Dashing Through The Trash

Jingle Bells, Nissan Sells
Kevin and Marg Harcourt!
Echoes of Glory, I'm so sorry,
And family time with Bort! 

HEY!

Echoes of Glory - Joy To The World

Let's all gather around the Christmas tree and admire all the silver shit streams dangling down as we listen to one of the better acts to visit the Steinbach recording studio. Seriously, these songs aren't too awful, although there is still a ban on drums at the studio. It also appears that Silver Streams upgraded their recording equipment from a shoebox tape recorder to one of those Tascam 4 track recording thingies. Although the performances aren't a mess, the mix is kinda weird.

The song (or story) "The Cobbler's Dream" is kind of fucked up. The cobbler goes outside to gather green balls to decorate the Christmas tree. Green balls of what? Shit? He also feeds Jesus relish, because we all know our Lord and Savior loves relish.

Listen to Mary's Boy Child
Listen to The Cobbler's Dream


Kevin & Marg Harcourt - A Country Christmas

I touched on the fact that The Harcourts recorded a Christmas album here, but I finally found an actual copy of it. This is probably the rarest Harcourt album since I see every other fucking lousy cassette they've ever recorded all the time.

We can see on the cover that Kevin's creepy uncle is drunk by the fireplace again. Better not get too close there buddy, or your breath will set you ablaze! Kevin must have had a few as well since his guitar playing isn't too good on here.

Listen to Silent Night


Bert Wytinck, Family and Friends - Merry Christmas From Our Family To Yours

Bert returns to Classical Gas Emissions with a Christmas album! I covered one of his albums here. This time, he chose to make an unnecessarily long album (and band) title, just to give my hands a bit more carpel tunnel.

There are sixteen fucking songs on here, and they're all extremely stale performances of your favourite Christmas tunes. The entire album plays like it's on Benadryl. I'd advise that you take some yourself so you can sleep through this one.

Listen to Run Run Rudolph
Listen to Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Listen to Baby, It's Cold Outside


The Nissan Night Before Christmas

What better way to wrap up this year's Christmas entry than with a double album containing a shameless automobile sales promotion! This thing was apparently sent to radio stations, but who knows if anybody even played this piece of shit.

You get a weird ass Christmas story narrated by some guy who's probably a car salesman. The villain in this story is some company called "Trans-Global Amalgamated". I wonder if this company had anything to do with that?

Ever hear the song "Don't Cry Joe"? How about the story of the Christmas spider featuring a cameo appearance by Jesus? Or how about the burning carving of baby Jesus that burned down a small town and killed a young boy? You get them all here! Great fucking album!

Listen to Don't Cry Joe
Listen to The Christmas Spider (featuring Jesus)
Listen to The Death of Juan
Download the whole mess!

After Christmas, we'll get back to posting Junq Tour reviews. There's a ton more to cover, so we'll see you soon!

Junq Tour 2022: Niverville

Niverville's thrift store has never appeared on the Junq Tour. It's a shame because their prices are generally fantastic, and their blog-worthy content is plentiful. So let's dive in!

In Love With The Flute

There is absolutely no artist listed anywhere in the inlay, so I cannot assume that the flute player is a human. All the credit goes to "Fastforward Music". There's a good reason they're called that which I'm sure you can figure out.

This album contains weather-channelled versions of all your favourites like "Wind Beneath My Wings". I have yet to meet a single person who hates that song. I'm sure you love it and I'm sure you think I love it too.

Listen to Groovy Kind of Love because Wind Beneath My Wings sucks

The Wood Knotts

I wood have expected this album to have a drummer on it since it's knott recorded at Silver Shit Streams. However, there is knott a drummer to be found. I also wood've preferred these guys to be proficient at their instruments, but they are knott.

Although the songs themselves are okay on this album, the squeaky violins make you long for the days when chalkboards still ruled the classrooms.

Listen to Waltzing Through The Leaves

Spokesmen - I Have Seen The Light

I cracked open the seal on this one to let all the nasty demons onto the internet. For a tape that was sealed, there's certainly a lot of dropouts on this recording. Perhaps the master tape at Ontrack Audio Recordings gets reused for every shitty artist after they do their run of 50 cassettes (that they only sell three of).

I am so desperately trying to resist peeling off the gold foil seal. What's under it? A smiley face? A picture of the yellow Teletubby? A vortex into a dimension where everything is just as awful as this album? That one scares me the most.

The songs themselves are corny and awful. The vocals are dry, loud and lousy. The beginnings and ends of songs are cut off. Obviously an extremely professional project done by masters of their field. Billie Eilish should hire them to work on her albums. I would send her the names of these professionals, but their names are strangely absent from the liner notes.

Listen to Walk Dem Golden Stairs

Richard S Unruh - Harmonicas Vol. 2

Volume 1 is here!

I have volume 3 but I haven't reviewed it yet.

Silver Shit Streams enjoys recording Richard S. Unruh because he always shows up without a drum set. Because harmonicas can easily grate on your nerves, the team of recording engineers at Silver Shit Streams drown the hell out of Richard's harmonica playing with reverb and echo. There is easily 30+ minutes of this racket for you to not enjoy. If you combine the other two volumes, there is easily 90+ minutes of this noise for you to not enjoy. You'd be better off listening to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. At least that only lasted for one album.

Listen to I Saw One Hanging On a Tree

The Good Will Singers - Our Life is Like a Summer's Day

Either this album looked like a real treasure, or I was completely oblivious during the Junq Tour because I bought three fucking copies of it. At least now I have a couple of tapes to record someone more talented.

So, is your life like a summer's day? Well, you can compare anything to a summer's day. Candy is like a summer's day. So is beer. And vaginas. And maybe even dog shit. All of it works if you truly believe it.

This is a Silver Shit Streams special which means there are no drums on this recording. I'm guessing drums are the devil's instrument. Anyway, this album sounds like a cross between The Chipmunks and an old D*sney special. All the musicians on the album decided it was a good idea to include all of their phone numbers on the inlay, so if you find one of the voices talented enough, you can phone them and ask them to sing for you.

Listen to Our Life Is Like a Summer's Day

Circle of Friends - The World's Greatest Story

I have the world's greatest story for you... When I was rewinding this cassette, it broke at the splice which would have prevented any of you from hearing this garbage. Unfortunately, I am proficient in repairing cassettes.

As with any Silver Shit Streams release, drums are nowhere to be found. Another Silver Shit Streams trait is to have absolutely no talented people in the group. All of these voices sound awful together, and they also sound awful when singing solo. When you put two people together who sing flat, it sounds like they're going to break down crying and jump off a bridge at the end of the recording session. Hell, I was ready do jump off a bridge after transferring this tape.

Listen to On The Wings of a Dove

Listen to The Darkest Hour

Listen to He Didn't Stop at Calvary

Listen to The Lord Is My Shephard

Jerry Krabbenhoft and the Valley Playboys

I have no clue if this CD originally came with a cover, or if Jerry just burned this and tossed it in a slimmy to give out at the bar. Speaking of the bar, the CD features of picture of Jerry getting drunk before his recording session. If I'm honest, the first track is actually somewhat enjoyable. Unfortunately, that's the only one.

The rest of the album is destroyed by bad effects, bad covers, bad everything. You're best bet is to join Jerry for five beers on the first track and then you won't give a shit how bad the rest of the album is. You're better off using the CD as your beer coaster.

Listen to Silver Wings

Listen to Ring of Fire

Listen to Ways of a Woman In Love

The Penners Jedichta - Wo Steit Daut Met Dee Kjoakje?

Let's take a break from bad singing and listen to someone read German Poetry over cheap Casio music. Silver Streams apparently doesn't allow synthesized drums either.

Listen to Jesus Kaum Spiziare

Bert & Liz - Railway To Heaven

Bert & Liz made one appearance here in 2012.

Surprisingly, I have never seen another album by them until this year's Junq Tour. In fact, they are the stars of the Junq Tour this year. I picked up multiple albums by them, and they're absolutely fucking terrible.

First of all, look at the album cover. Bert & Liz are in black and white, and they've been badly photoshopped to make it look like they're standing on a lake full of orange juice. Let it be known that Bert & Liz are the second and third persons in history who have the ability to walk on water.

On the inlay, we get to see a picture of Bert & Liz with their two children. I'm always surprised at how many people put family pictures inside their album liner notes. For two songs, Bert & Liz give us a break from their terrible vocals and let one of their kids sing. Unfortunately, he's terrible as well.

Every song on here is awful. Railway to Heaven has the worst ending I've ever heard on a song, nobody can play in time, they used a Yamaha instead of a Casio, and somebody's cassette deck hated this album so much that it chewed it up. In fact, I'll probably have a shot at chewing on it myself after this entry is posted.

Listen to Life's Railway to Heaven

Listen to I'll Fly Away

Download the whole thing!

We'll be moving onto St. Anne next, but perhaps we'll do something a bit Christmassy so you won't feel like Santa left you out.

Junq Tour 2022: St. Pierre-Jolys

We're gonna have a Holly Jolys blog entry! The Village Connection thrift store is usually lacking in anything interesting, but at least their prices are good.

From The Moon - The Cyclist

When there's nothing notably weird in the music section, I start grasping at anything that doesn't have much professionally going on. This album has a bar code, so that means something was done professionally, but not much else. Guess what? It's not too bad! It's a bit mellow in spots, but it's at least somewhat enjoyable. The first track is the best one on here. Things can get a bit stale as the album goes on, but it's still not awful. The band's website is dead and I can't find shit about them online, so I went to the Wayback Machine for some info.

The music is apparently in the "space folk" genre which I didn't know was a thing. They appear to be from Winnipeg and this is their first album. They appear to have put out at least one more album, and then the band just kinda fizzles into nothing. Why is it that the decent bands have such a short lifespan, but no-talents who pump out horrid garbage seems to live on forever? Anyway, I'm giving you a track from this one solely because you deserve something good once in a while.

Listen to Since Yesterday

The Mason Rack Band - Show Me Yours

No thanks, I haven't dried it off yet.

This one isn't all that horrible either.  I swear, I tried really hard to find some pure garbage at this thrift store! Anyway, these guys are from Australia. The singer sounds like he's part werewolf and has just finished enjoying a 20 pack of Du Maurier cigarettes. The audio is very compressed (which I hate) and the band scribbled all over this CD (which makes it $0.25 more valuable). According to their website, the band is still around. They've released five studio albums, two live albums, and a greatest hits album (which is kind of redundant).

Listen to Seen Her B4

Debra Barratt - Three Little Soldiers

When you buy a CD with only one song on it, it needs to be the best fucking song you've ever heard. Luckily, this CD has TWO songs on it; the second one being a distorted version of "Last Post" played on the trumpet. According to the back, this CD was "created in remembrance of, and in tribute to, our Veterans and their families." Does that mean that every veteran has heard this CD? The song "Three Little Soldiers" is kind of a miserable listen. For the record, I have nothing against people writing songs in tribute to our veterans, but could you at least make it half-fucking-good? I can't imagine anybody getting much replay value out of this thing. Proceeds from this CD went to the Navy League of Canada. Why not just give them the money instead of getting a hunk of plastic containing one shitty song that you're just going to throw in the trash?

Listen to Three Little Soldiers

The Crew - Just As We Are

The D*sney company needs to sue the fuck out of these guys due to Mickey Mouse being clearly represented on the album cover. Speaking of Mickey Mouse, this is some of the most Mickey Mouse Christian music I've ever heard. The way they look on the album cover is exactly how they sound... Lame, lame, lame, and lame. They're essentially a shittier version of the Spin Doctors who sing terribly written Christian songs. Little miss can't be listening to this crap for very long.

Listen to Learn To Listen

Listen to Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Listen to Look At My Hands

This is the musical high point in the Junq Tour, as there's not much to loathe here. But don't worry, we'll be falling off that hill very shortly. If you'd like to hear a sample of what's coming your way, you can check out my appearance on Amateur Hour. You can listen to that here while I prepare the next entry which will be sure to make you cry.

Junq Tour 2022: St. Malo

Hey! Long time no write! That's because I've been busy going through the massive amount of crummy albums I picked up during the Junq Tour and digitizing the bulk of what I intend to post. Theoretically, the entries should be flowing quite easily from this point on, but life has it's way of fucking with me from time to time. Things break and I'm the only one around to fix them. When I'm dead, the whole world will just explode and the martians will be happy that I'm no longer beaming these crappy songs across the universe.

Anyway, we went to the Family Thrift Store in St. Malo this year. It's a fairly new thrift store that is apparently going to shut it's doors anytime soon. Let's give a salute for the "amazing" music I found there...

Aloha Shapes - Hula Hawaii

The best thing you can get when you're in Hawaii is a compact disc in the shape of a mushroom. However, don't try to play this thing in your car stereo or it will self-destruct, and I don't blame it one bit. This CD is boring and there's only four songs on it. I don't know who the fuck is singing on this, but I hope somebody throws a coconut at him if he does it in public. 

As a side note, Weird Al has better Hawaiian shirts than the one this CD is supposed to represent.

Listen to Maui Waltz

Rock Power Drums

From what I can tell, this was a book & cassette kit that taught you how to drum. The best part about this tape is the crappy Casio keyboard that sings the lyrics for you. The drumming seems to be a bit clumsy on the Great White song, but maybe it's just me being too critical because I'm not sure that it's real drums. The high hat sounds very artificial. The Guns N' Roses song "Paradise City" isn't quite right. The spot where Axl holds his note goes on for an extra two measures, probably because you can't change time signatures on a fucking Casio.

I mean, I guess it's not terrible that things like this existed back in the day when there was no internet, no youtube, and no drum teachers. Instead, your hard-earned money paid for something that was just "good enough". You were most likely better off trying to figure out the drum parts yourself.

Listen to Paradise City

Listen to Once Bitten Twice Shy

Bullit - The Rap Game Raised Me

The rap game did a shitty job of raising Mr. Bullit.

The rap CDs I picked up on this Junq Tour are quite possibly the worst rap albums I've ever heard. This CD came in a plain jane blank CD case. I honestly don't think there's many copies of this out there. I like how Mr. Bullit colored the center of the CD label with a sharpie. I guess the rap game taught him how to color as well. 

As for the music... It's hilariously bad! I can't take a guy seriously who's just rambling on about his dead uncle. Nothing gives you more street cred than whining like a fucking baby. Yes, its sucks that your uncle died, but the rest of us don't need to suffer through your interpretation of it.

Listen to the dead uncle song

Doug Gabriel - Three Album Special

Nothing makes me more miserable than having a box set to review. This one isn't as intensive as the 12 album collection I review by Donald Bradburn, and I'm very thankful for that. These three albums were painful enough!

Hailing from Branson Missouri (because they've embraced birthing terrible music albums), we have this fucking hack trying to perform your favourite hits. One album from his wife or sister (or both) is included in this box set, and it's so unspectacular that I completely skipped over it. Doug's performances are crummy at best. His version of "Pretty Woman" (with the missing "oh" at the beginning) is enough to give Roy Orbison a second heart attack. Doug tries to do the growl in the song and it sounds like he's coughing up a hairball.

Doug's instrumental album is called "Exhausting & Exhilarating". He should have just left it at "exhausting". The lackluster version of "Sleepwalk" reminds me of trying to learn "Red River Valley" from my school's guitar theory book. It's the most bland version of the song I've ever heard.

And finally, I present Doug's version of "Wind Beneath My Wings" because fuck you.

Listen to Pretty Woman

Listen to Sleepwalk

Listen to Wind Beneath My Wings

On November 16th, I will be returning to Amateur Hour with Kent Davies to broadcast the worst garbage I found on the Junq Tour. Make sure you tune into CKUW 95.9 FM at 5:00pm CT for the glorious mess that will make everybody hate radio.

Halloween 1997 Home Video

Don't worry! The Junq tour is coming soon! However, I have something else going on at the moment which I'll get to...

As some of you may know, I was raised in a religious cult where all holiday celebrations were absolutely forbidden. As a result, I didn't really get to experience celebrations of any kind until I turned 19. No Christmas, No birthdays, No Halloween, no nothing.

When I left the religious cult, I met a girl, dated her, and as a result, met more people through her who eventually became some of my first real genuine friends. When Halloween came around, I decided to record the group of us getting all costumed up onto video tape. All of this took place in my bedroom. My dad was OK with me having a group of friends over, but my mother (who remained in the religious cult) wasn't too pleased. After we got all dressed up, we headed off to the bar for a night of karaoke and drinking.

The quality of the video is a bit poor, but that's because I was using a video camera from 1977 which I had purchased at a garage sale for ten dollars. The camera required much more light to generate a better picture, and I couldn't achieve that in my bedroom at night. As a side note, home video recording technology wasn't all that much better in 1997. As you watch the video, you may be able to catch some of the comments the others made about using the camera. It weighed about 30 pounds, and had a nice bar to help you rest it on your shoulder. Everyone who used it that night has permanently altered their bone structure.

You're going to see some interesting relics in my bedroom. The ones I still have are: 

- The Commodore 64 

- The flags on the wall

- The Telefunken TV set

- The telephone 

- All of the CDs on the shelves 

...and if I dig really deep, I may still have the patch on the back of Renee's jean jacket. I even still have the Barbie game that Jenn's playing on the Commodore 64.

Sheldon was dressed up as Alice Cooper, I was dressed up as Brian Setzer, Renee was dressed as a punk, Jenn was dressed as a gypsy, and Noah... well... He wanted to be Eddie from the Iron Maiden album covers, but it didn't go so well. Some of the comments are absolutely priceless and I never get tired of watching this video.

For those who are unaware, this video was recorded back in the day when you could make fun of your friends and they wouldn't need to run and cry in a corner. We had tough skin back then and let that shit roll off our backs. We were a strong generation.

Also, on the contrary of what Sheldon says, I did not use a "President's Choice Super High Quality Video Cassette". I never trust the president with anything.

So why have I decided to put this piece of my life on the internet?

On September 20, 2022, Jenn posted on her Facebook that she had been diagnosed with stage IV cancer. I expressed my sadness and worry, but she assured me she had started working with the doctors to do what she can to fight it. The next day, she was gone.

Jenn was an essential part of my life. She helped me transition from the sheltered religious kid into the passionate, outgoing, crazy motherfucker who has been writing this blog for far too long. It's still difficult to process that at age 42, Jenn is no longer with us.

Her family is struggling to scrape up some money to help cover the costs associated with her death. If there's one injustice in the world, it's that dealing with a loved one's passing is fucking expensive. I generally don't ask for anything from my readers or viewers, but if you could spare a couple of bucks to help the family pay for the costs, that would be great and much appreciated (the link is below). In return, I've given you this video as a glimpse into Jenn as a person, a human, and a good friend. She's the one putting goop all over Noah's face in the video. She was also the one who always got us kicked out of the high school library because of her uncontrollable, hearty laugh. 

Rest in peace, Jenn.

Click here to help the family with costs.