Willie & Rodi - Coming Home
This year, we get another visit from our friends the Longeneckers! They must be a favourite here in the Christian Wheat Belt. They even put a picture of a sunrise on the back of the CD to make me happy. The other thing that makes me happy is the keyboard player's name is Alan Allen. The guy's parents obviously hated him when he was born.
I don't really know any of these songs, so I just picked an Elvis song.
Listen to Crying In The Chapel
Peter Hnatiuk - An Old Fashion Ukrainian Wedding
I'm going to go on a rant here. I've been working on doing a discography on Peter Hnatiuk. I own every album he put out and a bunch of others that he guest starred on. He was extremely popular in the Manitoba Ukrainian music scene. His albums are mostly in Ukrainian, but he's got some really good English songs mixed in as well.
Anyway, this CD came out on a label called "Baba's Records" with a completely different cover and a completely different album title. I was pretty certain that I had the vinyl counterpart, and I located it so I could do some comparisons.
The quality of the CD is fucking awful. Whoever transferred this to CD decided to bugger with the controls. It sounds like my stereo speakers are buried under pillows, and there's extra reverb on everything. My LP copy in comparison sounds crisp, clear, and fantastic. If anyone out there is looking for Peter Hnatiuk albums, do yourself a favour and don't buy any of the Baba's Records releases. Wait for me to put the albums online. They're all transferred, so I just need a bit of time to get everything together.
I present the following for your comparison:
Listen to the CD version of "Nobody To Live With"
Listen to the LP version of "Nobody To Live With"
Zaretski - Just Hangin'
There are a few things wrong here... First of all, nobody smokes doobs in the Christian Wheat Belt because marijuana is known as the devil's plant who's roots are firmly planted in hell. Second, six karaoke versions of these songs have been included on the album. I honestly can't say that these songs are so good that I'm desperate to sing along with them. Third, Zaretski's website and email belong to Pangea who was bought out by MTS around the year 2000, so I can't send him any fan or hate mail which will certainly cause me some sleepless nights.
Listen to How Many Days
Bootleg 8-tracks
The Best of Hank Williams from Sound Enterprises Inc (probably not inc) comes in a beautiful gold shell and has a picture of a fingerprint that someone jizzed on. It has a 30 day warranty from the purchase date in 1972. Despite my searching, I couldn't find an exact album that this is stolen from, but there's a bazillion Hank Williams compilations out there that predate 1972, so it's anybody's guess as to whether this is an original compilation or not.
The Very Best of Anne Murray features a brown and green picture of what I can only assume is Anne Murray's band, but somehow I think it's just a generic picture that this unknown record label (probably named Stereo-8) uses on all their bootlegs. I also can't find an album that this is stolen from and given that Anne Murray doesn't have much for compilations that predate 1974, it seems that this is an original compilation. It's also recorded too loud and distorted as all hell.
Listen to distorted Snowbird
Nashville Artists - Country Hits for Lovers
I think I came up with what "ARC" stands for... Artists Recording Crap. Yes, it's another piece of shit from Arc records. You were better off buying the bootleg Hank Williams album I already mentioned because this isn't the real thing and probably retailed for more money.
Listen to Lovesick Blues
Nashville Guitars - Music To Park By
What's with all these shitty knock-off albums featuring bands with the word "Nashville" in their band name? At least this one is a bit more authentic because it actually came from Nashville. It's also the first time I've heard of Gusto Records.
Anyway, look at the nice sunset on the cover. I'm surprised this isn't a Christian album. The shell is a somewhat translucent white which I generally don't see either. All the songs on here are instrumentals, and the Beatles cover is the only song chopped in half because of the pesky way the 8-track format worked. On the plus side, it's not the worst thing I've ever heard. It sounds kinda like a Ventures knock-off.
Listen to Let It Be
Tammy Wynette's Greatest Hits
Freedom! The greatest name in music! If you have to tell everyone you're the greatest name in music, you're probably a piece of crap company who makes knock-off albums. It's not a bootleg this time, it's a bunch of assholes in a closet with their 8-track recorder. On the back of the tape, there's some small text that reads "Simulated by The Soundmasters". However, the sound quality on program three is surprisingly good.
I refurbish every 8-track before it goes in my deck and despite my efforts, not every tape plays well. This is one of them. I figured I should give a disclaimer because last time I worked at making a shitty knock-off tape play and it played like crap, I was given a hard time (see the comments on this entry). I've been fixing 8-tracks consistently for around 30 years, and there's some you just can't save.
Listen to Golden Ring
Listen to Stand By Your Man
Hits Of Tammy Wynette
Whoever owned this lot of 8-tracks previously had shitty luck when it came to purchasing authentic Tammy Wynette music because he got burned twice. More fake Tammy on this one and the alternate title "Sounds Like Tammy Wynette" is on the spine, and I haven't a fucking clue who the androgynous asshole is on the cover, but it looks nothing like Tammy Wynette. The record label is called "Charm Tapes". I can tell you for certain, there is absolutely no charm in this hunk of plastic.
Listen to I Don't Wanna Play House
Mariposa Reeds - Gordon Lightfoot Instrumentals
We're really scraping the bottom of Arc's shitty discography in this entry. We have a bunch of Muzak covers of early Gordon Lightfoot songs this time. You won't find Battle of the Edmund Fitzgerald or Sundown on this collection. In fact, I only know two songs on this collection. Gordon's early work was pretty boring, but that never stops a crappy record label from farting out some notes to make a quick buck.
Listen to For Lovin' Me
The Mexican Banditos - Lennon & McCartney Tijuana Style
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought this album from Arc was trash. The owner of this 8-track recorded some Suzi Quatro onto it. I have another copy of this in my queue box somewhere, but for this round, you get Suzi.
Listen to If You Can't Give Me Love
Sweet Country Hits
HEY! Why isn't this from Arc? We were on a roll!
This time you get a batch of crap from Odyssey Productions. It's quite difficult to see that it's not the real artists since every song is credited things like "The Statler Brothers Style". There is an extremely small disclaimer in red text that says "The songs on this tape were recorded by our studio musicians in the same style and arrangements as the original hits recorded and made famous by the artists noted". Whoever wrote this should get 50% of the royalties of every knock-off piece of shit that contains this statement. I've seen this exact wording multiple times. It should go down as a famous piece of literature.
Anyway, here's some fake Statler Brothers.
Listen to Flowers On The Wall
Tsufit - Under The Mediterranean Sky
This is a bootleg copy of an album that nobody cares enough about to be concerned that it's being bootlegged. It's not bad musically, but Mrs. Tsufit seems to enjoy writing songs that portray her as a snotty bitch. Not only that, almost half of these songs are in a language nobody cares to learn. The song I pulled skips, but it seems to be that way on the CD, so Tsufit is getting a pretty bad representation on Classical Gas Emissions. But who am I fooling? She wasn't getting a good representation anyway.
Listen to Broccoli's On Sale at Dominion
Red Robe Women - Not Alone
This album is laced with aboriginal issues (in Canada). It's one of those political issues that I won't touch with a 12 inch pole, and this isn't a place to discuss politics. However, I have no problem judging this album on it's ability to musically please my ears. It fucking sucks. It consists of mostly rap music mish mashed with traditional aboriginal music. That's like trying to mix folk music with screamo.
Listen to Not Alone
Ray Allen and The Upbeats - Tribute to 6
When famous artists die, there's always some asshole trying to cash in on it. The asshole in this case is Arc Records (again). Even though it's in bold (albeit small text) on the cover, someone only noticed the big names on the cover and gave Arc Records more money that it didn't need.
The worst part about this album is the covers aren't even close to the original songs. The closest one is La Bamba, and not only is it terrible, they spelled it wrong on the album cover. I'm honestly surprised that Buddy Holly didn't get his dead ass out of the grave and murder this Ray Allen jerk for fucking up his songs. The day this piece of shit came out was the day the music died.
Don't believe me? I dare you to listen.
Listen to Peggy Sue
Listen to Chantilly Lace
Download this piece of trash
Jake Fehr & The Fehr's - Country Gospel
Yes, the apostrophe is in the name. Also, a bunch of the song titles are spelled wrong. Seems there may have been some inbreeding in the Fehr family which caused some loss of intelligence. The cover is printed on Kodak paper to give it that professional look (ha ha ha).
These guys play like they're all drunk, and they probably are. It's REALLY BAD. They ruin all your favourites here, such as "Gathering Bud's", "I Just Wont To Thank You", "I Sow The Light" and " I Bin Redeem". Enjoy!
Listen to I'm Going To a City
Download the whole thing
And away we goo to Manitou!
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