Most Likely To Move To Toronto

Coast readers are wearing their hearts on their sleeves these days. And the sleeves in question are attached to a skintight white t-shirts plastered with the face of Halifax rock god Joel Plaskett. Plaskett, seen here at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History, took the readers’ poll awards for Best Solo Male Artist (pssst—he actually plays in a band, but that’s OK) and Best Guitarist. He took Best Album prize for Down At The Khyber (shared with the Jimmy Swift Band), Best Video award for “Maybe We Should Just Go Home” (shared with Buck 65’s “Pants on Fire”) and the (possibly dubious) Most Likely to Move to Toronto nod (also shared with Buck 65). Will Plaskett in fact be moving? “No. No. Definitely not,” he says. “If I do move, it won’t be there, but, I’m not planning on moving.” But the vocalist and guitarist is heading there soon, beginning a tour in two weeks with his Joel Plaskett Emergency bandmates Dave Marsh (drums) and Tim Brennan (bass). For the rest of the spring and summer, he’ll be busy. “I’ll be working on songs for a new record which we’ll record in the fall and plan to release in the new year.” Plaskett, who’s just about to shoot a new video for the Down At The Khyber track “True Patriot Love,” is especially tickled about his Best Vid approval (even if it is for a dramatization of him lying on a gurney injured, being operated on, passing out and eventually being buried alive). “Maybe We Should Just Go Home” was made by Ante Kovac, the same director who led Plaskett’s video for “Clueless Wonder” and did the last two videos for Plaskett’s former band, Thrush Hermit. Maybe indie rock as Best Trend isn’t that far off the mark. —Lezlie Lowe (( ))