2011-06-04: The Creaking Planks Big Dangerous Show in the Wild

The wilds of East Vancouver's Prophouse Cafe, that is...

On June 4th, the Planks will take over the back showroom of the Prophouse Cafe (to be found just west of Commercial Drive, on Venables) with special musical guests the Kingsgate Chorus, and special magical guest Travis Bernhardt (Dr. Steelhand's secret identity).  This show is not officially part of Music Waste, or even Go Your Own Waste, but you can pretend it is if that will encourage you to come out and have some fun!

2010-09: Planks Island Tour with Uni & her Ukulele

What was previously alluded to can now be stated plainly: the Creaking Planks are returning to Vancouver Island, with fewer stops than last time -- only two, making for a killer weekend with our Californian uke-slinging pal.

Friday, Sept 10th, we'll be back at the Duncan Garage Showroom playing for an unruly crew of Long John and some of Duncan's finest connoisseurs of humourous musical mayhem.

Saturday, September 11th, we take on Victoria's Fort Cafe (742 Fort Street) not only with Uni in tow but also Victoria's own squeezebox madman David P. Smith headlining a thrilling night of killer tunes on outsider instruments -- doors at 7:30, music at 9.

Then, Sunday, September 12th, we return home for our second year at the Fringe Festival bar (you can catch us in the program!) at the St. Ambroise Fringe Bar at Agro Cafe (1363 Railspur Alley, Granville Island), where not only will Uni be joining us again, but also Dr. Steelhand's alter ego, Travis the Magician, promoting his Fringe show Things That Never Happen.

2010-05-27: Planks close Cabaret of Wonders

Back to the Little Mountain Gallery (195 E. 26th) for the second time this month, this time for a considerably more substantial bill -- hark, hark, the Cabaret of Wonders has come to town! This concerted return to vaudeville was spearheaded by our magical slide guitar player Dr. Steelhand and will feature the many improbable talents of, we are told...

• The incredible juggling and clown of Flying Not Falling!
• Scorching hot burlesque from 2009 Burlesque Hall of Fame Best Debut winner Melody Mangler!
• Musical hilarity from the legendary Ehren Salazar!
• Sideshow stunt brilliance from Sean Covernton!
• Mind reading by the unbelievable Dave Moses!
• Magic from Master of Ceremonies, Travis Bernhardt!

as well as a solo set from our own Blackbox Squeezebeard and a closing set from the jug band of the damned, the Creaking Planks!

Tickets at the door are a bafflingly low $15, $12 if reserved in advance!

2009-04-29: Planks at Big Screen Barrelhouse at the Rio

Running from 8 pm until well past midnight, this culmination of the Rio's (1660 E. Broadway at Commercial Drive) April series of concerts will be featuring screenings and musical accompaniment by Tarran the Tailor, Blackberry Wood and Maria in the Shower, including special guests the Mind of a Snail puppet troupe (of "the Laughing Disease" fame)... and (of course!) the Creaking Planks, joining forces with Travis to demonstrate a certain magical, musical spirit cabinet. A craft market will be set up and the first few rows of chairs removed to maximalise DANCE PARTY potential! Admission is $15, but these supertoys last all summer long.

2009-04-04: Blackbox Squeezebeard's April Ship of Fools birthday celebration at Cafe Montmartre

As an experiment into filling a whole night at Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street at 28th Avenue) with varied textures of performance from members of our multifarious crew and extended family, the Creaking Planks celebrate Blackbox Squeezebeard entering into his fourth decade with the April (Ship of) Fools Variety Show from 8 pm through "late" (past midnight!) Saturday, April 4th. Performances will include magic from Travis, interstitial improvisation and ukulele from Ehren Salazar and John Barbour, new music from familiar faces Paul Hendriks (aka the Rev. Lucian Rumblebucket), possibly demonstrating his banjo aptitude, and Eryn Holbrook (aka Daisy Jones-Locher -- who worked a wonderful whimsical adaptation of Hieronymus Bosch's "Ship of Fools" into the show's poster!) contributing a solo set a couple of months earlier than usual, sharing her voice-and-keys songwriting not much heard since the days of her Perpetual Dream Theory project. Also joining us will be a very special set from washtub bass outsider Al Mader, the Minimalist Jug Band, and of course a couple of sets of Creaking Planks creaking and planking.

At Montmartre we play for tips, but we anticipate your generosity in support of this jam-packed night and its auspicious occasion.

Edit: phew! What a night! Check out VanCityMike's gallery of shots from the variety show up on Flickr!

2009-03-17: Planks help restore Hidden Agenda to its native habitat

Licking its hard-earned wounds from the recent critical success at the Waterfront Theatre, the series resumes at the Little Mountain Studios (195 E. 26th at Main) presenting its varied music and comedy variety show, now on a monthly basis.

Acts this time around include the Planks, Stick Twigs, the unique improvised musical stylings of host EC Salazar, & more acts to be announced...

Salazar intones fatefully: "there may very well be multi colored balloons."

2009-03-07: Planks at the Purple Crab

The crew that put the icing on the cake of Obama's inauguration party at Zawa's is back again in a new room, the Purple Crab (3916 Main Street at 23rd), with fewer pesky televised distractions (however historical) cluttering up the performance schedule. (That crew being: Thee Ahs aka Lovenschtein and Schteige, Sister DJ's Radio Band, and a closing set from us.) All that, plus: a set of magic from Dr. Steelhand, in honour of Sister DJ's descent from the namesake of Mandrake the Magician!

2009-02-13: HIDDEN AGENDA Variety Show at the Waterfront Theatre

Last month we bore witness to a surprising revival of a long-dormant variety show series, Ehren Salazar's HIDDEN AGENDA, resurrected on three days' notice as a benefit for our old pal Becky of Sweetie Pie Press.  Formerly the series largely took place at Wink, with sporadic upswellings at the Butchershop Floor and, later, its scion the Little Mountain Studios.  Not this time, though.  We've decided to shoot for the stars and take advantage of a good price on one of Vancouver's classic rooms, booting the event right out of the LMS backroom and booking the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island (1412 Cartwright Street).

And what will we be presenting at that theatre, well you might ask?  Not only is Aaron Read joined by the Sunday Service's genuises of comic improv, not only will Anna Vandas be making sweet music, NOT ONLY are the Creaking Planks also on board... but the event will also be featuring screenings from 2008's Animatron festival of animation.  All that plus handy hosting by Ehren "Monster Dinosaur" Salazar and, who knows, perhaps some special guests.

Doors are at 7:30, with the show beginning promptly at 8 pm; admission is $12 at the door or $10 with a food bank donation.

2009-01-23: The Creaking Planks meet AWESOME FACE

Winters in Vancouver can be a gloomy, dreary affair.  Even when we're not snowbound and strangled by insidious mists (as we have been for weeks, now!) one can go for days, weeks and, yea, even months without seeing the sun.  This contributes to a depressing psychological condition known as SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is often treated with exposure to a full-spectrum daylight lamp.  Another treatment recommended by holistic and alternative health practitioners is exposure to AWESOME FACE.  AWESOME FACE? AWESOME FACE is a local (or is that loco?) power performance poetry supergroup consisting of charismatic weirdoes par excellence RC Weslowski, Brendan McLeod and Chris Gilpin (as Dr. WTF??)  With a mandate as "the kids' show for adults", for their sophomore engagement at 9 pm this Friday they have boldly proclaimed a goal of nothing less than combating SAD.  Poet Sasha Langford demonstrates:

Their method of engaging SAD is to throw a beach party at Cafe Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial Drive).  As such, the wearing of beachwear is encouraged, and will reduce admission from $8 to $5.  Sasha demonstrates further:

To further audience involvement, AWESOME FACE have solicited contributions from their fans as lyrics for a new song, to be performed at this event, describing Jet Li kicking SAD's ass (egregiously) at the beach.  Similarly, the Planks, who are opening for this crew of well-intentioned miscreants, and whose greatest talent is inverting a song's emotional content, aim to rustle up some lines from our fans also.  The trademark macabre CP rendition of summer camp classic "Down By The Bay" debuted at Blackbox's first performance as a Plank, at Miserylovescompany2: A night of sad songs at the old Blim April 23rd, 2005... and has only been performed likely once since (at that year's Horace Phair celebration in Portland.)  But in honour of the occasion we are digging deep into the vaults and pulling out an array of splendid tunes to relish in our love/hate relationship with SAD.  If you could put on your thinking cap and send us your best faux-grim couplet for Down By The Bay (a sample from Lord Eel: "Have you ever seen a corpse / stabbed with ten thousand forks?") we would find it most useful.

Also joining us will be a display of the ever-boggling talents of legerdemain and mentalism from the Planks' steel guitarist, Dr. Steelhand.

...

And here we were!

2008-06: Catchup

Not all of our functions have turned up here, sometimes due to certain last-minute qualities of their booking and promotion, other times because they were essentially private parties and we had no business inviting strangers into our friends' homes.  All the same, we had a blast nonetheless and would like to commemorate those gigs here among the rest of our performances.

* June 6th we were invited to perform at Tally's fundraiser, the "Pan-Van Variety Hour" at the Rio Theatre, hoping to generate proceeds to help send her to Tanzania to do work with Youth Challenge International! We were invited to play in the middle of the night, which amounted to Squeezebeard taking the stage solo at the conclusion of the proceedings, performing a set to the other performers (including Jill Binder and the Baby Jessicas) before they went home.  Somehow, Tally ended the night up $400 and we ended up with a bottle of red wine, so all's well that ends well.  A good debut at the Rio, and I can't wait to return!

* June 13th was back to the Foxy House for the second party in three days, this time a joint celebration of Jhayne and Venus' birthdays.  Shortly following a visit from Vancouver's finest boys in blue, Dr. Steelhand wrapped up another incredible display of magic and legerdemain and a gaggle of unruly Planks crammed into a window vestibule to make a room sweat and tremble.  We have foxy resident Chelsea Johnson to thank for getting the dance groove started, one so unshakeable it would not be stymied even by the end of the planned set.  Greetings also to the Slavic lads of Mezamazing who came by to say (bellow is more like it) hello following their surprise appearance on that night's episode of Accordion Noir!  (Here's a photo by Andrew Bankley demonstrating our cramped dance floor.  (And some more!) We demolished that living room!) (Only figuratively speaking, however.)

* June 15th we streamlined down some grand plans to take to the Car-Free Festival, meeting up at the great granddaddy of them all on Commercial Drive for some of us to play a set directly opposite a drum circle.  If ukuleles could cry, they would.  Instead, we shuffled over a block south of Kitchener and stopped traffic for a glorious quarter-hour or so. Later, some of us reconvened on Main Street to catch Wyoming Johnny sitting in with Whiskey Jar.

* The next day, June 16th, traditional Monday evening Planks practice was derailed by hopes to crash a poetry party at the site of the emerging Cedar Cottage Community Gardens beneath the SkyTrain tracks, at the old Austrian-Canadian Friendship Park between Broadway and Nanaimo Station.  (Fortunately for us, the plans are all that were derailed.)  One by one all the Planks conked out until Squeezebeard was once again left by his lonesome with enough baked goods to feed the band that wasn't there.  Fortunately, the poets and gardeners were quite receptive (one might even say... hungry) for what he had to offer up for their mouths and ears.  Perhaps someday the full ensemble will revisit the stage there and perform a work especially commissioned to work around the indeterminicies inherent in the noisy movements of the trains rumbling overhead.  (Hey, a guy can dream!)

2008-06-07: 6⋅7⋅8 ⋅ a night of musical numbers

We played tag for a year and a half trying to get Eryn Holbrook (occasionally aka Daisy Jones-Locher) a gig at the Butchershop Floor, and then when we finally had it clinched, the space closed down.  But because it is the only way for us to get a chance to hear her compositions on voice and keyboard, we put together another show for her (and us) at the Annex for last year's Music Waste festival -- also the first Plankian appearance of (ir)regular Peg-Leg Right-Eye Ryan!  A year later we had a hankering to hear her stuff again, and so we bring it full circle back to the Little Mountain Studios, on the site of the old Butchershop, at 195 E. 26th (at Main), for a night of musical numbers. Hosting the proceedings is LMS proprietor Ehren "Monsterdinosaur" Salazar, doubtlessly regaling us with tales and tunes of ages so bygone they haven't happened yet.  Also on deck is a magic show from our own Dr. Steelhand of the slide guitar!  Doors at 8, $3 cover.  Sure to be one of our most charming summer evenings yet!