Friday, December 31, 2021

Junq Tour 2020: Morden (Hope)

All of this stuff came from the "Hope" thrift store in Morden. Hope turned into a blessing of musical thrash. I completely avoided the other thrift store since I never find much there and it's usually overpriced anyway.


The Stories of Ethel Barrett For The Children Vol. 3

This lady scares me. She has angry eye brows and she's not smiling. This is the kind of woman who looks like she'd beat her kids with a wooden spatula. Also, it took me forever to figure out what the hell was peeking out from under her dress. It's her stinky toes! The only way I figured that out was by realizing that this woman still had her legs. I initially thought her dress was a round throw rug. 

Also, what's with her earrings? They look like 3v coin cell batteries. Perhaps that's why she appears to have a shockingly evil look on her face.

Anyway, most of the stories on this record are bible stories. I would recommend reading the bible instead of listening to her interpret them for you. However, there is one story on here that isn't from the bible. It's a story of how she and her cousin were left at home as young children (which is thankfully illegal now) and how they decided to defend themselves against a burglar by getting Ethel's dad's gun (which is also thankfully illegal now). The story would have been much more interesting if there was blood shed, and Ethel looks like she's perfectly capable of it.

Listen to What Are You Afraid Of


The Wiebe Family - Send The Light

Oh look! It's the Christian sunset again! I have to wonder if there's a particular mindset when choosing this for an album cover, or if it's a requirement of a particular religion? Here, let's see if I can make my own sunset album cover...

Wow, I should contract my work out to everyone in the Christian Wheat Belt.

According to the cover, this is the stereo version of the album. I would have been much happier with the mono version.

This album is full of organ, accordian, bass guitar, and people who can't fucking sing. Surprisingly, I can't hear any male voices on this recording. They were probably hard at work making the album cover. If I were to give the Wiebe family a piece of advice, it would be to hire better singers for their next album.

Listen to Send The Light

Listen to Will There Be Any Stars


The Stutzman Sisters - It's Raining

It's raining men! Or maybe boys. Or maybe chastity belts.

This is a very clean, well-produced sounding album. The artwork is well done, the liner notes are informative (except for a lack of release year), and it's almost worthy of getting tossed into the trash for being too mundane and mediocre for this blog. However, the youngest Stutzman sister (who is five years old) made one appearance on the album, and it's the most disgusting song that no child should be singing. We'll get to that in a moment...

Three of the four websites listed on the album are dead. Two of them show up in the Wayback machine, and they're just boring blogs that were kept by the two girls on the cover. According to the actual Stutzman website, this family has made 13 albums in total. Why aren't they more famous? You'd think they would have landed worldwide stardom by this point.

Anyway, enough yapping from me. Let's get to the filthy little number (or two numbers in this case) that should make most people cringe.

Listen to Daddy's Hands / I Want To Marry Daddy


All Together Now: 13 Songs Made Popular by The Beatles

There are only four kids on the cover, but it took 36 people to record this piece of shit.

Apparently, this is the sequel to the "All You Need is Love" album which I'm sure is in my queue box somewhere. Given how terrible this one is, I can only guess how bad the other one will be.

This album has a (2000s era) modern arrangement for these classic (and not-so-classic) Beatles songs. I like a lot of the Beatles' material, but I wouldn't exactly say I'm a die-hard fan which explains why there are some songs on here I don't know. Apparently they dug into some album cuts that the average person won't remember. However, there's plenty of well-known Beatles songs that you will no longer recognize. These songs may as well have been done by that Crazy Frog fad. If anything I would have preferred a Crazy Frog arrangement over this electronic pop-centric garbage.

There is nothing on this album that's appealing to anybody. It's fucking terrible. Why make a kid's Beatles album? Why not give them a real Beatles album? I'm sure a copy of the red or the blue album would be sufficient and much more enjoyable than this eletronic vomit-fest.

Listen to We Can Work It Out

Listen to From Me To You

Download the whole thing


We've got three stops in Winkler, but we won't get to those until 2022. The new year promises to have a plethora of more lousy finds, so fasten your seatbelts and cover your ears!

Monday, December 27, 2021

Junq Tour 2021: Carman

Welcome back to the Junq Tour! There wasn't much at the Carman thrift store, but there was enough to annoy the hell out of you.


Tom Comerford - Celtic Classics

Yup it's Irish Celtic Newfie music. On the cover, we have Tom romantically necking with his guitar. I wonder if he's going to stick anything in the hole? He also autographed this for someone apparently named "Erthee", but according to Tom's writing, his last name is spelled "Comefan" which explains a lot given the nature of the cover.

So is his music better than his writing? Well, it sounds like the Eddie Coffey garbage except genuinely more Irish. It's mediocre at best. On the plus side, he does a cover of my favourite Metallica song.

Listen to Whiskey in the Jar


Frederic Rey, Tenor / John Holland, Organ - The Lord Is My Light: Sacred Classics

You know it's a Christian album when you have the mandatory Christian sunset on the cover. What is it with the sunset? Are we waiting for the light of the Lord to go away? I wish he would have intervened when this album was being recorded. Oh wait, he did... 

The Lord commanded in the second chapter of Revelation that the right channel be cast into the abyss. As a result, there is only audio on the left channel and I was way too fucking lazy to fix it.

My CD drive also doesn't want to play the tracks near the end of the album, proving that the Lord wasn't exactly happy with this project to have it turn out so poorly.

Listen to Come Ye Blessed


The Sandersons - Tell Them All

This is probably my 7th album by a group called "The Sandersons" and they're probably all different. I guess it's a really catchy name to call your band, just like "Nirvana" and "Saga". Unfortunately, this sounds nothing like any of the Nirvana and Saga bands in existence.

According to track 10, Apryl (the girl in the middle) is blind. It also became apparent that Apryl's surname is NOT "Sanderson". I find it quite shameful that the Sandersons exploited Apryl's disability in this fashion. I honestly think that Apryl's talent stands on it's own merit. That being said, I would like to congratulate Apryl on being the first truly talented disabled person to appear on Classical Gas Emissions. It only took 14 years! Unfortunately, Apryl wasted her voice on a lot of really crappy songs. Fortunately, she will have a chance to redeem herself since this isn't her last appearance on this Junq Tour. Stay tuned...

After listening to this album, it's clear that Apryl is the true star here. Jim Sanderson sounds like my grandmother would have if she didn't die back in 1996 (she would be 108 years old today.) Kate Sanderson's only talent on this album is telling everybody that Apryl is disabled. If you ask me, Kate is the one who's disabled with her lack of musical talent and her idiocy.

Listen to He Pours His Love On Me

Listen to What Won't Be There

Listen to What's Your Gift


The Sandersons - Just Who We Are

Guess what? This is almost the same album as the last one except Jim is singing it all and doesn't get any better. If you need to get a Sandersons album, don't buy this piece of shit. It's hard for me to admit, but the other one is a lot better.

Fortunately, we can still enjoy Jim singing about getting covered in Jesus juice.

Listen to He Pours His Love On Me


When we get to Morden, we'll be visiting a brand new store which is bigger and better than the other expensive piece of crap store that I didn't bother stopping at.

Sunday, December 12, 2021

Worst Christmas Ever

 We interrupt the Junq Tour to bring you Christmas music. Sorry. This probably marks one of the worst Christmas entries I've done to date. Again, sorry. 


Flo Price - Christmas 2020: The Return of Orion and Myah

Yes! We have a record released in 1984 that predicted the worst Christmas of the 21st century! Instead of a worldwide pandemic that kills thousand of people and destroys the world's economy, we have a kid accidentally time travelling and getting lost in Bethlehem after aliens visit the planet. The Christians finally got one of their prophecies right.

You can't ask for a vinyl record to age worse than this. However, the record talks about a "chip deficiency" which is a genuine problem the world is having as of this writing. Tech product releases are experiencing delays, both in the professional and in the hobbyist world due to chip shortages. There are also vinyl shortages causing problems with music releases, so melting this album down and using it for the latest Megadeth release isn't out of the question.

One of the kids on this record brags that he's getting a 1024k Tangerine computer with a universal interface. I knew Tangerine computers existed (and were originally released in 1979 with 48k of RAM), but they are quite rare. 1024 kilobytes of RAM is a bit low for the tech-savvy world we currently live in.

As for the kids travelling back to bible times, they discover that the people from the bible speak perfectly clear English as opposed to Hebrew. The kids also apparently know what Micah looks like. This record is a flaming pile of horse shit every way you look at it.

The album is mainly filled with music, so I made an edited version that only has the dialogue. It's nearly a whole eight minutes long. I've had farts last longer than this story.

Listen to the dialogue

Download the whole album


Boxcar Newfie - Merry Christmas

The funny thing about Boxcar Newfie is that he doesn't really play Newfie music which is somewhat a relief. Perhaps there is hope for the music scene in Newfoundland since this album isn't the worst thing I've ever heard, although I'm fairly certain Boxcar had a few drinks before recording Jingle Bells. I'm pretty sure that drunkenness is more of a given than an exception in Newfoundland.

In the insert, Boxcar Newfie begs you to collect his five other releases. The fact that he has five other albums (one of which I have) proves that he's yet another music making machine that I need to start covering on this site.

Listen to Jingle Bells 


Kris's Khristmas Karols 2004 - Hey, Join the Fuckin' Club

I covered a bunch of these back in 2018. It seems that I had accidentally left one behind, so I'm presenting it here. Again, these are just mix CDs with interesting pictures and liner notes. Apparently someone's car got stolen and it was really worth remembering. Here are scans of all the custom artwork.


Maryam Malak - Christmas Essentials

I honestly thought this woman's name was Daryam, given that the first letter of her name looks like a letter D on the cover. I can't exactly figure out how that fucking thing is supposed to look like a letter "M". She should have called herself "Dayam Makeup" after giving herself the Tammy Faye treatment. As for the cover photo, it's pretty easy to tell who took it.

This album was sealed. It also came in a slim case which makes the packaging a bit unusual. Daryam put a high gloss sticker on the back featuring a picture of herself wearing too much fucking makeup, and a track listing, showing that the album includes the essential Christmas songs "Rockin Around" and "O Holly Nigth"

In case you're wondering, no that's not a Spanish accent. That's just her having difficulty singing due to the weight of the makeup on her face.

Listen to Rockin Around


Ecole Powerview School - Winter Wonderland

This one was sealed, and I shamefully opened it up and unleashed the atrocious noise that was contained within. This is by far the worst Christmas album I've ever listened to. The credits list Cindi Cain as being the vocal coach. Cindi Cain was a Canadian country singer who released one album in the 1980s. She also has a sister who dated my cousin. The fact that this album turned out so fucking terrible makes me question both Cindi's ability to sing and her ability to teach singing. Every other album I've covered in the past year is better than this garbage. I'll take my criticism back if I find out that this is a school for the deaf and hard of hearing.

If the children at this school genuinely don't have hearing problems, then I have to question the teachers. What teacher in their right mind said, "These kids sound great! We should put them on an album and we'll sell a million copies so we can refurbish the gymnasium!" Christian schools are much better at teaching their kids to sing, but they probably beat them with meter sticks.

I hope that you guys burn yourselves copies of this album and bring them to gatherings with family that you don't like. Tell them that this is Canada proud. Tell them that this is a Cindi Cain Christmas album. Tell them that your kid is singing on it. Hell, tell them that YOU are singing on it. If anybody throws up while listening to this album, be happy that it's not at your house.

Listen to Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Listen to Jingle Bells

Download the whole thing


Well, that covers Christmas for this year! I'm going to probably just work on Junq Tour entries and put them in queue until after Christmas. Until then, I wish you the very best and I'll be more than happy to torture you after the holidays.

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Junq Tour 2021: Brandon (Value Village)

It's taken a bit to get this one out, but I'm happy to announce that I'm officially writing this from my new workspace! This is only one of four "stations" in this room The other three are for repairs, retro computers, and recording music, all of which haven't been set up yet. There's still a long way to go before this room is tweaked to my liking (and the window needs some trim), but I'm quite happy with it so far. Anyway, let's get to the last entry for day one of the Junq Tour...


Peter Appleyard - Vibes

So here's a riddle... What do you get when you throw a Canadian Xylophonist into a Pickwick recording studio? You get a song about me! Seriously, there's a song called "Ben" on here and yes, it's the Michael Jackson one. I would heavily qualify this album as a necessity for any television studio who has moments of "technical difficulties". The xylophone will soothe the viewer's anger at missing their favourite episode of Bonanza while the A/V technician is trying to pull the episode out of the VTR that just ate the fucking thing.

Apparently this album was previously released under the title "The Lincolnshire Poacher", but the album looked way too British to qualify for the Canadian Talent Library (they use the word "talent" very loosely over there), so instead, they took a picture of colored lights, because that's way more Canadian than an Englishman with his horse.

Again, this is "technical difficulties" music. I guess it takes talent to make music this mundane.

Listen to Ben


A Giant Leap of Faith Vol 3

This CD has all the ingredients to indicate that it's a Christian compilation, but the songs and bands don't appear to be Christian. The previous two volumes are listed on Discogs and surprisingly, the first volume was released on a vinyl LP.

There is a lot of influence here from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Many of these bands try their hand at funk rock, but they really shouldn't. The best thing about this CD is the song by Blind Caddy who seemingly try to sound like U2, but are much better because Bono is pleasantly absent.

Listen to Are You Ready to Party by Vivid

Listen to Alone by Weasel

Listen to State Side Smile by Blind Caddy


Scott Cooper - Strumming

What a stunning album cover! I'll bet that one took days to come up with. Here, let's see if I can duplicate this genius...

Nope, doesn't even come close. This cover took three people to make.

Here's a picture of Scott scratching his head, wondering why Dave didn't "dig" this CD.

Surprisingly, Scott's website is still up and running although it hasn't been updated in the last six years. If you have nothing going on for six years, it's time to put the costs of the website toward getting a new life.

Scott had one of his albums released on vinyl, so I went to check out the record label who released it and see about buying a copy. It turns out the record label was actually just a cafe who closed its doors in 2020. I'm willing to bet all of Scott's vinyl records are either in the trash, or he took them back and has all of them hanging on his wall to remind him that he was once a successful musician signed to a place where you can get cheese toast.

I'll bet that Crosley turntable adds brilliance and depth to Scott's music. Looks like he kept two coins handy to put on the head shell to prevent that piece of shit from skipping.

Most of the music on here is boring, but Scott has released what I would consider to be one of the worst love songs I've ever heard. I'm pretty sure the girl he wrote this for would get a restraining order after hearing the lyric "your love is way better for me than crack".

Listen to Touch


Music & Forklore Assoc. of Eastman Inc. Proudly Presents Rural Roots #1

Hey look! It's the last profitable thing that Kodak ever made!

This is a compilation of people drunk on different kinds of alcohol who decided to play music. There is one good song on here and the rest ranges from bad to awful. You have yodelling, casio, Kermit the Frog, an old man, and really bad guitar playing all on one cassette. There is also a sticker on the inside that explains some errors that need to be corrected on the inlay. All of these probably contributed to the ultimate failure of Eastman Kodak. The only good song on here is "I Need a Man". The rest should have been flushed down the toilet.

Listen to My Swiss Moonlight Lullaby by Stan Kula

Listen to I Need a Man by Angela Fiebelkorn

Download the whole thing


This brings a close to day one of the Junq Tour. I've come to the conclusion that I won't be done posting Junq Tour entries until sometime in the new year which is likely due to both getting my workspace all finished and the sheer volume of garbage I acquired this year. Hopefully things will move a bit faster now that I have somewhere decent to bang away at my keyboard and destroy my stereo equipment with bad music.

Friday, November 12, 2021

Junq Tour 2021: Brandon (Superthrift)

Every time I walk out of this thrift store, I'm usually carrying a real gem covered by feces. This year was no exception. There's a lot of content here, so let's get to it...


Ronnie Prophet - Prophet Pickin'

I have absolutely no clue why I plucked this one from the massive pile of records. Perhaps it was my assumption that he was some religious guy, or maybe it was the fact that it was on "Prophet Records", but my God, what a stellar record! It's weird and wonderful guitar-centric music and I absolutely love it! There's a fantastic version of Wildwood Flower on here, and a really trippy cover of Ghost Riders in the Sky.

Apparently, he's a Canadian who ended up on the island of misfit performers (Branson, Missouri). He probably got kicked off for being too talented. This guy is like a cross between a Canadian Jimi Hendrix and Mike Oldfield. He did all the multitracking himself and the guy can certainly play guitar. He also added some weird effects to some of the tracks, but instead of making it sound like garbage, it adds to the charm of this record.

Ronnie Prophet died in 2018 and this album is long out of print, so I have shamelessly made the whole thing available for download. This one is going into my personal collection.

Listen to Ghost Riders In The Sky

Download the whole thing


The Rock 'N' Roll Circus

Yup, it's a fucking circus alright, and all of the members scribbled on the cover. Apparently, this record belonged to Cec & Linda who were lucky enough to escape from the circus, but not without taking a few souvenirs with them.

Yup, they got an undated poster and a post card. They probably stole some hotel towels too. On the plus side, I have a new poster for my bedroom! Taco meat will be in my nightmares.

So, let's talk a bit about this one. They had enough money to print all these inserts, but fuck putting a track listing on the back of the album. It's completely blank. Also, although this band would qualify for the island of misfit bands, these guys were apparently in London, England. You poor Brits had to put up with this shit? And lastly, they look like leftovers from the Doobie Brothers and Peter Frampton's backing band.

This album is full of cornball covers from the 50s and 60s. It's exactly how you'd expect those songs to sound in the 1970s - campy and sweaty.

Listen to the Everly Brothers Medley

Listen to Runaway


Angela Kelman - Cafe Brasilia

Ever feel like songs like "To Sir With Love" and "My Cherie Amour" are way too fucking exciting for listening? Not to worry, Angela sucked the life out of them for you. The insert of this CD is absolutely blank. No booking information, no thanking God, no fuck you, just selling itself on Angela's bad hair dye job. We have some flowers on the back, but we can get better ones from the Henrietta & Merna video.

Note to self: Don't visit Cafe Brasilia, wherever the hell that is.

Listen to To Sir With Love

Listen to My Cherie Amour


Vern Durksen - What a Healing Jesus

Looks like it's karaoke night at the funeral home!

I'm trying to figure out how to read the title. Here are some possible ways...

"What? A Healing Jesus?" 

"What a healing Jesus!" 

"What a healing, Jesus"

"What a piece of shit, Jesus"

Vern Durksen is like the Bette Midler of gospel music; Kinda boring and kinda shitty. The only difference is Vern is old and kind of annoying. Oh wait, that's also Bette Midler.

Listen to Serenaded by Angels


Dave, Duane & Neil - One Nation Over God (or Together Again!)

How many old men does it take to make a shitty gospel album? Well, the answer is apparently three.

On the album cover, we seem to have a combination of the mandatory religious sunrise, some jail bars, and a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding a cross instead of a torch. Who the fuck came up with that idea? They need to stop taking their old person medication which is obviously messing with their brains.

Surprisingly, their website is still up and you can buy this album, their other album, or their live DVD which seemingly has more attendees than a Travis Scott concert.

The baritone is laughably bad. It's like listening to a Ween song with Gene's voice slowed down, but even funnier because you know damn well that he's trying to sound like that to sexually energize all the old grannies in the nursing home. Time for some new depends, ladies!

Listen to Set Me On The Rock, Joshua

Listen to The Place of Prayer


Mollie B - A Song For Everyone

As I look at the track listing, I fail to see a song for me. I shall go into the corner and cry.

This is a crappy jazz album featuring standard jazz numbers such as "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", "I Fall To Pieces" and "Rainbow Connection". I really don't have a problem with someone covering a song by Kermit The Frog, but can't you at least make it just as magical (if not moreso) than the original? I also have to admit that "Rainbow Connection" is the only reason I bought this damn CD, and I hate it.

Listen to Rainbow Connection


Deborah - Soteria

Yes! We're finally getting to some Christian Death Metal! The first time I ever heard Christian Death Metal was when I performed in a battle of the bands competition. I honestly didn't know Christian Death Metal existed and was astounded that some idiot thought it was a good idea. Here I am, twenty some-odd years later, and I'm still astounded that it exists. This kind of music goes well with growling about Satan, but growling about your love for Jesus? How the fuck does that work?

When this album started, I was actually enjoying it's heavy fast-paced guitars and drum beat. The singer is always the one who makes or breaks the song, and Deborah broke the fuck out of it. Yes, it's a female growling about how much she loves Jesus. She sounds more like she shoved in her tampon too far and is choking on it.

In case you don't believe this is a Christian band, here's the lyrics to the song in the forthcoming link...

This CD was brand new in the cellophane. I took it out, looked at it, and it's got a big fucking scratch on it. How the hell does that happen? Usually that happens when the retainer in the case is broken, but the retainer is fine. It just came pre-scratched. I'm guessing it was the work of Satan. Anyway, I had a problem extracting the first song (which is ten fucking minutes long), so I copied it manually by playing it in my CD player. It took me a while to realize that the damn thing was skipping because much of the song sounds like it was already skipping. I don't think any of you will cry at my failure to extract all ten minutes.

Listen to Soteria


Quest Musique Recitals 2011

This is a three DVD set. I figured it was just some local bands or some shitty musicals, but holy fuck what a monstrosity this one turned out to be! Talent is far and few between, and most of this is mediocre to horribly awful covers of classic songs. There's some really boring stuff on here, but you know I'm gonna filter all that shit out. Quest Musique is a music store in Winnipeg, and because I'm a musician myself, I've made multiple purchases from there in the past and will continue to do so. It's a very good music store! I'm guessing that they give music lessons, but given how awful this DVD set is, I wouldn't be broadcasting that.

I'm bringing you a total of 14 videos that range from one excellent performance to a whole pile of dog shit. Let's get to it...


Angeline The Baker

I feel really bad for this poor girl. You can pinpoint the minute that she starts holding back the tears because she knows how much she sucks at the violin. Her evil parents were probably trying to shove the violin down her throat and all she wants to do is play with Barbie dolls. This violin performance is worse than nails on a chalk board


Rocket Queen (Guns N' Roses cover)

This kid is YOUNG, but he's doing a pretty good job at beating the piss out of those drums. I also had to ask... What the hell is a kid this young doing listening to Rocket Queen by Guns N' Roses? Then I remembered that I was probably about his age when Appetite for Destruction came out and all my classmates were listening to Rocket Queen. If you didn't know, there is audio of Axl Rose and a woman named Adriana Smith having sex during the break of the song.


Little Bones (Tragically Hip cover)

The Tragically Hip is on the list of my two most hated bands (the other is Meat Loaf). I genuinely can't stand listening to them, and they play them on the radio all the time here in Canada. I'm a pretty terrible Canadian by definition; I don't like coffee (or anything from Tim Hortons), I have absolutely no desire to watch hockey, I'm not French, and I don't like the Tragically Hip. However, I would take any recording by The Tragically Hip over this absolutely horrible cover of one of their songs. It's so bad that even Youtube can't figure out what it is.


Have Faith In Me (A Day To Remember cover)

I've never heard of this band, but here's some girl who can't sing them very well.


I Want To Hold Your Hand (Beatles cover)

This guy thinks he's gonna sit under the bedroom window of a girl he like and play this shit. He'll be lucky if she doesn't drop a sofa on his head.


Bye Bye Blackbird (Miles Davis cover)

Well, since it's Jazz, I guess she doesn't have to sing in time (or on key)


Star Wars Theme

Someone needs to use this for a Star Wars parody on Youtube. If you do, have at 'er!


Aces High (Iron Maiden cover)

Rolling, turning, diving... It's like watching a truck fall off a bridge. On the plus side, the kid on bass is kinda cool. The singer needed to throw his vocal cords in the garbage after this one.


Tom Sawyer (Rush cover)

If you ever wanted to hear the whiniest Geddy Lee impersonation that ever existed, this is it. The best part of this video is the drummer. The guy beats the piss out of those things. Neil Peart would be proud!


Don't Stop Believin' (Journey cover)

This is the worst one on here. It's also one of those "so bad it's good" videos. I've watched it over and over, and I never get tired of how awful it is. The girl singing is giving it the fucking diva treatment, and it fails really badly. Half of the guitar player's hand has fallen asleep and is tripping all over the strings. It's just pure crap at it's finest.


American Woman (Guess Who cover)

Okay, fuck the guitar solo, fuck singing in time, fuck playing in time. Youtube hasn't figured out what this is either.


Bad Medicine (Bon Jovi cover)

Hey look! I guess the singer from Aces High didn't throw his vocal cords in the garbage after all, but he's still not great. The kid on drums is pretty cool and the girl on bass is just so fucking chill. It's interesting watching all of these misfits performing together.


Love Story (Taylor Swift cover)

This one doesn't sound bad when it starts. To be honest, the first girl actually seems to have a spark of talent. Then the girl who sang in the Journey video comes in and fucks it all up. Thanks a lot.


Poker Face (Lady Gaga cover)

I decided to end this one on a positive note. This version of "Poker Face" is sung by two girls who are sisters, and they're very talented. I could listen to this all day.


We have one more stop in Brandon, and I'll be getting to that after I move all my shit into my new work space. Yes, it's all done, and I'll be posting pictures of the glorious mess. It's become evident that I'll have to invest some cupboards for some of my junk. I suppose that will come in due time.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Trick Or Treat, I'd Rather Smell Your Feet

Halloween is upon us, and I actually have some content this year. I think I could classify this as more revolting than scary, but I'll let you be the judge of that one. Let's get to it...


Drew's Famous - Kids Halloween Sing-a-long

I covered this last year on the Junq Tour, except with a different cover. This is how we fund Drew's drinking habit.


Drew's Famous - Kids Pop Halloween Songs

Should have been called "Kids Poop Halloween Songs". This CD came in the wrong case, although it's another Drew's Lamous album so it doesn't really fucking matter. We have some more kids singing on this one. Just like the previous one, there are absolutely no effects on the kid's voices. Apparently the only thing Drew was mixing that day was screwdrivers.

There are some repeats on this one (like the Addams Family theme), but we have some new garbage as well. Michael Jackson heavily rotates in his grave every time this copy of Thriller is played. You can tell that this was an older recording with the children's singing sloppily mixed over top. The Mini Pops are more professionally recorded than this shit. 

You also get the already terrible song Elvira, made even more terrible with the singing kids.

"Remember kids, Crown Royal over crowning achievement!" - Drew

Listen to Thriller

Listen to Walk Like an Egyptian

Listen to Elvira


Drew's Famous - Sounds of Fear

Bad sound effects. I mean these are REALLY bad. You can get a 3 CD collection of stuff pulled off old records that is more realistic and usable over this garbage. What an absolute fucking waste of money. The purchase of this CD buys Drew another bottle of scotch.

Wicked Ax: Someone changing channels on an old TV.

Run: Someone breathing into a microphone cupped in their hand. I made that sound effect when I was a kid.

Let It Burn: Motorcycle

The Black Cat: Someone fucking around on a synthesizer with the treble turned down

Bone Appetite: Same as Black Cat

Monster Walks: Same as Black Cat

Out of Time: Same as Black Cat


Horror Sounds of the Night

I'm pretty sure this is one of those cassettes you used to be able to get at the dollar store. They came in a bubble with a carboard backing and no case. To make it even more cheap, they just used an old Lloyds record and cassette combo stereo and recorded sound effects from a couple of  scratchy old sound effects records from the 1950s. It doesn't get any more low budget than this. On the plus side, the sound effects are much more high quality than that Drew's Lamous shit.

I've decided to not include the whole thing, but I'm going to share a snippet of it. The sound effect of the woman screaming sounds like she's being raped. The sound effect of the cats meowing sound like a woman being raped while making cat noises. I genuinely find it disturbing listening to this stuff.

Listen to Horror Sounds of the Night


Well, that wraps up another Halloween being ruined. Stay tuned for the continuation of the Junq Tour!

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Junq Tour 2021: Brandon (MCI)

Another visit to the expensive Brandon thrift store! Well, at least the CDs are expensive, and I honestly never see any that are worth more than 50 cents. It's all crap, but I hand-picked a few titles for us to try and enjoy...


Bob King - What Can You Sing

Bob King likes to pop up on the blog every once in a while, and I honestly never know what I'm going to get from him. This album actually has some very good songs on it! They're actually good enough that I'm putting this one into my personal collection.

The song "It's Fun To Be Ukrainian" is absolutely marvellous. My background is Ukrainian, and this could certainly be my theme song.

The Winkler Song is also fantastic. Everyone in Manitoba has been shitting on the town of Winkler for their avoidance of vaccines and not co-operating with all the lockdown stuff. This song brings some much needed respect back to the people of Winkler. It's also catchy as hell.

The Dance of Ecstasy is one of the prettiest songs I've ever heard, even though it's not really about anything. It's sung by Bob's daughters, and I'm glad Bob made the choice to hand the vocal duties over to them. It's easily the best song on the album.

Now don't get me wrong, this album is far from perfect. There's some mundane crap on here, but the good songs really made this one worth more than fifty cents. I've passively reviewed Bob before, but this one makes him stand out a bit more. Good job, Bob!

The back of the insert states that I'll have a curse put on me for putting any of these songs up for download and that I'm not a very nice person for doing so. I already know I'm an asshole, so I welcome the curse for openly promoting a decent album by some guy named Bob.

Listen to It's Fun To Be Ukrainian

Listen to The Winkler Song

Listen to The Dance of Ecstasy


Country Blend - Remembering Country Women

It's Joan McKay! She makes her usual Junq Tour appearance with the usual group of old hacks. The other old bags singing are mediocre at best, but Joan's piano banging always makes me happier than a woman who's done menopause. I'm giving you a couple of the most upbeat songs on this tape to bring a little joy to this entry. I guarantee that won't last.

The most fucked up thing about this tape is that it was released by Silver Streams. Everything else I've reviewed on Silver Streams has been complete garbage. Joan McKay deserves to be on a better record label. The audio quality is kinda crummy, but I'd boil that down to Silver Streams trying to avoid making this the best album in their catalog.

Listen to Blue Moon of Kentucky

Listen to Alabama Jubilee


Arnie - Plunging In Again

After ten years or so, I'm back with an actual copy of Arnie's "Plunging In Again" where he plays his polkas and waltzes with a toilet plunger and coat hanger, and it's just as well because the sound quality on this album sounds like a toilet clogged with shit. Most of the songs sound the same on here, so I just picked one at random.

Chinese Breakdown


Ian R. Johnstone - Dear Mr. Johnstone

Give a man a fishing pole and he'll eat for a day. Give an idiot a banjo and he'll automatically think he's a children's entertainer. Mr. Johnstone (featuring Abbey Yo Yo!) is obviously very proud that he made an album because he boasted about it on the back. Also, Abbey Yo Yo isn't a person, but a story written by Pete Seeger. Also, Abbey Yo Yo is supposed to be spelled "Abiyoyo". Everything is kind of a mess, just like the album cover.

There's a fucking rant in the middle of "Puff The Magic Dragon" (another story written by another guy named Pete). The rant is about growing up and not wanting to playing with dragons. I wish that Mr. Johnstone would realize that sometimes leaving songs in their original form actually benefits the listeners, like he did with the song "Take Me Home Country Roads" which I found surprisingly decent.

My mother used to sing the song "I Know An Old Lady" to me when I was a kid. Listening to it now, it's an absolutely morbid song. However, Mr. Johnstupid adds in some laughing, sound effects and over-enthusiasm to try making it less morbid. It doesn't work. The old lady still dies at the end.

Listen to I Know An Old Lady


Papa John's Musical Garden

We have a really nice Christian children's cassette to review. You'd think that the Lord would want to preserve the works of his faithful followers, but this cassette has gone sticky and is quite unplayable. My Pioneer deck made it sound like the work of Satan. This is one of the many reasons why I hate cassettes, especially ones made in the early 1980s. I saw a vinyl copy of this during the Junq Tour, but passed on picking it up because I had already purchased this copy which is stickier than a child's hands after finding grandma's collection of expired candy. Luckily, I was able to get a decent copy from my Jana deck which I had done a full restoration on. The motor had enough torque to drag the tape past the playback heads.

Anyway, this tape is really annoying and I can't really blame the Pioneer deck for not wanting to play it. There appears to be a really bad splice in the theme song which is on the master recording and not the cassette. They would have been better off leaving the whole fucking thing on the cutting room floor.

Listen to Garden Song - Theme

Listen to my Pioneer deck struggle with the tape


Counterpoint

Every go by someone's counter and hurt yourself on the corner? That's why this band is named "Counterpoint". Your first encounter with it is painful.

There is a fine line between acapella music and barber shop music. I've discovered that I'd rather listen to a whole album of acapella music instead of this shit. The barber needs to aim his blade a little lower and cut out some vocal cords.

Listen to Old Man River


Sing-A-Long Golden Oldies

Aaaah!! It's blindingly yellow!

Ever listen to an album and wonder if there was actually a human involved in making it? This is one of those albums. I swear all of this shit is just pre-programmed garbage sitting on the microchips of a Kawai organ. Push a button, it plays, everybody is miserable.

The musical arrangements are by Doreen Stapleton. That's it. Nobody else. She probably pressed the play button on the Kawai, recorded it to tape, and called it a day. How lazy can you get?

Listen to Five Foot Two


The Fugitives - Music at Heart

Hey! I know these guys! I reviewed them 12 years ago on this lemon of an album:

It's sad that I've been listening to the worst music ever created for the past 12 years. Anyway...

One side has of this album has instrumentals, and the other side has vocals performances which would have been better left as instrumentals. They still can't sing.

While Mr. Johnstone was able to make a decent performance of "Country Roads", The Fugitives decided to take a shit all over it. They're just as crappy as I remembered them from 12 years ago.

Listen to Country Roads


Book: Rainbow Garden

Initially, this book appeared to have no dialogue in it. It just seemed to be a collection of strange drawings that made you wonder what the fuck was going on. I found the dialogue in the very back of the book. I honestly tried to read it, but flipping from the dialogue to the pictures (and back again) only made me as angry as this girl:

So I figured I'd do what any sane human would do... I wrote my own story and glued all the dialogue into the pictures. I couldn't glue together a coherent story keeping the images in the correct order, so I rearranged them in an order that made sense to me. 

So I am proud to present a really fucked up story book for your enjoyment!

Download my masterpiece here!


There's even worse stuff from the next location. I've been very excited to get to it because of how down right awful it is. Fasten your seat belt because you're going for a ride to the bottom of the dumpster....

But first, we need to take care of Halloween! Sorry...