Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock

If there's any experience that's universal in post-war North America, it's going to high school, falling for the wrong person and suffering untold angst as a result. While Joel Plaskett is hardly the first guy to write a song about this all-too-common turn of events, very few have gone so far as to spin the tale into a concept album, which is what Plaskett and his band The Emergency have done with Ashtray Rock. Thankfully, Ashtray Rock is on a par with the late and lamented television series Freaks and Geeks in terms of getting the details of life in the teenage nation just right -- in Plaskett's tale, two guys lose their friendship when they fall for the same girl and vie for her attentions during evenings spent getting drunk on cheap beer at the local teenage hangout (the Ashtray Rock of the title). Read More