Sunday, December 29, 2019

Reflections on the 2010s Pt.2

Now that I've yapped my brains out, let's get to my top 9 posts over the past decade. These are not in order of how much I like them, but from oldest to newest, just because we forget things after about 2 years or so (at least I do). Click on the picture to see the entry.


How To Make Your Own Album (2010)



Sometimes, I think I'm at my best when I post something from my personal collection. These are all songs I recorded when I was a kid. They're all terrible, but amusing at the same time. I had to laugh when I found out that the song "Joanne's Socks" made it onto somebody's podcast. Sadly, I can't find a link to it anymore.


Steve Wilson - Get Your Groove Back (2011)



I've had people send me stuff to review, but as I stated in the last post, I generally prefer to find my own content out in the wild. This was one of the few exceptions. A reader sent me a link to this, and I swear it's the shittiest album I've ever heard in my entire life. I know I say that a lot, but that's the reason why I'm highlighting it. I dare you to go listen to it and tell me otherwise.


Satellite Wildfeeds (2012)




Hooking up my own satellite dish was a very rewarding experience. I've been able to watch really cool free-to-air stuff like car chases, storm chasers, and some really interesting shows. Also, I've been able to watch some really strange shit such as camel racing and a creepy Punjabi version of Jingle Bells. The wildfeeds are pretty fun and these are a couple of the earliest ones I recorded.


Abandoned Photo Shoot Outtakes (2013)



Before the garbage system got a major overhaul in Winnipeg, people were able to just throw their shit by the back lane and the garbage men would pick it up. I came across boxes and boxes of archives that belonged to a now defunct photo studio. The fact that these weren't put through a shredder is certainly questionable, but I tossed two boxes (out of about 20) into the back of my vehicle. It took forever to go through them, but these treasures were worth the digging! The best part is I have more to post that I just haven't got around to yet. Perhaps 2020 will be the year!


Kellen Guibault's Polished Turds (2014)



This one was a very close tie with the story of Michael & Ana which I found on three floppy disks. However, getting someone's recording "studio" PC has IMO been the pinnacle of my blogging hobby. I can't tell you how much fun I had mixing and putting effects on someone else's recordings. Listening to this is simply a lovely disaster.


Winnipeg Radio in 1971 (2015)



Ancient recordings (when they're actually decent) can be a real treat to find, and this is no exception. The fact that I have a copy of Johnny Cash's Pepsi Cola song is pretty amazing since it's an extremely rare recording.


First Spin from Three Sealed Children's Albums (2016)



Finding children's records in the thrift store is usually a frustrating experience. Kids generally didn't take care of their records and most of the ones I find have the shit scratched out of them. Finding ones that are in decent shape are uncommon, and ones that are sealed are extremely rare. I have more to post, and I look forward to embarking on this again.


A Joey Gregorash Retrospective (2017)



I have nothing but good things to say about Joey Gregorash who's currently on tour. It's no secret that I like doing discographies of people who don't have one, and I really enjoyed doing this one. I think Joey is a very underrated musician and I only wish he would have recorded at least a couple more albums during his music career. I'm also quite honored that someone put a link to this entry on Joey's Wikipedia page.


Donald Bradburn's Gospel Collection (2018)



My first box set review had to make the list. This one took quite a long time to go through, but it was a lot of fun! There aren't many unknown people in music who have the determination and the dedication to record 12 albums and put them in a box set. We desperately need more of these (I'm looking at you Kevin Harcourt!)


Honorable mention: The Junq Tour Videos



I was very happy to bring back the Junq Tour and be able to turn them into videos. I would like to thank my partner for doing all the camera work, otherwise these videos would not be possible.


So, we say goodbye to another decade. I still have lots of junk overflowing my queue boxes (there's five of them now) so there's no end in sight. I look forward to another 10 years of posting this stuff, and look forward to worsening my drinking problem which helps me get through most of these albums.

See you in 2020!

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Reflections on the 2010s Pt.1



Here I am, still posting to Classical Gas Emissions, watching yet another decade come to a close. The fact that this blog is going to be spanning three decades is pretty amazing considering that I post so much terrible stuff. You guys seem to love it more than I do.

Last time I closed out a decade, this blog was still in it's infancy as I had only been doing it for two years at that time. Back then, it was more of an outlet for me (and to some degree it still is), but I posted a larger variety of things. When I closed out the 2000s, I actually made a post about the best mainstream albums that had came out during that decade. I was considering doing the same for this year, but I eventually decided against it. Instead, I decided to just do a decade in review, both sharing my thoughts about the last 10 years and sharing my favourite posts, choosing one for each year with the exception of 2019. But because I yap too much when I type, I had to split this entry into two parts.

So here's some of my explanations and thoughts on the past 10 years...


Videos




I've tried repeatedly to cover videos over the last 10 years which have led to many removals from youtube themselves. With the exception of anything that wouldn't be considered even close to being a commercial release, I've almost completely given up on the idea. However, it seems that (at least) Google Chrome will play MP4 videos that I have on my webspace, so there's still a bit of hope. Youtube can't remove things that aren't hosted on their servers. However, I'm amassed a huge collection of videos that I've wanted to cover, and they're all sitting in limbo in a couple of rubbermaid bins. I'm hoping that at least some of these may make their way to Oddity Archive. Speaking of which...


Oddity Archive




Occasionally, I'll do a bit of a collab with Ben from Oddity Archive, and I've found it to be really enjoyable. I can't remember when I stumbled onto Ben's channel, but it was early in his youtube career. Ben has a great format for covering old videos, and I'd rather leave the reigns to him for covering such things.

Oddity Archive is the only other internet guy I've done collabs with. My biggest problem with some of the others who have contacted me have been their desire to profit from my stuff without giving at least a mention of who provided the content. I have no problem letting people use the stuff I put up as long as they mention that they got it from Classical Gas Emissions. One of my "rules" for this blog is to have it (mainly) consist of things I find out in the wild and bring it to the internet. I'd rather be a source of material instead of simply re-posting it.

I'm certainly open to doing collabs with other people, so we shall see what the future brings.


Amateur Hour




Doing radio shows with Kent Davies is another collab that I've enjoyed. I haven't done one with him in a while mainly due to my move, but we have plans in the works for another one in the spring. I'm hoping that I can make an appearance on his show at least once per year.


Youtube Channels




I've been wanting to separate my techie stuff from the blog stuff for a while, and I decided that I'd like to move it to my Youtube channel in the shape of original content. However, as many Youtubers find out, the feedback they receive from their earlier years will dictate the direction they go. I originally wanted to just film my repairs and such, but I've realized a couple of things about doing that. First of all, I'm not as candid and amusing when I'm repairing things as I am when dealing with the dullness of day to day life. A lot of people tell me that I'm fucking hilarious at the best of times, but for the most part I'm not that entertaining when I'm focusing on something I'm putting significant effort into repairing.

Second, people started messaging me on how to fix things. For years, I've been trying to distance myself from being "that guy who can fix everything" because it comes with expectations of doing things for free and eating up time I could be spend on better things (like this blog). I have a lot of things filmed and I think I may have accidentally lost some of the footage through computer and drive swapping when my daily driver croaked. I plan on eventually completing the stuff I've shot on camera, but I'm most likely going to cease doing lengthy repair videos and instead just make a shorter video that features the item I'm working on with a few repair shots here and there. However, I keep getting asked to do more mystery Commodore 64 disks, so I'm going to get back to doing that (and I also have some mystery Commodore Vic-20 tapes too!)

Third, I don't really like video editing. It's lengthy and boring. I've done a bit of work to streamline the process which has helped, but I still don't find it to be much fun. I also need a more powerful laptop so I can do it when I'm away from my cluttered desk.


Personal Life




Ugh... My personal life has had some great highs but yet many lows over the last decade. If you've been reading for a long time, you've no doubt seen some of it make a brief appearance. I went through a divorce in the earlier part of the decade which affected the content both in content quality and the frequency of my posting. I also moved in 2017 causing a lot of my stuff (and I do mean a LOT) to be shuffled around which may explain why you haven't seen certain types of posts in a while. Remember when I used to analyze hard drives on computers I've found? I still want to do that stuff. I have a giant stack of computers in the garage that I've scrounged up. Taking the time to go through the hard drives is a bit time-consuming, but I still want to do it. It's great fun and hopefully I'll get to do some of it in 2020 because I need the space in my garage.

There's probably some other things that people miss that I haven't been doing, and it's likely that I'll be getting around to it again. So just be patient, and I'm sure I'll cover it.

I've also had two surgeries and had to deal with a few worker's comp claims which is a side-effect of having a normal day job. I'm certain it will eventually kill me. I hope the people who attend my funeral grab some of the great quotes I've left on this blog to honour my memory (or taint it).


Album Release




I released a music album in 2014! I've wanted to release an album since I was a kid, and even though I've been in bands in my earlier adult years, I never managed to find a group of guys who were willing to work well as a group. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself, and with exception of a couple of guest appearances, I did all the work on this album. Lord knows I have enough examples of how NOT to make an album.

Also, I have a second one about 1/3 done, but the move kinda messed up the momentum of getting work done on it. I keep meaning to get back to it, and I know I eventually will.


Resurrection of Flaming Telepaths BBS




This has been on my bucket list since I was forced to take the BBS down in 2001 due to my personal life fucking things up again. I don't get a lot of people logging in because the BBS scene of today is mainly made up of other Sysops who prefer to tweak their BBS instead of visiting others. Some Sysops put money into having their BBSes up and running. Mine costs absolutely nothing, so I have no problem just letting it sit there in case someone wants to log in. I check on it occasionally, so if something needs attention, just leave me a message on there. There's some things I still want to tweak on it, and I will when I get the urge (which always inevitably comes).


The Junq Tour




I'm quite surprised at how well received this segment has become in the last few years. I'm guessing it has to do with how I've been handling it.

The Junq Tour was originally about thrifting across Manitoba when I was sent out of town for work. My workplace has more or less ceased this practice and I really missed cruising thrift stores that I normally don't get to visit. In 2017, I made it my goal to start doing it again and making videos of the whole experience. These are the only videos I really enjoy editing, and I plan to keep it going until my personal life decides to fuck me in the ass again (which I hope it doesn't, but I won't hold my breath.)


Webspace


(yes, I own this thing)

One of the best things I've done for this blog was buying webspace. I was able to get it at a very good price, and the cost has barely changed over the last 10 years. Before I had webspace, I had to rely on other services for hosting my stuff. If you look at my old posts, you'll see dead links to Photobucket which I keep meaning to repair. I ultimately decided to look into webspace when Houndbite went tits up. I moved all of my audio to my webspace, fixed the links, and I have never looked back.


What's coming in 2020...



I have a couple of ideas for the next little while...


Record Store Tour

I want to do a tour of the record stores in Winnipeg and give a review of them. There's some great places to buy records, CDs and tapes, but there's some really fucking atrocious places that should be avoided. I want to dedicate some time to highlight these in 2020.


Canned Peaches Discography

"Canned Peaches" is the name I gave to a music project I slaved over while I was a teenager which was an escape from how bad life was fucking me back then. It mainly consists of mashups, medleys, and other kinds of "audio art". From 1992 through 1997, I made all kinds of weird shit using mainstream songs, movie clips, and analog equipment. The fact that I never once used a computer making this stuff would blow people's minds. I used to share the "music" I made by giving away mix tapes in high school. I'm currently in the process of remastering my entire discography (which is taking longer than I expected), but I'm hoping to have it up sometime in 2020.


Peter Hnatiuk Discography

This has been in the works for a while. Peter has some of the greatest album covers I've ever seen, and some pretty damn funny songs. I've touched on his stuff slightly in the past, and I want to get this one done.


Requests for Digitizing and Uploads

Over the last 10 years as I've gain more readers, I've been receiving more and more requests for uploading specific songs and entire albums that I've posted about. I didn't mind doing it when the requests were infrequent, but over the past couple of years it's become a bit overwhelming. Digitizing albums (and doing the blog entries in general) is extremely time-consuming when you consider that (with the exception of CDs) I have to digitize the albums in real time, do repairs to specific formats (8-tracks and sometimes cassettes), photograph/scan the artwork, edit the artwork, split and edit wave files, convert files into MP3s, fill in the MP3 tags, upload all the content, and finally format all the blog entries.

Given that uploading specific requests takes more time out of my life, I've decided that I need to request that you make a contribution either through Paypal or Patreon if you would like me to upload something specific. Failing that, you can offer to purchase the item I've posted which I will digitize before sending it to you. I more or less keep everything I post, and as I continue to post more content, it becomes more time-consuming to dig through the bins of previously posted crap. The people who currently make regular contributions to the blog are free to ask for specific items. Also, your donation will result in your requests being put up on the blog for others to enjoy (or hate). In other words, you will be helping make Classical Gas Emissions a better place to find the worst shit you've ever heard on the internet.

Speaking of the worst shit you've ever heard, stay tuned for part 2...

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Having a Happy Christmas (is difficult with these albums)

Christmas can bring back memories of some beloved characters from television and music. There's Frosty, Rudolph, The Grinch, The Chipmunks, and there are others that are beloved by all.

These characters are not beloved by all. In fact, they seem to have a certain knack for making Christmas shitty for those who try to indulge in something new. It's like getting a cube of mouldy fruit cake. It's pure useless garbage, and that's what we get from these Christmas albums that nobody wants to buy.

Lou Monte - Merry Christmas from Pepino The Italian Mouse



This album is full of Italian-styled Christmas music with the exception of one song. What in hell was the point of releasing this piece of shit Christmas album if you're going to promote your Italian mouse character and put him in only one song which has nothing to do with Christmas? Not only that, you have to wait until the first song on side two for your Pepino experience. What a fucking joke.

Listen to Pepino The Italian Mouse


Ray Bentley - Radar The Happy Reindeer



Canadians are stupid, myself included for making you listen to this garbage.

This is the story of a homeless Reindeer trainer who drags around his deformed Reindeer who has shiny eyes as opposed to Rudolph's shiny nose. Santa's reindeer get injured and aren't able to pull the sleigh, but the reindeer trainer gets a bunch of new reindeer and lets his ugly laser-beam-eyed reindeer lead the sleigh on Christmas. It's a pretty dumb story.

According to the album cover, there is a motion picture of the story coming, but a search on Google tells me that it never existed. All the children who bought this piece of junk had their Christmas ruined by never seeing Radar in all his animated glory. Perhaps the budget went to all the musicians (The Radar Singers) who recorded all the terrible songs on this album. Also, the track listing for side two is wrong. If they can't get that right, then I can't imagine how terrible the production of the motion picture went until it was scrapped.

Apparently, Mr. Ray Bentley named his company Radar Publications LTD. My guess is the makers of the TV show M*A*S*H sued his ass which resulted in the motion picture never being released.

Listen to Santa's Very Near
Download The Whole Album



Christmas with The Happy Crickets



We have a Pickwick special! To be fair, I've never found Pickwick to be as bad as Arc Records, but Pickwick does have quite a wide selection of terrible shit including this album. Yes, it's a Chipmunks rip-off, but I don't know why they chose to use the name of Buddy Holly's band. First of all, it sounds nothing like Buddy Holly. Second, it's not as fun as The Chipmunks, so you're stuck with this in-between garbage that nobody asked for.

Side one consists mostly of the religious-based Christmas songs which in my opinion would be insulting to the Lord due to their chipmunky/crickety voices. It sounds extremely bizarre hearing these voices sing about Jesus. I dare someone to play this in church. If you do, please take video of the congregation's reaction. I'd love to see it!

This album also has some kind of howling artefact that can be heard at the beginning and end of each song. My guess is that there's some kind of electronic hum on the microphones that the singers used which sounds more like a howl when it's sped up.

You know what the funniest part is? "The Chipmunk Song" isn't sung by the cricket voices and is instead sung in the style of Mickey Mouse. I'm guessing Pickwick was trying to avoid a lawsuit. It's also by far the worst track on the album.

Listen to White Christmas
Listen to The Chipmunk Song
Download the whole album

I have yet to decide how to end off a full decade of blogging, but I feel the need to do something. This has been the longest-running project I've ever been involved in! Stay tuned for my farewell to the 2010s...

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Santa's TV Show

Back in the 1980s and 1990s at Christmas time, there would be a special live TV show that featured Santa Claus either calling or receiving phone calls from children asking what they wanted for Christmas. Sometimes they would add elements to the TV show to make it more "interesting" although I find it would usually make it more stupid.

I have two examples that I put on Youtube, one from 1990 and one from 1991. I'm fairly certain that I have one from 1989 kicking around somewhere, but I'd have to do some more searching through my old video tapes.


This first one features a Santa with what sounds like a German accent and who apparently thinks that the city of Regina is in Manitoba. I'll bet kids got the wrong shit for Christmas that year. Kids call into the show and Santa is likely doing a crossword puzzle while he pretends to write down what kids want for Christmas.


The second one features a Santa who doesn't have an accent, but is phoning the children at home. I'm guessing that parents had mailed information about their kids to make it appear that Santa actually knows things about them. There are also creepy elf puppets along with some idiotic back story about the reindeer that nobody really gives a shit about.

Both of these Santa shows feature a somewhat attractive female helper in her late teens or early 20s although I would have appreciated a much nicer attire than the overalls that Santa's helper is wearing in the second video, but that was in style in the 1990s (albeit a really shitty style). The helper in the first video did a very nice job on her attire, and I'll bet Santa had no problem sliding down her chimney.

Coming up.... Some really nice Christmas albums. Okay, maybe not so nice. You'll see.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Junq Tour 2019: Portage La Prairie

We've reached the final destination of the Junq Tour. This may be the first year that I successfully posted everything before the new year. Hooray for progress and injuries! Let's get to the junk...


CP Hotels - The Great Sounds of Canadian Pacific Hotels in Mexico



Apparently, there was a time when Canadian Pacific Railways owned some resort hotels. This sound sheet specifically focuses on the El Mirador Plaza and Club Aumal Caribe which have since been sold or transferred to another operator. I've included the audio solely for historical significance, as it's not the most interesting thing to listen to.

Listen to CP Hotels


Neil Harris Singers - The Spirit of '70



Released by the Government of the province of Manitoba! Remember when our tax dollars went to stupid things like official theme songs? Well, here's some corn-filled turds about the province of Manitoba. Apparently you can feel the beat of Manitoba, although it's probably just the sound of someone breaking into someone else's car.

The days when we had stupid theme songs are gone, but it's not hard to long for the time when things were cheaper, life was simpler, and obviously there were people who were very proud of the land they live on. The idea of corporate theme songs died by around 1980. They're kinda fun to listen to because nobody in their right mind would make awful-sounding trash like this today.

This record has that strange groove pattern on side B. The grooves are blank, and they push the stylus back to the beginning of the record, eventually kicking it off the record and destroying your stylus by having it scrape against the rubber platter cover. I've covered another record with the exact same groove pattern on side B except it was a 12 inch record.

Listen to The Spirit of 70


Allan di Dio - Through The Built-In Mic



Immediately upon looking at the title, I'm expecting an album that was recorded on a shoebox tape recorder. Fortunately, the quality is a little bit better than that. Only a little.

The insert has instructions on how to listen to this album:

This CD is best played through a personal CD Player with headphones or thorugh any stereo system

I'm glad he cleared that up. I was planning on folding the disc in half and shoving it into my 8-track player.

Equalization should be set for "acoustic" if able or set for slight increase in bias on both the low and high end of the spectrum.

Usually when you record an album with half-decent software, you're able to tweak those knobs yourself so you don't have to rely on the stupid listener to do it for you.

The track listing on the back includes the size of the songs in megabytes. Why? I don't care what the size of the song is if I'm not going to extract any of these into wave files. He also made it very clear that these songs are for his kid, so why am I being subjected to this stuff?

Listen to Deep Blue Dress


Barbara McAffee - Yes



No!

This album is just as bad as her teeth.

Listen to Bridge Over Troubled Water


Mr. Ken - Sing, Play, Live



Oh my God, look at all the fucking colors! The CDDB identifies this album as Beck's Hell Yes EP. I really wish it was. The back of the CD shows a picture of Mr. Ken shitting out his songs for the album.



The best thing about this album is he credits the kids (at least their first names) for contributing their vocals to the album. I'm sure each of them received a gummy bear for their efforts. It's a shame that kids generally know nothing about royalties and lawyers.

Listen to I Like Superman


Mary Ellen - M.E. To You



You see that album title? Get it? Haha. Groan.

Mary Ellen decided to use her obituary picture for the album cover. She also decided to use a drunken German oom-pah band for her backup musicians. The music is pretty terrible and the poor drummer (either human or Casio) was recorded while playing in the next room.

If I didn't know better, I'd say this was Engelbert Humperdinck's wife.

Listen to Release Me


Musegendary - Reason to Hate



This one was sealed and it should have stayed sealed. I understand the appeal of rap music. I really do. However, these songs have the fucking stupidest lyrics I've heard in a long time.

Here's some of the brilliant lyrics:

Bring your girl but keep her guarded
Cause when I get drunk I get retarded

This is my cheese baby you can't have it
I know you really want it but you can't have it

You see a pretty lady that's really curvy
Thick like gravy, that's my lady

But we all know the haturz guna hate. Feel free to count the reasons to hate this shitty music...

Listen to B-Day Bash
Listen to My Lady


Fuentes - Bird-snake



Someone got a Yamaha keyboard for Christmas in 1986 and immediately realized they were a musician. I can't even call this crap music. its just a bunch of shitty noises mixed together. Fuentes calls themselves a "soundtrack performance group", but I can't imagine anybody using this shit for the background to anything. I could record a bunch of my farts, mix them together, and it would be more enjoyable than this.

I have no clue what's on the cover, but somebody must have been vomiting blood that day.

Listen to Conquistadores


Holly



Who needs an album title or a last name? Not Holly!

It looks like someone dropped this CD in the toilet and forgot to flush. The inserts are all wrinkled and the pages are stuck together. What they were doing with it in the bathroom is anybody's guess. There's what appears to be some interesting liner notes inside the booklet, but the bathroom incident made them unreadable.

Holly is a country singer who wears lightning bolts for earrings to match her electrifyingly bad country music covers. We have all the famous country songs on here like Patsy Cline's "Crazy", Patsy Cline's "Walking After Midnight", The Judds "Grandpa" (HOORAY!!!), and Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll".

Listen to Rock and Roll
Listen to Grandpa


And that's a wrap for the Junq Tour of 2019. In the last three years that I've been doing these trips, I think I can safely say that this year rendered the largest amount of crap thus far. However, we shall see what 2020 brings.

Coming up.... Ruining your Christmas!

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Junq Tour 2019: MacGregor

I bought three cassettes in the MacGregor thrift store. That was pretty much the content of the entire store.

Golden Car Songs - Camp Song Favorites



All your favorite driving songs are here such as "Be Kind To Your Web-Footed Friends", "Pizza with Cheese", "The Cat Came Back", and "Kumbaya". There is absolutely nothing car-ish about this album. I honestly think that the group performing this is called "Golden Car Songs" which is a pretty dumb name. If I ever have a band, I'm going to call it "I Recorded This In My Shower and I Peed In There Too". It's one of those cassettes that you would rather NOT have playing in your car because it's annoyingly terrible like all children's entertainment that came out in the 1990s.

At least you get a song about killing bees.

Listen to Baby Bumblebee


From The Heart - Country Gospel Vol. 1



Apparently drummers are not allowed in this band, and a mixer wasn't allowed in the studio (if you can call the place this was recorded in a "studio". Without a drummer, the band simply cannot keep time, although some of the lousy bands I've reviewed that have a drummer couldn't keep time either.

This is mainly a collection of gospel covers (that doesn't deserve a vol. 2) and one original song. Guess which one I've included for your listening displeasure? Answer: The song about premature ejaculation.

Listen to Surely I Come Quickly


Valley Mennonite Academy Choir - The Lord Is Watching Over Me



Apparently, the Lord is a baa baa black sheep standing in his heaven full of dandelions. He watches over you to make sure that you don't taint his name and his children by recording any satanic Cyndi Lauper onto this beautiful Chromium Dioxide cassette.

It's all gospel songs sung by gospel children. The backing band is a Casio of the oom-pah variety and the children singing are only mildly annoying to listen to.

Listen to God's Love


We are now heading to Portage La Prairie which is our final destination. Hopefully it's open for more than ten minutes (unlike last year).

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Junq Tour 2019: Austin

This is the second time Austin's thrift store has amazed me with the unique crap I find in it. I usually don't find a lot of stuff in this store, but the things I find are usually pretty fun. This time was no exception.

Sarah Getto - My Gospel Favorites



I was certain this CD was going to suck ass as Sarah looked like a blind wannabe hack musician with one of those plunky string things on her lap, and the disclaimer that she played and sang everything on the album. Usually I end up with some weird crap that was mixed by a deaf person. This is not the case.

Sarah is extremely talented, and the mix on this CD is superb! Gospel songs usually aren't my thing, but they're actually kinda enjoyable on here. So I shall share one track with you.

Listen to In The Garden


Birnie Eldon Bornn - Write a Song / Southern Styles



There's something to be said about a good comb over, but someone else will have to say it because I think comb overs are awful. I'd rather see him in a blonde toupee.

I don't know what's wrong with this guy's name. It seems that his first, middle, and last name all have spelling errors. Perhaps his parents were both alcoholics with comb overs, so we shouldn't be too hasty to judge Birnie.

The music is country gospel which is already a bad start. Either Birnie's voice is that terrible, or he decided to record his vocal tracks in a car that has two bad spark plugs. At least the mix is okay, but that's all it has going for it. This album's pretty lousy.

Listen to We Shall Overcome


Talking Magazines



I've never found anything like this before. They're magazines on LP which were generally made for blind people, as there's braille on the record label. They're cut at 16 RPM in order to cram as much yakety yak as possible into the grooves. Each side runs for about an hour or so.

When I put one on my turntable (without really looking at the label), It took me a minute to realize that no, my turntable wasn't set to 45 RPM and that yes, my turntable was in correct working order. I had to pull out my old school-era Califone record player which has a 16 RPM speed setting to listen to these records correctly. I transferred them at 45 RPM and then used software to slow them back down.

When I was picking through the pile of these in the thrift store, I settled on buying four of them with the most interesting looking topics on them. Here they are in no particular order.

A Sound Effects Program with Chris Ethridge
A guy who makes really annoying sound effects with his voice

News Notes
New technologies for the blind such as reclining wheelchairs, microfiche (which is pronounced wrong) along with a bunch of other innovations of 1977.

Ill Fitting Shoes Are a Pain!
A whole program on women's feet. I'm sure the fetish guys will be jizzing all over their pants.

What The Blind Really Need
Surprisingly, it's not eyesight nor God.


Under Water Treasure by Melissa



Oh look! A book! I don't get to review these very often, so it's always a treat. This entire thing was written drawn, and colored by an 11 year old girl named Melissa who's last name I cannot read. I think it's actually quite well done. Her story writing skills on the other hand are the pits.



It's about a girl named Louisiana who goes to visit her aunt Fefe and they discover treasure. Louisiana couldn't give a fuck about the treasure and won't shut up about how much she wants to go home.



The first thing you see when you open the cover is the text "Here U go U ass!" which makes me wonder who the recipient of this book was. The first acutal page leaves a promise of a second book. Whether or not it was ever written will likely remain a mystery.

This is obviously the only copy in existence, so I must share it with the world. I put it in PDF format for all of you with digital book readers.

Check out the book!


Next, we shall see if it was worth stopping at the thrift store in McGregor.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Junq Tour 2019: Brandon (Value Village)

Our last stop in Brandon is the Value Village. I don't think there's ever been a time that I've walked out of here empty handed.

Gayleen Froese - Obituary



We gather here today to lay Gayleen's album to rest in the trash because it was too fucking boring to bother posting any songs. May this album rest in pieces and we hope that future generations do not find it and assume that the music of our day was this boring.


Lola - Full Circle



I would have been in my glory if the CD was actually square shaped. Instead, she put a picture of her fucking cats on it.



It mostly consists of boring country music covers, but we get a really terrible country version of an Elvis song to annoy us. Speaking of which, I'm very much overdue for another Elvis entry. The pile of tribute albums has been growing.

Listen to Fool Such As I


Makin' Music with The Treble Teens



Well, they're not bad singers, but their high voices are like nails across a chalk board. If you like it when people screech your favourite songs from the 1970s, you'll love this album. We get a medley with some of the worst songs from the decade such as Tie a Yellow Ribbon, Send In The Clowns, Love Will Keep Us Together, and a couple others nobody cares to remember. Also, if you like your Neil Diamond songs on the Jazzy side, you'll get jizzy over this one.

Listen to 70's Medley
Listen to Song Sung Blue


Ringling 5 - It Ain't Music



There are so many other bands that should have used this album title, and I have to say that the Ringling 5 isn't one of them. These guys have written some fun novelty songs about country living. You get songs such as "Jurassic Ark", "Ranch Aerobics", "Don't Screw with Montana", "Sheep Shearers' Lament", and "Hoop-De Poop-De Polka". Their title track should be this blog's theme song.

Listen to Hoop-De Poop-De Polka
Listen to It Ain't Music


The Countdown Singers - Goodbye England's Rose: Candle In The Wind 1997



I'm surprised there isn't more knock offs of this, considering it's the second best selling single of all time (Bing Crosby's White Christmas is #1, and I always see copies of it in piles of 78 rpm records). I have to say that this is probably the worst piece of shit I've found on the entire Junq Tour thus far. All the songs on here are fucking terrible, and I'm talking about them in their original form. After you take a bunch of shitty songs and let some stupid-arsed studio musicians cover it, you have a flat brown turd to stuff in your CD player. You will never get the stink out of your machine after you've played this.

Check out this note on the back of the album:

"All Royalties for the use of the recording "Goodbye England's Rose / Candle In The Wind 1997" will be donated directly by the producers and Madacy Entertainment Group to funds established in memory of Princess Diana"

I call bullshit on that. What royalties? These aren't the original recordings, so I'm assuming if they're paying for any royalties, it would be to the original musicians. Given that there's 12 shitty covers on here, they would have to divide the royalties 12 different ways. I also doubt that Madacy pays royalties to the original artists, let alone to any Princess Diana fund. Let's get real here, they stuffed the proceeds into their empty pockets because people generally don't buy shitty albums like this.

Let's go through some of the songs:

Goodbye England's Rose (Candle In The Wind 1997): The guy who's pretending to be Elton John sounds like he's 97 years old here. I'll bet whoever bought this CD was pissed when they heard this version.

Memory: This is apparently from the musical "Cats". Yuck. I generally don't like musicals.

Tears In Heaven: Voted Eric Clapton's worst song ever, and I'd have to agree. Yes, I know why he wrote it, and it wasn't for Princess Diana. Madacy should be ashamed of themselves, so should Eric Clapton, and so should whoever the hack is singing this.

I'll Be Missing You: This is the Puffy Combs Cereal version where he rips off "Every Breath You Take". I hated this song when it came out, and now we have some pretend wannabe "gangsta" trying to rap as good as Puff Daddy, although I'd beg to differ on Sean Puffy being a good rapper. He's also a stupidhead for changing his name hundreds of times.

Imagine: We can't avoid a good excuse to bastardize John Lennon. It doesn't even sound remotely like him. The performance on here is awful. How can you fuck this one up? Well, Madacy found a way like they always do.

Why: Even Annie Lennox can't even escape Madacy's mission to ruin songs.

I Will Always Love You: DEAR GOD NO!!!!! IT'S FUCKING ATROCIOUS!!!! I can't even articulate how bloody horrid this is. It makes me want to beat my head in with a sledge hammer which would be less painful than hearing this bitch trying to pull off Whitney Houston's most annoying performance of all time.

Missing You: We already have a song called "Missing You" on this goddam CD. I don't know who originally did this song, but it's probably awful and this version is even worse.

You Are So Beautiful: Whoever's singing this Joe Cocker song sounds as horrific as what Princess Diana looked like after the accident. I make the same sounds when I'm in the bathroom having a really tough bunny pellet shit. He sounds like he's on his death bed which would probably be a good thing.

The Rose: Can we please not? At least the singer has been replaced with a saxophone. Hopefully the singer was murdered with the saxophone.

Listen to Candle In The Wind
Listen to I'll Be Missing You
Listen to You Are So Beautiful
or just download the entire awful mess

After that last album, I don't know if I can go on with the Junq Tour. But we must try and make our way to Austin.

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Junq Tour 2019: Brandon (Superthrift)

I believe the Superthrift is fairly new, as I don't recall seeing it before. Not much for strange finds here, but there was certainly a lot to dig through.


Country Blend - Gospel Favorites


Hey! The original lineup is back and they're ready to convert you into a Christian with their collection of Gospel Favorites. The secret they won't tell you is that Joan MacKay sold her soul to the devil to become the world's greatest piano player. She got the haircut as a free gift.

I'm not sampling anything from here because we have enough entries from the Christian Wheat Belt to cover our religious song quota.


Bill & Sue-On Hillman Vol.12 - The Canada Sessions: 33 Songs from the Early Years


I recently covered Bill & Sue-On Hillman's first four albums which vary from mediocre to excellent, and I rated Vol.3 as my favourite. One of the things I was looking forward to on this trip was eating at their restaurant which they inherited from Sue-On's family. My craving for Chinese food was brutally slaughtered because the restaurant is gone, so I had to eat some fast food shit because nothing else was open.


However, it was a joy to find this CD. I covered a portion of the 33 songs on this album which came from volumes 4, 5 and 6.  I was quite happy to see more of Bill's original songs on here, and yes, they're very good indeed!

I've pulled three songs from this CD for you to hear. "Highway 354" is a perfectly fine twonky driving song that will forever remind you of all the wheat that makes your drive through Manitoba boring as fuck. The main riff in "Mississippi Tripper" is stolen directly from "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" by The Hollies and has Sue-On taking the lead vocal while Bill does the back-up. "Satisfied" starts off as Manitoba's version of "Play That Funky Music" and then breaks down into a feel-good praise-the-lord religious hoe-down.

I didn't think I'd ever find one of their CDs so I'm quite happy with this one.. It's a perfectly fine representation of local Manitoba music in the early 1970s. It just goes to prove that the music here didn't always suck.



Hoja - Rock Paper Scissors



I'm fairly certain that this album has previously come through my hands and may be sitting in my blog queue box. Why it hasn't come been posted until now is anybody's guess, but I'm going to blame Hoja for never sending me a copy of the album for reviewing. It's all their fault.

Hoja is an acapella group, much like the Streetnix band I covered a few years back. They're not completely bad, but the singer's near inability to do falsetto is pretty laughable. The song selection is for the most part decent. "Kiss Him Goodbye" which is a mandatory cover for any acapella group (because The Nylons had a big hit with it in Canada) is included. Their cover of Billy Joel's "River of Dreams" is almost good with exception of the terrible falsetto. My only question is, who the living fuck chose to cover Jewel's "Foolish Games"? What a stupid decision that was, and the arrangement just doesn't work for this song. The happy acapella sound brings an extremely cheerful, shiny vibe to an extremely miserable, depressing song. Jewel's debut album is one of my guilty pleasures, and I hope she hunts these guys down and beats the piss out of them with their own CD for even thinking of covering this song.

Listen to Foolish Games
Listen to River of Dreams

We still have to visit the Value Village before exiting Brandon. What kind of crap will we find there? Stay tuned!