2016-01-29: Planks' 11th Anniversary party with the Sidewalk Cellist & the Myrtle Family Band

Thanks to everyone who made it out last night! Tomorrow we return to the video shoot dungeon, following which we get a little time to rest up and strategise in anticipation of our next public gig -- that weird annual tradition, our latest band-birthday show!

Staggering out of their first decade looking markedly changed, East Van's jug band of the damned take to the stage to do their unique combination of holy idiocy, colliding the canny with the foolish, the sacred with the profane, and Britney Spears with the accordion. Doors at 8:30, $10.

The Benedict Arnolds of the trad set, The Creaking Planks squander perfectly pleasant old-timey acoustic instruments on unlikely repertoire that ranges from inappropriately avant-garde to downright bizarre. But why? It’s anyone’s guess, but happily as it turns out, the unexpected end result is pretty fun: a mystery wrapped in an accordion wrapped in an enigma wrapped in bacon.

The members of the Myrtle Family Band are bound by a tie thicker than blood. Those mysterious Myrtle Sisters boil down a thick, juicy slice of Americana to a potent syrup both sweet and salty, then apply it judiciously.

Vancouver’s Sidewalk Cellist takes the classics out of the concert hall and throws them into the streets, with the help of her nearly-indestructible carbon-fiber cello! She provides a musical mix of everything from Bach to Nirvana, jazz to heavy metal, and more, building bridges between genres for audiences of all shapes and sizes.

Join us, won't you?

2015-12-06: Creaking Planks with Professor Gall and Carolyn Mark at the WISE Hall

OK, time to inaugurate this "new" website with a fresh gig promotion post! (Don't go back too far, folks, or the pages might break on you -- but we're working double-time to get all seven years of the website up to snuff.) We've never yet had a successful intersection with Portland's Professor Gall (even the most recent failed attempt was over a year ago, at a now-closed venue! The locations change but the urge remains constant...) and as for Victoria's Carolyn Mark, well she burned things down with us at Bernerland in February, but before that we haven't crossed paths since the Blackberry Wood house concerts at the Big Blue House in 2012... so clearly we've got some catching up to do!

This show is coming up this coming Sunday night, December 6th, running from 8 pm until late (but not too late, it's a Sunday night people 8) at the WISE Hall (upstairs 1882 Adanac at Victoria.) Tickets are $10! See you there!

Get your dancing shoes ready for December 6th at the WISE!

Professor Gall
A Tincture of Junkyard Folk and Steampunk Jazz, Professor Gall seeks to uncover the contradictions of an ambiguous and native-less society, "dreaming the existentialists' dream", while at the same time pleading for individualism, peace, and more fun at funerals.

Carolyn Mark
The Queen of Vancouver Island, Mint Records recording artist and all 'round sweety with a dark side! Country, folk and Americana delivered with a smile. Please welcome all the way from Vancouver Island: Canada's Best Country Cabaret Trio Carolyn Mark and the New Best Friends. Featuring Joel Fernandes (aka The Portuguese Stallion) on lead guitar and Dennis "The Ingrate" Siemens on the (barely) upright bass. Carolyn and her band sure love playing The Wise Hall and are glad The New Asshole Neighbours didn't get it shut down. The New Best Friends are delighted to share the bill with ...

The Creaking Planks

(Come on, you know us already!)

2015-04-17: CFRO Co-Op Radio’s 40th Birthday party at the WISE Hall!

Our band has only just turned 10, but CFRO Co-op Community Radio, parent station to our kindred spirits at Accordion Noir, turns 40 this year! It's been, uh, quite a while since they last had a party, so they've pulled out all the stops with a bevy of special guests curated by all the stations' programs, all building up to... a headlining set by the jug band of the damned (that's us), beginning at midnight sharp!

The party goes down at the WISE Hall (1882 Adanac Street at Victoria), also features a set by Purple Soul (and a variety show segment featuring, well, a cast of thousands: tag cloud -- "Adam Farnsworth, anniversary, CFRO, Chelsea Rooney, Chris Suen, Homegoing Brass Band, Jillian Christmas, Kenan Sungur, Mama Rude Gal, Mike Zinger, Purple Soul, R.C. Weslowski, Ramon Flores Trovador, Roots Roundup, Royal Aloha Monday Orchestra, Steve Bowell, Suzette Amaya, WISE Hall"), and begins with a mixer at 7 pm -- performances at 8:30. (Do you think there will be a DJ? There will probably be 50 of them!)

Advance tickets for station members are $10, available at Highlife, Red Cat Records, at The Wise Hall & Lounge, online, and of course at the radio station. (Prices will increase a little at the door, and a little more for non-members.)

If you need more convincing, here's an official PSA made by the station in which we are described as a "dorkestra". (This is why you generally try to provide your own promotional copy.) Just make sure they spell our name right!

2015-02-06: Bernerland: the Songs of Geoff Berner!

Though our paths have not crossed all that often (usually at the ArtsWells festival!), local accordionic songwriter Geoff Berner nonetheless looms large in our band's history, inviting us to headline his show at the first annual Accordion Noir Festival, after which he sagely proclaimed: "every night some band is the best band in the world for that night, and tonight I think it was you guys." We debated long and hard whether to perform his "Dalloy Polezei" when we performed at the fundraiser for the Police Museum. (The verdict was unanimous: we totally should, and we definitely wouldn't.) In fact, a turn-of-the-century appearance opening for folkie weirdo Dan Bern at the Britannia Elementary auditorium was entirely responsible for Blackbox Squeezebeard being inspired to pick up the accordion in the first place.

So finally we have an opportunity to give back some of what he has given to us: we didn't take the chance to cover any of his numerous amazing original songs on the Festival Man album, but we will be giving up two at the fabulous Bernerland roast / tribute show coming up this Friday night!

The roster is a gallery of big talent including his old friends in the Burnettes, Jeff Andrew, Dave Lang, Demon Squadron, E.S.L., Ford Pier, Carolyn Mark, Rae Spoon, fellow Monster of Accordion Jason Webley... and us! All hosted by Ken Gordon... one night only, 8:30 pm at the WISE Hall (1882 Adanac St. at Victoria), tickets will be $20 at the door (only $15 advance!) and all proceeds will be generously donated to the WISH drop-in centre. It has no option but to be quite a show.

...

January was unexpectedly busy for us -- in addition to the big 10th-anniversary blowout, we performed two more gigs last week you never found out about here. First off was Support Resistance!, a brief but punchy appearance at a fundraiser for the Carnegie Newsletter on Jan 24th (at which Mr. Berner also weighed in!), and then on the 29th we had a fascinating chance to provide ambient and improvisatory instrumental wallpaper for a pecha kucha at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC, where we drifted among cello pedal loops beneath the skeleton of a blue whale.

Here we are living the dream of re-enacting @TheDecemberists Mariner's Revenge Song at @beatymuseum . pic.twitter.com/8tNdtndhla

— Creaking Planks (@creakingplanks) January 30, 2015

Show business! Even after 10 years, it can't help but surprise you!

2014-01-19: the Creaking Planks' fabulous 9th anniversary concert

We did in fact make it to Horace Phair in Portland in October. And though we took November off, we managed to play a swell holiday concert to the Compassion Club in December. Now it is a new year and a chance for our first gig of the year -- which happens to be our annual band birthday party at the Railway Club!

doors at 7:30PM, show at 9:30PM (sharp...really!)
at the Railway Club, 579 Dunsmuir Street (upstairs), Vancouver, BC
$9 at the door
Featuring The Creaking Planks, Glittering Kingdom, and Sidewalk Cellist.

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Nine years is a long time to keep on keeping on, but in recent years the Creaking Planks, East Van's jug band of the damned, have made a tradition of throwing themselves an annual anniversary show at Vancouver's ‘grande dame’ of venues, the Railway Club. Unwilling to allow themselves to be ground to a halt by the ravages of greying hair, sleepless toddlers, grad school and graveyard shift work, they aim to demonstrate that rock 'n roll remains the most prematurely ageing influence of all. With their unruly assortment of underdog old-country instruments, they breathe a new rootsy life into monster pop anthems which have long since collapsed beneath their own sodden hubris and, despite being old enough to know better, compel the moldering leg-bones of also-ran B-side songs that history has unjustly forgotten to jiggle and caper like they are callow and spry again -- some old trick involving a spike of shaved ginger root. Remember when you were young and foolish? You will.

Glittering Kingdom grooves, taps and twinkles through tunes that meander from lonely circus swing to prohibition-era jazz, folk noir to post-apocalyptic acoustic. The sparkly foursome (Katheryn Petersen, Lindy Gray, Jen Rashleigh and Belinda Bruce) braid fine harmonies amidst guitar, accordion, saw, harmonica, snare and tinkly percussion. Glittering Kingdom is jazzed to debut the video of their bittersweet cover of Leonard Cohen's "The Future" at the Railway.

Vancouver's Sidewalk Cellist takes the classics out of the concert hall and throws them into the streets, with the help of her nearly-indestructible carbon-fiber cello! She provides a musical mix of everything from Bach to Nirvana, jazz to heavy metal, and more, building bridges between genres for audiences of all shapes and sizes.

2011-04-02: Planks play at the Peculiar Poetry Cabaret!

You probably missed us March 12 playing an intimate acoustic living room set to celebrate a new line of Venus' vintage jewellery. That was too bad, but her works live on and you can find them online! Performances are ephemeral however, none more than poetry performances -- even the loudest among them often fly under the radar just outside the front door, while a jerk with a car stereo can be belt blocks away. Musicians, though, we straddle the line between poet and jerk, and tomorrow night we will be making a spirited ruckus on behalf of the quiet poets of page and slam, making our sound and fury to benefit the upcoming 1st annual Vancouver International Poetry Festival.

Joining us will be such mouthy titans as Al Mader, the minimalist jug band, as well as Barbara Adler of Fang and elder statesman of the harmonica beatbox C. R. Avery. Also on the bill are Lucia Misch, our friends in High Society, and even a very literary turn by our own Travis the Magician. (A wizard of words, perhaps?)

Admission runs on a sliding scale from $10-15.