Boxed Sets For Boxing Day

In the next couple of weeks, I hope to be finishing up tracks for an album that I've been recording for what seems to be FOREVER. I began working on it in 2004 after becoming fed up with the last band I played in, took a break starting in 2006 to focus on raising my son, then started getting back at it in 2010. It's now nearly complete, and I'm hoping at releasing it by Spring, if not earlier. I guarantee you that the quality is 100 times better than the crap that I post on here which it should be, because I have hundreds of examples on how NOT to make it!

Anyway, onto the entry. In my desperation to cut down the bulk in my "in queue" boxes, I've decided to tackle some boxed sets. People sure come up with stupid ideas, and the REALLY stupid ideas seem to manifest themselves in large packages. Let's begin...


Night Moves: The Professional Approach to Disco Dance Instruction




YES! Learn how to Disco like the pros and win over all the hotties on the dance floor! This set comes with two records and an instruction book. Learn the popular moves that all the kids were doing in 1978 like The Airplane Walk, The Guitar, The Worm, The Dog, and The Mork. These dances are guaranteed to make you look like a disco turkey who's been sniffing too much oven cleaner.

K-Tel really knew how to market for the times. This instruction set came out in 1979, the year Disco went down the toilet. According to Wikipedia, "On July 21, 1979, the top six records on the U.S. music charts were disco songs. By September 22 there were no disco songs in the US Top 10 chart. Some in the media, in celebratory tones, declared disco dead and rock revived." K-Tel took the unsold Disco Dance boxed sets to a landfill, set them on fire, crushed them with a steam roller, covered them in concrete, covered them in a waterproof coating of rubber, and finally buried them under 300 tons of turkey droppings. The site is currently guarded by members of the Canadian military, and anybody who attempts to rescue the poor unwanted disco instruction sets will be beaten in the head with a hockey stick.

Here's how to do "The Guitar"



Listen and learn how to do the Jester's Kick!


Dating, Mating and Relating




Now that you've met your ideal woman by doing all the hottest disco moves you learned with the last box set, it's time to settle down. When you get married (or are on the verge of marriage), one of your asshole religious family members is going to give you something that will ensure that you remain happily married, no matter how much of a bitch or fuckwad your mate turns out to be. You'll get something like this 4 cassette program on how to have a great life with the person who messes up your hormones to the point of oozing in your underpants. This boxed set comes with a work book so you can treat your marriage and sex life like a school course, and we all know nothing gets couples hornier than filling out a workbook. You'll have more fun doing this if you keep your pencil in one hand and your pecker in the other.

I skipped all the other tapes and went directly for the sex tape. The female narrator (Tamara) starts off with the subject of cooking. Then she talks for about five minutes about how sex is wrong outside of marriage. And then she starts talking about giving your mate pet names.

I was hoping that this particular cassette tape would help me become a porn star in the bedroom. Needless to say, I'm very disappointed. The best piece of information I got from this tape was that it's sexy to call your woman a "hairless Siberian Husky". Somehow I doubt this piece of advice will cause a panty-filtered waterfall to occur.

The best part about this tape set is the work book. It's unfortunate that the previous owners didn't fill it out. The one page on sex is more in-depth than the entire cassette series. The couple who made this course are either embarrassed to talk about sex, or they're embarrassed that their sex life isn't more interesting.



Listen to tips on hot sex!

Now that you're married and having hot sex with your hairless Siberian Husky, let's move onto something you can do together.


They're At The Post




I'd heard about these games on the internet, so I jumped at the opportunity to own one when I saw it at a garage sale which was being held at a seniors' complex. It's a horse racing game that comes with four records, all containing horse races. The unique thing about these records is that each side contains multiple parallel grooves. You plop the needle down, and it will play one of the horse races completely at random! You never know which one you're going to get! Digitizing an entire record would be a fucking nightmare.

Listen to a race!

There's nothing like having a fun evening beside the record player, betting on which parallel groove you're going to hear. The description on the box is a technical wonder. "8 complete races on 4 LP records computerized for over 190 different finishes." Computerized? What an odd word to use for a piece of analog-encoded vinyl. According to my math, there should be 24 grooves on each record side which makes a total of 192 races. I'm tempted to peel off the Daryl Wells sticker to see what they actually covered up. Perhaps they had Pat Boone calling the races and didn't feel like redesigning the box after he left to read bible stories for children.

And that's it! I'm off to finish recording my album. I personally can't wait to join the ranks of Arnie, Teo Mance, Kevin Harcourt, and all the other famous singers who have made Classical Gas Emissions the ultimate source for talented musical geniuses.

Abandoned Photo Shoot Outtakes

About four years ago, I came across multiple file storage boxes sitting in the back lane, waiting to be picked up by the trash man. Curiosity got to me and I had to see what was in these boxes. I opened one, pulled out an envelope, and discovered that it contained film negatives and proofs.

The boxes belonged to a photo studio, and each envelope contained each client's name, contact info, and some of them even had their credit card numbers on them. I thought it was extremely bizarre that the owner of this now defunct studio just threw these people's personal information and photos into the trash as opposed to shredding them.

There were about 15 boxes in total, but I decided to grab only two of them (perhaps I should have grabbed all of them!) I went through hundreds of photos, selecting only those that I thought were the most interesting. Now let me tell you, trying to decipher an interesting photo from a negative is quite the challenge. If I couldn't figure out what the hell it was, I scanned it anyway and reversed the polarity to see it more clearly. Lots of the pictures were boring, but there were quite a few interesting one in there!

I've been putting off posting these long enough, and I'm finally going to show you the most interesting ones. I still have more to go through, so that will make a nice rainy day project. Here's what I've got for now... Enjoy!


These are photos of an 11 year old girl who was either injured or beaten:





Hilariously bad family photo outtakes:








Old couple kissing (looks like she's laughing) and a picture of someone's feet:





The mandatory "bad mullet" picture (he's touching the other guy's ass) and... well... I won't comment on the second one:





These are my favorite. If you're a long-time reader, you may have seen this hoopy-haired girl on one of my old headers:






I can't believe it took me four years to get those up. It just goes to show how much shit I've got kicking around that I intend on posting.

Merry Christmas from a Bunch of People with a Health Problem

I don't remember where I found this tape, but it's bizarre as fuck. A group of people who meet together to discuss a health problem decided to record a cassette, wishing some guy named Terry a Merry Christmas. Since they don't state what their health problem is, I'm just going to assume that it's Athlete's Foot.

Hey, 'tis the season to catch it! Your toes get all dry and cracked, and the next thing you know you've got fungus growing in there after you stomped that bug to death. But it wasn't a bug. It was a piece of dog poop. You should really let him outside more frequently! Now you must suffer.

So, Have a Merry Christmas from a bunch of people suffering from what is presumptuously Athlete's foot. I hope they're all still alive and in good health.

Listen to it here!

Christmas Albums For Your Stinky Stockings!

Christmas is coming, so you're gonna want some super Christmas-tastic music for the giant piss-ups you're going to have during the holidays. Look no further than classicalgasemissions.com for all your Christmas music needs! We have songs by drunken irishmen, child slaves, and people who are almost dead! So sit back, get drunk, and enjoy these great songs as you pass out by the fireplace waiting for the jolly red thing to come belching out of your fallopian chimney!

Happy Birthday Jesus



Remember those Happy Birthday song cassettes you could buy that are personalized with your child's name? Well, here's one with Jesus's name on it. It doesn't even have a band credit on it, so I'm assuming it was done by some underground religious organization that forces children to sing horrible Christmas songs at gun point.

After noticing the copyright year of 1935 listed on the cassette, I did a Google search on the song. Turns out it's a pretty common song, but I've never heard it in my life. The song itself (especially the ending) reminds me of the song "E.T. I Love You" which is fitting since Jesus is basically an extra-terrestrial anyway.

Nevertheless, the song is terrible and the lyrics leave me desiring to go home with E.T. to avoid mankind's desire to record such atrocious Christian music. That's why I made it available for you to hear!

Listen to "Happy Birthday Jesus"


George Westcott - A Song For Christmas



Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a drunken Irishman who decides to record his own album. How do I know he's Irish? Well first of all, his accent. Second, he's singing about Christmas in the town of Killarney. As I recall, Killarney does NOT have their own thrift store which is a damn shame because I could have found this gem years ago. Third, look at him. He LOOKS like he's ready to barf all over that mandolin.

There are two original Christmas songs on this tape, but the only one worth mentioning is "Pork Up Your Christmas". Seriously. He wrote that. The single most noteworthy line of George's writing career is contained in the lyric, "His sack is all greasy with pickle and pork." Sounds like George had a love affair with a drunken pig.

I've written about many presumably drunk artists on Classical Gas Emissions, but this one is pretty damn obvious. Let's have a little more Christmas cheer for George! Maybe he'll pass out half way through side 2 and let me have some silence!

Listen to White Christmas
Listen to "Pork Up Your Christmas"


Musical Expressions - Christmas Country Style



This album was recorded in Brandon, Manitoba, which immediately explains why it sound like it was sung by a bunch of retired wheat farmers. This album will bring warbly-voiced joy to your home, filling it with delightful odours of mothballs and old, dried, spilled Ensure meal supplements. Everyone on this album is surely 55+ and I recommend they go back to making wall pictures out of jigsaw puzzles as opposed to recording "music".

This Christmas album would have been better if they had turned on the radio pictured on the cover photo, and recorded THAT onto a CD. They could re-name the album "The Musical Expressions listen to Christmas Classics on the Radio" and it immediately eliminates the need for them to muster up their prune-filled energy to sing, nor use their Tylenol-coated joints to play instruments. Not only that, they get the recognition they want, and get to deliver quality music to their audience!

The song I'm featuring brings out everything that is awful about the album. We have a geriatric saxophone player who's embouchure is drooping as badly as his testicles, making the saxophone sound much flatter than the rest of the synthesized music. Oh, that vibrato you hear him playing? That's not intentional, he's just having a seizure from losing precious oxygen to play the damn thing. The singers come in a little over half way, and ruin the fuck out of the rest of the song. I hope they all get coal enemas for Christmas.

Listen to When Jesus Comes


Well this was a festive entry, wasn't it? Hopefully I can get in a couple more before Christmas arrives. Until then, wash your socks!

Ben's Christmas Special 2011 Video

Two years ago, I created a Christmas video for my (then) girlfriend. I had a lot of fun making it by playing Christmas records from my collection, putting in old commercials from the 1980s, and some old video clips of me. The video turned out pretty long, and since I'm not with her anymore, she probably threw the DVD in the garbage. So, I might as well entertain somebody with it, meaning YOU!

WARNING: Contains awesome puppet work

Junq Tour 2013: Brandon

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but my boss has cut back our out-of-town trips, so there won't be as many installations of the Junq Tour in the coming years. But I'll certainly be taking advantage of the ones that come my way!

For the past few trips to Brandon, I was stumped when it came to the thrift stores. It seemed that nobody knew if or where they existed. This time, I was pointed in the right direction. Besides the crappy Value Village, there are two other thrift stores - the Nearly New Shop and the MCC (which I forgot to take a picture of) being the goldmine. As a side note, I ran across yet another copy of Teo Mance's "Inday" album. The guy probably spent an entire year, traveling the country to donate copies of his album to every Thrift Store known to mankind.

This entry is a bit long, so feel free to bite in small chunks to avoid choking and death.


Bruce Innes - Brandon Centennial Song (Yesterday's Dream - Tomorrow's Future)



The greatest way to begin this Junq Tour entry is to feature a song from the city I visited. This charmful duet will have you deleting the file from your hard drive in no time. This special collector's edition 45 RPM record is so rare that there were only three other copies at the Thrift Store. Side 2 has a guy with a very noticeable French accent talking about his experiences in the city of Brandon. REALLY EXCITING SHIT HERE!!! Why don't we have more talent coming out of Brandon, Manitoba? (Probably because many are inbred wheat farmers.)

Listen to the Brandon Centennial Song


The Consumer Goods - Happy Bidet -or- A Scientific Inquiry Into The Non-Denominational Same-Sex Marriage of Social Justice and Scatological Deflectors



There's so much about this album that made it prime blogging material, regardless of how good the content was. First of all, the album title is way too long. It's in competition with Tyrannosaurus Rex's "My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair, But Now They're Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows" as one of the longest album titles in existence.

Second, look at the cover. The guy is sitting on a bidet, blasting the crunchies that are swinging from his ass hairs. So what could go wrong with purchasing this album? Well, for one, I'm big on judging a compact disc by it's cover. This album was either going to be magnificent, or it was going to be as awful as a protate examination.

Unfortunately, these guys are talented. The melodies are actually quite nice, they play their instruments well, but the lyrics.... Well, it's mostly frustration and sarcasm rooted in politics. We're presented with songs such as "Happy Bidet (Let The Balled Eagle Soar)", "The Kiss Army", "Eat A Dick, Cheney", "Mafeking Shithouse", and a tribute to our lousy Winnipeg mayor, "And the Final Word is Yours, Sam Katz". The song "Let's Have Another Round Of Applause For The American Empire!" is actually 29 seconds of nothing. Absolutely brilliant.

I wasn't going to post anything from this album, but with the recent news of our mayor Sam Katz fucking things up again, I posted the song about him...

Listen to "And The Final Word Is Yours, Sam Katz"


Gerry Perkin - All Strung Out



Dear Gerry,

Please use a click track next time you decide to record an album. Your multiple guitar tracks are all over the bloody place like a kid who got hit by a semi truck.

I like how you put a picture of yourself in the fireplace. Please consider putting the master tapes from your album in there too.

Thanks for autographing your CD. I'll bet the ego boost made you feel good enough to record another album.

Sincerely,
The author of classicalgasemissions.com on behalf of the readers of classicalgasemissions.com

Listen to All Strung Out


Stories That Live - Adam & Eve



Normally I would leave cassettes like this alone, but this one is narrated by Pat Boone. Yes! PAT FUCKING BOONE! You may remember him from his hits "No More Mr. Nice Guy", "Enter Sandman" and "Crazy Train". Before Pat Boone entered into the heavy metal scene, he narrated children's cassettes. After listening to this tape, I ultimately realized that there is absolutely no limit to Pat Boone's talents. The guy is absolutely magnificent in everything he touches as an artist.

So where is Pat Boone these days? Well, he's doing infomercials, selling walk-in bathtubs to old people. So much fucking talent! Pat Boone should be Knighted and inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Listen to Pat Boone tell the story of Adam & Eve


Ed Stozek - Light a Candle Tonight



So, this is supposed to be some kind of benefit song. You'd think with all the money that Manitoba Lotteries makes from old ladies stuffing their grandchildren's inheritance into slot machines, they would hire someone who could record something remotely professional. This shit sounds like it was recorded in a mothball-filled basement closet and was mixed in 12 minutes. After such an extensive production job, it was then sent off to the lottery corporation to inspire billions of Manitobans to think about dying from Cancer as opposed to hearing this CD again.

As a side note, the CDDB identifies this CD as "Kissing Willie" by Jethro Tull. I really do wish this was a Jethro Tull CD. At least they were talented.

Listen to Light A Candle Tonight


Kenny Parrott - Volume Two



This one's autographed too! With all the autographed albums I've acquired in my blogging career, I should be able to sell them on ebay for $5000 each and take a nice early retirement.

There's been another Kenny Parrott album sitting in my "in queue" box for about three to four years now. I did try getting around to writing about it at one point, but never completed it. Now that dear Kenny has weaseled his way into the Junq Tour (and into my ever-growing list of oddball discographies to collect), I'll make it a point to review it in the next few months.

Kenny tackles many songs that have been covered on many other albums I've featured on Classical Gas Emissions. Songs like "Are You Lonesome Tonight" and "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" have been done to death by everyone. However, Kenny does grace us with a few songs that nobody else has touched. His covers are extremely bland and he just carbon copies every original that he touches. Seriously, what's the purpose of this album? To think that Volume One exists makes me dread the day when I'll no doubt find it in the thrift store and have to review it as well.

I've decided to let you hear Kenny Parrot and the Fucked Edition do a lousy version of a Kenny Rogers and the First Edition song. If Kenny really did lose his limbs in that crazy Asian war, we wouldn't be listening to this crap.

Listen to Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town


????? - ??????



This cassette did not come with an inlay card. There's something to be said about a band who doesn't put their name on the cassette label.... "We're not important enough to be credited, so we'll just let Classical Gas Emissions christen us with a band name - yes that "Christ" pun was intended!" So from this point on, we'll refer to this Christian band as "Creamin' and The Bible"

Creamin' and The Bible appear to be made up of a musical family who pleases us with Christian songs such as "Christian Cowgirl", "Kid Talk", and "The Lord's Prayer". All of them seem to take turns at singing, and their voices range from mediocre to pavement-scraping awful. The album sounds as if it were recorded on a piece of plywood, and then mastered with a layer of lead paint and holy-water. The lyrics were obviously written by the children in the family who were dropped on their heads while being baptized.

My cassette player has a music search feature, but it has great difficulty finding the spaces between songs because there's some other audio bleeding through. My guess is that Creamin' and The Bible recorded over cassettes that contained Satanic messages, thereby corrupting the minds of anybody listening to this album. While you listen to it, I'm going to burn some crosses and sing Judas Priest songs backwards.

Listen to Kid Talk


The Little Birds



Remember The Mini Pops? They were great. Licking on the boot-heels of the Mini Pops are The Little Birds. It's a band made up entirely of children, and even I can feel the shame that their parents must feel. Ever hear a 4 year old kid sing? It's cute isn't it? The only reason it's cute is because it's short-lived. Take that 4 year old kid, stick him in a recording studio, make an album, and then figure out the best way to end your life, because you'll need to after you listen to the entire thing.

The Little Turds tackle songs such as "Stupid Cupid", "Rockin' Robin", the Ike & Tina version of "Proud Mary", "Smoke On The Water", a sloppy dogging version of "Wipe-Out" which you swear is going to fall apart into a million pieces at any second, and the shittiest cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that I've ever heard in my entire life.

I really thought that Courtney Smith album was the worst one I'd ever heard done by a child, but this one completely takes over the number one spot. Every cover song on this album is terrible to extreme degrees, but I've narrowed it down to the two worst...

Listen to Wipe Out
Listen to Smells Like Teen Spirit


Anybody left out there??? Anybody??? The content of this entry was painful to listen to. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the next entry as much as I'll enjoy the brief silence after making this one.

Halloween 2013

Ninety percent of the stuff on this blog is enough to scare the shit out of people, but I figured I'd pack in a Halloween entry anyway. I don't remember the last time I did a Halloween entry, but blog-worthy Halloween-based stuff is pretty hard to come by. This year, I'm able to remove three items from my in-queue pile, which will allow room for three more items and ultimately invite two more items that will add to the overflow. I'm a slave to the landslide of CDs, Cassettes, 8-tracks, and various other crap that invades my home.

Two out of three of these items were in their original cellophane, until I decided to lower their value, open them, and bring them here to potentially entertain you.

Stereo Dynamics To Scare Hell Out Of Your Neighbors



In a period of transition from my last entry, here's another demo record that I don't like. They decided to give this one a scary theme, but the music is mostly boring orchestral pieces.

We have songs like "Adolf Hitler", "La Paloma" and "Flamenco Candido" that will leave shit in your underwear, mainly because you've ultimately fallen into a coma from being bored as hell listening to this thing. They figured this album was good enough to press on 180 gram vinyl. You can beat someone into a coma with the record itself.

Let's move on.


McDonalds - Scary Sound Effects



In 1995, McDonalds put out a series of these cassettes. I'm guessing they came in a happy meal. I would've been fucking mad if I got cassette full of annoying Ronald McDonald dialogue instead of a toy. There's another one of these tapes buried in my in-queue box somewhere.

This cassette is made of the cheapest possible parts available. It squeaks like a mouse caught in the springs of a bed with two fat lesbians making love on top of it.

In the spirit of keeping it creepy, here's side one of the cassette. It's really REALLY awful, and it's mostly just a plug for you to buy a full-length Ronald McDonald album. Does any child in their right mind actually have the desire to buy an entire album featuring this ass-clown? Thank God this clip is only five minutes long. On the upside, the full length album looks like it has some really terrible parodies on it. I'll buy it if I ever see it.

Side two of this cassette was stolen from some cheapo sound effects album, so I'm gonna skip it.

Listen to I Like To Scare Myself


Drew's Famous Trick or Treat



Yes! Drew has weaseled his way back onto my blog with another one of his shitty albums. If you look at the logo for "Drew's Famous", the fancy-dancy letter F looks like a letter L. "Drew's Lamous" is much more fitting.

Anyway, Drew makes it sound like he does mankind a favor by including a "free spooky sounds CD" and wishes the foolish owner 'a great party' on the back of the album. Thanks Drew, you just made my Halloween extra fucking special. After listening to both of these discs, I'm thinking that the "Spooky Sounds CD" is the one with all the crappy cover songs on it.

After removing the cellophane and trying to peel off the anti-theft sticker (HAHAHAHAHA like ANYBODY would want to steal this) I am greeted by a horrible cover of Pink's "Get The Party Started". Ironically, Pink was supposed to be playing a concert in Winnipeg this weekend, but she postponed it to January 14th due to health issues. Apparently, she downloaded this version of her song and immediately began having chest pains and puking her guts out. I genuinely hope she makes a full recovery and forgives me for posting it.

We've got a cover of Ray Parker Jr's "Ghostbusters" where the guy inserts the "I ain't afraid of no ghost" lyric off beat every single time. I have to question why the fucking Bird Dance is on here too. It's played by a bunch of drunken Ukrainians. Ukrainians aren't scary, even when they're drunk.

Then we get to The Monster Mash. The intro is taken directly from the original song - mind you it sounds like it was taken from a cassette that was run over by 40 cars, then filtered through a speaker buried under a pillow. Afterwards, the Casio drum machine kicks in, and your typical lame ass studio musicians start singing the song. It's by far the biggest fly-feeding hunk of shit on the album.

Why is The Time Warp on here? Isn't this album aimed at children? I'd comment on the quality of this rendition, but I hate Rocky's Horrible Picture Show (starring Meat Loaf whom I also hate) so I make every effort to avoid anything remotely related to it.

Listen to Monster Mash
Listen to Get The Party Started

We get a couple more irrelevant songs (Men In Black, Hands Up (Give Me Your Heart)) and we move onto the bonus disc full of sound effects. Some tracks are hilariously bad, and some are psychopathically fucked up. It's probably the best thing that Drew has ever released! Throw disc one away! It sucks!

There appears to be some Satanic backwards messages on this CD. God is going to destroy Drew with fire-breathing lightning, which might be good for all of mankind. No more shitty Drew's Famous CDs because God hates them!

Listen to "Fires of Hell" forwards
Listen to "Fires of Hell" backwards

And that's it for this very scary entry. My life has recently been altered a bit time-wise, and it looks like I may have some extra time to be blogging. I may try and get back to having one day a week (Thursday) dedicated to posting something, but don't staple me to the wall on that. In fact, don't staple me anywhere. I get enough pain from listening to Drew's Famous pieces of crap.

Demo Records 2013

Life has been very, very busy, so my many apologies for such a late return to writing an entry. If Google Adsense would pay me $50,000 per click, I would be writing entries every day. Perhaps I should sit down and draft a letter, proposing a raise from Google. Perhaps I'll mail them a sock too.

Now, onto other business. If you missed my third appearance on Amateur Hour, you can get it here. I played a lot of stuff on the show that I haven't posted here, so listening to it is a great idea if you want a brain aneurysm! The show was a lot of fun, and there were many great laughs to be had!

Now, I desperately need to tackle the ever-growing stack of records that have been collecting in my in-queue boxes (yes, there's two of them now) and I picked up three more at a garage sale the other weekend. So with this entry, I hoped to cut down a huge chunk of them, but I only had the time to analyze four of them. My dungeon will eventually be full of shit to blog about, and there won't be any path for me to get to the computer, and my blog will eventually fade into oblivion, and the world will rejoice because one less person is putting stupid shit on the internet to occupy people's work hours when they should be doing actual work, and you're probably tired of reading this extremely long sentence now so I'm going to put a period at the end so your brain can finally move on to the next paragraph which you have so desperately been waiting for.

So this time around, I've decided to tackle some demonstration records. Every time I see one, I buy it. I probably have more kicking around, but these are the first four I found. I'm not sure what the purpose of these were since I grew up in the era of cassettes. However, when I was five years old, my parents bought me a brand-new Sanyo cassette player from Zellers which came with a free cassette. This was it:



You can download it here if you so desire. For a five year old kid, getting a free cassette was the greatest thing in the world, and dare I say I even enjoyed the two songs on it. Side two was blank so you could record your own crappy instrumental songs on it!

The cassette was recorded in stereo which was a stupid thing to package with a mono cassette player with one speaker. Nevertheless, I enjoyed and loved the hell out of that cassette player until my uncle bought me one that played TWO cassettes and had TWO speakers. Unfortunately, that one did not come with a free cassette.

I'm guessing some of these records may have come with turntables, or perhaps they were used in stores to demonstrate stereo systems to convince the sucker that he should buy a record player made by some extremely reputable and well-known brand like "Morse" or "Garrara".


Grand Award - Stereophonic Spectacular Demonstration Record Limited Edition



The back of the record boasts "The most spectacular full stereophonic sound ever achieved". Fuck you, the Beatles achieved spectacular stereophonic sound by putting vocals on one channel, music on the other channel, and absolutely nothing in the center. If you only have one speaker, you've got a perfectly good karaoke record or an acapella record, depending on which speaker you didn't have.

Do you know why this record is a limited edition? Because they couldn't sell these circular plastic discs of garbage. I listened to the entire thing while I was searching for that Sanyo Demonstration Cassette. On the back of the record, they brag about the technical details and the love and care they used to bring you this collection of shitty old songs which knaw a good hour's life off your stylus. Songs like "Volare", "Sunrise Serenade" and "La Comparsa" are guaranteed to have you skipping over the download link, so I'm not going to bother posting anything off this one. Let's move on...


Shure - Audio obstacle course - era III




This isn't really a demonstration record, but a record to make sure your stereo system is capable of making noise. This thing was more enjoyable than the last record, although side two has some crappy music that I didn't bother listening to. If you want to make sure your computer system is capable of making noise, feel free to play this MP3...

Listen to Level, Balance and Phasing Tests

Since this record helped verify that my turntable is indeed in good working order, we can proceed to the next record.


The Sheffield Track Record - Rock Instrumental Tracks for Audio Component Testing and Evaluation



Well, that title is a mouth full! This one is quite a wonder though. This company put together a band, wrote some original songs, practiced the hell out of them, went into a studio, and recorded them in one take onto the master disc for pressing. So instead of getting 3rd, 4th or lower generation copies of the recording with additional tape hiss, you're getting a 2nd generation recording with the only potential defects being in the master disc or some idiot musician who messed up on the only possible take.

To really push the limits of the technology, they used maximum groove spacing. Because of that, there's only four songs on the entire record. It does sound phenomenal, but I had to go and fuck it up by encoding it into a shitty MP3. The worst thing about this record is it sounds exactly like the year it was recorded in: 1982. So, feel free to re-live this moment in 1982 where all the musicians and producers who put their efforts into making this record were sweating, shitting, and pissing themselves, hoping that nobody would make a mistake and ruin the entire master disc.

I chose this particular song because it has some groovy super funk bass on it.

Listen to "The Higher You Rise"


Audio Fidelity - Stereo Spectacular Demonstration & Sound Effects



This is by far my favorite. The narrator tells the story about the concept of sound and then throws in sound effects to make it all that much more corny. It sounds like the soundtrack to a shitty documentary that you would be forced to watch in a high school health class. I have included all of side one because the whole thing is entertaining. If you have a bit of time to kill, you may actually enjoy listening to this one. SPOILER: the narrator gets temporarily killed during a game of Russian Roulette.

Listen to Stereo Spectacular Demonstration & Sound Effects Part 1

And we've come to the end of another memorable blog entry which is always more fun than kicking Mickey Mouse in the balls at Disneyworld. If you would like video of how your family can put together a Disney package so you can all kick some mouse testes, write to Disney. I'm sure they'll accommodate you with a free DVD and a child molester in a creepy Winnie-The-Pooh costume.