Halifax based singer / songwriter Joel Plaskett has been busy since his last visit to Lethbridge at the Tongue N’ Groove back in 2005 or 2006. Not only did  his ’90s  band, indie darlings Thrush Hermit reunite for a tour and an eight disc box set earlier this year, but he has carved out a successful solo career, crowned by his latest solo triple CD ‘Three.’ And now his is about to embark on a tour with  the Bare Naked Ladies.

He’ll be taking a break from that tour to visit the Geomatic Attic for two shows April 9-10.
“I’ve never toured with the Bare Naked Ladies before. It’s nice to be invited to open for them. It’s a great opportunity for me,” Plaskett said, checking into his hotel in Victoria  before the tour’s first stop, April 6.
“I don’t even think I’ve seen them play before. So it will be a challenge to  reach out to an audience who might not be familiar with my music. But by all accounts they are pretty receptive to the opening act,” Plaskett continued.

“I may have met Steven Page, who is no longer with them ,” he said adding he and guitarist Peter Elkas have a half hour set for each of the tour’s Canadian dates.
“So it will be a pretty intense hit heavy set for an audience who might not know my stuff,” he continued, noting he is looking forward to being able to spread his musical wings out a little  at the Lethbridge shows.
“I found out I’ve got a three days off in Calgary, so why not come down to Lethbridge? With the triple album, depending on how you look at it, I’ve got between six to eight  records and a lot of tunes, so I can change  the set list quite a bit. And Pete and I have  a long history of playing together. I can take requests and just follow my nose,” he said adding that also depends on how familiar the audience is with his material.

His latest release, ‘Three’, scooped up a trailer full of awards nominations from the East Coast Music Awards, Canadian Folk  Music Award, an Echo Songwriting  Prize nomination and  several Music Nova Scotia  awards.
“I’m really pleased with it especially seeing as it is a risk  to release a triple album. But it’s a risk that paid off. I don’t think it would have  been that successful if I had just tossed it off. I worked really hard on it, recording the songs  and thinking of the concept,” he said adding he did most of the new CD in his studio, just down the road from his house.

Chase Hummel and Noah “DJ Beatsmith Bear” Bellavance are just a couple of ‘Random Humans’ from small Alberta towns who moved to Vancouver to pursue a love of hip hop music.
“We formed in February of 2009 so we are fresh,”  said beatmaker Bellavance, who is looking forward to his first gig in Lethbridge opening for  Del The Funky Homosapien, April 12 at the Blarney Stone. '
“We are jazzed about that. That’s our first high profile opening. I was just  checking my friend Cody the Catch’s Myspace site and saw he was playing too, so we asked him if we could hop on the gig too. And we did. It was the luck of the draw,” he enthused adding  he had known MC  Deception (Chase Hummell) for years.
“I remember when we used to party together back in the day and I was down with what he was doing. I said this has to happen. He’s a very  crafty with his lyrics. It’s poetry. I look at him. He comes from a small town and I ask ‘Where do you find this inspiration?’ Then when you travel with him and you can see it. He’s got mice on a wheel in his head running 24-7. It’s crazy and eccentric,” he enthused adding  a fortuitous meeting  with MC Deception at a record store cemented their plans.
“I’ve always had a love for music. I listen to everything, psychedelic rock, hip hop, everything. I’m buddies with the owner of the record store and he just throws records at me. So when I feel something, I just feel it. I decided I wanted to take it further so I moved to Vancouver.”

Respect has to go out to Calgary’s Stone Cartel, who also had a good crowd at the Slice, March  26. They played plenty of big Led Zeppelin influenced meaty guitar riffs and searing solos on a variety of covers and originals. But they get respect, in my books, for  doing a cover of an obscure song by southern rockers the Four Horsemen —  ‘Rocking is My Business and Business is Good.’ I’ll take an original band any day of the week. Covers are fun to hear but it’s better when they are more obscure or if the band puts their own stamp on them, so it is great to hear obscure southern rock being covered.
The Stone Cartel were definitely rocking with some  excellent covers of  ‘Gimmie All Your Loving’ and  something by Airborne as well as one of their called ‘Walking on Water’ which is being played on Rock 104.5  in Calgary.

New Brunswick born, Calgary based country singer Julian Austin returned to Average Joes for the upteenth time, March 26. Austin, who had a huge hit by reworking Steve Miller’s ‘Take the Money and Run,’  has just released a CD consisting of mostly countrified classic rock hits including Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls,” which makes an interesting country-rock song as he was playing it when I entered.
He also played some of his originals including ‘Forever Loving You’ ‘Harbour Town’ and  ‘Forever Loving You’ and ‘If Houston Doesn’t Want You,’ for which he shot a video for in Lethbridge and a touching tribute to soldiers.
He gave his hot  sounding band a break as he launched into an acoustic medley included everything from ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ to Whitesnake’s ‘ Here I Go Again’ and a lot more.

— By Richard Amery, L.A  Beat Editor

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