Album: Ashtray Rock
Label: Maple Music Recordings
Rating: 4/5
Sometimes the line between artistic value and rock and roll music is a fine one that most artists find difficult to tiptoe. Joel Plaskett and the Emergency, on Ashtray Rock, don’t even bother with the whole thing. In something of a departure from his other albums, Plaskett sings songs that don’t pay any mind to what anyone (be they music critics, boyfriends, or anyone who doesn’t like to fight) might have to say about them.
That said, from beginning to end, Ashtray Rock nevertheless does something of a shift of attitude, if not a complete u-turn. While the album starts with the sound of basketballs in a high-school gym (which, coincidentally enough, sound like fireworks), giving way to a strummed guitar with a melody and chord progression lamenting the death of his band. Thirty seconds later, Plaskett is singing about starting a fight, taking a piss, and drunk teenagers puking their guts out.
Somehow, though, Plaskett manages to make the two seemingly polar opposites come together somewhere in the course of this record, as he seems to do with any number of polar opposites on this record. First, musically: “Face of the Earth” weds emotional touchy-feely lyrics and an acoustic guitar with full-band rock and roll arrangements. Second, emotionally: the “Chinatown/For the Record” and “the Instrumental Suite” sees Plaskett undergoing some kind of a temporal and emotional shift in his life. All I can think of when hearing these two songs is the sound of basketballs in a high-school gym, and possibly a graduation ceremony. He’s wondering what happens after this: “where you will be when the smoke all clears?” Minutes later, once again, enter the electric guitars, but Plaskett doesn’t sing on this one. Instead, we hear a girl starting to talk of air smelling like flowers and her parents making her sell her car. Suddenly, in the span of two songs, this record is beginning to make sense and reminds you of why Plaskett is truly one of Canada’s rock gems.
This record has been made a thousand times before; basically just think of any coming-of-age movie and you’ve got the basic atmosphere. Plaskett’s approach, however, sets this apart from other rock records in that it somehow manages to wed artistic value with rock and roll, all with an effortlessness that doesn’t really seem to notice.
Standout tracks: 2, 7, 10, 11. Now Playing on CHMA 106.9 FM.
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