2019-06-28: Creaking Planks at "Accordion Revolution" book launch

Due to a great conceptual fit, as well as nepotism at the highest levels, the Creaking Planks have been keen fellow travelers with the Accordion Noir crew from just about the very beginning. We have guested on their radio program, playing up its angle to promote and expose the unexpected side of the instrument. (Indeed, we have performed its theme song!) We have played at their festival until they told us we couldn't play there any longer... and then we continued to do so! The radio program's host Bruce Triggs even sat in with us (on, if memory serves correct, Barbadian rhythmic saw) at our weird May Day gig (but I'm being redundant, all our gigs are weird by virtue of including us!) in Grandview Park four years ago.

So it makes a certain kind of sense for us to be performing a couple of songs at the launch for his long-fermenting accordion history book, Accordion Revolution, dropping this Friday night at Accordion Noir ground zero -- the lobby of CFRO Co-Op Community Radio itself, located at Columbia and Hastings. (Sometimes it seemed as though it wasn't clear which of us would publish a book first, Bruce's accordion history or our chronicles of our wasted summers on the road, but it looks like Bruce came out ahead! Guess this means we're next -- maybe we can book him to perform at our launch 8) The launch runs from 7 to 9 pm, the second half of which will be broadcast live over the airwaves! And for those who can't make it out in person, tune in at 100.5 fm (or stream from coopradio.org): the event will be bookended with some Celtic squeezing on the air prior to the launch and some experimental electronic accordion (courtesy of Ross Birdwise) immediately following our broadcast.

Admission is free but seating is limited, so don't delay and reserve your spot on Eventbrite today!

2019-06-16: off-brand Creaking Planks at Car-Free Main Street's Accordion Noir stage!

Basically, we can't accept gigs as the Creaking Planks anymore because we can't guarantee you'll get anything beyond a crazy accordion. This isn't to say that you ever just get a crazy accordion, only sometimes we don't learn just what else will be on offer until we take the stage. So it is that this weekend, we'll be delivering up a set of songs from the Creaking Planks end of the musical gutter, by three historical Creaking Planks... billed as "Stupid Accordion Tricks", Blackbeard Squeezebox's solo YouTube accordion cover song series.

We're back at the Accordion Noir stage at the Car-Free Main Street festival that we played at two years ago, still on the west side of the intersection of Main Street at East 21st Avenue. Our set, which should liberally be peppered with such new covers as have been populating the video series, is scheduled to run from 3 to 4 pm. We're part of a program of free musical performances -- with accordion! -- running there continuously from noon through to 7 pm, so if you're at the festival, do please swing by and check out what's being offered, it's all amazing stuff, culminating in a headlining set from our disciples in the Argyle Embargo! As for us, this is just about the end of our rope. You should be catching one or two of us making a joyful noise at the June 28th launch of Bruce Triggs' book Accordion Revolution (7-9 pm at the CFRO Co-Op Community Radio studios) but ... that's grist for a different post.