2011-10-30: A little supper music

The Organizing Centre for Social and Economic Justice (a mouthful, but you try saying "OCSEJ" -- actually, usually we call it just "the O.C.") is an eminently worthwhile local umbrella organization perhaps better known for its projects such as Food Security FACTS, Bitter Melons, People's Health Radio and the Vancouver chapter of the Bus Riders' Union. They aren't all for-profit ventures, and neither are we all of the time, so we're lending our strange musical taste to help fortify a fundraiser dinner they're throwing at the Heritage Hall Sunday, October 30th. We'll be sharing the stage with the female chorus The Larks, and everyone will be enjoying a North African dinner. Doors at 6, dinner at 7, music at 8:30. Individual tickets are $20 and costumes are encouraged! Further details over here on their site.

2011-10-29: Carnival of Shadows II w/ Jeff Andrew and Tarran the Tailor

Because Hallowe'en comes but once a year (but Hallowe'en weekend is three nights long) it's the profound pleasure of the jug band of the damned to present our spooky show for a second night in a row, next up Saturday, October 29th at Cafe Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial Drive) from 8-11 pm with our ominous pals Tarran the Tailor and Jeff Andrew, who we did this same gig with this time last year. (This time, though, he'll actually get to play!) $10 for the funnest unofficial Parade of Lost Souls afterparty ever!

(Turn up early and you get to ring in Daisy Jones-Locher's birthday from 6:30 on!)

Bonus! It was a heck of a show, and here's a gallery of photos from it! Thanks to Graham Ballantyne for snapping the shutter again...

2010-10-30: Creaking Planks at Cafe Deux Soleils

Hot on the heels of our first costume ball of the season the night before, the jug band of the damned moves up the street (just a couple of blocks) to Cafe Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial Drive) to help raise some unruly spirits (from the remnants of the Parade of Lost Souls, no doubt) with the help of our delightfully dark friends Maria in the Shower and Jeff Andrew with his Crows at Midnight. 9 pm, $10.

2010-10-29: Creaking Planks play at Witches and Warlocks Critical Mass afterparty

What are you doing after this?

How about this?

Witches, warlocks and other Hallowe'en creatures that bump in the night, lend me your ear(wig)s! Our night to celebrate the powers of light and (mostly) the dark is nigh upon us! The cursedly Creaking Planks will begin the evening, after which Little Woo will alter the fabric of the space-time continuum, transporting us to "The Silent Kingdom" with shades of puppets.

The heresy of the Blackberry Woods will lead us into a Bacchanalian trance of dance madness, and the wizard known only as Timothy Wisdom will weave enchantments of endless motion until the late hours. Potions will be drunk and demon's gate spells will be cast.

The party rolls at the Grandview Legion Hall upstairs at 2205 Commercial Drive; admission is $10, or $8 if you arrive as part of Critical Mass. The carriages turn back into pumpkins at 2 am.

2009-10-31: Hallowe'en with the Whiskeydicks

The jug band of the damned is going insane in the Samhain with their most booze-fuelled fiddle-rapping comrades ever the WhiskeyDicks from 10 pm on at Malone's Bar & Grill (608 W. Pender @ Seymour). $10 doesn't only get you admission to this bash, but a chance to compete for fabulous costume prizes in the categories of best Thriller, best killer, best sexy (yes, the chiller and diller get short shrift yet again), and best overall costume (don't be confused).

2009-10-30: Velowe'en on Devil's Night!

As ancient lore tells it, Veloween is an age-old festival where for one day of the year old, dead, abandoned, dismembered and forgotten bicycles awaken to roll amongst the well-oiled and able-framed. We will celebrate together in copious ritualistic beer drinking and dance, possessed by the rhythms of the Creaking Planks, the Fur Bearing Animals and DJ Steamboat Fatty. A practice known to raise the dead follows, the eldritch Jackson Zombie Dance Off. Offerings to the shadow world will be made by Little Woo and her shadow puppet fairytale.

The best dressed bicycle competition commences the moment Critical Mass arrives at the Anza Hall (3 W. 8th Avenue at Ontario); the rider of the best-dressed bicycle wins never-ending pints all night.

At the strike of one am -- for those who are most fearless amongst us -- we will ride naked in circles around our celebration (did we mention that the event is a fundraiser for the 2010 World Naked Bike Ride?) to chase the bikes of the dead back to the underworld!

8 pm - 2 am; $10 / $5 if in costume with Critical Mass

2009-10-26: a Deet Street Hallowe'en party at the Railway Club

It’s that spooky time of year again and in the run up to All Hallow’s Eve, the Deet Street is getting psyched to bring a couple sets from some Railway veterans to get you movin’ your ghostly feet. The Creaking Planks, Vancouver’s own pirate jug band of the damned is back to bring you a musical experience unlike anything you’ve ever heard, the perfect accompaniment to your haunted pre-hallow’s Monday evening.

But before their spooky set, be sure to check out Gadjo’s Django Reinhardt-inspired gypsy swing; jazzy virtuosic mellowness at its best.

But wait, there’s more: be sure to get there early so you don’t miss a very special set from Al Mader, The Minimalist Jug Band. Al’s inimitable brand of beatnik punkabilly is something you won’t find anywhere on this earth.

Furthermore, being as we’re approaching Halloween, the Deet Street invites all of you to dress up as your favourite dead (ie: Michael Jackson, but he’s still merchandising his ass off), almost dead (ie: Amy Winehouse, poor girl needs to chill out) or should be dead (ie: Keith Richards, PS: WTF how the hell is he still going) musician. As always the beers will be cold, the music rocking, the company excellent and the times great. It’s the spookiest Monday night this side of a Scooby Doo Halloween Special.

The Railway Club is at 579 Dunsmuir Street (at Seymour, upstairs). Doors at 8:30PM, show at 9. Admission is $7 / $5 for Railway members.

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Even if we were on too late for the photographer to catch us, Lauren Eldridge of Backstage Vancouver soundly enjoyed this show, and wasn't afraid to tell everyone -- on its blog and on its Twitter feed! She came back for more the next night and got a very different beast at Blackstrap Sadie's 8)

2009-10-23: pre-Hallowe'en at the Rickshaw

Much to everyone's excitement and, all right, dismay, the original line-up of this Catfish production (and our first of several Hallowe'en shows) has been being gradually whittled away through eerie attrition like the cast of Poltergeist. Unfortunately this means that we won't be playing with the Tom Glenne 5.5 (a meeting of the minds pending almost two years) but we're still on to interweave dueling sets with folk-rockers Harm's Road, among a costume contest and other spooky seasonal festivities!

This all goes down at the Rickshaw Theatre (254 E. Hastings), the hottest live music venue at Hastings and Main since the Theatre E in the same location a decade prior! (No hard feelings, Balmoral! And that doesn't let the Pantages restoration efforts off the hook!) $10, doors at 8 pm ('til late!)

Hallowe'en bonus to thorough readers: Rudyard Kipling's story The Phantom Rickshaw, which comes up when you google "harm planks rickshaw" in an attempt to dig up information on this show.

2008-10-31: Creaking Planks at "Veloween" Critical Mass afterparty

What with our tremendous success last time around we figured that we'd be a shoe-in for next year's (May) Pirate Critical Mass afterparty and that we'd be hearing back from the (pedal-)powers that be at that point.  Perhaps remembering our Zombiewalk introduction into Vancouver, they've seen fit, however, to invite us back to join them for the Velofusion party this month on Hallowe'en!  (We are the Jug Band of the Damned, after all.  We're humbled and flattered, but I hope they don't think that this Squeezebeard is just a costume merkin!)  Things get underway around 8 pm, with admission stated as $10 or $5 if you arrive with the Critical Mass in costume!

Other performances slated for the evening include our hornier separated-at-birth pseudo-sibling band Blackberry Wood, the Balkan marching band the Orkestar Slivovica, Miss Titty Kitty (come now, that name speaks for itself -- but let's not forget just how many titties kitties have!), a final performance from the full slate of Inject before percussionist Amrit parts ways to tour around India... and, rumour has it, a host of ghostly folks who really know how to dance along to Thriller.  (A further rumour, depending on weather conditions and the wonderful impaired judgment of the mob mentality, has proposed a late-night naked costume bicycle ride.  One thing we don't have, folks, is boring gigs.)

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Also, we had a great time at the Parade of Lost Souls Saturday then also at Montmartre Sunday night with Petunia (and then another great time in Strathcona with Alison and a hot bowl of her bors... I mean, blood soup.) We should be back there soon, and I don't just mean for our Thundering Word feature spot November 30th!

Next up -- Zawa's on Tuesday Nov 4th with Sister DJ's Radio Band, but more about that later!

Planks wrap up October: Parade of Lost Souls, Petunia at Montmartre

We had so much fun at Horace Phair VI that we couldn't keep still. (Especially Scruffy Bigbass, who had a claustrophobic call of the wild in the middle of past-midnight highway construction in the vicinity of Everett.)

This year, for HPVII, with under half as many Planks on board, things were a little more sedate for us...

though Nite Brite, The Pathogens and Oven Mitts were quite literally rocking the block while everyone else drank their head off with a pint of the homebrew Budd Dwyer ale on tap.

Then our timing belt broke in Olympia on the way back, but that's  a whole 'nuther story (and a happy departure to a Planks tradition of strewing dead automobiles across the West Coast.)  Do you have your copy of our HPVII mix yet?

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A week later, we hunkered down with Whiskey Jar to wish our mutual friend Wyoming Johnny a very happy birthday, and tonight, Saturday October 25th, we are letting our online following (all other locals have already made up their minds about attending this regardless of our participation) know that, following a seasonal squash-mangling, we will be logging an appearance (an earful at least) at tonight's Parade of Lost Souls, from six to nine pm in the Black Zone (at the intersection of William and Maclean, for the living.)

Tomorrow night, Sunday Oct 26th, we take to Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street at E 28th Avenue) to join roots showman Petunia in a brief opening set around 8 pm... to be followed by a drunken pumpkin-carving contest.

And as for Hallowe'en?  Do keep posted... we have a special surprise in store.