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HAVE A PARKDALE HOOKERS CHRISTMAS TIME
by The Parkdale Hookers

Yes on the news it Christmas time
You’re gonna get the blues, it’s Christmas time
You’re gonna have some fun, it’s Christmas time
You better call your mom, it’s Christmas time continue

I’ve never been a big fan of Statocasters, or Strat like guitars. While I do appreciate their fine quality,  overall I always found them lacking personality.

I’ve always gravitated to unusual guitars like Vox’s, or my Tokai Talbo Blazing Fire, a cast aluminum guitar from Japan that I picked up for a steal way back in the late 80s. (I’ve been playing a rare 1972 Ibanez Artist bass I found used at Capsule Music, it was only in the catalogs for about 2 years).

That’s why I was so pleased to stumble across Eastwood Guitars, a company recreating the more unusual vintage axes from the 60′s and 70′s. Many of these were carried by Sears or Woolworths. If you’ve ever tried any of the originals, you’ll know that many of them were, uh, less than “the creme of the crop” in terms of playability and quality.

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I heard about this website on a favourite Podcast I never miss: Inside Home Recording.

They mentioned this website and it has sucked my life away:

Bobby Owinski’s Big Picture Blog

This very knowledgeable fellow has posted RAW tracks from famous recordings. For instance today he features the isolated bass track from the Beatles “While my guitar gently weeks”. A fascinating behind the scenes look into the playing of one of modern music’s masters. Educational and inspiring.

Tons of insightful articles on music, musicianship and just about every thing else music related as well. If you’re involved in creating music for fun or for profit, this is a site to open every morning (I do).

Please Note: This site will suck up all your available time, so use caution when visiting. He’s taken days from me — damn him — sure hope he don’t quit.

By special request, you can find the lyrics for “Have a Parkdale Hookers Christmas Time” in the Lyrics section.

You can find it here.

Been great so far. The engineer is great and we’re getting some great sounds. It’ll be fun to top off the night with NXNE! continue

Well, we got quite a bit done today – 6 beds down, we’ll do the remaining 2 tomorrow and then the overdubs.

We haven’t picked the dates when we’ll do the vocals – that will be a couple of weeks once all the flu will have exited my lungs – still hangin on.

The next session will be tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.

pictures and videos to follow

So after much changing of schedules we finally roll into John Critchley’s Green Door studios today at 8am. Mark C is there now loading the drums in and starting to develop the drum sounds. I’ll be getting there in a bit (it’s just down the street from me).

Many thanks go out to John for putting up with our corporate time tables for this one – he’s not used to starting at such an ungodly hour!

Mark J & Mark C live on CBC Radio 3!