Movie: Ashens & The Polybius Heist

I'm taking a small break from the Junq Tour to do a movie review! I haven't done one in quite some time, mainly because Youtube doesn't like me uploading other people's crap onto their servers which they scan daily using evil robots to find nonsense like fart noises that sound identical to toots from a Miles Davis album. Fortunately for me, this movie hasn't even been officially released yet as of this writing and I had to sign a contract that I wouldn't pirate it or post a review until November 19th. Take that, Classical Gas Emissions!

For those who know nothing about the movie from looking at the title, you're going to need a bit of background as to why this movie exists.

Who is Ashens?

Ashens is a Youtuber who reviews mainly useless or vintage junk on the seat of his brown sofa. Sometimes he'll also taste-test expired food, leaving his audience in suspense wondering if he died at least until he posts his next video. I've been watching his Youtube channel for around a decade or so. You should watch it too because it's quite entertaining!

What is a Polybius?

The "Polybius" was a rumored arcade machine from 1981 that was used as a government psychology experiment. The images, colors and animations would supposedly cause addiction to the game along with some side-effects along with occasionally causing death. I honestly had never heard about this urban legend until maybe a year ago when I watched a documentary about it on Youtube. Just by looking at video game graphics at the time, you can tell it's bullshit. Do you really think this can cause psychological damage?

Okay, maybe emotional damage from spending $60 on a crappy game.

Anyway, it turns out this whole Polybius thing was made up by some guy on an internet forum. Remember hearing about John Titor the time traveller? Same kind of horseshit.

So this guy Ashens (Stuart Ashen) has gathered a large group of friends, many of them being fellow Youtubers and has made his second movie using crowdfunding to help complete the project. His first movie was about tracking down a device called the "Game Child" which is just a cheap knock-off of the Nintendo Gameboy. As you can see, movies about knock-off junk and bullshit posted on the internet is a good fit for this blog.

The basic premise of the movie is that Ashens discovers that his father was the person who invented the Polybius and abandoned his children to develop the brain-altering arcade machine in question. Ashens then assembles a team of people to go steal the arcade machine, partially to get answers as to why his father left and partially because he collects useless technological junk.

Half of the budget was likely spent on the lengthy James Bond influenced animated opening which was done very well. It almost looks like a real movie! Also, there are enough dumb jokes going on to make a couple of modern Simpsons episodes. Fortunately, there are enough GOOD jokes in this movie to make it an enjoyable watch.

First, allow me to point out the things I didn't like about the movie...

The Bad:

The Polybius seems to be there solely because of it's name. Ashens' dad could have been working on any kind of an evil machine which could have easily been dropped in place of the Polybius: an evil refridgerator, a man-eating robot woman, an Amazon Echo, etc. With so much apparent mystery that surrounded the Polybius machine, it's a bit unfortunate that the movie failed to take advantage of it. It's so insignificant that I didn't bother taking a screenshot of it.

There are two uses of terrible CGI that I could have done without: the flies chasing the Greece man while the heist vehicle was being purchased, and the clothing iron plowing right through the chest of a security guard. However, these could be references to other movies that I just don't understand since I generally live under a rock when it comes to watching full length films. Maybe they'll be funny to you.

Also, why wasn't there a "free candy" reference with regards to the white van? My only guess is that "free candy" is an American phenomenon and this movie was make in the UK. Perhaps one of my European readers can clarify this for me.

An inconsistency I found is this Amstrad PPC 512 from 1988 being used to develop an arcade machine that came out in 1981. A TRS-80 or an Apple II would have probably been more appropriate, but perhaps I'm only nitpicking due to my massive vintage computer collection (yes, it's a problem).

And lastly, the best thing about the movie has nothing to do with Ashens nor the Polybius. More on that in a moment...

Now I don't want to give you the impression that this movie is shit, because I really did enjoy watching it. There are a lot of good laughs to be had throughout the entire thing. Here's some of the best things about the movie:

The Good:

They needed a "grease" man for the heist who can get out of "slippery situations". Instead, they got a "Greece" man (Yiannis Vassilakis) who spends much of the movie listening to linguistic cassettes on his walkman in order to improve his English. Will he be fluent by the end of it? You'll have to watch it to find out!

The "eye in the sky" was played by NerdCubed (Daniel Hardcastle) who most certainly comes by his alias honestly. He has his own Youtube channel and opens strange Advent Calendars with Ashens every Christmas (yes, you should watch those too). Anyway, NerdCubed is a bit quirky and I wasn't sure about how well he could play a part in the movie, but he's probably the best damn actor out of the whole lot of them. He absolutely OWNED his part and played it very well.

The best fucking part about the whole movie was Ashens' sister (Joanna O'Connor) having a fierce sexual fetish for lawnmowers which stems from the trauma of her father leaving when she was a child. This one running joke is the most memorable thing you're going to take away from the movie. If you need one reason to see this movie, THIS IS IT. Your pants will be soaked in a yellow substance unlike apple juice from laughing so hard!

For those who are wondering about the part played by Barry Lewis (who is another Youtuber), it's a very small part. Eli Silverman plays a much bigger role in the movie as Ashens' sidekick. Ashens, Barry, and Eli all partook in a Youtube channel called "Barshens" which was basically a cross between a talk show and a game show. The earlier episodes are also worth watching. With all these Youtube suggestions I'm giving you, you'll have your TV time booked for the next year.

The movie is coming out on November 19th which is the day I'm allowed to post this. You can watch it here. They're probably not very happy about me requesting a screening copy on Betamax, but apparently a DVD release will come sometime down the road if you're into non-tape formats.

So yes, the movie has a few imperfections, but it's more enjoyable than 95% of the stuff I post on this blog. It's certainly worth watching at least once.

Stand by for the continuation of the Junq Tour!

Junq Tour 2020: Neepawa

 Neepawa really vomits out the gems when I visit their thrift store. It took a lot of time to go through this stuff, so here's what we came out with...

A Six Pack of Sam: Sam from Sales Greatest Hits Vol VI

This tape was a lot of fun. It's made up of clips of some radio show's guest appearance. It's very enjoyable and I would have no problem searching out the other five volumes. I really don't have much to say about this album since I know nothing about the station these recordings came from. All I can say is give it a listen because it's pretty damn funny!

Listen to Marlin, The Zoo Vet

Download the whole album

Joan McKay - When You're Smiling

Joan McKay really likes to make appearances on my blog, but it's not because she's a shitty piano player. In fact, she's a really good piano player. The albums where she's just hammering the hell out of the ivories are pretty damn good. The bad ones are when she surrounds herself with less talented people, but this is not one of them. After giving it a listen, it sounds like she banged off this album in one take which is amazingly impressive. When I'm recording myself playing guitar, I usually fuck up and need to re-record it multiple times. If Joan fucked up on this album, you wouldn't even notice. Rock on, Joan!

Listen to Bad Bad Leroy Brown

Judy Cook & Swingset

I go through quite a bit of independent children's music and almost all of it is annoying and shitty. This one is a bit different though. Judy's voice is kind of annoying, but the band is strangely interesting. It's like they found whatever shitty and cheap instruments they had lying around and recorded an album, except it's one of the most entertaining things I've ever listened to! Lyrically, it's not that bad either. It's certainly better and more fun than Mr. Environment (Aaron Burnett) and his guitar that sounds like a banjo. I don't know who mixed this album, but they must have had fun doing it. Don't get me wrong, the production work is really good for what they were working with. I would compare this album to an early T.Rex album or even Kimya Dawson's Alphabutt which is also a very enjoyable children's album. Judy's card was enclosed in this sampler CD and her website is still functional, so if you want some interesting music for your kids that isn't horrible trash, feel free to check it out.

Listen to Raiders of the Night

Manitoba Choral Association presents Provincial Honour Choirs 2018

Sometimes when you replace instruments with human vocals, you can get some pretty cool stuff. When you replace them with teenagers going through puberty, you get garbage. I only know one song on here, and the performance is akin to shoving a playboy model into a tree shredder. Also, Johnny Nash died recently, so I might as well get him spinning in his grave while the corpse is still fresh.

Listen to I Can See Clearly

Te Mokai - Totara Tree

Do you like reggae music? I don't. This tape sounds like the soundtrack to a night of passionate love making between Bruno Mars and Kenny G, fudge inclusive. Anyway, Te Mokai sings a lot about crying. He knows how I feel listening to this piece of shit. Also, the album's producter was Ngahiwi Apanui. What the hell is a "producter"?

The cassette itself barely has Te's name on it and instead boasts in big bold letters "See Inlay For Details". If you lose the inlay, you might as well throw out the cassette. I mean, how else would you know if it's a Dolby system or not? We assume whoever made this cassette has no clue what a "Dolby System" even is. If you turn on the Dolby noise reduction, it cuts down about half of the volume on this cassette, so maybe that's a built in feature.

"I'll cool my hard on, get the fuck on the road" are the lyrics I'm hearing in the song "He Whakaaro" who's title is quite suggestive in itself. Feel free to try and prove me wrong. The song ends with a bird dying in the ocean. More on dead birds a bit later...

Listen to He Whakaaro

Adi The Yodelling Woodcarver - When It's Springtime in the Rockies

I would rather listen to wood carving than this yodelling shit. If I found this guy yodelling in the rockies, I'd probably throw him off of them. This is probably the worst yodelling album I've laid my tear-filled ears on.

On this album, you're greeted by a lot of German songs, accordion music, and this blithering asshole who sounds like his balls are caught in a pasta maker. Pardon me, but I'm off to take a bottle of Tylenol for my headache.

Listen to Glacier Yodel

Rewind - Let's Go To The Hop

The Hop? These guys are lucky if they can walk, let alone hop. About half of the band is over age 70. Also, they should be called "Fast Forward" because they're worth skipping. Everyone in this group sounds tone deaf as hell, but that could theoretically be blamed on their need for hearing aids. There's four instruments in the band and eight members. The four other members are just there to stand by in case the first four die of old age.

They mainly perform songs from the 50s and 60s, including The Twist. I'm pretty sure that modern hip replacements don't allow for twisting. The song "Shout Live" isn't live, and instead of beating the shit out of the drums like the drummer on the original version does, this drummer barfs on them. We also have a plethora of problems on these songs including wrong lyrics, inability to sing and play in time, and an overall problem with most of the vocals. The only bright spots are the female vocals on "The Locomotion", and "Hit The Road Jack" isn't half bad. The rest is terrible.

Listen to So Much In Love

Listen to Only The Lonely

Download the 121 megabytes of terribleness!

Aarvy Ardvark Finds Hope

Well doesn't this shit look messed up! This video almost needs an entry on it's own. This is a puppet show featuring the "incredible" Bonnie Blue puppets. Incredible is an understatement. I think "absurd" is a better word to use. I did a Google search and found nothing about Bonnie's puppets, so I'm guessing these are the only ones she ever created. 

First of all, let's look at the cover. The "aardvark" is in the background and looks like a deformed horse with the skin of a hot water bottle. Second, the rabbit who is front and center on the cover looks like a white tarantula which has been chewed up by a dog. Shouldn't the aardvark be the focus of the cover? Anyway, let's move on...

This video is based on a book by the same name which features the aardvark front and center on the cover. If you want a copy of the book, there's one on Amazon for thirty three fucking dollars. I guarantee it's less creepy than this video. Anyway, the purpose of this video is to help children cope with loss. I guess it's logical to give children nightmares which would take their minds off their loss. This video is an EXTREMELY LONG 45 minutes in length. If I didn't actually time this thing, I would swear I had lost two hours of my life on this. 

The story is about an aardvark who's family is taken to the zoo. A rabbit named Ralphie hangs around and watches the aardvark mope and whine about his lost family which takes up about 30 minutes of the video. Then, the rabbit dances the "Wild Irish Carrot Jig" which is done by flopping your deformed rabbit puppet from side to side. After the rabbit dances, the aardvark finds a dead bird laying on the ground and waits a week to see it fly. The ugly rabbit FINALLY informs the stupid aardvark that the maggot-filled bird is actually dead. Then, the aardvark declares his love for the dead bird because he's a fucking necrophiliac. He then names the bird after his lost mother and sings a song about the dead bird with the rabbit joining in. THE END. My apologies for giving away the ending.

Clarice, Clarice, You flied, you died.

THOSE ARE THE LYRICS. BEST FUCKING SONG OF THE YEAR.

Yes, this video is THAT FUCKED UP. I would have expected a video dealing with loss to be about 15 minutes long. Instead, we have to watch a depressed aardvark and hear a song about a dead bird. Hell, I could have done that in five minutes.

Listen to the song about the dead bird

And that was Neepawa! A fun time as usual. Next stop: Brandon.

Junq Tour 2020: Portage La Prairie

The junk I find at Portage La Prairie's thrift store usually rivals the stuff from Neepawa. If I were to pick a winner for worst albums, I'd be hard pressed to choose between the two. So here's what I found this year at Portage...

Paul Fauerso - Fantom Music

When I moved into my first apartment, my girlfriend begged me to buy a Fantom Lightning vacuum cleaner. She told me that if she got one, she would vacuum naked for me. So I dropped $399 on the vacuum cleaner, hoping I was in for a treat. Instead, I was the one who used the damn thing regularly while she sat on the couch, fully dressed, eating Cheetos. What a fucking rip off.

Anyway, I have no clue where the hell this CD came from because I sure as hell didn't get one with my vacuum cleaner. To be honest, I kinda like this CD! I enjoy instrumental music, and this is very campy music released just before Y2K hit us. My guess is this was used for the infomercials that were airing repeatedly, bragging about how awesome this bagless vacuum cleaner was. I think bag vacuums are extinct now, so I guess this was pretty revolutionary.

On this album, you get hits such as "Fantom Lightning Theme", Fantom Cyclone XT Theme, Hip Hepa, and Fantom Theme Revisited. Since the songs are short, I've included a few of them. Feel free to download them and vacuum your house while playing them on repeat. Who knew an entire album of vacuuming music could be so damn good?

Listen to Fantom Cyclone XT

Listen to Big Apple

Listen to Beach Nutz

Listen to Hip Hepa

Listen to Fantom Fury Spot '99

Aaron Burnett - Canadian Critters

Look who it is! It's Mr. Environment himself! His album was sealed in non-biodegradable cellophane. Naughty, naughty! I should bury the CD itself and see if it's biodegradable. We had fun listening to his preachy "save the Earth" children's music during last year's Junq Tour. The cover for his environment album featured him about to get eaten by a polar bear. This year, he's about to get eaten by a brown bear. Why does he keep escaping death? What the fuck is wrong with these animals? Don't they know how tasty humans are? He probably kills them with his guitar that sounds like a banjo.

Anyway, Aaron's singing about owls, trash pandas, mosquitoes, and other annoying animals. We had both an owl and a raccoon break into our chicken coop last year and commit mass murder, so fuck these animals. I also had a bear in my tree who left big annoying piles of shit on my lawn. This album paints these animals in a positive light when they shouldn't be. When you live in the country, you develop a much different opinion about wildlife and the environment. One thing I can say is this is better than the environment album as it has less fiction and more facts. Aaron is most certainly aiming for "educate children while they listen to Canadian redneck music" genre.

Listen to Wapiti the Pumpkin Elk

Get the Net! - 14 Fishin' Greats

If you wanted a great album consisting of nothing but fishing songs, you'll have to record one yourself because this isn't great. The original owner probably thought the same since this turd was still sealed when I found it. Between the Mad magazine style artwork and the novelty lyrics, this album tries way too hard to be funny. Maybe it's just me (because I don't fish), but this album just makes me groan. It's also completely made up of country music which sucks at the best of times. I honestly don't know how anybody could write an entire album of fishing songs, but then again there's country artists who can write entire albums about drinking beer. Talented songwriting seems to be lacking in the whole genre.

Personally, I think the album of roadkill songs I reviewed was better.

Listen to Nessie (Sixteen Tons parody)

Vic High Rhythm & Blues Band

For a recording of high school students, the quality and the talent is certainly there. I have to admit that the cover of The Jackson Five's "I Want You Back" on this disc is very good. However, their cover of "The Letter" by The Box Tops is absolutely awful. I understand that people like to re-invent songs to make it "theirs", but this song belongs to Alex Chilton, and I have no respect for anyone who turns his grave into a washing machine on spin cycle.

Their cover of Labelle's "Lady Marmalade" sounds like "Abracadabra" by Steve Miller, and I probably would have been happier if that's actually what they recorded. Covers of "Dancing in the Street" by Martha & The Vandellas, "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder, and "Listen to the Music" by The Doobie Brothers are all very mediocre.

All I can say is I hope these guys all graduated and wrote their own music so I can find it in the wild and write about it on this blog.

Listen to I Want You Back

Listen to The Letter

Quite Likely - Caught in a jam

This one was sealed too! 

Personally, I'm having trouble figuring out what is wrong with this CD. One obvious problem is the dude's voice. It doesn't work with the music that they're playing. He should be doing some Jackyl covers or something. Instead, he's plunking away on his ukelele, singing depressing songs. All the songs are kinda campy and country-ish. It really had potential to be good, but it's kinda not.

Listen to Oh Lord

Peter Webb - Melody Trails by the Surrey Cowboy

"Peter has been entertaining in Hospitals, Senior Citizens Homes, Rest Homes, and Recreation Centers for a number of years"

Well, I guess his dream was to play his songs in a place where he was going to die. He probably induced some of his audience with rigor mortis while playing his boring music consisting of only harmonica, guitar, and himself singing about God and Canada.

"Peter's future ambition is to make many more albums of this type"

The world does not need more albums of this type. I have been reviewing shit like this for 12 years now. I'm begging everyone to please stop.

If you own this album, be careful when writing to his fan club. He had to blot out the old box number and hand-write the new one which likely belongs to the personal care home where Peter sings and poops himself.

Listen to The Beauty of B.C.

Martin Janovsky - Strings & Hammers

When I first saw this album, I thought "Petrof" was a dumb name for an artist. The I realized it was a brand of piano. I suppose it's a fairly respected piano brand since it's featured so fucking prominently on the cover. Then you get Martin's name in the non-standout font at the bottom. At least he scribbled his name on the inside, making this copy an instant ebay cash-grab.

Just as Martin's name doesn't stand out on the cover, none of the songs on this CD stand out either. Music Box Dancer is very lackluster. The version of The Entertainer is decent, but the piano sounds very electronic.

Anyway, he does a cover of Hooked on Classics which was originally a bunch of orchestral classical music set to a disco beat, released in the early 1980s. It sold very well. Martin does a cover of it here, but the disco beat has been dumbed down to subtle background farting. It's pretty lousy. If you haven't heard the original, go check it out and compare it to this piece of crap.

Listen to Hooked on Classics

Levi Strynadka -Fiddling Up a Storm

I'm not going to bother linking to all the posts I did on Arnie Strynadka's albums because there's tons of them. For a change of pace, here's an album by his son! The sound quality is better than his dad's albums, but the band backing him is fake as hell. Honestly, I'm not even sure the fiddle is real.

Apparently, there's at least four more albums by this guy.

Listen to Orange Blossom Special

Redline Demo

It's certainly been an entry for sealed albums!

Remember how bad country music was back in 1990? I know it's worse now, but the artists from 30 years ago really paved the way with their terrible lyrics, and Redline wanted to be right up there with them. The songs are really, really bad.

The guy on the cover looks like he's holding a gun to the mixing board. He should have pulled the trigger before recording this hunk of shit.

Listen to Lady with a Tan

Listen to Trouble

I won't lie.... It's been a challenge trying to manage my time between getting all these entries up and doing work on my new workspace. My stereo isn't hooked up for convenient audio transfers, so I've been doing a bunch of it in my currently cramped living room where other people watch TV and do homework. Fortunately, it seems to be getting closer to completed, so hopefully I'm in there come 2021 unless COVID kills me first.

Next stop: Neepawa!

Junq Tour 2020: Carman

I haven't posted about bad albums from Carman's thrift store since 2012, so they've have had 8 years to collect all sorts of terrible things for me to torture you with. Well, either nobody donates terrible stuff there, or the people who live there have a really terrible taste in music (which is what my guess would be). Regardless, I've managed to leave with these three gems without getting into a fight with other shoppers over it at the cash register.

The Peep Show - Leaving on a Jet Plane

This album should have been called "Leaving on a Shit Plane". Pickwick Records chose their name because they knew people were going to pick on it for their albums being junk. To be honest, Pickwick puts out some of the better quality knock-off records. They have NOTHING on Canada's Arc Records which generally sound like a dog eating out the asshole of a dead camel. 

Anyway, this album was funded by United Airlines. Their slogan is on the bottom right hand corner of the back of the album. Another bonus is this album gives credit to the people who worked on it: Gerry, John, Joe, Jim, Ken, and Bugs Bower. I'm guessing they were all hobos with no last names. Hell, the album barely mentions the name of the band. I guess this also makes it more difficult to hunt them all down and kick their asses for making this trash. The back of the album says this:

"The Peep Show adds its' own theatrical touch to every one of the ten top hits here. The new by Mama Cass,the not so new by The Archies..listen to our group take the best,and make it better."

I'll let you in on a bit of a secret... They didn't make it better. Also, Mama Cass has been dead for a long time, so I'd hardly call this "new". I'm also guessing this band records and performs naked since their name is "The Peep Show".

Listen to Sugar Sugar

DJ's Choice - Kid's Halloween Sing-a-Long

Since Halloween is coming soon, I felt no need to separate this CD for a Halloween entry. I'm pretty sure that "DJ's Choice" and "Drew's Famous" are pretty much the same company since they use the same tracks and identical drawing styles on their album covers. However, there is one difference between this and the other Halloween CDs I've posted... The cheap imitation vocal tracks have been replaced by children on three of the songs: Ghostbusters, Monster Mash, and Love Potion #9. And I thought these songs were done badly before!

I've posted about this version of Monster Mash before (with adults singing) which was on a Drew's Lamous CD. It has the intro stolen from the original recording which I find ironic since there's a footnote on the back of the CD stating that they didn't have permission to post the lyrics inside the booklet. But they had permission to steal the intro? I'm confused. Somebody needs to file a lawsuit, provide free popcorn, and invite me to watch.

The vocal tracks of the children have no reverb on them, leading me to believe that Drew just had his children record them in their basement. Although, it might be someone else's children since it's difficult to believe that Drew could possibly get laid. Imagine him trying to pick up women... "Hey baby! I run a shady record label that tricks people into buying fake versions of songs. Wanna see my cock?"

Listen to Monster Mash

Listen to Ghostbusters

Alleluia Choir / Jubilate Deo Choir - Praise to the Lord Almighty: Spring Concert, April 2002

There are actually three choirs singing on this CD, but they chose to not mention the shitty one on the album cover (and you know which one I'm going to post!) This CD contains the hits such as "Psalm 138", "Psalm 145", "Psalm 25", "Hymn 41", "Hymn 64" and "Hymn 118". I'm sure you can easily recognize the songs by their titles. The back of the cover lists the equipment used in the recording so you'll know if the church is worth breaking into to steal it.

We get treated to children singing out of tune, audience members coughing, and other talentless children playing recorders! You know this is going to be a splendid treat.

Listen to Psalm 116

Listen to Psalm 150

Next, we shall zoom over to Portage La Prairie where the thrift store is usually overloaded with terrible things.

Junq Tour 2020: Morris

Another year, another Junq Tour! Sorry the entries have been lacking, but my new work space is still under construction. Regardless, I bought lots of albums that need to be unleashed to the world.

The first stop was Morris, Manitoba. I was able to buy a cassette drawer full of terrible things for two dollars. There were a lot of German cassettes at the thrift store, so I filtered those out since I can't understand them anyway. However, since this is part of the Christian Wheat Belt, I ended up with mostly Christian music. I honestly wouldn't have a problem with Christian music if it was performed by talented people. Unfortunately, the entire genre seems to be a magnet for those who have the talent of a retarded donkey. So let's see what an entire herd of retarded donkeys can do.

The majority of these album are on the "Silver Streams" record label. It almost seems like a good portion of their catalog was dumped at the thrift store. They should have been dumped in the trash.

Amarie - My Reflection

She sings well, it's mixed decent, and she's wrapped up in leather. What more do you want? Well, how about some good songs? Yes, we have those too! What the hell is going on? Why has a good album fallen into my hands? The world must be about to end.

There is virtually nothing for liner notes on the back of the cover, but her facebook page is listed. So I went and had a look. I'm pretty sure that this is NOT the same person. 

Perhaps this other Amarie hijacked the original Amarie's Facebook account. I tried to find her on Google but nothing came up. It seems as though she completely vanished after recording this album. That's too bad because I would be more than happy to put down some money for more music by her. Yes, it's that good! The song "Think of Me" has to be one of the best songs released in the 2000s. I would love to know who the band mates are and who mixed this unusual jewel, but liner notes didn't seem to be a priority.

Perhaps she was ousted from the Christian Wheat Belt for having talent and trying to put some rock music into everyone's horse-manure-in-a-cowboy-hat lives

If Amarie ever discovers her album here, I would love to see a comment. Until then, feel free to enjoy these two stand out tracks from this fine piece of work.

Listen to Think of Me

Listen to Sunrise

Springs of Living Water - He Touched Me

This album molests your ears and you will need therapy after listening to this shit. I don't think I have yet touched on the Lord's universal sexual abuse song, so here it is, unmolested and ready to penetrate your virgin ears. Feel free to file a police report about this album afterwards.

Well, at least there's trees on the cover. Somebody's got wood.

Listen to He Touched Me

Connie

Just because you went by only your first name, it doesn't mean you're as talented as Tiffany. First of all, you're ugly. Second, you're old. Third, your songs suck ass. You need to go back to being a 1980s housewife and make me some fucking danishes instead of recording duds.

Listen to Wonderful Lord

Frederick & The Fountains of Forever - Waltzing Waters Theatre

Why do people go to Branson and never take me? It's apparently where the artists of Classical Gas Emissions go to die. Perhaps I'll head down there for fun once the plague of 2020 is done killing people. Anyway, we have a nice man at a nice piano playing nice music. I'm not sure if he's trying to be the next Floyd Cramer or Frank Mills, but he fails at both of them. Freddy's version of these songs is somewhat lackluster. You're better off getting the original artists' albums and recording over this one.

Listen to Music Box Dancer

Rosie Gonzalez - More Than Conquerers

What the fuck is this? Her grad photo? She was probably 48 years old when she recorded this and decided that we shouldn't know that. This tape is nothing but a bunch of mushy, shitty 1980s gospel music.

Listen to He's Still Working On Me

Abe & Anna Teichroeb

May all our glory be shown to reverb! Also, we have trees on the cover again. Trees seem to be the theme for these Christian album covers as opposed to the usual pictures of sunset. 

I think this is supposed to be the Mickey & Bunny of the Mennonite community. Abe is trying very hard to sing well, but he's pretty damn terrible. Abe and Anna decided to cleverly disguise their cover of "The Rose" by calling it "Some Say Love". Sneaky bastards. I didn't need another fucking version of "The Rose". I honestly don't understand the appeal of the damn song.

Listen to Some Say Love

Echoes of Glory - Living For Jesus

This album consists of borderline talented people, apparently seven of them in total. However, it sounds like this album was made by two or three people which makes me wonder what the hell the other four to five of them are doing.

What I love most about Christians is their ability to make you feel like a guilt-ridden piece of shit through their music. There is no better song to demonstrate that than "If Jesus Came To Your House". If that happened to me, I'd probably phone the police or beat the piss out of him with a baseball bat for trying to scam me into buying his Book of Mormon. Apparently others would invite him in and hide all the shit that they're embarrassed about. I have no shame. Come look at my porn, Jesus.

Listen to If Jesus Came To Your House

Echoes of Glory - Road To The Cross

We have trees! Also, the dad looks just as miserable as he did on the last album. All of them were wearing dresses except for the men who forgot that they were supposed to look pretty for the photo shoot. Also, the trees aren't wearing dresses either.

For this album, they decided to leave the tuning of their guitars in the hands of the Lord. Apparently he forgot to do it. Oh well, I forgive him.

Listen to I'll Keep Holding On To Jesus

Contry Gospel Messengers - Better Place

Contains your favourite hits such as "Theree Men on the Mountain", "Better Palce", and "Here My Best Friend". These guys can sing just as good as they can spell. 

All of them have a mandatory moustache except for one guy who still hasn't hit puberty yet (and is probably the singer). Also, one guy's in the band solely because his name is "Nacho".

Listen to Theree Men on the Mountain

Henry G. Penner - Gospel Music / In Loving Memory

So apparently Mr. Penner made this music shortly before he died in a car accident. I honestly think that Henry would have been better off going out on a high note, but instead his family decided to release this pile of garbage that he probably never intended on letting the public hear. 

Speaking of death, the splice on the cassette fell apart and my tape deck had a good nibble on the tasty chromium dioxide that Henry's music was recorded on. This is probably my favourite version of the song since it's really short.

I have no clue what circus instrument this crap is played on. It's campy as hell. Anyway, if you enjoy Oom-pah Christian instrumentals, this one's for you.

Listen to the tape get eaten

Listen to Nearer My God To Thee

The Reimer Family - Swing Wide The Gates

Apparently, the Reimer family is made up of trees. Sadly, these trees aren't very good singers.

This is essentially one person who knows how to play a few basic chords on the guitar, and the rest of his family sing along. I mean sure, record this for your family to enjoy, but why must the rest of us need to hear this junk? All these songs sound the same. The baritone singer (dad) is a pretty crappy baritone. His voice cracks like 12 plumbers trying to fix a cracked pipe.

Listen to My Savior Daily Walks With Me

Neil Schellenberg Family

We have tree silhouettes on the cover, just to make it look mysterious even though it's just more shitty Christian songs sung by more talentless assholes. This fucking tape sounds exactly the same as the Reimer Family tape. Trees going through a wood chipper sounds better than this. They're singing in one corner of the room while the tape recorder is sitting in another corner, giving you that "we're stuck in a cabin together and are probably going to eat each other to survive" kind of sound.

Listen to You're My Best Friend

Maria Heinrichs - I Will Stand By You

One thing we can say about this one is the trees can see better than she can.

According to the inlay:

Maria has played music since she was seven years old. She has never taken lessons

... and it really shows. This is the second album I have by Maria, and it's just as bad as the first one. She can't fucking sing.

Listen to Teach The Child

The Schroeder Family - In The Shelter Of His Arms

We will now end our "Family" series with more fucking trees. Also, The Schroeders are surprisingly worse than The Reimers and The Schellenbergs. There's so much trash on this album that I had to share the whole album with you. Six of the songs start with a whiny slide guitar and five start with running the pick down the strings. Coming up with an original way to start a song is the devil's work.

Listen to They That Wait Upon The Lord

Download the whole thing

This was a very long entry to get through, both for you and me. I promise you the others won't be as lengthy, but I can't promise they won't be as painful. Let's move on to Carman...