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...