So allow me to inform you of where I've been lately (if you haven't read about it on the Facebook page). In early August, I fought Justin Bieber and shattered three fingers inside my hand. I had to have surgery to get the humpty dumpty things put back together again, and it's been a slow healing process. Typing was torture because when you're used to typing 70-90 WPM and go down to 7-9 WPM, you want to give up and go back to writing with a pen.
As of now, I'm able to do a bunch of typing although I still sometimes miss keys. My dexterity is still the shits and I don't have much strength in my hand, so I'm still not back at work. However, the ability to type means I have the ability to at least start posting all the Junq Tour stuff, so let's begin!
The first stop was Altona. Nothing's changed here in the last few years. Although I purchased a Kaypro 2, a TRS-80 Model III, and an Amstrad PPC640 all from Altona in previous years, I'm still saddened that I haven't found any vintage computers here in a while. I believe Altona has lost the title as Manitoba's vintage computer capital. How the mighty have fallen.
Speaking of fallen, here's some crap that should fall into the trash can:
Bible Stories with Uncle Harold and Willie
I have absolutely no reason to believe that Uncle Harold (not my uncle) doesn't have a large print of this photograph hanging proudly in his living room. I'll bet all the hot senior citizens that Uncle Harold (still not my uncle) swoons and brings home admire his dedication to his woody. This is probably all the action that Uncle Harold (will never be my uncle) ever sees.
A clip from this video appears on the Junq Tour video which you can watch
here.
The Choirs of MCI 2011-2012 - I Dreamed of Rain
This isn't the worst thing I've ever heard. In fact, most of the choir albums I pick up are usually full of enough talented people that they can drown out all the tone-deaf ones. I don't know any of the songs on here other than Ghost Riders in the Sky which is played on a sole acoustic guitar and is sung by 56 or so people who are all nicely credited in the album. I'd type them all out to give credit where credit is due, but fuck that.
Listen to Ghost Riders In The Sky
W.C. Miller Concert Band - Altona 1970
For a bunch of high school students, they're not bad. These days, the members of the W.C. Miller Concert Band are either dead or they're just entering retirement. However, their musical rendition of "Kidstuff" will never be forgotten, complete with the sound of dying lambs.
Listen to Kidstuff
Jay Garnet - The Maritimer's Dream
Holy crap! This album is listed in the CDDB! That's really surprising because none of this album has been professionally done. It's also autographed which makes this album as valuable as an autographed turd.
In summary, Jay Garnet is just some old fart pumping out "hits" from eastern Canada, which is the part of Canada nobody cares about. In fact, I thought Newfoundland sank into the Atlantic Ocean in the 1990s after being extremely ashamed of producing the band Great Big Sea.
Listen to Hobo's Lullaby
Broken Walls (Jonathan Maracle) - Clearly Hear His Voice
At first play, i got attacked by this guy with a cool voice and a beat that made me want to head bang and stomp my rhythm foot through the floor. And then it falls down in a puddle of mushy, wimpy, pukey country music. I've never been so disappointed by a song's build up in all my life. How disappointing.
Listen to Clearly Hear His Voice
Elektra Women's Choir - From the Heart Skylark
Because of the price sticker bounding the CD case closed, I initially thought this was some church produced thing. It wasn't until I broke the seal that I found out it's a pirated copy of an album that seemingly had a genuine release. However, it's still lousy enough for me to cover it.
There are songs on here in German, French, and English, so my knowledge of these songs is pretty limited. However, there is one song on here that is near and dear to any Canadians who were watching television back in the 1980s and 1990s.
There is a thing in Canada called "The National Film Board of Canada" who used to make short clips to fill in time leftover from TV shows who couldn't fill up an entire 30 minute television slot. Some of their films were interesting, some were boring, and some were stupid. One of the more interesting ones was "The Log Driver's Waltz" which had some fun animation and an extremely catchy song. How this song never ended up becoming our national anthem is beyond me. If you'd like to see the original clip,
click here.
Then, you can listen to the Elektra Women Choir's abomination here:
Listen to Log Driver's Waltz
Musical Warriors - New Beginning
They needed a new beginning because of how much they sucked on the last tape I bought by them. It seems they started out by doing better production, so that's a plus. However, it's still boring acapella Christian music.
Listen to Somebody Touched The Lord
Chic Giesbrecht - Dad Still Plays For Mom
I'm guessing Mom is dead.
These are all instrumental songs. From what I can tell, Chic (yes that's his real name) had one of his kids program his Casio to play all the instruments on this album other than the two guitars, and the instrumentation is fucking awful. Chic sounds like he's having incredible difficulty plucking those strings in time with the crappy Casio, so it all comes out as a clumsy mess.
Listen to Twilight Time
The Harcourts - Glory Trail
I should really kick myself in the ass for not doing a proper discography for Weird Kevin Harcourt and his Harcourty Minions who keep pumping out these albums. I probably have another copy of this somewhere, but I haven't covered it yet (to my knowledge).
Let's look at the cover. It appears to be a drawing of a picture of a church done in fur. Cool, I can live with that. Sadly, I don't know any of the songs on here, but I still need to satisfy all the Kevin Harcourt fans who read this blog.
Listen to Glory Trail
Mennonite High School Choral Festival
First of all, we need to give thanks to the Clinician on this album. It took me forever to understand why the fuck there's a clinician credited on this album in the first place, and the credit is right on the cover. So I had a look on the internet to solve some of these mysteries. First of all, here's the definition of a clinician:
a doctor having direct contact with and responsibility for patients, rather than one involved with theoretical or laboratory studies.
So... Are all the teenagers on the cover of this album patients? Let's find out how Dr. Anton Armstrong became a doctor, at least according to Wikipedia...
Armstrong earned his bachelor's degree at St. Olaf College, graduating in 1978. He was a member of the St. Olaf Choir from 1976–1978, under the leadership of Kenneth Jennings. Jennings became a mentor to Armstrong and 12 years after graduating from St. Olaf, Armstrong replaced Jennings as director of the St. Olaf Choir.
Ummm.... How in the bloody hell does any of that make him a doctor, let alone a clinician? The guy seems to be an impostor and nobody in their right mind should trust their children around him. If he's a doctor who examining teenagers as patients, he should be arrested. Creepy, slimy bastard.
Anyway, let's get onto this double disc of goodness. I was excited to see a Godspell medley, but the song "Day By Day" was completely excluded which brings me extreme misery. On the plus side, there's a cover of Mr. Mister's "Kyrie" on here, albeit a very strange cover. I think I'll stick to the Mr. Mister version.
Listen to Kyrie
Peter K & The Pembina Three - Come In Stranger
Well, isn't that just asking to get your house robbed?
According to the cover, there are a bunch of old men in the band who play fiddles, bass violins, tractors, and guitars. There is no credit for the drum set you hear on the album, but there's a credit for the cover photo. Where is this ghost drum coming from? Oh, my apologies, that's the tractor.
The album just sounds like old men playing old men songs.
Listen to Folsom Prison Blues
Next stop on the Junq Tour: Plum Coulee!
