Thursday, January 27, 2022

Junq Tour 2021: Plum Coulee

Take me down to Plum Coulee where the grass is green and the plums are purple! And now, here's some songs that are nowhere as good as Paradise City...

Bubba & The Bottom Feeders

Hey! What is talent doing on this CD? I mean, look at the cover. These guys should sound as shitty as their name and cover indicates. I want my money back!

They can play their instruments in time, they can sing, and the mix is decent. My only complaint is they write really lame comedy songs. If they actually put in the effort to write REAL songs, then I'd probably like this more. Apparently, this is a benefit album for people in the Banderas Bay area. I don't know what happened there, but I hope those in need got the help they needed.

On that sentiment, here's a heartfelt song for those who benefitted from the sale of this album

Listen to Asshole from Vallarta


Bobbi Lee - With Love from Mexico

New cover, same shit as one of her other albums. At least we get a disclaimer! Since this cover sucks, I can't help but wonder how bad the old cover was. Anyway, this is also a benefit album for those in the Banderas Bay area, but you wouldn't know it because Banderas is spelled incorrectly in the liner notes. Perhaps this was a scam for Bobbi to sell more albums.

Four songs are original, but they're just as bad as the covers. The sound is dull as shit and it sounds like it was recorded inside a sewer and then ran through a bad Audacity filter. We have Bob Carlson to blame for the sound quality since he was the producer. I hope Bobbi got a refund for how bad this thing sounds. On the plus side, she can sing better than Bob Dylan.

Listen to I'll Be Your Baby Tonight


MCI Vocal Ensemble 97-98 - Thank You

On the surface, this may look like a Velvet Underground & Nico tribute album, but I was unable to peel off the bananas. Talk about a lost opportunity! 

Apparently Ian Loeppky is the absolute shiznit when it comes to directing. Anything he directs turns into a banana.

Guess what? It's an acapella album! There's been a lot of these thing on this year's junq tour, and I hate each and every one of them. I didn't know any of the songs on here, so I picked the Boyz II Men song and had to search out the original because I've never had the desire to listen to Boyz II Men. Honestly, the original version is pretty fun. The MCI version is lame, but that should be expected.

Listen to Thank You


Easy T's Live - Acapella Run Amuck

Oh fucking hell, not another one. Surprisingly, it doesn't have "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" on it. However, it DOES have "Under The Boardwalk", "Stand By Me" and "My Girl" on it. Personally, I'd like to hear acapella versions of "Jesus Build My Hotrod", "Welcome to Planet Motherfucker", "Painkiller", or even "Balls To The Wall". I'm tired of the same old acapella shit.

Their version of Roy Orbison's "Only the Lonely" is atrocious. They try and make it funny, but nobody should be doing that. The song isn't supposed to be funny, but what do you expect from a bunch of wheat munchers from Brandon, Manitoba?

Listen to Only The Lonely


Call Me & Other Hits of Al Green / Super Rock: A Tribute to Al Green

Hey look! It's a collection of songs that Al did after his sex change and skin bleaching! You'd swear that his real name was Michael. Apparently, nobody could decide on what to call this thing, so they put two titles on it. Pick whichever one you like more.

In case you couldn't tell, this is a fake Al Green collection. This tape is devious because it has absolutely no mention of these being recorded by a bunch of studio musician hacks. The only clue that this is trash is the generic picture of the secretary on the cover. I can't even tell you where this secretary works since no company is mentioned on the label.

I'm not very familiar with Al Green's music. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original version of "So You're Leaging" so instead I used one of his most well known songs. After comparing it with the original version, this one is pure mushy crap.

Listen to Let's Stay Together


Marcella and Doc - The Next Generation

This must be their greatest hits album since the sound quality on the recordings are all over the map. The first two sound like they're pulled from a scratchy vinyl LP. The third song sounds like it's from a cruddy old cassette. Every song seems to make you want to guess where it was recorded. The only professionally recorded song is the last one, but it's a piece of shit country song nobody cares about. At least I can say that listening to this was an adventure!

Listen to Family Tradition

Listen to Ring of Fire


Gospel Pioneers - Thank-You Lord

Where's the cover? Did Silver Shit Streams forget to make one, or did the last owner wipe his ass with it? On the plus side, this is our second album with the phrase "Thank You" in the title. You're not fucking welcome.

The playing is bad, the singing is bad, and the songs are bad. They're all interchangeable with how awful they are. Sometimes I wonder if Silver Streams is just one crappy band who performs under a million different names. I'm honestly blown away with how much shit is in their catalog and how many idiots bought these tapes.

Listen to Home in Heaven


Martin Van Hal - Gospel Singer

He should have called himself "Martin Van Hat".

Take twelve cats running across a piano and a guy who gargles water while singing, and you get this pile of shit. I can't understand what the fuck he's singing about. As for what notes and chords are being played on the piano, I'd have to say it's all of them. This is probably the most fucked up sounding album from the entire Junq Tour.

The best part of this album is Martin's hat. However, it probably stinks as bad as this album.

Listen to Someday


DVD: Close2My [heart] Wraps

If you want to strangle your infant, then this product is for you! Here's a page from the included manual:

I have to admire this single mom for trying to start a home business making things to carry your baby around, but aren't there a ton of regulations on this shit? Everything about this DVD screams "LAWSUIT!" There's all kind of warnings angrily vomited all over the packaging. Remember, if you strangle your baby using this product, it's your fault.

Anyway, here's a couple of screenshots:

Oh look! A doggie! Why doesn't she wrap him in that thing? Dogs don't suffocate as easily as babies.


One more stop! Altona's always rich with rewards, so that's where we're headed...

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Junq Tour 2021: Winkler (Gospel Echoes)

This thrift store gets a gold star for carrying the worst albums ever released in Manitoba, the majority being on the Silver Streams label. With two valuable metals being mentioned in the same sentence, we should get to the reviews...

Paul Holmberg - Built For Glory

Looks like he's built for business in the front and a party in the back. He also looks like a reject from the Crash Test Dummies. The limited liner notes are filled with typos because apparently neither spell check nor proofreading existed in 1995. What a cave we lived in.

Paul sings like John Denver, but with worse songs and less passion. All this music sounds the bloody same which is something I absolutely detest with any album. You have an hour or so of time on a compact disc, so why don't you fill it with variety? Instead, we get the same boom-chicka-boom country shit across the whole fucking thing. The only exception is the weather report at the beginning which is the most interesting part of the album. On the plus side, he can sing and the mix is done well.

Listen to the weather report

Listen to Build My Mansion


Sharon Bethel Quartet - Home Is Where The Heart Is

It's always exciting when I pick up a sealed album because I have to wonder what horrible secrets the previous owner (if any) left locked up. Well, this one certainly had a secret it didn't want to reveal. First of all, it didn't want to open when I peeled the cellophane off. I had to pry the fucking case with a screwdriver to get it open. Then I found out why I had such a problem...

The disc was stuck to the fucking insert. Since the disc retainer was new and strong, it didn't want to let go. I'm guessing the ink on the insert was still fresh when they sealed this up, and it glued itself to the disc. Sadly, I shall never find out what interesting things needed to be said in the liner notes. However, not much needs to be said since this is another fucking acapella album. There have been way too many of these on this trip.

Listen to Then The Angels Broke The Silence


Joannie - In Memory Of

Joannie's back! We haven't seen an album from her in a long time. I thought I had covered all her albums here, but I guess she fart squeaks another one into my hands every now and then.

Joannie decided to record a new album after a couple of people in her life died. That's kinda pointless since the dead people aren't going to be around to enjoy the songs that were written about them. So how are the songs? Awful as usual. The piano player's right arm appears to be asleep. The rest of the band is so overwhelmed with Joannie's terrible outfit that they can't focus on how well they're playing their instruments. Joannie has the absolute worst taste in clothing. I can't imagine anybody else wearing the shit that she's always dressed in, unless you're in an episode of Little House on the Prairie.

Listen to Touch Me Lord


Pure Gospel Gold - Plautdietsche Leida Vol.2

This is a German album, but I bought it because it's on the Silver Streams label. I have to hand them credit, they did a really good job of adding the sound effect of someone peeing on a plastic bag throughout the whole album. I wonder if the plastic bag pee sound is also featured on volume one? I shall have to seek it out.

Now, we all must take a moment and thank Jim for the use of his guitar. Apparently the use of his guitar was so important that it needed to be mentioned in the liner notes. Without Jim, all we'd be listening to is someone peeing on a plastic bag. Too bad the person peeing on the bag isn't mentioned in the liner notes.

So here's a German version of Blue Eyes Crying in the fucking Rain. At least, that's what it sounds like.

Listen to Een Schiena Dach


Lange Family - Gospel Ship

This should have been called "Gospel Shit".

I tried to review an album by the Lange Family back in 2020, but the case had a recording of a Kevin Harcourt album in it. Since the release of Gospel Ship, the Lange family fucked like rabbits and added three more kids to their band. 

All the instruments are credited inside the album except for the drums. So who the hell is playing the drums? Is it a pirate on the gospel ship? Is it God? Is it Kevin Harcourt? Regardless of who it is, they're a terrible drummer and they seem to speed up as they play.

Listen to Gospel Ship


Teichroeb Family - Harvest Wind

Apparently, the Teichroeb family wanted to go take a picture in the forest, but we all know forests are extinct so they had to be photoshopped into a picture of a forest. I'm guessing that Silver Streams did the photoshopping themselves since they seem to have a knack for doing shitty work.

The quality of the album cover is a good indication of what the music sounds like - poorly done. If you didn't know it was a Christian album, you'd think it was an album about a passionate night of sex. It features songs such as "Somebody Touched Me", "Forever on my Knees", "He Holds Me in His Hand", and "Somebody's Knocking". I'm guessing "Harvest Wind" is another way of describing a pussy fart.

Listen to Somebody Touched Me

Listen to Forever On My Knees

Listen to Somebody's Knocking


Wally Whitehead - I'll Not Be Defeated

What the fuck happened to his guitar? Oh wait, he's Wally Whitehead. That's pimple puss all over it.

It's not often we get to experience truck driver Christian music, but here it is in all it's glory. Wally half talks and half sings his way through every song. He appears to have eaten the reverb unit since there are no effects on his vocals.

Sadly, Wally was in fact defeated when he died in 2015. All we have is this shitty album to remember him by.

Listen to Jesus Is The Sweetest Person Name I Know

Download the whole thing!


The Penners - Ekj Jleijch Tom Saajen To Senne


Silver Streams apparently doesn't give a fuck if they forget the letter "s" at the end of the word "streams". It's that, or "Silver Stream" is a subsidiary of "Silver Streams". The most likely answer is that the people at Silver Streams don't give a shit if they spell their record label's name correctly.

This album is in German, but it doesn't mean you can't pick out the people in the family with no talent. Don't they tune their instruments? Don't they tune their women? What in the hell is this barf-fest of noise? Didn't anybody (including the "engineers" at Silver Stream) lean over to the dipshits playing the guitars and say "You both need to go home because you and your Mickey Mouse guitars are ruining everything"? I'm pretty sure most people would remove this tape from their deck and smas it with a hammer. I'd seriously love to know how much Silver Stream charged their customers for this awful piece of trash.

Listen to Jesus Muak Mie Loos

Listen to Ekj Woa Horchen


Book: Avoiding Drugs

The joke's on Walmart... The happy face is covering the bong. Anyway, this book has some pretty fun pictures in it, so let's take a look...

Tommy isn't getting an inheritance because cigarettes cost $16 per pack. Judging from that ashtray, there's about $40 in there.

Sue's aunt was good friends with Bill Cosby too.

Sue needs to put her magic sparkly hat back on to make her headache go away. She also needs another Rolling Rock to wash down her pride.

How many drunken Aunts does Sue have? Also, with a glass that full, why isn't she just drinking straight from the bottle?

These are real situations that every child on the planet is put through on a weekly basis. Therefore, here's some great answers that won't get you beat up or laughed at.


After checking all the audio files to make sure they work, I realize how sad the country music genre is. So many of these songs sound the same! Anyway, that's it for Winkler. We still have a couple more stops before the end of the Junq Tour. Next, we'll be visiting Plum Coulee! Wheee!!!

Saturday, January 8, 2022

Junq Tour 2021: Winkler (MCC & Superthrift)

There weren't enough worthy albums from either store for a whole entry each, so I stacked one pile of shit on top of another and it stinks.

MCC

CFAM Radio 950 Altona: Made in Manitoba

This apparently came from the radio station CFAM in Altona. I recently switched jobs and now have a career in the Christian Wheat Belt, and they play this station at work. Honestly, I would prefer listening to someone chewing a handful of bolts, but they occasionally play something decent.

The tracks are split up according to where they put commercial breaks, so there's a pile of songs jammed into one track, causing me to work harder to extract audio. The first performer on this disc is Cate Friesen who is surprisingly decent, although I wouldn't exactly be rushing out to buy her album. However, she's talented enough to be put into the "good" category.

The other performer is Ray Kuran, and I posted about one of his albums here. He is perfectly mediocre enough for me to skip over.

Listen to Broken Ship by Cate Friesen


Maxell 8mm Videocassette

So what does twenty five cents get you at a thrift store in the Christian Wheat Belt? Pornography! The person who recorded this aimed their camcorder at their television and recorded the smut channel. The video quality is absolute garbage, but I suppose someone enjoyed this tape. We shall have a more in-depth look on this tape a bit later...


Dolores - Precious Memories

Dolores decided to jumpstart her music career by singing along to a bunch of karaoke tracks. She also seemingly put a recording of her singing as a child on the first track. It's a bit jarring when you hit play and hear this child yelling her song at you. Whoever cleaned up the first track made a mess of it. They ran it through a billion filters and it sounds like she's singing at the bottom of a sewer, which is right where this CD belongs.

Other songs on this album include Don't You Wanna Go Do That In Me, I Wanna Know How It Feels In The Sweet By and By. I may have forgotten some commas in that previous sentence. The song "Do That In Me" sounds identical to the original by Sarah Delane. Sarah sings it better, but it's still a stupid song. Regardless, both women want it done in them, so I combined Dolores's performance with some footage from that 8mm video tape and made a music video! Perhaps this will help kickstart Dolores's career in singing and/or pole dancing.

Listen to Jesus Loves Me

Listen to Do That In Me

Or watch the music video:


Superthrift

Bobby Bowen - 20 Years of Christian Country

Bobby Bowen has been performing Christian music for 20 years, and there isn't even a good song to show for it. What a waste of time. Some of these don't even sound like country songs. They're more like bad R&B music from the early 1980s. The rest of it is just cheesy country music. I was hoping that Bobby has moved on and found something that he's actually good at, but according to his website he's dragged his whole family down his music shit hole. Thanks to Bobby and his stubbornness to give up on his lousy music career, this blog keeps going and I don't think anybody likes that.

Listen to That's My Child


Lindsay Dueck - I Love Katie

Imagine my disappointment when I cracked the seal on this CD and discovered it only has one fucking song on it. It's about some religious kid named Katie stuck in the hospital who is apparently more important than Jesus, and therefore we should all love like Katie. I have so many questions... Who the fuck is Katie? Was she real? Why is she in the hospital? Did she ever get better? Did she actually want a crappy song written about her? Did the proceeds from this CD go to her? If she was real, I genuinely hope she got better. I also hope that she hated the song as much as I do.

Listen to I Love Katie


We have one more thrift store to cover in Winkler, and it's caked in silver and streaming shit. We'll be back...