Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Some Hi8 Christmas Videos

I have no clue where the hell I put the tapes for these Christmas videos. I don't even remember where I got them from. But I put them on Youtube for your viewing pleasure!

Speaking of Youtube, I finally did a bit of a re-vamping of my primary channel. It was very generic and looked like shit, but I was still able to acquire 751 subscribers - and that's WITHOUT asking people to subscribe!

So yeah, it's got a bit of a new look and I'm slowly progressing in my limited knowledge on how to handle video formats. These videos are in HD (about fuckin' time, ain't it!)

First up, we have this girl (I think her name is Melissa) who is totally fed up with getting panties for Christmas.



Next up is one of her Christmas concerts. The two opera singers in the back just add to the confusion and chaotic sound of the children.



I have some more Christmassy goodness coming your way, so keep your eyes open for it!

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Junq Tour: Swift Current 2016



This past Summer, I took a trip out to Cabri, Saskatchewan to visit my brother. It's not a very big town, and the only exciting thing out that way is a giant hay bail that has been painted to look like a Minion.

We took a trip into Swift Current to check out the thrift stores. The one pictured above had walls covered in CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks, and it took me about two hours to go through everything. I had a HUGE Mountain of stuff I had plucked off the shelves which I eventually needed to downsize. I spent somewhere around $35 on music. I had to remove even more while coming up with items for this entry, so I'm bringing you the absolute cream of the crap.

I'm not gonna lie... There is a LOT of country music in this entry. That's pretty much all they listen to in Saskatchewan; Country music and the sound of wheat.




Perfect Morning - Along The South Saskatchewan River




There's nothing more satisfying than relaxing to the sound of birds, plants, dirt, and tape hiss with the occasional rumblings of... ummm.... something thumping. Sounds like the guy who made this recorded over a cassette copy of "Blue Meanies from Outer Space" for the Commodore Vic-20, and his tape recorder had a bad erase head. There is seriously something wrong with this recording. I don't find it relaxing. In fact, I think this is one of the WORST nature recordings I've ever heard in my life. I've heard some extremely clean and life-like ones. This one sounds like it was recorded onto a shoe box.

A Jonker Adventure.... More like a Junker adventure!

Listen to a clip of "At 4:40 AM dawn is sweeping upward gold-green from the horizon; already we hear Canada Geese and Mallards, some still huddled on their sand bar roosts, others moving about. More distantly, Song Sparrows call to one another. A  Ruffled Grouse drums inshore within an aspen stand to attract females; several teal in a group, wings whistling loudly, jet by as they move to other water. Soon, Mouning Doves begin cooing from the aspen, and a Marbled Godwit's brief call sounds like a squeaky wheel. Snowshoe Hares chase and thump in a thicket of willow and roses; they alert a Rufus-sided Towhee who starts calling from a nearby perch. At long last we begin to hear crows approaching in the distance, and briefly a pair of porcupines "complain" to one another as they do in spring. A  pair of Great Horned Owls call back and forth as light, still dim, spreads more evenly across the sky and their roosting time is imminent"!

Yes. That's the title. Stuff like this makes me hate people.



Julia and her Piano - Who Is This




This one isn't too bad. The thunderous opening track (Don't Know Where) had me hooked. The song "Open Book" is probably the most interesting track on here. It jumps around in tempo, but enjoyable as hell. Lots of bluesy piano ballady stuff to be found here. It might go in my personal collection after a few listens.

The only bad thing about this album is credits are on the back of the CD while the track listing is on the inside of the case. But that's a minor error. The fact that I didn't shove $2 up a sexually-abused sheep's arse in this case is a bonus.

Listen to "Open Book"

Buy her music on iTunes!




Corinne Newton - Wave




There's something off about this recording. The music is almost country music, but it's not shitty enough to qualify. It sounds a bit out of sync, and the mix doesn't seem to be that great, probably because Corrine played everything herself (but then why doesn't MY album sound this out-of-sync?). She put a picture of her mom in the booklet, so I guess that makes up for it's imperfections. The website listed in the liner notes is defunct, which is odd for an album that's only 5 years old. Oh well, the picture of her mom makes everything better.

Listen to Prairie Town




Destiny - Faraway Look
Destiny - The Ride of Your Life




I was on the border with picking up these tapes. The album covers are stupid enough, and it guarantees that you're in for some bad Christian music. The musicians are decent, but the lyrics are corny as a poop after Thanksgiving.

Some of the song titles on "The Ride Of Your Life" sound like a threesome with a dirty hooker and your uncle Billy. "Come On In", "What Have I Got Myself Into?", "I've Come To Believe", "The Ride Of Your Life" and "Would He Be Welcome?" are some of the sexual adventures included here. There's lots of fun to be had in the back seat of that car on the album cover!

For your enjoyment, I've picked the song about beating your kids.

Listen to Thank you Mom and Daddy




FMI Band - Finally Made It



FMI... I think it's an acronym for "Fuck Musical Intellect", but don't quote me on that.

This is one of those bands where you can't put your finger on what's wrong with them, but there's most certainly something wrong. Maybe it's the mix, maybe it's the fact that they're not playing in sync, maybe they're not really Christians, who knows? The only upside is the sound quality of this recording is pretty good.

Every song here is about how Jesus paid the price. The price was 25 cents for this tape.

Listen to Don't You Lay It On My Friend




You sing the hits of Roseanne Cash



Before the Lord invented the CD-G and Laserdisc formats, Karaoke singers were forced to use cassettes with an enclosed lyric sheet. One side of the cassette contained instrumentals, and the other side had guide vocals (usually on one channel).

If you'd like to sing along with this recording of Johnny Cash's daughter singing a Johnny Cash song, you can get rid of Nancy Sharp's atrocious vocals by turning your balance control all the way to the left. I'm sure you'll have no problem doing a nicer job than her, since she was obviously bored out of her skull when she recorded this.

Listen to Tennessee Flat Top Box




Harry Welling & Friends - Here I Am




HOLY SHIT! HITLER HAS TAKEN OVER MUSIC! We must all bow down to Harry Welling and his moustache.

I hate his voice. He sounds like Anne Murray. The more I listen to this album, the more I hate it. It's like a progressive disease that makes me want to overthrow Hitler and bring songwriting back to an enjoyable level.

The song "Bright Colours" makes me want to throw tropical fruit at my stereo system.

The song "Stage of Dreams" just makes me hate life and wish for the life of Anne Frank so I won't listen to this garbage anymore.

Listen to Bright Colours
Listen to Stage of Dreams




Solution 5-fifty-5 - Demo



Musically, Each song starts off okay and then goes through a rusty meat grinder. Fuck these guys and their Flying V guitar. Tempo is all over the place. They are in desperate need of songwriters to set them on the correct path. Seriously, this stuff could be great if the songwriting was decent. But it's not. Bob Dylan is in the fetal position, weeping uncontrollably.

Listen to Buck 3d




Kevin Harcourt - Keeping It Country




Weird Kevin Harcourt is baaaack!!! His cassettes and CDs have travelled far and wide. I'm pretty sure I have a couple more waiting to be reviewed. I'm getting close to doing a discography for him.

Weird Kevin is tackling songs such as Lucille by Kenny Rogers, Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson, On The Road Again by Willie Nelson, and You're My Best Friend by Queen. I'm only guessing it's the Queen song since I haven't listened to the whole tape.

As with Kevin's other releases, there's nearly nothing for album credits. My only guess is that his wife Marg helped out on this one, but she's too awesome to receive any credit.

Listen to Lucille




Candace - Struk On You



Some say lovvvve, it is a nostril, that's clogged, on a 13 year old girl. Yes, we have another cover of "The Rose" and it's one of the worst I've ever heard. We also have another under-aged rendition of "Daddy's Hands", but it's not as magnificent as the one by Jenna Crispin.

Candace Struk (HAHAHAHAHAHA, get it??? Struk On You? Funnnyy) is from a hole in the ground named Vegreville Alberta, and likes her twanky twonky country music. The quality of the recording is bright, distorted, and shrill, so they recorded it on CrO2 tape to preserve it's glass-shattering goodness. I was kind enough to flatten the audio a bit.

There's really not much else to comment on here, except that Candace could certainly use some Otrivin before she records her next album.

Listen to Grandpa
Listen to The Rose




Mr D'z Presents Tommy Vee




This album includes Route 66! Why does it fucking matter!?!? It does not! Nobody Cares!

Welcome to karaoke time at the old folks' home. Our first singer is Tommy Vee who (for some unfucking believable reason) is being promoted by Mr. D'z Diner. I had to look this shit up and guess what? HE'S ON THEIR WEBSITE!!!!

The song is supposed to play when you visit the site if you have Windows Media Player installed. Tommy Vee obviously hates Linux users such as myself.

The diner is located in Arizona. Anybody wanna fund a trip for me to go there? I need to see this shit to believe it.

Anyway, Tommy Vee ruins some of my favourites on his album called "Hits of the 50s &". At least that's what it's called on the CD. The inside of the cover calls it "HITS OF THE 50's & 60'S". Whoever produced this CD didn't seem to really give a shit about the end product, but if you'd like a copy, you can buy it from the Mr D'z website for $14.95 (NOT WORTH IT)

Listen to Love Potion #9
Listen to Teddy Bear
Listen to Can't Help Falling in Love

Sorry, you'll have to go to Arizona to hear "Route 66".




Karl Fix - Goin' Back




More like Karl Broken!

Karl Fix is taking you back to a time when it was cool to wear plaid shirts, have black and white album covers, and record terrible covers of once-great songs.

After almost a decade of maintaining this blog, I have NEVER seen anybody cover the song Lodi by Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was a really odd choice and Karl Fix destroys this song in his own unique way. The other songs are pretty typical for covers: Can't Help Falling In Love, Always On My Mind, Love Me Tender, etc etc yadda yadda.

Karl forgot to bust out the record-protect tabs on the cassette, so I can freely record some Iron Maiden onto it once I'm done reviewing it.

Listen to Lodi
Listen to House of the Rising Sun




Jack Patton




Jack Patton is the greatest man to ever grace Classical Gas Emissions. I cannot for the life of me figure out which way to display the album cover, and I cannot for the life of me understand that the hell he's singing. I damn near died of laughter while listening to this album! He must be 162 years old!

With producer Billy Strange (YES! THAT'S REALLY HIS NAME!) Jack Patton brings you a wonderfully produced album of songs filled with nonsense that almost sounds like real music! His band is fantastic, the backup singers are magnificent, the Nature Girl who appears in the inlay card for absolutely no reason is superb, and it all makes Jack sound like a professional mumbling superstar!



Listen to Ghost Riders In The Sky
Listen to Lonesome Dove Song




Central School Musical



There is no debating with me... The worst recordings I have ever heard have come from elementary schools. This album will kill you. You will fucking die if you listen to this recording all the way through.

The ingredients for napalm are one batch of children under the age of 10 singing, and one batch of children under the age of 10 playing the recorder.

I bid farewell to my readers who attempt to listen to all three recordings. I shall send flowers to your grave sites.

Listen to Happy Sun High
Listen to Rockin' Around the Hound Dog's blue Sued Shoe Bag
Listen to Song of Peace



Well that was fun, wasn't it boys and girls? I hope you've all been good this year because we've got some awesome Christmas entries coming up! There will be some great music coming for you to play at your Christmas dinners!

And in case you missed my appearance on Amateur Hour, you can listen to it here!

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Junq tour: Ashern 2016 (part 2)

We have finally arrived at part 2 of my trip to Ashern! The mountain of stuff I walked out with was incredible. Instead of having a long written intro, why don't I just shut the hell up and get to the content...



The Sushi Cabaret Club - Living On Mountains




Believe it or not, sometimes I'll find something I like in the pile of garbage I buy. The Sushi Cabaret Club most certainly sounds like it was made in Canada, but that doesn't mean the songs are about Hockey or dying from Cancer. If I could compare it to something else, I might choose the band Moist. Very good stuff, and I'll let you try and find the album yourself.

Listen to Innocent






Pancho & Sal - Revivir




Pancho & Sal sing in Spanish, and this CD actually sounds quite nice. I'm not much for Spanish, so the sole selling point on this album was their cover of La Bamba. It's actually very enjoyable!

Listen to La Bamba




The 50s Project




This is a tale of three old men who recorded a bunch of doo-wop covers, bought some cheap & shitty CD stock, and burned their masterpiece at 326x speed in their Goldstar CD Burner. The result is an album that's barely playable and barely extractable. It took 3 hours to extract the one song I was able to pull from the disc.

You get hits like "The Great Pretender" and "Unchained Melody", but you can't listen to them because most of the digital content has evaporated from the disc. However, I was able to bring you a fairly reliable recording of "In The Still Of The Night". After listening to this, perhaps the content needs to continue evaporating until none of these recordings are left in existence.

Listen to In The Still Of The Night




Blackthorn - Sweet Forget Me Not




God I fucking hate this music. It sounds like it's straight out of Newfoundland, but it came from British Columbia. You know that band Great Big Sea? I fucking hate them too. Nothing pisses me off more than hearing music that encourages the dancing of men dressed in pink spandex onesies and flowers in their hair.

They did take a shot at the Log Driver's Waltz, and they did an okay job at that. But the rest of this album is a bunch of fucking froo froo flamingo feces.

I've included the second song called "Lock The Door / Con Cassidy's Jig / Hardiman the Fiddler". They threw three fucking song titles on an instrumental. HOW THE HELL do you come up with three titles for a song that has no subject? Why does it need three titles? They could have just called it "Pantsless Eve" and everybody would have been happy. But they didn't, so everybody committed suicide. All that's left on this Earth is a copy of this album. When aliens find our desolate planet, they will be very disappointed.

Listen to Lock The Door / Con Cassidy's Jig / Hardiman the Fiddler



Shari & Jerry - Tallon




It's a bird! It's a plane! NO! It's a compilation of shitty songs by Shari & Jerry Tallon! At least I'm pretty sure it's a compilation. The songs aren't consistent enough to make it a project done over the course of a few months. Much of this is stuff you'd sworn you've heard on the weather channel. The forecast for today is cloudy with a chance of drizzing dick snot running down your leg.

So here's a summary of the three songs you're getting:

Neighbors - This is truly lo-fi Weather Channel Music.
Frozen Toes - Someone ate a bunch of instruments and barfed them all over the tape recorder.
Home - This sounds like a typical demo, but I think it's supposed to be the final product. It would be very pretty if the instrumentation was done better. The Guitar player needs to have his guitar taken away from him. He'd be better off with a hobby such as falling down the stairs.

Listen to Neighbors
Listen to Frozen Toes
Listen to Home



"No Rewind" To Be - Released Fall 2007




So here's a nice lady named ""No Rewind" To Be". She seems nice. She likes to wear brown. She's not a natural red head. I'd tell you more about her, but there is absolutely nothing else to go on but the cover and the song titles written on the CD.

She has a nice voice, but she ruins the fuck out of "Let It Be" by The Beatles. Why do so many people feel the need to butcher this song? It's almost as popular as "The Rose" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". If Paul McCartney were alive today, he would cut her leg off.

Listen to "Let It Be"



Todd Butler Band - Sole Doubt at the Rose




You know those guys who try so hard to be funny that they aren't funny at all? No, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about the Todd Butler Band. I really can't find any humour in these songs. For everyone listening to this outside of Canada, no, we're not this un-funny.

When you're 40 and singing about wanting somebody else's parents, you should've stopped living at 25.

When you're so desperate for a good tune and you steal one from Del Shannon, you need to get sued by Del's family.

Sorry Todd, your ideas for songs suck ass. My girlfriend hates you too.

Listen to Your Parents
Listen to Canadian Spy (aka a bad rip-off of "Runaway")



Now, let's do some bonus stuff!!!


Board game: Happy Days: Fonzie's Real Cool Game



There was no way in hell I could pass up this board game. How cheesy! The box looked like someone sat on it. I guess he wasn't very cool.



After looking over the rules and the game itself, it actually appears to be kinda fun! The juke box is used to measure your "coolness" which goes up and down during the game. The middle of the board is used for drag racing, and you get a minimal amount of cash to play with. The Fonzie Favorites 8-track is NOT included, but you can read my review on it here if you wish.



Here's the lovely jukebox featuring Fonzie, Ritchie, and some other guy. Forgive me, I could've cared less for the TV show when I was a kid which is strange, considering how much I loved the Fonzie Favorites 8-track.



The word "cool" appears approximately 391 times in the instruction booklet and about 53 times on the board itself.



The artist who drew Henry Winkler made him look about 50 years old with all those age lines. I guess 50 year old men are coooooool.



Here's some of the 'Cruisin' cards. Apparently, wearing colored socks isn't cool. The Fonz has no sense of adventure.



Here is pretty much everything that consists of the "Somethin' To Do" cards. How the hell can you get by with spending $3 while on a date. You can't even get a fucking Happy Meal for $3!



Here's a picture of me and my kid pretending to have fun playing this board game. Perhaps one day we'll play it for real.



Video: How To Shoot Home Video, The Basics




Finally, Classical Gas Emissions is happy to give you a detailed video on how to use your new digital camcorder!



Look at this guy. He's getting all the babes with that beautiful, compact, high definition camcorder. You can get laid like him too right after you watch this super cheesy video on how to make yourself the ultimate stud muffin with your sexy shorts that demonstrate your lack of manhood!



And that's it for my trip to Ashern. I have another extremely long entry on the way very shortly. This past summer, I took a trip out to Saskatchewan to visit my brother and dropped about $35 at the thrift store there.

Also, I'm still appearing on Amateur Hour with Kent Davies this coming Wednesday. Don't forget to tune in to 95.9 FM at 5:00 on November 16th! For those who can't tune in, you should have someone in Winnipeg phone you, and then put their phone by the radio for an hour while you listen to some of the worst music imaginable. It'll be totally worth their long distance charges!