Nowhere with You (Booktrack Edition)

The East Coast Anthems of Joel Plaskett, The Emergency and Thrush Hermit

By: Josh O’Kane

Narrated by: Jonathan Watton

Nowhere with You: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience!*

Joel Plaskett has earned an awful lot of honorifics in his career so far, counting folk hero, indie darling, and national treasure among them. And that’s just since the Halifax musician started making records of his own in 1999. For a decade before that, he was one-quarter of Thrush Hermit, a band of scrappy Superchunk disciples who became hard-rock revivalists and one of the last survivors of the ’90s pop “explosion” of major-label interest in Halifax.

Canada’s east coast has never been much of a pop-culture mecca. Most musicians from the region who’ve ever made it big moved away. But armed with a stubborn streak and a knack for great songwriting, Plaskett has kept Halifax as his home, building both a career and a music community there. Along the way, he’s earned great respect: when he plays shows in Alberta, east-coast expats literally thank him for staying home.

Nowhere with You is the study of how he pulled this off, from the origins of Canada’s east-coast exodus to Plaskett’s anointment as “Halifax’s Rick Rubin”. It’s a story about what happens when you call a city “the new Seattle”, about the lessons you learn playing to empty rooms in Oklahoma, and about defying radio-single expectations with rock operas and triple records. It’s about doing what you want, where you want, no matter how much work it takes.

*Booktrack is an immersive listening experience that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music and sound effects. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration, so listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

©2016 Josh O'Kane (P)2018 ECW Press

Critic reviews

“Canadians love to talk about our great storytellers of the past when we have one walking amongst us today. Joel is as deft with words as he is with emotion. He is as truthful, funny and brilliant as any who have come before him. Any opportunity to learn a little about Joel is one that is not to be missed." (George Stroumboulopoulos)