee crowd rushing the stage to share the mic for a final encore (Dropkick Murphys). All-in-all, it was a rather memorable, aggression exhausting evening some 14 years ago.
I’d also like to add how atrocious it is to post from the WordPress app via iPhone. A hiccup in the Cal Ripkin-like post streak was in jeopardy more than a few times these past few days…
Neurotic 7”
The Bouncing Souls were often the frontrunners for repeated and consistent spins during my (long-winded) pop-punk days. Their first album, 1994’s The Good, The Bad, and the Argyle, featured this Neurotic 7” in its entirety, although its tracks don’t appear in the same order. The New Jersey punk outfit are a hell-of-a-lot of fun live, and the studio recordings of some of their early work still stands out as some of the best of the pop-punk genre.
I like your mom and it’s no fad,
I wanna’ marry her and be your dad
If you don’t know The Bouncing Souls, you should get a pretty good idea of their mischievous, yet adolescent tendencies by the above lyrics (which are pretty much the entirety of I Like Your Mom). Couple that with melodic, fast-paced race-rock, and you’ve got the makings for an energy-filled trip down Memory Ln (even if it happened to exist over 15 years ago).
101 Bands Playing 30 Second Songs
In June of 1999, Fat Wreck Chords released the optimistically ambitious Short Music for Short People, a novelty album featuring 101 bands spanning the punk rock spectrum in 30 second bursts. With grandfathers like Black Flag, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Misfits and Youth Brigade, to Fat mainstays Lagwagon, NOFX, Wizo and Strung Out, to fellow Epitaph Records mates Bad Religion, Pennywise, The Offspring and The Bouncing Souls, Short Music for Short People, as enjoyable as it is (and it really is), becomes exceptionally laborious when attempting to search for 1/101 of this record’s contents for just a 30 second reward. Lucky for me, I had a brief moment of clarity as a 19-year-old twit and picked up the compact disc version as well. That’s all gone as we wake up each day amongst the digital rays from our digital sun and pull up our digital socks and drive our digital stick-shift vehicles to our digital jobs to earn our digital wages and continue to get looked over for those digital promotions, but that’s neither here nor there.
As hilarious as it is catchy, and as arduous as it is enduring, Short Music for Short People is an aggressive achievement worthy of any open-minded listener. Also, you can learn how to make a bomb out of household objects on track 45, courtesy of The Offspring. Don’t try this at home, kids.
The Prudent Groove 