Thursday, September 6, 2012

Junq Tour 2012: Carman



Yes! I'm back on tour to collect thrift store garbage from all over Manitoba. The Southern part of the province is covered mainly by the Christian Wheat Belt, so the thrift stores are naturally packed to the tits with Christian albums, Christian videos, Christian books, and Hutterites. I'm really trying to remember to take pictures of the thrift stores I visit, and I actually remembered this time.

So, fire up those horses and plows and we'll take a trip through Southern Manitoba's thrilling thrift store goodies...


George Staerkel - The Signature Collection

Hooray for photoshop! You know, George could do anything he wanted in photoshop for his greatest hits CD. My suggestion would have been to put some hair on him, but instead he left it bald, and the glare makes it a very obvious photoshop disaster. He could have trimmed his head down too which might have helped make it less photochopped.

Now then, onto the CD. I cannot deny that George is very talented. The guy can sing very well, and he can also play a nice array of instruments such as the trumpet, the saxophone, the piano, and a few others that I don't feel like mentioning. Although George can span a few octaves with his voice, he seems to prefer squeezing his balls and singing songs of a falsetto nature. Included are the songs "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", "Cara Mia", "Stay", and he also yodels through a few. He pulls it off very well, considering the pain he puts up with his balls squished in what is likely the hand of his wife Barbara.

The downside to this CD is the production. There's way too much reverb on everything, and the entire recording is run through a compressor, making it sound like compressed echoey crap.

All production values aside, it's very difficult to pick a song when there's so much talent to be found. But not all was lost... The song "The Lonely Bull" has George doing some very lovely trumpet work in it. Unfortunately, the trumpet is the only real instrument in the song. Everything else is synthesized. BADLY. The star of the show is the mandolin which, instead of sounding like a mandolin, sounds a lot like the "Mario got squished by an elevator" sound from the Colecovision version of Donkey Kong.

Listen to The Lonely Bull


The Humorous Gospel Songs of Bob Larson

I had a bitch of a time getting this record to play on my turntable. A little known fact: Atheist turntables have a much larger spindle in order to avoid playing garbage like this. I had to hammer this stubborn whore into submission because it was so tight.

The subtitle for this album is "Compatible Stereo". What the hell is compatible stereo? What would incompatible stereo sound like? Mono? Silence? Help me out here...

All the songs on this album sound pretty much the same with the exception of the lyrics. Bob Larson isn't much of a singer, so instead he does some kind of half-assed rapping. Mind you, this album came out before rap music was invented, so I guess Bobby is a pioneer when it comes to rap music. As for the songs being humorous, well, they're not. Well, maybe except for the song "Grumbling Christians". Lyrically, it's absolutely miserable but musically, it's happy as fuck. It's like listening to a 1950's version of The Police.

Listen to Grumbling Christians


The Bibleman Adventure

This video looked too terrible to pass up, and it certainly was. I honestly couldn't be bothered to watch it past the exciting theme song because it was so head-bangingly retarded. The intro itself gave me enough excitement to fulfill 7 years worth of Sunday sermons.

By the way, I played the title screen in slow motion to see what all the moving computer text was. It appears to be some sort of video routine taking place in an OSX terminal. At least we know Jesus approves of Apple products.

Check out this totally fucking epic action scene where Bibleman stops a group of bible thieves by ... uhhh... waving his arms at them?


We need more superheroes based on old books. My two suggestions are "Moby Dick Man" and "Playful Pussy Woman"

There's plenty more Junq Tour entries on the way! Unfortunately, it's because we're short-staffed at work and I have to fill in with extra trips. Might as well make the best of them!