Meeting Joel Plaskett

I think I first loved Joel Plaskett's music via getting the album La De D, plus a 3 song sampler in my hands...  probably to review it for the music paper I was writing for at the time.  I loved how the album was basically invented and recorded on the spot.  It was so very fantastically re-listenable.  And I swooned for the Can I Go NoWhere with You tune on the ep.

I also remember a Harbourfront show I was working when I noticed he had duct tape on his guitar. I had really liked his phrase "drop lyrics on you," and the show was of course amazing.  I could swear it was him and the Emergency band I cut off in a rush to get there for that very show, while I was singing, out loud "its almost summer, yeeeeeeeah..."  Incidentally, they turned out to be just-as-fast-as-me-walkers I cut off in vain.

One time, while I worked in a very cool vintage guitar shop, I came back from lunch to notice only 2 customers in the store.  They were basically just going around the room making wonderful music on all the instruments...  at one point, the tall, slim, blond guy asked me if the tenor guitar on the wall was for sale, and I had to tell him no.  "Have you never been in here before?" he looked familiar.  The caption for the photo I took and posted on the store's Facebook page later was "no, dude, the guitar bolted to the wall is not for sale."  It was only after I went around the corner to the workshop, where I was informed by star-struck co-workers, "you are talking to JOEL PLASKETT" that I realized we had a talented celebrity in our midst, ha.  I wish I could find that photo.

I like how his shows are so naturally different every time.  His songs are like that too.  I really admire what he does.