Unless noted here, all interviews are original.
1. AN INTRODUCTION
“I want to find a way to make it in Canada”: Stuart Berman, “Thrush Hermit Leader Finally Well Enough to Call It Quits — Band Set to Part Ways after Years of Frustration,” Toronto Star, December 2, 1999.
2. REWIND, REWIND, REWIND
“Maritimers, more than other Canadians”: Harry Bruce, Down Home: Notes of a Maritime Son (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1988), 6.
“Inseparable”: Gary Burrill, Away: Maritimers in Massachusetts, Ontario, and Alberta: An Oral History of Leaving Home (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992), 4.
“Can Anything Good Come From Halifax?”: Jayson Greene, “Rising: Ryan Hemsworth,” Pitchfork, January 8, 2013, accessed February 10, 2015, pitchfork.com/features/rising/9035-ryan-hemsworth.
“Canada’s most eastern provinces have the smallest populations in the country”: “Population by Year, Province, and Territory (Number),” Statistics Canada, last modified September 29, 2015, accessed December 22, 2015, statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm.
“New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island have the lowest gross domestic product per capita”: “Financial Security — Standard of Living / Indicators of Well-being in Canada,” Employment and Social Development Canada, last modified January 3, 2016, accessed January 3, 2016, www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=26.
“Atlantic Canadians want to support artists from home”: John Demont, “Longing for Home: In Search of Nova Scotia’s Soul,” Chronicle Herald Magazine, January 25, 2014, accessed February 15, 2014, thechronicleherald.ca/heraldmagazine/1180910-longing-for-home-in-search-of-nova-scotia-s-soul.
“Like a motorcycle gang”: Bruce, 46.
“In the 1750s, nearly 11,000 of them were deported”: Margaret R. Conrad and James K. Hiller, Atlantic Canada: A History (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2010), 79.
“The population reached 800,000 by 1861”: Ibid., 107.
“The Aboriginal population in the Maritimes had by then shrunk to 3,000”: Ibid., 109.
“The characteristics of a mass migration”: Alan A. Brookes, “Out-Migration from the Maritime Provinces, 1860–1900: Some Preliminary Considerations,” Acadiensis 5, no. 2 (spring 1976): 31.
“Decapitation”: Judith Fingard, “The 1880s: Paradoxes of Progress,” The Atlantic Provinces in Confederation, ed. E.R. Forbes and D.A. Muise (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 97
“From 1851 to 1931, more than 600,000 people left the Maritimes; while there was some immigration, it was a net loss of 460,000 people”: Studies cited in Patricia A. Thornton, “The Problem of Out-Migration from Atlantic Canada, 1871–1921: A New Look,” Acadiensis 15, no. 1 (autumn 1985): 5.
“Burned two-fifths of the New Brunswick city to the ground”: Donald Collins, “Weary City Resurfaces from Ashes,” New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, June 20, 2002.
“Roughly 2,000 people died and the city’s north end was leveled”: “Explosion FAQ,” Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, accessed February 10, 2015, maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/what-see-do/halifax-explosion/explosion-faq.
“’Tis clear, they can’t stay here / For work to do there’s none”: John Cousins, “James H. Fitzgerald and ‘Prince Edward Isle, Adieu,’” The Island Magazine, Fall/Winter 1980, 27–31.
“Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-bound coast”: “Farewell to Nova Scotia / The Nova Scotia Song,” Helen Creighton Folklore Society, accessed February 10, 2015, helencreighton.org/collection/NSsong.
“Continuing to go down the road to Central Canada to secure a job”: Donald J. Savoie, Visiting Grandchildren: Economic Development in the Maritimes (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 35.
“Not much changed on the east coast”: “Full Text of the Atlantic Provinces Section of the Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects — Preliminary Report,” Atlantic Advocate, March 1957, 94.
“Maritimization”: Michael Clow, “‘Maritimizing’ Canada: Speeding Up the De-Industrialization of Our Economy,” The Facts on Free Trade: Canada, Don’t Trade It Away, 10, no. 2 (spring 1988): 98
“New notion of happiness”: David Alexander, “New Notions of Happiness: Nationalism, Regionalism, and Atlantic Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies, 15, no. 2 (1980): 40.
“The region grew less than one-tenth of a percent between 2011 and 2015”: Calculations done from Statistics Canada tables: “Population by Year, by Province and Territory,” Statistics Canada, modified September 29, 2015, accessed December 22, 2015, statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm.
“Meanwhile, 10 percent of the local labour force is unemployed”: Calculations done from Statistics Canada tables: “Labour Force, Employment and Unemployment, Levels and Rates, by Province (Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick),” Statistics Canada, modified January 28, 2015, accessed December 22, 2015, statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/labor07a-eng.htm.
“Driving up and down Main Street looking for something you know damn well ain’t there”: Goin’ Down the Road, film, directed by Donald Shebib (1970: Seville Pictures, re-released in 2002), DVD.
“One of Joel Plaskett’s favourites”: “What Canadian Comedy Means to Joel Plaskett,” Telefilm Canada, March 4, 2014, accessed July 4, 2014, youtube.com/watch?v=XonTtQfJfJE.
“For those like fiddling folk icon Don Messer”: “Don Messer,” Nova Scotia Archives, published May 9, 2010, accessed May 31, 2015, novascotia.ca/archives/virtual/messer.
“Saint John’s Ken Tobias”: “Biography,” Ken Tobias: The Official Website, accessed May 21, 2015, kentobias.ca/bio.php; Dave Bidini, On a Cold Road (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998), 218.
“Early country star Wilf Carter”: Jason Schneider, Whispering Pines: The Northern Roots of American Music . . . From Hank Snow to The Band (Toronto: ECW Press, 2009), 15–44.
“Hank Snow, 10 years Carter’s junior . . .”: Ibid., 22, 34, 42.
“I figgered it would just be so wonderful”: Jo Durden-Smith, “Nashville Gothic,” Maclean’s, May 1972, 61–63.
“The train is not unlike the country it runs through”: Bill Howell, “What Upper Canada Has Done to Anne Murray” / “Upper Canada Romantic,” Maclean’s, May 1972, 29–30.
“The relative Maritime obscurity from whence I’d come”: Anne Murray with Michael Posner, All of Me (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2009), 88.
“Stompin’ Tom from Skinners Pond”: Tom Connors, Stompin’ Tom and the Connors Tone (Toronto: Viking, 2000), 82.
“That song even became a recurring punchline”: “Yonge Street! Part 1,” posted July 18, 2010, accessed December 22, 2015, youtube.com/watch?v=FPFAAGC0Jxo, and Geoff Pevere, Canadian Cinema: Donald Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 111.
“And this skit, in turn, helped inspire a YouTube series”: From a Globe and Mail interview with Just Passing Through co-creators Jeremy Larter and Geoff Read that was unpublished as of this book’s press time.
“Came to him while he was far away”: Liisa Ladouceur, “Canadian Classics,” February 21, 2014, accessed December 22, 2015, socanmagazine.ca/features/canadian-classics.
“Alongside Cape Bretoner John Allan Cameron”: Chris Gudgeon, Stan Rogers: Northwest Passage (Kingston: Fox Music Books, 2004), 56; Elaine Keillor, Music in Canada: Capturing Landscape and Diversity (Montreal and Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), 272.
“The region’s first punk scenes sprouted up”: This paragraph’s stories of early punk largely come from Sam Sutherland, Perfect Youth: The Birth of Canadian Punk (Toronto: ECW Press, 2012), 214–231. Perfect Youth offers the most definitive narrative account of early east-coast punk, but other sources have emerged to fill in more detail, including the blogs Atlantic Punk (atlanticpunk.blogspot.ca, accessed September 9, 2015) and DIY Halifax (diyhalifax.ca/2014/01/oh-hi-im-ian-and-this-is-my-first-post.html, accessed September 9, 2015). On episode 12 of Damian Abraham’s Turned Out a Punk podcast, Chris Murphy of Sloan suggests there are many gaps in Perfect Youth’s east coast chapter, including Fredericton’s Neighbourhood Watch and Halifax’s System Overload, but Murphy and Abraham acknowledge that such is the trouble with collecting oral histories (audioboom.com/boos/2836833-episode-12-chris-murphy-sloan, accessed September 9, 2015).
“They released a seven-inch EP”: “Null Set / New Job (EP),” The Museum of Canadian Music, accessed July 16, 2014, mocm.ca/Music/Title.aspx?TitleId=294182.
“Maybe eight people”: “08/09/84 — Halifax, NS @ NSCAD Cafeteria,” Sonic Youth Official Website (archived interview between Thurston Moore and Jay Ferguson from Chart magazine), accessed February 10, 2015, sonicyouth.com/mustang/cc/080984.html.
“Alternative music could be made in their own backyard”: Michael Barclay, Ian A.D. Jack, and Jason Schneider, Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985–1995, Rev. ed. (Toronto: ECW Press, 2011), 460.
“The band released their second album from Toronto”: “Official Releases,” Jellyfishbabies, last modified in 2008, accessed February 10, 2015, jellyfishbabies.com/musicpage/musicpage.php.
“Co-founded the Halifax Pop Explosion music festival”: “About the Festival,” Halifax Pop Explosion Association, last modified in 2015, accessed February 10, 2015, halifaxpopexplosion.com/history.
“The label’s catalogue included releases from”: murderecords 7” Singles 1993–1998, album liner notes, 2013.
3. HARBOUR BOYS
“McGettigan got a fretless bass from his mother’s boyfriend”: “Learn to Party,” DVD documentary included in Thrush Hermit: The Complete Recordings, New Scotland Records, 2010.
“Cool as hell”: Description for “The Hoods” in the liner notes of Thrush Hermit: The Complete Recordings, New Scotland Records, 2010.
“As he and Benvie split a pack of smokes”: Liner notes, Thrush Hermit.
“At Halifax’s Centre for Art Tapes, the band helped paint”: Liner notes, Thrush Hermit.
“We’re completely prepared for a life of poverty”: “Sloan & Thrush Hermit on Street Cents,” uploaded to YouTube May 26, 2014, accessed February 10, 2015, youtube.com/watch?v=JXuQMbMXwl4.
“Catano, meanwhile, kept playing music”: Adria Young, “We’ve Got an Exclusive Stream of North of America’s Reissue of ‘Elements of an Incomplete Map,’” Noisey: Music by Vice, November 4, 2014, accessed November 6, 2014, noisey.vice.com/en_ca/blog/weve-got-an-exclusive-stream-of-north-of-americas-reissue-of-elements-of-an-incomplete-map.
“New Seattle”: Everett True, “Reviewed by Everett True,” Melody Maker, March 27, 1993, 28.
“By the end of 1993, the Seattle comparison showed up”: Paul Tough, “The Next Next Seattle,” New York Times Magazine, December 19, 1993, accessed February 10, 2015, nytimes.com/1993/12/19/magazine/the-next-next-seattle.html; Joseph Gallivan, “Nova Scotia Is the New Seattle, Definitely,” Independent, April 1, 1993, accessed July 23, 2014, independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/abroad-nova-scotia-is-the-new-seattle-definitely-looking-to-catch-tomorrows-sounds-today-tune-in-to-the-nova-scotia-scene-theres-nothing-fishy-about-it-says-joseph-gallivan-1452617.html.
“Anything that’s the something of the something”: “The Simpsons: MoneyBart Quotes” (2010), IMDb, accessed February 10, 2015, imdb.com/title/tt1628662/quotes.
“Halifax ‘sound’”: Brad Gooch, “Sleepless in Halifax,” Harper’s Bazaar, September 1993, 224–232.
4. WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED
“What kills me about you is your inability to function on the same plane of existence as the rest of us”: Mallrats, directed by Kevin Smith (1995: View Askew Productions/Alphaville/Gramercy Pictures), dvd.
“More than 500,000 copies”: “RIAA — Gold & Platinum Searchable Database,” The Recording Industry Association of America, search terms: “Dumb and Dumber,” accessed December 24, 2015, riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH.
“Deeply ashamed”: Rich Terfry, Wicked and Weird: The Amazing Tales of Buck 65 (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2015), 128. This book has been revealed to be a mix of both memoir and fiction, and Terfry did not respond to an interview request when this project began; the details published here were verified by others present.
“Sounds pretty good. Maybe try singing this time”: Liner notes, Thrush Hermit.
“Do the Billy Ocean bit”: “Learn to Party,” Thrush Hermit.
“Smudging pop-rock songs”: Jon Pareles, “Pop Review; A Visit to the ’70s Without a Goodbye,” New York Times, November 4, 1995, accessed July 23, 2014, nytimes.com/1995/11/04/arts/pop-review-a-visit-to-the-70-s-without-a-goodbye.html.
“The media had begun referring to the city’s Seattle-like hype in the past tense”: Mark Lepage, “Toast Sampler Recalls Era When Halifax Was ‘Seattle East,’ Montreal Gazette, January 7, 1995, D7.
“Close to 7,000 people”: From interview with Jeff Cohen, who was there as an agent representing 13 Engines.
“Stroke of genius”: Neil Davidson, “Thrush Hermit Steals the Show at Edgefest,” Montreal Gazette, August 7, 1995, B6.
“Kaye died in 2006”: “A Sad Day,” Punk Turns 30, October 27, 2006, accessed July 10, 2014, punkturns30.blogspot.ca/2006_10_01_archive.html.
“Had even begun to wrap the headstock of his bass with tissue paper”: “Getting Real: A Talk with Joel Plaskett,” Panic Manual, December 14, 2012, accessed September 19, 2015, panicmanual.com/2012/12/14/getting-real-a-talk-with-joel-plaskett.
“I think we found our own sound”: Greg Hubert, “These Songbirds Are No Misers,” University of Western Ontario Gazette, October 9, 1997, accessed August 22, 2014, usc.uwo.ca/gazette/1997/October/9/Entertainment2.htm.
“But for the rest of 1996, they mostly laid low”: Christopher Waters, “Two Tales of a City,” Exclaim!, February 1997, 28.
5. SNUBBED
“Sense of honest fun and big guitar-riffing bubbles”: Jennie Punter, “Thrush Hermit: Sweet Homewrecker,” Toronto Star, February 8, 1997, M6.
“Behind the scenes, too, changes were happening”: John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015), 77–80.
“Just a year after Elektra cut ties with Thrush Hermit”: John Cook with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance, Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2009), 63, 172–173.
“Nice little scoot”: Ian McGettigan in Bikini magazine, excerpted in the liner notes of Thrush Hermit: The Complete Recordings, New Scotland Records, 2010.
“He began drumming with them in 1998”: “Neuseiland,” CBC Music, accessed February 10, 2015, music.cbc.ca/#/artists/NEUSEILAND.
“Balls-out rock ’n’ roll extravaganza”: Adam M. Anklewicz, “Noosed and Haloed Swear Words,” Never Had to Fight, March 24, 2010, accessed February 10, 2015, neverhadtofight.com/2010/03/noosed-and-haloed-swear-words.
“The Toronto Star loved it”: Ben Rayner, “Canada’s Music Awards Give Us Plenty of Fodder for Sounding Off at the Water Cooler,” Toronto Star, March 21, 2000, EN01.
“Important people”: “Old News,” Alt.rock: A Toronto show guide, July 13, 1998, accessed February 10, 2015, altrawk.tripod.com/scanning/oldnews.htm.
“Decidedly au naturale”: “The Story of the Band Called Thrush Hermit,” MapleMusic, accessed February 10, 2015, maplemusic.com/artists/thr/bio.asp.
“He’d carry rigs of lighting”: “Final Show” and “From the Back of the Film,” Damage for Damage Done, DVD, Thrush Hermit: The Complete Recordings.
“The Hermit announced their split on September 21, 1999”: “Thrush Hermit,” CBC Music, accessed February 10, 2015, music.cbc.ca/artists/Thrush-Hermit.
“I’m quite fond of it”: “Historian Sharon MacDonald Gives a Slide Lecture,” Toronto Star, April 24, 2000, LI01.
“A star”: James Oldham, “Future Stars and Stripes,” New Musical Express, October 2, 1999, 33.
“Thinkers. We sometimes overthought things”: Natalie Flute, “A Bid Farewell to the Legendary Hermit,” Pro Tem: Glendon’s Bilingual Newspaper, January 31, 2000, 10, accessed as PDF February 10, 2015, pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/protem/article/viewFile/16096/15001.
“In practice, a huge pain”: Jon Fine, Your Band Sucks: What I Saw at Indie Rock’s Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear) (New York: Viking Penguin, 2015), 182.
“And even though he’d long been sequestered to stage right”: Mike Campbell, “Final Show,” Damage for Damage Done, DVD, Thrush Hermit: The Complete Recordings, 2010.
6. WORK OUT FINE
“This included making a debut full-length for Neuseiland”: Ian Danzig, “Neuseiland: Neuseiland,” Exclaim!, June 1, 2000, accessed January 10, 2015, exclaim.ca/Reviews/ImprovAndAvantGarde/neuseiland-neuseiland.
“Music historian Bob Mersereau listed Down at the Khyber as No. 46”: Tom Harrison, “Why 100 Albums? Why Now?; Bob Mersereau’s Book Is a Rite of Passage for Canadian Pop,” National Post, October, 22, 2007, AL6.
“Stands out among the punk-bred musicians”: Carl Wilson, “Obsessed with the Craft of Rock,” Globe and Mail, August 2, 2001, R4.
“Need-to-know guitar-rock triumph”: Quoted in Carl Wilson, “An Honest Day’s Song. Halifax Singer-Songwriter Joel Plaskett Wants to Be Truthful to Listeners,” Globe and Mail, November 1, 2003, R19.
“The manager who put a rock band behind fiddler Ashley MacIsaac in 1994”: Rebecca Mead, “Sex, Drugs, and Fiddling,” The New Yorker, December 1999, accessed on September 19, 2015, web.archive.org/web/20050207133405/http://rebeccamead.com/1999_12_20_art_ashley.htm (previewable at newyorker.com/magazine/1999/12/20/sex-drugs-and-fiddling).
“Woe-is-me”: Wilson, “An Honest Day’s Song.”
“I take a certain amount of pride living out here”: Michael Barclay, “The Restlessly Rooted Life of Joel Plaskett,” Exclaim!, January 1, 2006, accessed February 10, 2015, exclaim.ca/Interviews/From TheMagazine/restlessly_rooted_life_of_joel_plaskett.
“If F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed that there are no second acts in American lives”: Wilson, “An Honest Day’s Song.”
“They have the sentimental side down pat”: Jordan Zivitz, “New Music: Newly Released Compact Discs: Joel Plaskett Emergency: Truthfully Truthfully,” Montreal Gazette, November 27, 2003, D2.
“They packed Lee’s Palace in Toronto”: Alan Niester, “Truthfully, a Star Emerges,” Globe and Mail, November 22, 2003, R14.
7. HAPPEN NOW
“People celebrate it”: Brad Wheeler, “Songs That Take Us Home,” Globe and Mail, March 21, 2012, R4.
“La De Da might have warranted a trip away”: Vish Khanna, “Joel Plaskett: La De Da,” Exclaim!, March 1, 2005, accessed August 31 2015, exclaim.ca/Music/article/joel_plaskett-la_de_da.
“Jaw-dropping”: Trevor Savory, “Joel Plaskett: ‘La De Da,’” The Coast, December 6, 2007, accessed February 10, 2015, thecoast.ca/halifax/joel-plaskett/Content?oid=964818.
“Among his best works”: Khanna, “Plaskett,” 2005.
“Doesn’t undercut its pop appeal”: J.D. Considine, “Escapist Pleasures of Snowbird Rock,” Globe and Mail, March 4, 2005, R30.
“The growing number of parallels to Bruce Springsteen”: Joshua Errett, “Tall Poppy Interview — Joel Plaskett, Musician,” Torontoist, April 26, 2005, accessed February 10, 2015, torontoist.com/2005/04/tall_poppy_inte_6.
“The lanky songwriter had taken the Charlottetown band Two Hours Traffic under his wing”: “Producer Credits,” Joel Plaskett, accessed February 10, 2015, joelplaskett.com/producer-credits.
“In bars and online, hipsters started invigorated debates”: “Duff = Plaskett,” Giraffecycle.com (New Brunswick Music Discussion Board), June 2006, accessed February 10, 2015, giraffecycle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14662&highlight=&sid=026a28d407b65ca6bec0aa69734855e9.
“The song remains the Emergency’s best seller on iTunes”: “Make a Little Noise EP,” iTunes Store, accessed September 1, 2015, itunes.apple.com/ca/album/nowhere-with-you/id129536370?i=129536379.
8. SOUNDTRACK FOR THE NIGHT
The origins of the Ashtray Rock songs can be found in the liner notes of Thrush Hermit: The Complete Recordings (New Scotland Records, 2010); the liner notes for Emergencys, false alarms, shipwrecks, castaways, fragile creatures, special features, demons and demonstrations: 1999–2010 (New Scotland Records, 2011); and in Michael Barclay, “Joel Plaskett,” Radio Free Canuckistan, May 24, 2007, accessed September 15, 2015, radiofreecanuckistan.blogspot.ca/2007/05/joel-plaskett.html.
“Elvis Costello transplanted into a Canadian garage band”: Guy Dixon, “Dark Horses Make Polaris Short List,” Globe and Mail, July 11, 2007.
“‘Fashionable People’ went on to win the Billboard World Songwriting Contest”: Brock Thiessen, “Joel Plaskett Wins Billboard World Songwriting Contest,” Exclaim!, February 20, 2008, accessed July 29, 2014, exclaim.ca/News/joel_plaskett_wins_billboard_world_songwriting.
“Heartfelt and exuberant”: Allison Outhit, “Joel Plaskett — Ashtray Rock,” Exclaim!, July 23, 2007, accessed February 10, 2015, exclaim.ca/Features/Research/joel_plaskett-_ashtray_rock.
“Closer than he’s ever been to the icon”: Adam Radwanski, “Legend of Ashtray Rock Burns On,” National Post, May 25, 2007, accessed February 10, 2015, canada.com/cityguides/toronto/story.html?id=7ccc1c35-a2e0-458e-ba3c-093f083e2cf5&k=2429.
“Absorbing, charming, entertaining, and moving”: Ross Langager, “Joel Plaskett Emergency: Ashtray Rock,” PopMatters, April 2, 2008, accessed February 10, 2015, popmatters.com/review/joel-plaskett-emergency-ashtray-rock.
“Funny, smart, and heartbreaking”: Mark Deming, “Ashtray Rock,” AllMusic, accessed February 10, 2015, allmusic.com/album/ashtray-rock-mw0001904243.
“This album just feels like home”: Ryan McNutt, “Hitting Home With Plaskett’s Ashtray Rock,” McNutt Against the Music, April 19, 2007, accessed February 10, 2015, mcnutt.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/in-which-mcnutt-reviews-ashtray-rock.
9. EVERY TIME YOU LEAVE
“He listened in amazement at their combined voices”: Sean Flinn, “Joel Plaskett: Three for the road,” The Coast, May 28, 2009, accessed February 10, 2015, thecoast.ca/halifax/joel-plaskett-three-for-the-road/Content?oid=1130704.
“A recording engineer who’d worked with”: “Recording Credits,” Ken Friesen, accessed September 1, 2015, kenfriesen.com/credits.
“Quahogs singer Scott Tappen”: Stephanie Johns, “Our Poster Past,” The Coast, October 24, 2013, accessed February 10, 2015, thecoast.ca/halifax/our-poster-past/Content?oid=4106848.
“Plaskett wrote a hook inspired by his obsessiveness over the sessions”: Mark Medley, “Joel Plaskett: Two Can Be as Bad as One,” National Post, March 26, 2009, accessed February 10, 2015, nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=1419461.
“Going Gold within six months”: “Gold/Platinum search for Joel Plaskett,” Music Canada, accessed February 9, 2015, musiccanada.com/gold-platinum/?fwp_gp_search=joel%20plaskett.
“Simply a great reminder of Joel Plaskett’s singular talent”: Vish Khanna, “Joel Plaskett: Three,” Exclaim!, March 26, 2009, accessed February 10, 2015, exclaim.ca/Reviews/PopAndRock/joel_plaskett-three.
“Ambitious, but it doesn’t overreach”: Frank Yang, “Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’,” Chromewaves, May 13, 2009, accessed February 10, 2015, chromewaves.net/2009/05/review-of-joel-plasketts-three-and-giveaway.
“A spell of personal storytelling, easy-breezy harmonies, and Westerbergian rock”: Sue Carter Flinn, “Best Vinyl [2010]: Joel Plaskett, Three,” The Coast, accessed February 10, 2015, thecoast.ca/halifax/best-vinyl-of-2009/BestOf?oid=1577529.
“A new CanCon classic”: Brendan Murphy, “Joel Plaskett: Three — Disc Review,” The Hour, April 23, 2009, accessed February 10, 2015, hour.ca/2009/04/23/three-2.
“Plaskett is incredibly gifted, incredibly prolific”: Wilfrid Langmaid, “Plaskett’s Three Is ‘Personal, Transfixing,’” Daily Gleaner, April 25, 2009, D5.
“Twenty-six thousand people showed up to the Halifax Common”: Tim Bosquet, “Two Decades of World-Class Delusion,” The Coast, July 11 2013, accessed September 1, 2015, thecoast.ca/halifax/two-decades-of-world-class-delusion/Content?oid=3930595.
10. TIME FLIES
“Plaskett confirmed to media”: Vish Khanna, “Exclusive: Joel Plaskett Confirms Thrush Hermit Reunion,” Exclaim!, December 14, 2009, accessed February 10, 2015, exclaim.ca/News/exclusive_joel_plaskett_confirms_thrush_hermit_reunion.
“The band announced a box set, The Complete Recordings, in February”: Keith Carman, “Thrush Hermit Announced Retrospective Seven-Disc Box Set,” Exclaim!, February 8, 2010, accessed February 10, 2015, exclaim.ca/News/thrush_hermit_announce_retrospective_seven-disc_box_set_2.
“The classic lineup”: Cam Lindsay, “Thrush Hermit, Lee’s Palace, Toronto, ON, March 26,” Exclaim!, March 27, 2010, accessed February 10, 2015, exclaim.ca/Reviews/Concerts/Thrush_Hermit-Lees_Palace_Toronto_ON_March_26; Carla Gillis, “Thrush Hermit Flies Again,” NOW Magazine, March 24, 2010, accessed February 10, 2015, nowtoronto.com/music/story.cfm?content=174262.
“It’s more important murderecords or Cinnamon Toast Records exists”: “HPX94,” MuchMusic 1994 Halifax Pop Explosion Special, uploaded to YouTube October 14 2010, accessed February 10, 2015, youtube.com/watch?v=qvvnGP_Qdho.
“At the studio, Plaskett also wrote and recorded ‘On the Rail’”: “Great Canadian Song Quest Final Songs Debut on CBC Radio 2 Drive,” CBC Radio 2, November 24, 2009, accessed February 10, 2015, cbc.ca/bc/community/blog/media-releases/Song%20Quest%20Titles%20Release%20-%20BC.pdf.
“This time, Plaskett found inspiration with ‘On the Rail’”: Kenzie Love, “This Is an Emergency,” FFWD Weekly, April 12, 2013, accessed February 10, 2015, ffwdweekly.com/article/music/music-previews/this-is-an-emergency-8980.
“Rough-around-the-edges”: Ben Rayner, “Joel Plaskett and his singles file,” Toronto Star, May 17, 2012, accessed December 22, 2015, thestar.com/entertainment/music/2012/05/17/joel_plaskett_and_his_singles_file.html.
“Unbridled joy”: Stephen Cooke, “Plaskett lands in New Glasgow,” Halifax Chronicle-Herald, August, 1 2012, accessed December 22, 2015, thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/122708-plaskett-lands-in-new-glasgow.
“Halifax’s Rick Rubin”: Adria Young, “Joel Plaskett, Halifax’s Rick Rubin, Showed Us His Analog Studio,” Noisey: Music by Vice, November 3, 2014, accessed November 3, 2014, noisey.vice.com/en_ca/blog/joel-plaskett-halifaxs-rick-rubin-showed-us-his-analog-studio.
“Voted to keep it under the city’s stewardship”: Brett Bundale, “Khyber Saved: Halifax Council Seeks Ways to Maintain Arts and Culture Hub,” The Chronicle Herald, September 9 2014, accessed September 9, 2014, thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1235172-khyber-saved-halifax-council-seeks-ways-to-maintain-arts-and-culture-hub.
Much of the detail regarding the recording of The Park Avenue Sobriety Test, as well as several quotes by Joel Plaskett, Kim Cooke, and Peter Elkas, comes from interviews conducted for a Globe and Mail feature, and I am grateful to the paper for letting me reuse this information. Josh O’Kane, “Joel Plaskett’s New Album Is a Veritable Kitchen Party,” Globe and Mail, March 13, 2015, accessed April 28, 2015, theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/joel-plasketts-new-album-is-a-veritable-kitchen-party/article23445724.
“He became the first artist to reach a million on-demand plays”: Facebook post by CBC Radio 3, May 31, 2011, accessed February 10, 2015, facebook.com/cbcradio3/posts/220281831333576.
“True pioneer of the Canadian music scene”: Emma Godmere, “Plaskett Primer: The Top 15 Songs by 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Joel Plaskett,” CBC Music, December 5, 2013, accessed December 5, 2013, music.cbc.ca/#/blogs/2013/12/Plaskett-primer-the-top-15-songs-by-2013-Lifetime-Achievement-Bucky-Award-winner-Joel-Plaskett. (Full disclosure: I was consulted for the construction of this playlist.)
“Contrast that with the award he received”: Lezlie Lowe, “Best of Halifax 2002: Most Likely to Move to Toronto: Joel Plaskett,” The Coast, accessed February 10, 2015, thecoast.ca/halifax/most-likely-to-move-to-toronto/BestOf?oid=3867476 and thecoast.ca/halifax/most-likely-to-move-to-toronto/BestOf?oid=3867525.