Marginal Minds: Joel Plaskett

Maple Music's Joel Plaskett Emergency Lights Up Philadelphia's Fillmore at the TLA

One of the top 5 most life-changing moments of any Tragically Hip show is being introduced to their opening act. Canada seems to be the place to be for indie-rock anymore, and the Hip are a touring comet whose tail is every best band that slips under the States' radar. Following in the footsteps of names like Sam Roberts and The Constantines, The Joel Plaskett Emergency is the latest harbinger of Canada's favorite superstars.

Plaskett's new disc, Ashtray Rock, is a semi-autobiographical concept album incorporating shite from his childhood through his days as a professional musician. Ashtray Rock itself refers to the spot in the woods where they'd meet to get drunk when he and his friends were teenagers. The opening song after a brief introductory reprise is aptly named "Drunk Teenagers". One can feel Plaskett's nostalgia crisis unfold, almost matched by an aching to make amends.

Musically, it's just interesting enough. Occasionally glammy--and once or twice, funky--Plaskett is less concerned with breaking new ground than he is in setting the mood and framework for his pass-the-bottle-around story-time. I hesitate to call Ashtray Rock a pop-rocky take on acid-folk, but let's say that the album is just enough of a genre bender that it

oughtn't bore those who - when they here the phrase 'Concept Album', can only conjur ideas of epic prog-opi.

Despite mostly up-beat melodies, the lyrics are bittersweet. The vocal line that ends the album on "Sountrack for the Night" proclaims 'Yea, I stole your girl... If I have one regret, it's that I lost you the first time I set my eyes on her...' Perhaps the music is a tad on the competent side for the poignance of the lyrical content, but not to the point where it sounds noticeably unfitting. Even though Plaskett at times plays it safe with majors and minors, his croon more than makes up for it with the soul and longing of a lonely bar singer who's hoping his old girlfriends and roomates show up to sing along.

Plaskett follows a new tradition that I dig. And that is: people who clearly listened to Springstien growing up, who are not trying to sound like Springstien (thank you to Badly Drawn Boy for, [starting??] this tradition). No offence to the Hold-Steady et al, who find it boss to tear pages out of familair play-books; there's certainly nothing wrong with either emulating or coincidentally sounding like the greats (see: MM favorite Dr. Dog), but the Springstien twice-removed generation's flavor is both diluted and original enough to keep me going to shows and getting chills from original voices.

The real meat of the Joel Plaskett Emergency experience is the live performance. Unlike folk singers who talk about their next song in monotone prose for sometimes 5 minutes, Plaskett sets up the scene for his songs, where applicable, with a (coincidently?) Gordon Downie-esque energetic diatribe over-top the introductory instrumentals. This rythmic ritual really gets his audience caring about the songs on dynamic levels, taking away the "what's he saying/what are any of these songs about?" issues associated with heavier rock shows and virtually eliminating the one-dimensional flatness associated with pure folk shows. And, of course, the music touches on the best of both worlds.

I look forward to seeing The JPE do a headlining show, but I'm sure it won't be happinging 'round these parts. I have been looking for an excuse to road-trip the shit out of Canada, though. And on a substitute teacher's budget, seeing the Joel Plaskett Emergency play all night long in a small club up north may be just what the doctor ordered...