Email to a friend Printer friendly Font: * * * * Where: Lucky Bar, 517 Yates St. Tickets: $15 (from Lyle’s Place and www.ticketweb.ca) - - - Joel Plaskett still needs to get his ya-yas out — as much as he looks forward to visiting his wife’s folks in Brentwood Bay. With that in mind, he has booked a pair of solo shows at Lucky Bar next week, just before New Year’s Eve. “[My wife, Rebecca Kraatz, and I] are coming out there for Christmas.

I thought, ‘I’m gonna be out there, might as well make an appearance,’ ” said Plaskett, 32, from his Halifax home. “If I take a trip, it’s easy for me to stroll in with an acoustic guitar and entertain for a little while.” It has been a terrific year for Plaskett. This week, the East Coast Music Awards announced his rock trio, the Joel Plaskett Emergency, had scored seven nominations — the most for any musician this season.

His latest recording, Ashtray Rock, had already garnered national critical acclaim and six Music Nova Scotia Awards. The semi-autobiographical disc, hailed in some quarters as Plaskett’s breakthrough album, chronicles archetypal Canadian teen experiences: getting drunk, spewing, stealing each other’s girlfriends and the like. The songs are catchy and hook-filled, and the lyrics are deceptively simple, belying a wistfulness and hopefulness that lies underneath.

Plaskett’s appearances in this city follow a string of consecutive dates at Toronto’s legendary Horseshoe Tavern. On each of six nights, he and his band played one of his albums in its entirety. Nothing of the sort is planned in Victoria. Plaskett might play a couple from Ashtray Rock, but he notes that style of punchy rock doesn’t always translate well to the solo stage. Still, he said he’s looking forward to a brief hiatus from party-hearty crowds the Joel Plaskett Emergency typically attracts.