[.ca] How I Spent My Summer Vacation

From Amazon.co.uk:
As the third track on How I Spent My Summer Vacation makes abundantly clear, The Bouncing Souls are "True Believers", utterly uncompromising stalwarts of punk. By "punk", they do not mean the art-school flamboyance or anarcho-posturings of the Sex Pistols, or the heartfelt, in-your-face ragings of Henry Rollins and Black Flag. Rather, this is the simple peacetime punk of kids with energy to spare. It's about sunny days, pretty girls, BMX bikes and playful pogo-ing. It's about loneliness, alienation and the desperate conviction of teenage love. And, above all, it's about music as a force for good. The Bouncing Souls deliver a positivist, anthemic pop that's specifically designed to raise depressed spirits, as evinced lyrically by the two openers, "That Song" and "Private Radio" and the closing "Gone". In this respect, they have much in common with Green Day and Offspring but they carefully avoid the deliberate frivolity of those bands, evidently aiming to reflect the lives and feelings of their fans, rather than become rock & roll personalities themselves. Unfortunately, this realism makes How I Spent My Summer Vacation increasingly samey and inconsequential as the tracks pass. But in short bursts it is what it intends to be--great fun. --Dominic Wills

few things in life are worth the money they cost but...:
this album is one of those few. i'll start with a few reviewers' clichés: i've heard a lot of nouveau punk bands and i have bought very few of their albums but... this one's worth it. not only one of the best punk albums i've heard but one of the best all round albums. at least in my all time top twenty. there's not one track you'd want to bother getting up to skip past and almost every one sounds like it deserves to be a top ten single. a great voice, great basslines, a very simple and winning formula to the songs. good lyrics! not one line that makes you cringe and some that are well worth remembering: "i'm no good, you're no better, wouldn't we be perfect together?" one of the reviews said that the down to earth nature of this album renders it somewhat inconsequential. i disagree with this i think it makes it all the more real and emotional and inspirational to a regular person (or anyone else for that matter). even the title 'how i spent my summer vacation' just makes you think of what fantastic things human beings are capable of. my faourite tracks: true believers, the something special, late bloomer

This record is your next best friend:
The title is ironic, because the last Summer Vacation I took happened to be the 2001 Vans Warped Tour and as a result, I got to see these guys play everyday for 2 months! The Souls are an unbelievable band musically, but what sets them apart from others is how they are able to defy convention. They deliver energy without having to resort to anger. They convey meaning without having to preach. They imply emotion without having to be dramatic. The songs on this album demonstrate this very well. The songs reflect on friendship, love, self-doubt, fear, joy and hope. Another thing about the Souls is that their music is so damn accessable. At times it's almost as though they have plucked pages from your diary and set it to music. Better yet, these thoughts seem to resolve themselves in the music. Being able to communicate such things has been the reason why the Souls have developed such a devoted audience. They are one of the few bands I have seen where the performance is an entirely mutual and shared experience between performers and audience, where such distinctions between the two are suspended entirely. This record gives the listener a little taste of that.

Bouncing Souls...YES:
I have to admit, the Bouncing Souls are one of my all-time favorite bands. I have made it a tradition to see them every year when they visit D.C. They have such amazing energy and their music is incredible. I listen to them all the time, and still am not tired of their music. It's original and is not one of those "poser punk" artists that has gotten way out of hand. Yes, i have internal rage at the whole Avril/Good Charlotte stage that the world has come to. But don't worry, Bouncing Souls are still what we all know and love as being punk. They are awsome, and How I Spent My Summer Vacation is one of my favorite cd's of theirs. If you dont already own this CD, hurry up and fork over the $ to buy it, because your cd collections is not complete without the Bouncing Souls.

A good epitaph band!:
With epitaph having so many bands on their label you do get your fair share of terrible bands so it's good to hear the bouncing souls producing top quality punk on the average record label, 'how i spent my summer vacation' is a bit more poppy than whatever other music they have so far produced though it's for the better as they have a raw punk sound with the support of the poppy feeling you get with it, in my opinion they are one of the only band worth bothering with on epitaph with a few exceptions so pick this up if your just looking for a no nonsene gritty and short punk cd and you wont regret it.

A Great Intro to Punk:
The Bouncing Souls "How I spent my summer vacation" is a serious punk album but a very fun album it starts off with "That Song" a loud straight punk song and ends with "Gone" a song of the same kind . I would recommend this album to anybody interested in Punk.

• That Song
• Private Radio
• True Believers
• Better Life
• Something Special
• Broken Record
• Lifetime
• Manthem
• Break-Up Song
• Streetlight Serenade
• Late Bloomer
• No Comply
• Gone