Junq Tour 2018: Neepawa

Thanks to a loyal reader, I learned that I had neglected to finish posting the rest of 2018's Junq Tour. I called him a liar and told him that I had indeed completed the entries. I wasn't wrong, but neither was he. Indeed, I had digitized and written all the entries, but I neglected to finish posting them. I owe this faithful reader a Kevin Harcourt album for his dedication and his insistence on putting my stupid ass on the grill. My shit now comes out medium-rare.

Without further hesitation, let's complete the 2018 Junq Tour...


Every time I go to the Neepawa thrift store, I walk out with a big mitt of crappy-ass music. This time was no different. However, there's a few gems this time around that I didn't really expect to find...


Elan Emerson



We've got Elan Emerson's big debut EP! When I bought this thing, I had no clue this person was somewhere around six years old.

This 4-track record has Elan singing her tiny little ass off. The songs she picked are 30000 years old. I recognized Coat of Many Colours, and The Fox went out on a date one night, and he fucked and he sucked and he fucked and he sucked, and it must be a mighty fine town-o!

The organ player on this one is my idol. I want a whole album called "Elan Emerson's Organ Player Plays the Hits!" With my luck finding stupid crap, I'll probably come across it.

Listen to Coat of Many Colours
Listen to Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream
Listen to The Fox
Listen to The Gypsy Rover


Join the Gilmar Record Club



You know you're in for a good time when they jam 8 entire songs onto a 7" record. In order to achieve this amount of compression, they have to record the songs really quietly, turn the bass down, and let all the crackles and pops to the talking!

The performances are pure garbage, and scream "I'm a fake-breasted prostitute who's going to rip you off and not even give you an ounce of pleasure". All the songs are from the late 1950s which means this is probably the oldest cheap imitation record I own.

The poor groove walls are so tiny and fragile that the fucking thing started skipping during Running Bear and Peggy Sue, so you're going to get extended versions that you can dance to for the entire night.

Listen to the shittiest version of Peggy Sue you've ever heard in your life
Download the entire piece of crap


Laurisa



Remember how great the 1980s were? Remember when you got a perm and recorded your big debut single? Well, Laurisa does! Too bad the debut single was so over-80s-ified that it was a whiny synthy piece of garbage. Oh yeah, and it's a Christian song too, so failure was imminent.

Listen to Love You Forever
Listen to In Your Presence


Learning As We Play



First of all, let's look at the cover... someone took a red pen and scribbled all over the album cover and accidentally made an image of three hairy children. Also, this album is for EXCEPTIONAL children which means no mentally challenged, autistic, nor comatose children are allowed to participate in the activities on this record.

Second, this album must not have seen much, if any use because the damn thing is in mint shape.

Third, this was obviously recorded in the 1950s. Back then, they used shoestrings made out of leather to record albums on instead of ferric oxide coated paper. The recording quality isn't very good.

Fourth, most of these children are probably dead by now.

Fifth, the song "See The Indians" goes to prove that Indians were at one time an endanger species, because nobody in their right mind would write such a song if Indians were commonplace.

Listen to See The Indians
Download the whole thing


Metro - Metro on Broadway



I covered one of Metro's previous albums (12 Days from Christmas) on here at least once. Here is one of his follow up albums (I have at least one other). It's your typical Canadian-Ukrainian comedy album, but with more kazoo. The album is fun, witty, and quirky. The second half of the album is a live show, and he's just as good at stand-up as he is with his comedy songs.

The sound quality of this 8-track is surprisingly fantastic! Better than that piece of shit Gilmar record club thingy.

Listen to On The Street Where You Dig
Download the whole album


The Neepawa Variatones



Now I know what you guys have been asking... "Where the fuck is my cover of Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain?" It's on this album, so you can just shut the hell up and be happy.

Unfortunately, Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain is NOT the highlight of this album. There are three songs that have vocals, and the guy is terrible. The band is one you would hire to play at a live funeral. The music is miserable and makes me want to cry until the keys don't work anymore on this crappy HP laptop.

Listen to Birth of the Blues
Download the whole record


Philip Nevile



Here is Philip Nevile's big debut single! The vinyl it's pressed on is filing a lawsuit against Philip for forcing such shitty songs onto it. First of all, the song "My World of Make Believe" sounds like a broken music box. Philip is singing in an echo chamber, and his twin brother is singing backup vocals.

The B-side (Bring Her Home) isn't as terrible, but it's still not great. There's too much vocal, and too many assholes trying to be fancy on the guitar at once. Listening to this is like looking at a pleasantly-colored pile of dog puke.

Listen to My World of Make Believe
Listen to Bring Her Home


Pop Jewels



The album should have been called "Poop Nuggets". Madacy brings us some classic instrumental tracks that aren't the originals. I'm pretty sure I've heard some of these recordings before, and I'm pretty sure that poopy version of popcorn is featured elsewhere on this blog.

I don't know why the album cover is photocopied. The cassette came straight from the factory. Perhaps Madacy finally paid their musicians (or the wankers they bought these recordings from) and couldn't afford card stock for the cassette inlay. Anyway, if you think you'll enjoy an unenthusiastic version of Green Onions or some Zamfir-wannabe play El Condor Pasa on the pan flute, this will be a great album to share with all your buddies. If you don't like any of that shit, then this is a great cassette to bat dog turds with.

Listen to El Condor Pasa
Download the whole poopy collection


Shayne Lewis - Soul Survivor



This is probably one of the greatest finds from the entire Junq tour. Look at this guy. He seems to have mastered the art of taking a shit while playing his guitar. There is absolutely no other reason to squat like that with a guitar strapped to you.

This photo was taken right by the Bridge Drive In ice cream shop in Winnipeg. I would have been happier if he was strumming that guitar with a waffle cone.

The songs??? Bwahahahahahaha!!!!

Okay, I'll try to describe this... Ever have a sore throat from trying to take a shit on a bridge? Well, that's exactly what poor Shayne had while he recorded his vocal tracks. The songs themselves are lousy. The worst song on here by far is Pina. Speaking of pina, I have to feel sorry for Shane's pina being squashed against the back of that guitar. I hope there's a recovery center for guitars who have been raped on bridges against their will.

Listen to Pina
Download this piece of garbage


The Surfsiders Sing The Beach Boys Songbook



Ever go surfing only to end up doing a faceplant on the concrete? If you haven't, I'm sure The Surfsiders can tell you plenty of stories about it because that's essentially what you have here. These fucking losers never waxed a surf board in their lives, and never got wet from it.

The harmonies on this album just sound like a bunch of drunken Californians ready to fall onto the floor and pass out for the night. These are so far from the originals that they could almost be considered originals themselves.

If you want to ruin your summer, you'll love this album.

Listen to Little Deuce Coup
Download the whole thing


Audiodisc of Some Guy Playing the Bagpipes





Now, I love bagpipes as much as the next guy, but I can't understand why anybody would waste a blank Audiodisc on this shit. I mean, there's probably a difference between a wicked bagpipe player and a shit bagpipe player, but it all sounds like three ducks caught half way in a meat grinder.

The death of the music at the end of side one is completely worth listening to though. Take the three ducks stuck halfway in a meat grinder, and throw the whole meat grinder into a car crusher, and you have the ending.

Listen to Side 1 and 2


Voice-O-Graphs (the second installment)







Last year, I found one Voice-O-Graph record at the Neepawa thrift store. This year, I found three more which obviously came from the same batch as the previous one. We have two records here featuring two guys named Boris & Mike, and each has a record of themselves singing. The third record is simply titled "This Is Stupid". In other words, it was a waste of a record, but I'm presenting it here because these people are most likely dead now.

Listen to Boris Singing
Listen to Mike Singing
Listen to This Is Stupid


So there's my lengthy Neepawa entry. Hang on tight, because we're headed for a visit to Dauphin!

Fake Soundtracks

I've been gone for a while for some perfectly good reasons that I shall not discuss. My time was needed elsewhere. You know how it goes.

But I always come back! Back to grinding away at the shitty things I find because I enjoy polluting the internet. This blog will not die, no matter how much terrible shit I post. Speaking of terrible shit...

Music From the Motion Picture FM



If you look at the cover, it says in small capitalized letters "NOT THE ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK". Pickwick must be losing their touch. That text should be much, much smaller.

I haven't seen the movie nor do I own the real soundtrack, but I know some of the songs on here. These renditions are unnecessary, unexplainable crap. First of all, after looking at the track listing for the real soundtrack, they've chosen some of the shittiest songs from it. Second, the Doobie Brothers song is sang by some female Pickwick employee who also sang the Linda Ronstadt songs. Some guy sings all the male-fronted songs (except for The Doobie Brothers). I would've like to see him do a Linda Ronstadt song, but since Linda Ronstadt is a hack in her own right and covered The Rolling Stones and Warren Zevon, the songs would've sounded closer to the original had they been sung by the guy. Everybody loses.

The vinyl record pictured on the cover appears to be the real FM soundtrack. Cute. What a way to rub in the money you wasted on the Pickwick piece of shit.






The recordings are typical Pickwick garbage. The Doobie Brothers song "It Keeps You Runnin'" doesn't have that poop-tastic casio sound that the original does (which isn't a bad thing), but it's still one of the shittiest Doobie Brothers songs in existence (along with everything from the "Cycles" album), so there's no justice done here. Life In The Fast Lane is the worst, and it's one of the shittier Eagles songs as well. Thank God they faded it out early to end the suffering quickly.

Listen to It Keeps You Runnin'
Listen to Life In The Fast Lane
Download the whole piece of shit

A Tribute To The Flintstones By Overtures



When I saw this in the thrift store, I knew it wasn't going to be music from the animated series since the band Was (Not Was) did not exist in the 1960s. This is supposed to be a take on the soundtrack from the motion picture that was released in 1994. This is another movie I haven't seen and a soundtrack I don't own either.

Was (Not Was) is actually one of my more favourite bands and I've never heard a cheap imitation cover of them, so this is a first and it doesn't disappoint. The fucking third verse is missing in "Walk The Dinosaur".

I'm surprised that they actually did a cover of the Green Jello version of Anarchy in the UK instead of grabbing a Sex Pistols cover they had laying around. The singer's a piece of shit though. He doesn't sound nearly as angry as the guy from Green Jello. The analog fuck up that exists in the Green Jello version is nowhere to be found here, nor did I expect it to. Why put in any kind of effort to emulate the original? Because turds don't need to be polished, that's why.

The Brad Roberts impression on "In The Days Of The Caveman" is comedy gold! Remember how Weird Al forced his voice to be lower in the song "Headline News"? Well, he did a good job on that. This guy just sounds like a pompous dink getting sucked off by your hairy mother.

The first six tracks on the CD are cheap imitations from the movie soundtrack. The other nine songs are just some relevant bullshit The Overtures recorded to fill the rest of the CD. Here's what they added:

Wooly Bully
Tyrannosaurus and Me
Crocodile Rock
Alley Oop
Stone Agent
I'm a Caveman
Neanderthal Man
I Go Ape
Monster Mash

Woolly Bully is terrible, and they spelled it wrong. I don't know what they were trying to do here, and I don't believe there's a modern cover they were trying to emulate. All they wanted to do was shit this one onto the CD and call it a day. The same goes for Crocodile Rock. Elton John is spinning in his stupid looking clothes from this atrocity.

Alley Oop is surprisingly not too horrible. It follows the original recording pretty well with exception of the flat, over-polished production.

Putting The Monster Mash on here was a cop-out. It's been slightly re-written to be more caveman-centric, and from what I can tell from Google, the guys who made this CD came up with the alternate lyrics. It's pretty dumb and lame.

Listen to In The Days of The Caveman
Listen to Woolly Bully
Listen to Monster Mash
Download the whole piece of trash.

It's good to be back posting.

Guess what? We're planning this year's Junq Tour! It shall be every bit as entertaining as the last one, possibly more! However, I have a certain subject to cover before I venture out into the deep thrifty forest of the Christian Wheat Belt. You'll eventually see why...

Flaming Telepaths BBS

I've mentioned that I've been working on a project over on the Facebook page. Well, this is it!

Way back in the year 1998, I had purchased a used Tandy 2500 PC for $20 in front of the local grocery store (I'm not bullshitting you!) I brought it home and this was my graduation from my Commodore 64. Eventually, I purchased an internal US Robotics 33,6 modem through my workplace (which set me back about $150). I ended up using the existing Trumpet Winsock setup to connect to the internet, and subsequently using the still-active internet account that it connected to. I was also able to see how badly I had run up the account holder's internet bill (back then, internet usage was charged by the hour). The bill was in excess of $100 and was eventually cut off.

To supplement my online usage (and my inability to pay for my own internet connection as a poor young adult), a friend had told me about BBS listings in the back of the local computer magazines. BBSes are essentially electronic "Bulletin Board Systems" where you can chat, meet people, play games, and download files. The listing in the magazine was horribly outdated, but I was able to find a few, connect to them, and get led to other BBSes that were ran locally in my city. My two favourite BBSes to call were "Dystemper Industries" and "Frozen Thoughts", although more people flocked to "Robin's Universe" because the guy was able to afford four telephone lines and could thus handle a much larger traffic load.

Once I had moved into my own apartment, I decided that I wanted to run my very own BBS. I paid for an extra phone line, downloaded some software, and set up my own system. I ran my own BBS until the year 2001 when I was forced to shut it down due to the termination of my relationship with my fiancee and my inability to afford my apartment, let alone the extra phone line. I swore that I would do everything I could to get my BBS back up and running as soon as I could.

18 years later, I finally did it. It's no longer a dialup system. It's now accessible over the internet through a service called "Telnet". You need some specific software to log on (we'll get to that in a minute). First of all, here's some screenshots of the place! It's also very evident that I was obsessed with the band Blue Oyster Cult.

Here's what you see when you first log in (which is subject to change, along with the other images below):



When I initially ran my BBS, I used a package called "Infusion" which was heavy on ANSI graphics. This one was buried in the package as one of the extras, and I eventually used it. Infusion turned out to be extremely buggy and wouldn't run everybody's favourite door game called "Legend of the Red Dragon" or "LORD" for short. In my opinion, that was a sure-fire way to get your BBS software package to fail.

*External programs that are added to BBS systems are called "doors"

Most of the other ANSI graphics were done by myself. I'm not a great artist, but I can get by.



This is the main hub where you choose what you want to do by pressing a key (none of that touch tablet shit!) You won't see the Sysop menu (that's for me only!) nor the Internet menu (which is left over from the early days and is no longer necessary), but everything else is there. It's pretty self-explanatory. I added a voting booth, and a Christian door where people can leave prayers. Here's a nice prayer that someone left:




I run some of the "classic" door games on my system, such as the previously mentioned "LORD" along with about 50 others...




But as we all know, I'm not exactly one for mainstream stuff. I added a section called "Crazy Games" and put some of the more strange and offensive shit in there:



There's some dated games in there such as "Free OJ Simpson", "The Simpsons" and a game called "House Killers" where you murder all the characters from the TV show "Full House".

In addition to that, we have some drug-related games such as "Barneysplat" where you get Barney the Purple Dinosaur stoned and murder him, and a game called "Buzz" where you try to reach the ultimate high without killing all of your brain cells.



There's also a game called "Cripple Smash" where you get to beat the shit out of the elderly and disabled (although they're pretty tough themselves!)



There's also a bunch of "adult" titles here that are guaranteed to make you really horny for pixelated graphics of penises and naked women:



The games "Studs" and "Studette" have you playing the role of a horny person looking to pick up prostitutes. I can't really post screenshots of those, but I can do one of the "Cum As Your Are Slut Machine":



So that's a basic rundown of my BBS. It's almost the same setup as the day I took it down, but I haven't got around to bringing back my network message feeds (which are messages posted from BBSes all over the world), and I'm wanting to move to multinode which will take in more than one user at a time. These two things will take a bit of time, but It'll eventually get there.

Now, here's how to get on RIGHT NOW and enjoy! (unless someone else is using it)

First of all, if you know what you're doing, here is the address:
flamingtelepaths.duckdns.org:9148

If you don't know what you're doing, you can download this piece of Windows software called "Netrunner" which is made by the same guy who made my BBS software package. If you download the copy below, all you have to do is extract it and run the .exe file. I've already put my BBS in so you don't even have to do that part. Just click and go! (You can add more BBSes if you like, here's a huge list)

Download Netrunner (it's tiny)

If you run Linux, you can run it in Wine or download the Linux version if you're adventurous.

If you only use a phone, tablet, or a Mac, you're kinda on your own. I'm not aware of anything good for Mac, although you might be able to build a copy of Syncterm on your machine.

If you have a Blackberry Playbook, believe it or not, but you have a pretty good app on there (the name escapes me at this time)

So, that's my new corner of the internet! Hope to see you there posting messages and killing each other in LORD. There's an application you'll have to fill out to become a user, but that's standard for pretty much every BBS out there. You'll get instant access once you're done filling it out, and no, I don't ask for your credit card number or anything.... Yet....

1290 Fox / Q-94 FM Cassettes

These cassettes came from a number of random places, and they looked interesting as hell. I love stuff that comes from radio stations, because you never know what's going to be on them.

First, let me give you a run down of the radio station in question.

Q-94 and 1290 Fox were sister stations, one on the FM dial and one on the AM dial

Q-94 FM was Winnipeg's lite rock and pop station for many years, playing current hits that won't piss off your parents, unlike that evil 92 Citi FM station that played all that demonic AC/DC shit.

1290 Fox for the longest time played music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Back when I was around 10 years old, it was my station of choice, and I listened to it quite a bit. Kevin McGowan was the morning show host.

Eventually, 1290 Fox decided it was a dumb idea to play music on the AM dial, and decided to become a sports station which broadcast sporting events, had interviews, and whatever else sports people like to listen to.


Football Cassettes

Our first batch of cassettes containg recordings of football games. Judging from the labels, they recorded football games on multiple cassettes and possibly re-broadcasted them. These cassettes are incomplete recordings of three football games. I honestly couldn't give a shit about the football games themselves, but the commercials are where the gold is at. A lot of the places being advertised no longer exist in Winnipeg which is what makes them so interesting. I've pulled the commercials from the cassettes, put them in a wave file, tried to eliminate duplicates, and can present you with a snapshot of Winnipeg radio from 1989, which is interestingly around the time I was listening to 1290 Fox. Here's a list of what's in the audio file:

Rorie Street Marble Club
Space Age Therapy quit smoking
Seal Test Fruit Fantasy Fruit & Yogurt Bars / frozen yogurt
kevin McGowan 1290 Fox
Manitoba Lotteries
Skinner's Wet & Wild
Bryant Air Conditioner
Foster's Lager
Blue Cross
Don's Photo
Kildonan Place
Pembina Dodge
Palamino Club Country Rock Club
Manitoba Lotteries (Great Moment in Football)
Weight Watchers
Eastwood Jeep Eagle Premier
Winnipeg Sun
1290 Fox end football game
1290 Fox Loyal Listener
Manitoba For & Mercury Dealer
Seal Test Parlour Ice Cream
Tetley Tea
Eastood Jeep Eagle
Simplicity Sun Runner Mowers
Belair Air Conditioning
Westroc Battery
Weight Watchers
Eastwood Jeep Eagle
Kildonan Place Food Court Construction
Perkins (new restaurant)
OV Beer
Don's Photo (One Day Photo Finishing)
Henry Armstrong's Instant Printing
Pembina Dodge
A&M Wholesale
Astra Savings
Winnipeg Jets Tickets
Don's Photo (Bell Bottoms!)
Blue Cross Student Accident Insurance
Strawberry's bar
OV Beer
Polar Building Cleaners

Remember, Polar Building Cleaners doesn't just clean the ashtrays and door knobs! Also, put the bikini on mothballs!

Listen to the commercials


Midway Chrysler's "On Hold" Tape

This tape came in a piece of telephone equipment I found at the e-recycler (I still have it, but it's likely buried in a box of stuff that needs to be sorted). It was a unit that was used to play a recording when a person was on hold. In this case, the unit came from Midway Chrysler in Winnipeg which is obvious given the cassette inside. It looks like the cassette was recorded at the Q-94 FM / 1290 Fox station. The background music is in stereo which will work really good on a telephone from the 1980s. The interesting part about this recording is it tells you about Midway Chrysler's website, and gives you an alternative option to contact them if you're not on the internet yet. My guess is this recording is probably from around 1995.

Listen to Midway Chrysler's On Hold Tape

The Life of Brian

He grew! He has eyes, legs, hands and feet! And that's the entire contents of this short song. My question is, who the fuck is Brian???

I really don't know what the point of this song is. It's really stupid, but that's what makes it so charming!

Listen to The Life of Brian

So there's a few slices of Winnipeg history, yet again. Gotta love finding stuff like this!

Adult Party 8-tracks

I hope you're all still having your new year's party, because the party isn't over if you haven't played any of these PARTY 8-TRACKS!!!

But not all is lost if you ended your party shortly after midnight on January 1st. For those of you who made a new years resolution to masturbate more and have more porn in your life, I'll happily help you with that. Well... not literally.

I must have been in the wrong place when I was transferring these. My usual cafe that I blog at (mainly made up of bible students) was closed over the holidays, so I ventured into a mostly Asian cafe and got strange looks from the people around me playing with their iPhones while I was playing my 8-tracks.

Anyway, let's check out these tapes. Be forewarned that clicking on the images uncensors them. This stuff is NSFW!


Forgive Me Father for I Have Sinned



I generally expect that when I buy an 8-track that says "Party Tape", it's going to be pornographic. This one is not. It's just some vulgar comedy tape. I didn't care to listen to the whole thing. I just listened to a chunk of program 4, copied whatever I heard, and that's pretty much all you need from this one.

Listen to Forgive Me Father For I Have Sinned

Sensuous Men and Women



I had a terrible time trying to get this fucking tape to play properly. Outside of putting it in a new shell, I got it playing decently with the occasional warble in it. It was obviously played a lot, and who knows what kind of a sick bastard owned it before me.

According to the label, I've never heard a recording so real. I call bullshit on that. This tape is purely ficticious and has a cast of nasty sounding people. There is pretty much nothing sensuous about this recording.

Listen to Sensuous Men and Women


How To Do It



Now we're talking!

There's a common plot with a lot of these tapes. Somebody goes to a therapy session and tells the therapist (with great detail and sound effects) about their sexual adventures. Within the first minute, you get to hear the award-winning expression, "I felt hotter than a fresh fucked fox in a forest fire". You know you're in for one hell of a ride after hearing a phrase like that!

This is the best tape of the lot, and if your parents are gone to bed, feel free to play this while they're sleeping to really mess with their dreams.

Listen to How To Do It

Well, hopefully you haven't creamed all over your computer from listening to these albums, unlike me.