You guys must really hate Summer, since I'm usually a bit too busy around this time to make entries. I never forget about this place though, because I'm constantly reminded of it while picking through the CDs, tapes and records at garage sales every weekend. All it took was finding one CD to spark the beginning of this entry, and the rest was made up of tapes that have been floating around the queue box for years.
The Poets - Rock n Roll For The Students Soul
To be fair, this isn't Rock n' Roll. It's pretty mellow acoustic stuff. However, I have to say I actually like the singer's voice.
This cassette is an interesting piece of work even without the music. First of all, it's obvious the cover was done by someone extremely talented and well-verse in Microsoft Paint.
Second, the cassette came with a postage-paid envelope and a little survey for you to fill out. It's tempting to fill out the survey, add the needed postage, and toss it into the mailbox just to see what happens.
Third, it's apparent that there are two different demo tapes (I have Tape B) as well as a full-length album. I haven't seen either yet, but perhaps mountains of Poets albums shall come raining down on me like the discographies of Arnie, Teo Mance, and Kevin Harcourt.
It's all very nicely packaged, but the only song I was really fond of was "The Ex Is Over". However, I've included the song "Cold + Alone" because there's a really weird noise that keeps showing up in it. Remember when you played Space Invaders and that space ship flew across the top of the screen for you to shoot for bonus points? That fucker keeps showing up in this song for no reason and nobody shoots him.
Listen to Cold + Alone
Mere Darling - Rarotonga Waits For Me
This cassette apparently came from New Zealand. It's nice to know that Canada isn't the only source of shitty recording artists.
A nicer name for this album would have been "Rigatoni Waits for Me", as this album is suitable to toss with the leftover Rigatoni that went mouldy in the fridge. Mere brings you tropical and reggae covers of well-known hits along with other songs with titles that I can't read or pronounce. With regards to the well-known songs, Mere decided to ruin Lulu's "To Sir With Love", The Pointer Sisters' "So Excited", Olivia Newton John's "Let Me Be There", and Celine Dion's "The Power of Love". Celine Dion is terrible to begin with, so I can't understand why somebody would want to make it worse. To Sir With Love is nearly unrecognisable, so that was my top pick for your listening displeasure.
Listen to To Sir With Love
Moon Tears - Demo Tracks / Next Tour Earth
And this is what sparked the entry. It looks like I have two albums by these guys, but the cassette (which I found years ago) is just a very chopped down version of the CD (which I found a few days ago). To be fair, I kinda like the cover on the CD. To also be fair, these guys are terrible mainly due to the awful mixing and production job which was done at "Moon Tears Studios".
The entire album sounds like it's muddled in shit sitting at the bottom of a deeply-dug outhouse. I can't understand the singer because he's so drowned in watery reverb, and the drummer sounds like it was programmed.
I chose the song "Thrity-One" which is universally terrible. Somebody had to pause the tape recorder after recording the acoustic intro because the drummer's installation of Microsoft Windows had crashed. Things fall in and out of sync consistently throughout the song. This album could be compared to Boston's "Don't Look Back" album played by a bunch of untalented twelve year olds at the bottom of a well. As for the title of the song, I don't know what "thrity" means. Is it somebody's name? Shouldn't it be "Thrity Won"? Is it a speech impediment? "That boy is thriddy-one making arse-fart ditties, and ain't got no real gum dang job!"
But Who fucking cares, the song sucks.
At the end of the song, we are treated to a huge epic "what-the-fuck-just-happened-with-production" moment from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nevertheless, I guarantee you that I won't be recording at "Moon Tears Studio" ever in my lifetime.
Listen to Thrity-One
So here I wrap up another entry in bacon and promise you that there's always more terrible stuff coming your way. But it is summer, and that means I'm not rotting away in the dungeon looking for bad music and video to entertain the audience of the internet. My body craves a tan greater than that given by the light of my computer screen.