IN WRITING ABOUT Canadian music, I have been lucky enough to stand on the shoulders of giants. Michael Barclay, Ian A.D. Jack, and Jason Schneider did God’s work in compiling Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985–1995 (Toronto: ECW Press, Rev. ed., 2011). Two chapters in that text — “The Importance of Being Sloan” and “Never Mind the Molluscs” — were crucial to my understanding of the growth of alternative music in Atlantic Canada, and served as a strong foundation for my exploration of that scene in this book as it related to Thrush Hermit. To guide the trip through broader east-coast history in chapter 2, three volumes proved extremely helpful: Margaret R. Conrad and James K. Hiller’s Atlantic Canada: A History (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2010); S.A. Saunders’s The Economic History of the Maritime Provinces (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1984); and Donald J. Savoie’s Visiting Grandchildren: Economic Development in the Maritimes (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).
This book relied primarily on original interviews to tell the story of Joel Plaskett, the Emergency, and Thrush Hermit. Unless noted in the text or sources section, all quotations were sourced from these interviews. They were conducted between May 2014 and May 2015, in Halifax, Toronto, and Ottawa, largely in person, occasionally by phone, and in several cases by email, Facebook message, and Twitter DM.
The following people were gracious enough to lend me their time for interviews and, in many cases, frequent fact-checking: Art Alexakis, Charles Austin, Mike Belitsky, Rob Benvie, Dave Bookman, Tim Brennan, Marc Brown, Mike Campbell, Greg Clark, Jeff Cohen, Kim Cooke, Stephen Cooke, Rose Cousins, Laura “Borealis” Hyde Crapo, Doug Easley, Ana Egge, Peter Elkas, Angie Fenwick Gibb, Cliff Fenwick Gibb, Jay Ferguson, Joe Fleischer, Carla Gillis, Brad Gooch, Matthew Grimson, Jim Henman, Bob Hoag, Darrell Johnson, Gordie Johnson, Sheri Jones, Steve Jordan, Tom Kemp, Mo Kenney, Rebecca Kraatz, Clyde Lieberman, Sebastian Lippa, Tara Luft Mora, John Angus MacDonald, Martin MacDonald, Sharon MacDonald, Colin MacKenzie, Dave Marsh, Waye Mason, Ian McGettigan, Dale Morningstar, Chris Murphy, David Myles, Mike Nelson, Allison Outhit, Chris Pennell, Bill Plaskett, Joel Plaskett, Benn Ross, Peter Rowan, Stephen “Snickers” Smith, “Miniature” Tim Stewart, Catriona Sturton, Jonathan Torrens, Everett True, and Al Tuck.