This audiobook offers 27 studio readings of poems accompanied by original music.

Pandemics prompt creative artists to do unusual things to keep their spirits soaring. And this was the case for two of the original SurfPoets from the 1990s. As a result, author Lesley Choyce and musician/record producer Doug Barron created a full-length CD audiobook recording of a most unique alternative brand of spoken word poetry and music. While no one could accuse the pair of trying to crack Top 40 music charts, The Trouble With Everything is a highly eclectic mix of Choyce's published poetry and Barron's studio wizardry that will help to shake off the bad vibes of the past year and inspire listeners with some heartfelt words.

Choyce and Barron first began talking about creative collaboration nearly 30 years ago while surfing together on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore. Their 1990s band, Lesley Choyce and the SurfPoets, recorded two CDs and their videos saw airplay on MuchMusic and elsewhere internationally. But the two bandmates drifted apart until a chance encounter at Dalhousie University just before COVID-19 restrictions closed the campus and discouraged most social interactions, including creative collaborations. Nonetheless, they decided to forge ahead with their project from separate locations. This is the result of their masterful melding of word and music.

Lesley Choyce is the author of over 100 books. Doug Barron has been producing music, film, and art since the 1970s and runs Brussels Street Studios in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

No one has a clearer view of Atlantic Canada's literary endeavours over the past twenty years than Lesley Choyce. He is the founder of the literary journal Pottersfield Portfolio, and the publisher of Pottersfield Press. He has edited several fiction anthologies and has been the in-house editor of many books from Pottersfield Press including Making Waves, a collection of stories by emerging authors from Atlantic Canada. He is the author of more than fifty books in genres ranging from poetry and essays to autobiography, history and fiction for adults, young adults, and children. Among his recent books are the novels The Republic of Nothing, World Enough, and Cold Clear Morning, and the story collection Dance the Rocks Ashore. Choyce is the writer, host, and co-producer of the popular literary show television program, Off the Page with Lesley Choyce, which is broadcast across the country on Vision TV. He also teaches in the English department of Dalhousie University in Halifax and is leader of the rock band The Surf Poets.

Lesley Choyce's profile page