George Street Festival: Friday, July 28 featuring Alan Doyle

ALAN DOYLE
Alan Doyle— actor, producer, best-selling author, and best-known as lead singer for Newfoundland’s beloved Great Big Sea these past 20+ years— hardly needs an introduction. With five solo albums under his belt, Doyle has been touring the world with his ace six-piece band for the last decade. In late 2014, Doyle released his best-selling memoir Where I Belong, followed by A Newfoundlander In Canada released in October 2017, and All Together now released in November 2020. Amidst these projects, Doyle found time to write music for and appear on CBC’s Republic of Doyle, guest on CBC’s Murdoch Mysteries, a role in 2014’s Winter’s Tale and 2010’s Robin Hood. With his 2022 live album “Here, Tonight” and a recent JUNO nomination for his 2021 album “Back to the Harbour”, Doyle chalks up a lot of where he is right now to luck. “I’m the luckiest guy I’ve ever even heard of,” he says. “This was all I ever wanted, a life in the music business, singing concerts.” Doyle hails from Petty Harbour, NL, and formed Great Big Sea in 1993 with Sean McCann, Bob Hallett, and Darrell Power, in which they fused traditional Newfoundland music with their own pop sensibilities. Their nine albums, double-disc hits retrospective, and two DVD releases have all been declared Gold or Platinum and have sold a combined 1.2 million copies in Canada.

https://alandoyle.ca/

THE JOEL PLASKETT EMERGENCY

From rocking Halifax’s Marquee Club to performing for the masses at Massey Hall or touring the country with his father, Joel Plaskett has forged a reputation as one of Canada’s most engaging performers and respected Singer-songwriters. Plaskett’s songs are a perennial part of the national playlist, a fixture on “best of” lists, and the soundtrack to the lives of faithful fans across the country and around the world. His accolades over a quarter century include a Juno, numerous East Coast Music, Canadian Folk and Music Nova Scotia awards, and two Polaris short list Nominations. Plaskett began his musical career in the early 1990s as a member of alt-rock favourites Thrush Hermit, recruiting lifelong fans as the band toured North America in a half-size school bus, setting up their signature neon ROCK & ROLL sign from show to show. In the early 2000s, Plaskett started touring under his own name with his band, The Emergency (featuring Dave Marsh on drums since 1999, and for the last 14 years, Chris Pennell on bass). Backed by the Emergency and racking up a growing roster of anthemic singalongs, Plaskett worked his way up from small clubs to opening for Paul McCartney and the Tragically Hip, and filling larger venues with his own devoted audience. Plaskett is a versatile and ever-evolving artist, at turns delivering intimate and idiosyncratic singer-songwriter fare (In Need of Medical Attention, La De Da, The Park Avenue Sobriety Test); incendiary riff-rock (Down at the Khyber, Truthfully, Truthfully), left-leaning folk rock (Solidarity), as well as conceptual epics and off-kilter feats of musical stamina (Ashtray Rock, Three, Scrappy Happiness, 44). Recorded to analog tape, Plaskett’s records reflect his attention to detail, his dedication to technique, musical history and craft, and a sincere and inimitable lyrical style that runs through his diverse and ever-expanding Catalogue. In addition to producing most of his own records since 1999, Plaskett has also set up shop behind the console at his New Scotland Yard studio in downtown Dartmouth, N.S. His work with artists like Jimmy Rankin, Two Hours Traffic, David Myles, Sarah Slean, Shotgun Jimmie, Dennis Ellsworth, Old Man Luedecke, Dave Marsh, Colleen Brown and longtime collaborator Mo Kenney has led to numerous awards for production, and turned New Scotland Yard into a popular destination for artists looking to develop and document their sound. In front of the studio is The New Scotland Yard Emporium, where Plaskett has partnered with Halifax mainstay Taz Records to bring a curated selection of records to his adopted hometown, providing a spot where music fans can congregate to grab a coffee or beer while they dig for records. In a world increasingly connected—and disconnected — by digital mediums, Joel Plaskett prefers to make his connections the old-fashioned way, building community at his studio and shop, dedicating himself to the art and authenticity of songwriting and analog recording processes, and moving audiences with the electrifying, uplifting experience of live performance. In all aspects of his work, Plaskett embraces both the communal and individual experiences music provides. The ways music and words combine to connect with the listener, turning a minute into a moment out of time,reminding us that we aren’t alone.

https://joelplaskett.com/ 

VILLAGES

Away to the westward, I’m longing to be Where the beauties of heaven unfold by the sea Where the sweet purple heather blooms fragrant and free on a hilltop, high above the Dark Island - Traditional Scottish folk song The concept of the Dark Island is metaphorical: When you’re at the end of your life, taking stock of it, what will you think about? No matter what you land on, good or bad, that island is yours - the dark surely looms, but it also covers all you’ve ever experienced. For the folk-rock quartet Villages, the concept is also literal: Hailing from Cape Breton Island, on the farthest flung northeastern corner of Nova Scotia - itself already flung far - and jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, it’s a lush landscape of great complicated beauty, its rocky coast covered in sea salt and leaning defiantly into harsh winds. On its new full-length, Dark Island, Villages marries metaphor to roots on 11 tracks that offer an experience meant to echo a visit to Cape Breton itself: Otherworldly, euphoric, sobering, celebratory, and reverent. The band - Matt Ellis, Travis Ellis, Jon Pearo, Archie Rankin - tapped the JUNO-winning composer and soundscapist Joshua Van Tassel (David Myles, Great Lake Swimmers, Fortunate Ones) as producer, stepping into Joel Plaskett’s Fang Recording for a whirlwind eight days. Van Tassel directed the band to play the songs fully live off the floor (three takes max) capturing the boisterous energy of Villages’ live performances and making the album a series of present moments strung together. The combination of Van Tassel - whose own work is largely instrumental and played on rare instruments - and Villages - the band has also made three indie-rock albums as Mardeen -results in a type of Celtic music that respects its heritage while taking sonic chances. Dark Island’s opening seconds are comprised of birds chirping and Matt Ellis’ voice stutter-stepping through “Good morning,” before dropping into a full-on shanty in the form of “Wearing Through the Pine.” The lead single “Love Will Live On” is a gently rolling foot-stomper lamenting the hard times of modern-day life: “I’m too poor to be buying this round,” Ellis notes whose upbeat chorus offers a hopeful solution: move to the country and live a quiet life on “an island in the Maritimes”. In between album-wide kitchen-party whoops, Ellis pulls his voice as high as it can go on “Easy When You Know How,” sure to be a live sing-along challenge. The final minute of “Willow” hops into a classic Wall of Sound pop cacophony surrounding a chorus of traditional la-la-las and a refrain of high, airy oohs carries “Mother” to its gentle conclusion. www.sonicrecords.ca 2 Nature is, aptly, a dominant theme on Dark Island, befitting men who grew up in a place wild and beautiful: fields, waves, trees, rivers, and rocks figure prominently throughout the lyrics, presenting the music as a kind of soundtrack to Island life, putting you in and at home. On perhaps the most Celtic-leaning track, “Play the Fiddle All Night,” all of the album’s themes are handily encompassed in just half of a chorus: “Play for me the ‘Dark Island’ / till the dew lifts off the clover / play the fiddle all night.” For the members of Villages, who grew up on traditional Celtic music, to create and perform new music in that tradition is no small feat, and no small responsibility. They know where they come from. They know how it made them. And they know where their Dark Island lies. So gentle the sea breeze that ripples the bay Where the stream joins the ocean, and young children play On a strand of pure silver, I'll welcome each day And I'll roam forever more, the Dark Island Reviving the Cape Breton sound of their ancestry and mixing it with contemporary influences and instruments, Villages are an intriguing case study in cultural identity. Escaping the tradinspired sounds in their younger days through their acclaimed indie rock band Mardeen, the group has assuredly found their way back to their roots. Their self-titled debut took a deep dive into the haunting and meandering melodies of the Cape Breton Highlands and presents them through atmospheric arrangements that recall the influence of groups like The War on Drugs and Fleet Foxes. Villages won Folk Recording of the Year at the 2019 Nova Scotia Music Awards. The group’s 2020 EP, Upon the Horizon built on the unique sound of their debut and was mixed by Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses).
https://www.thebandvillages.com/ 

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