American English Linguaphone Record

After a short break, it feels great to be writing in here again!

A few months back, I picked up an interesting record for 49 cents. This record is made by a company called "Linguaphone" which specializes in aids for learning new languages. Obviously, this one was to aid the student in learning English.

There's two things that make it odd. First of all, it must have been recorded sometime in the 1950s. Life isn't quite like the way it was back then! The second is the stories that the voice actors go through. They're completely unbelievable, and there is almost nothing for emotion in their voices!

So let us enjoy three of the best selections from this thing...

Car Trouble
Thank god for the crank when the battery fails!

Buying Cigarettes
Can't leave that one out! Six cigars, two pack of cigarettes, flints, and a box of matches for under five bucks.

A Visit To The Doctor
This guy should be fucking dead! Instead of admitting him to the hospital, he's been told to eat vegetables and take a nap.

Yes, this record has been brought to you by the most educational blog in Canada. Now you know how to speak proper English. Good thing they don't teach you how to spell since the label is full of typos.

Junq Tour 2012: Dauphin

This is a really, really long entry which is why it took so long to post. Not only that, spring is in the air and I've been mating like rabbits. I've also been doing a major cleaning of my garage and working overtime. It's just been a very busy period for me, and you know what busy periods mean... lots of messy cleanup!

I bought a ton of stuff when I passed through Dauphin. The thrift stores were overloaded with goodies, and I've filtered out the crap I wasted my money on so I could bring you the best of the worst and the worst of the best!


Bob Brown's Orchestra (revisited)
 
I found two more of these! I picked up three of them last year when I visited the Hodge Podge in Dauphin. They've been added to the archive which you can get here.


Nebula 9 - Scream - A Collection of Modern-Gothic Works

There was a whole series of these books, but this was the only interesting one. This book contains poetry and short stories, some of which are kind of fucked up. Whoever wrote these desperately needs therapy because a perfectly sane person like myself would NEVER write anything this messed up!

 


Desiree Fox

I don't know why, but I always have a soft spot for girls with a rounder face. So yeah, I picked up this tape because I liked her face. Her clothes are kinda ugly though. I was really hoping this girl's voice was as nice as her face, but she sounds like a less talented version of Tiffany.

Anyway, this cassette of covers is extremely underwhelming and not worth posting a clip. Perhaps if she had covered "All This Time" or "I'm Not Sleeping" I could've been more forgiving.


Kevin & Marg Harcourt - Our Gospel Favorites

When I started this blog, I never thought I'd be collecting entire discographies of artists that nobody gave a shit about. This is my third entry for "Weird Kevin" Harcourt, and it's his shittiest album yet (others here and here). There's nothing remotely interesting on here except Kevin's Kermitty voice, so I'm not putting up a sound clip.


Emerson Stone

I like it! I think that's the first time I've ever written that on this blog. Seriously, it's decent music and it's catchy enough for me to enjoy.

Listen to Merry-Go-Round


The Glendys - Third Time's A Charm

Oh my fucking god! If you're looking for a singer (I wasn't) who sounds like he's got a nose full of snot and a mouth full of chewing tobacco, then you've gotta get The Glendys "Third Time's A Charm" album. After their previous albums "First Time We Were Drunk" and "Second Time We Ever Picked Up A Guitar" failed like a busted condom, they finally hit a home run. Unfortunately, they tripped and fell while running home, smashing their noses into their faces which is why the album sounds like it was recorded in 'nasal-round-sound'

So here's a Kenny Rogers cover. Poor Kenny. First the facelift, now this...

Listen to Lucille!


Aerobic Praise

Why must these Christian groups keep enforcing the thought that exercising and praising God go together well? This tape is a nightmare! In the right channel, we have the worst Christian music ever recorded. In the left channel, we have some bitch commanding us to move all over the goddam place. If one of your speakers isn't working, this cassette isn't going to be effective. You'll either be moving around the house like an idiot, or you'll kill yourself to stop the pain from this shitty praise music.

Apparently this is a second volume. The reasoning for making more than one of these albums is beyond me. Volume one probably isn't any better.

Listen to Breakaway


Buryl Red & Grace Hawthorne - It's Cool In The Furnace

This is apparently a pretty popular Christian musical about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (I can't believe I remembered how to spell those fucked up names.) The production is nice, the children can sing, and it's an all-around decent album for Christian kids. I wouldn't however recommend it to those of you who are raising your children to be Satanists. It will contradict all the values that took years to instill into your children.

Anyway, the biggest problem I have with this album is the title track. The smooth-jazz song is way too fucking long, it has minimal content for lyrics, and ends every line with the word "man" (kinda like a certain guy I know). So if you like boring and lengthy repetitive songs, this one is for you!


The Brothers In Law Strike Again

Another 'fine' release on the Arc label. As a side note, I bought Anne Murray's first album which was released on Arc. It's actually a really good folk album! Too bad she turned to crappy country music after such a great start.

Anyway, The Brothers In Law play bluegrass music and sing tongue-in-cheek lyrics about political and historical Canadian issues. I'm not too fond of bluegrass nor Canadian history, so this album doesn't have much to offer me. However, "Lullaby to a Spoiled Brat" is pretty funny, so I've put it up for you rich folk who don't understand why I buy old junk in the thrift stores. Hey, I can't understand why you buy hardwood flooring and then are afraid of scratching it. You've got the money to install it, so you MUST have the money to fix it!

Listen to Lullaby to a Spoiled Brat


Candle - The Music Machine

I bought this because it looked like someone recorded over it, so I thought it would be interesting to spend the 25 cents and find out what was on it. Unfortunately, nobody recorded over this awful Christian tape, but fear not! It doesn't play worth a damn in my machine which makes it sound like Satan is taking over their souls.

Give it a listen!


Celebrate Saskatchewan with The Panio Brothers

I very recently mentioned these guys in the Neepawa entry. I didn't think they put out any albums, but here it is in all it's 8-trackky glory. Guess what? They still suck. This album is worse than the lowly 45 I picked up. I'm pretty sure the entire band was intoxicated while they recorded this album. Musically, it sounds like a drunken slopfest. I can certainly appreciate this music when it's played well, but Christ you'd think they would at least ATTEMPT to stay sober while recording!

How bad is it? Well, this is absolutely the WORST version of "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" I've ever heard in my life. The band doesn't hold it together, and the singing drunk sounds like he's going to puke while crying in the rain. You can literally hear the room spinning in his voice!

Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain


Our Father Played & Sung by Fr. Ray Guimond

I have a great debate when I find shitty looking Christian albums. I've bought many of them and most of them are very mediocre. Every time I pick one up in the thrift store, I think to myself "is this going to be as crummy as it looks?" Most of the time I put the album down and keep going. I'm not sure why I grabbed this one, but it's probably the second-worst album I've ever featured on this blog. Think of the Steve Wilson album, but a bit more talented. ONLY A BIT.

The music is very smooth pop, the mix is bad, and Ray's voice makes him sounds like he's got parkinsons disease and is singing on his death bed. All the songs are at various stages of bad, so it was tough choosing a song off here. I decided to just go with the title track, because that's the song that should represent the whole album, and it REALLY sets it up for failure.

Listen if you dare to "Our Father"


Oak Bank Pride - 2004 Oak Bank Elementary School Music Performances

This one was still sealed. Albums made by elementary schools are always weird, terrible, or both. The music is quite well produced and sounds almost professional. Then an entire class of tone-deaf children ruin the whole fucking thing. Not only do you get children singing badly, the CD also includes a video file containing clips of the recording sessions. So this time you can actually pinpoint the children who are ruining the songs you're listening to!

Listen to the Alphabet Song

I've graciously included a Youtube video of the song "Jubilation". The kid on the cowbell got fired from Blue Oyster Cult because her sense of rhythm is about as good as a quadriplegic having a seizure. One of the drunken Panio Brothers bashing a trashcan could do a better job.





Video: Learn to Discern

Christian videos that slam mainstream music are always fun. This one has a lot of boring fodder, but right in the middle they did a piece on Kurt Cobain and how he has influenced kids to kill themselves. Since I was a fan of Nirvana, I decided to kill myself as well. I blew my head off with a shotgun at age 16 and my religious mother (who warned me that Nirvana was satanic) felt absolutely no remorse over my death.

I love how this segment of the video was prefaced by a video clip of the highly controversial heavy metal band Nelson. When I wanna get my Satan on, Nelson is the first thing I grab off my CD shelf.




Whew! That's a lot of stuff! I think I spent about 2-3 hours in Dauphin collecting it all. I've got a nice trip to Thompson coming up which means I'll probably be hitting the thrift store in Ashern on the way back.

I've got tons more stuff that I'm just dying to post, but I've been lacking the time. Summer is here (okay, it's Spring, but it's a really nice spring) and I'm enjoying getting outside and doing things. Not only that, every two years I re-vamp my computers (and this spring is the deadline for me) so I need to do massive backups, formatting, installing, and all that other fun shit. However, I'm in the process of building myself a nice file server (which I've named Jehovah) so things should be a little more smooth with transition in the years to come.

Until the next entry, keep your eyes on the skies!

Musical Easter Basket

For Easter, I was thinking of writing a Jesus-themed blog entry. However, I've written many Jesus-themed blog entries over the last five years, so another one wouldn't make a fuck of difference.

Instead, I'm featuring a cassette I found last week in the thrift store called the Musical Easter Basket. It seems to be a dumbed down version of this album.

This came from some crappy little Canadian company called "Mr. Cassette". I love how the front of the package says "Long Playing Cassette". It only has six songs on it, and they're repeated on each side. It doesn't play for very long! It's pure torture if you have Auto-Reverse like I do. In the time it took to write this blog entry, I heard these crummy songs three times.

On the back of the package, they list two other Easter cassettes you can buy, which I'm guessing contain the rest of the album in the link above. The original price tag on it was $3.97 and its copyright year is 1987. Back in my day, we used to be able to buy three GENUINE long playing cassettes in a bag for $2.99. There wasn't anything on them but tape hiss, but they played for an hour and a half each. And the cheaply glued-on labels fell off after about a year.

The songs sound like they were recorded in 1951. I didn't think the Easter Bunny existed before 1951, but what do I know? For me, Easter only consisted of watching people pass around crackers and wine in a Kingdom Hall which nobody ate. Occasionally, one rebel would make a feast out of Jesus' flesh and blood and the entire place would light up with whispering on how evil that person was.

I'm not making this shit up!

Anyway, I've picked the worst song on the tape to blacken up your celebration. It's not really much of a song, but a story with bad voice acting. So curl up with your chocolate bunny and feel it melt from the warmth of your embrace while you listen to "Pee Wee the Bunny"

Download it here!

...and I'm still trying to get my recent Junq tour entries up. Lots to go through but the weather has warmed up and I've got stuff to do around the house, so it may take some time.

Junq Tour 2012: Neepawa

Here we are with the first installment of the Junq Tour for 2012! Every year I make the effort to pass through Neepawa, get some pie at Wilson's Place, and dig through both the thrift store and the book & tape shop. There are no cassettes, no videos, and no 8-tracks this round which I found a bit unusual. However, with my new found interest in 45s, I did manage to come out with some very odd Canadian treasures.

For the longest time, I never saw 45s as a viable source of oddball content. I generally hate the format. They take up too much room for such little music, and they've usually got the shit scratched out of them. Only lately have I seen that the format has some really odd and interesting stuff.

Anyway, onto the junk I found...


The Coming Of... Allie C.


One look at the cover and I had to grab this. It's a full moon, and this dude looks like he's gone psycho! He's about to cut off your head, roast it in the oven, and baste it in your blood. After he's done eating your cranium, he records this album of 80s pop love songs while the blood is still dripping from his chin.

I can certainly appreciate pop music done well, and this stuff is done very well. It's diverse, well written and well performed. It's just very anti-typical for 1999 and the cover just doesn't match what's on this disc. It sounds like a Richard Marx album, except this guy's voice isn't as cool. Regardless, he sings very well.

According to the inlay, he has previously done cheap imitation recordings of The Beatles. Many people out there collect cheap imitation Beatles recordings which likely explains why I've never found any. So a word of advice to those who want to make cheap imitation albums: If you cover the Beatles, you're going to make money.

Anyway, here is one of Allie's pop creations:

Listen to "Right Behind The Rain"


Butterfingers - The People We Know


There's a fine line between a questionable children's album and a clean adult comedy album. This is right on the line. I'm not sure I'd want my kid listening to this, but it's holding my attention as an adult. It almost sounds like an album that Ween would have done. The lyrics are stupid, and one of the singers sounds like he's fucked up on helium. While I was listening to this album, I was constanly bracing myself for the singer to spit out the word "cock" somewhere in one of the songs. Alas, these guys have no cocks. However, they somewhat redeem themselves by using the word "pussy" in the song "Bob the Cat"

My choice pick off this album was the song about a dog chewing on a kid's shitty underwear.

Listen to Jelly Belly


The Winnipeg Barbershoppers 45


This is one of those unusual 45s. Winnipeg Barbershoppers? What the fuck is that? Do they cut hair while buying groceries? Anyway, the song on the other side of this 45 (Keystone) sucks balls, but Manitoba Moon is okay I guess, at least for barbershop music. Why was this 45 made? Who knows. What's so special about a Manitoba Moon? Well, that answer is quite simple. If you walk around in downtown Winnipeg or in the southern North End, you will find people out and about, scrounging for cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and pretty much anything else that can be used. The Moon in Manitoba (especially here in Winnipeg) shines a light to help those people find their little treasures. A selected few others use the Manitoba Moon to help them see the blood squirting out of the person they're currently murdering.

Anyway, if you like Barbershop and scratchy 45s, be sure to download Manitoba Moon!


Panio Brothers - It's Trudeau


One side of this is a couple of guys singing lyrics about one of our dead prime ministers. The other side has one of the guys TALKING the same lyrics about the same dead prime minister. On top of it all, they set it to a really boring waltz. The singing side sounds like Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear singing in harmony, while that blue eagle muppet breaks in to tell us more about Pierre Trudeau. Yuck.

This must have been an educational record. With the exception of anything from Sesame Street, educational music is fucking awful. The last thing I wanted to do was learn about Pierre Trudeau through music, and not very good music at that. People in Regina have no talent.

Download "It's Trudeau"


Manitoba: Official Song - Manitoba Centennial Corporation


When I first heard the official Mantitoba song on this old Opening Exercises tape, I was wondering where the hell it came from since I'd never heard it before. Doing a search for the lyrics on the net turned up nothing. However, this 45 has opened the door and explained things a little bit. It seems the song was written to celebrate Manitoba's 100th birthday. Not only that, it helps put an idea on how old that Opening Exercises tape really is.

I'm not going to post the side where the children sing it. I already covered that with the reel to reel tape, and this version isn't much different. However, I WILL be letting you hear the other side which is the "rock" version performed by some fly-by-night shit-on-your-head group named "The Fifth". It's cocksuckingly terrible, and it rocks about as hard as Lobo.

Download it here!


The Party Team - Your Party Music

This has to be the greatest album cover ever! Just look at it. You have everything you need for a great party: sticky bows, hats, records, an 8-track, pretzels, peanuts, and glasses of urine. Everything's you need is here... except for great party music. The album features some Ukranian band playing waltzes and polkas. Personally, I prefer hearing Judas Priest at my parties, and none of their songs are included on this record.

If you look closely at the songs on the 8-track on the album cover, you'll see that it's actually a copy of "Metro's Eleven Days from Christmas" with the cover blotted out. I previously posted about this album here.

Here are the two images for comparison:


Unfortunately, there's nothing interesting musically about this party album, so let's move onto the next one...



12 Tops - Today's Top Hits (the black and red one)


I accidently bought this one with the wrong fucking record in it, but the record inside is equally as amusing. It's an album by Pickwick with mostly cheap imitations of disco songs on it. I would've checked the album, but I didn't because sex sells, and this is a pretty sexy album cover. They could've slid a dinner plate in this sleeve and I would've still bought it. Besides, I only spent five bucks on all this stuff, so it's no huge loss.

Here's a nice recording of japanese women with heavy accents trying to pull off Abba. Well, at least I think they sound japanese.

Listen to S.O.S.


12 Tops - Today's Top Hits (the red and yellow one)


Ahh, now THIS one has the right record in it! Don't be fooled by that "Stereo Gold Award" tag on it, that's the name of the record label and/or the band who's performing on it.

First of all, the cover. It's not that I mind the pants-less cowgirl on the cover, it's the fact that cowgirls generally don't listen to bands like The Who, Nazareth, Bob Dylan, or Electric Light Orchestra. Regardless, a pants-less cowgirl who listens to good music is stellar in my books!

Now for the bad part, I'm featuring a really bad imitation of Nazareth's "This Flight Tonight". It sounds more disco than rock and I'm really unsure about that guitar solo in the middle. It doesn't really sound like the one Nazareth did.

Listen to This Flight Tonight


The M.F.P. 'HITS' group makes you Rock Rock Rock to these 12 great numbers


This is by far the GREATEST album title I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It's so great, I think I just wet myself just a little. By the way, did I mention that these three records are from England? Cheap imitations aren't just limited to us Canadians!

This last one is a bit unusual since it was manufactured by EMI, which is a fairly large record label. You'd think that they wouldn't HAVE to make cheap imitation records since they released big name artists, but this is living proof that EMI is just as guilty as the little garbage chutes such as "Fantastic F".

This record came out in 1968, and honestly it's probably one of the better sounding cheap imitation albums I've heard. There really isn't a standout terrible song on here, so I've randomly chosen the happity hippity boppity boopity "Judy In Disguise" which is kind of a stupid song anyway.

Listen to it here!


Going to the Doctor by Fred Rogers


For a change of pace, we've got a book to post this time around. I don't get books very often because I don't have the time to read them. However, this one stood out. It could easily go by the alternative title "Mr. Rogers' Big Book of Kiddie Porn"

I'm really not sure why this book needed to be made. Most people I knew were creeped out by Mr. Rogers already, and he further justifies it by releasing this piece of trash. Stuff like this is the parents' responsibility to teach the child, not the responsibility of the creeps who went into making this book. Let's look at some of the pictures...

Step 1: Remove the child's clothing.


"Hi Jenny! Would you like to play a game?

"Sure!"

"Okay! Let's pretend I'm the doctor and you're the patient!"

"Oh, just like Uncle Jimmy does when mommy and daddy aren't around?"

"Yes! Exactly like that!"


"Now, I'm going to touch you in a SPECIAL way! Can you say SPECIAL?"

"Special!"

"Good! I knew you could!"


"It's okay Billy, don't cry! You'll learn to like it eventually."


There's lots more, but I'm already disgusted with myself for easily coming up with filthy captions for these pictures.

It's no doubt that you've unsubscribed from my blog after seeing scans from this book. Since that's the case, I'm off to see my lawyer so I can sue the corpse out of Mr. Rogers' tomb for making me lose readers. Please send donations to fund my legal fees!

Nirvana Interview

Just figured I'd throw in a quick update while I'm working on my recent trip to Neepawa.

Way back when I was a teenager, me and a friend of mine would record cassettes of us doing, well, whatever we felt like doing. We would sit and chat about stuff, play music, play audio clips, and screw around with analog effects that I had the ability to create.

On this particular cassette, we were talking about the band Nirvana. My friend thought it would be a great idea for me to do an interview with my mother about the iconic grunge band. Since my mother generally hated my taste in music, it was a novel idea and the outcome was guaranteed to be interesting.

So, I went downstairs into the living room where my mother was watching TV and did the interview. The results were spectacular! Nirvana came out looking like the devil's chosen band to deliver his agenda, turning all of the world against God.

After transferring the audio from the microcassette onto a regular cassette, my mother made a second appearance solely to be a pain in our asses.

Download and listen to it here!

I'll see you all after I get the Neepawa trip up for your enjoyment.