Performances should be underway by 8 pm; entrance is by donation (please direct your tips to the hat!) and do make sure to enjoy the kitchen specialty of hot crepes on these cool evenings.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
2008-05-09: Katie GoGo, Clare Love and the Creaking Planks
Without a doubt, Hoko's booker and impresario par excellence Katie GoGo has led us into good times. But we have good times all over the place. Back last fall we had good times at Café Montmartre alone three times over a three week period! But now, finally, the time has come for these two great tastes to be enjoyed together: flexing her production muscles, Katie is trying out a new night at Café Montmartre (4362 Main at 28th Ave.) And who is she inviting to help her show her best face at her inaugural show there? That's right -- itinerant songwriter Clare Love. Who is awesome. And also us. Who are also awesome. (At least, our webmaster thinks so.)
Performances should be underway by 8 pm; entrance is by donation (please direct your tips to the hat!) and do make sure to enjoy the kitchen specialty of hot crepes on these cool evenings.
A surprise addition to the splendid bill was a brave individual who took to the stage after the rest of the performances and played a haunting rendition mashing up the chord transition from Portishead's "Glory Box" with the lyrics to Will Smith's theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air -- truly a performance to remember.
Performances should be underway by 8 pm; entrance is by donation (please direct your tips to the hat!) and do make sure to enjoy the kitchen specialty of hot crepes on these cool evenings.
2008-05-07: J.R. Hill and the Creaking Planks
Fame and/or notoriety is a funny thing; venture out into the public and do your thing and one way or another word will spread, the curious fruit tumbling well past beyond where the seeds were sown. One afternoon we were culling the spammers and number-collectors from our MySpace page when we found a friend invite from some stranger in Winnipeg. Did any of us know anyone in Winnipeg? Had any of us ever been to Winnipeg? Could this be anything other than crackling static background noise emitting from the black hole at the heart of the online universe? Naturally, in the bitbucket it went. Not long after, we received a curious message inquiring as to whether we were interested in playing on a bill with them at the Little Mountain Studios. The asker looked familiar... oh! it was that person we'd denied and rejected! How embarrassing. I can proudly say that we now have one friend in Winnipeg.
Come out Wednesday and maybe you could, too! J.R. Hill is touring the great Canadian West and we are proudly presenting him to you at, oh, let's say 8 pm this Wednesday evening (May 7th); the LMS remains at 195 E. 26th Avenue (at Main) and after our most recent engagement there last month we are pleased to report that following renovations its acoustical properties are still quite simply beautiful. We'll really be putting it through its paces a month later, on a night of musical numbers... but one thing at a time!
Squeezebeard is pleased as punch to have moved on from using a word processor as a poster design tool; if you're on a Windows XP box with the .NET framework installed, can't afford Photoshop (an' what kind 'o pirate be ye precisely ta be's worried by such a problem?) and can't grok The Gimp, he endorses Paint.NET, used here to synthesize a lively doodle straight out of Mr. Hill's sketchbook with a flipped panel from Gustave Dore's illustrations for Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (really it's a marvel the two hadn't collaborated earlier!):
Due to a lack of confirmation, Lise Monique of Wintermitts was not ultimately billed as appearing on tonight's bill, but appear she did -- and thank goodness, as despite the split in our promotions, I think most of the crowd turned up just to see her (and her skilled French glockenspiel player). We had a blast and now have one friend in Winnipeg... and if we're lucky we may someday get to play the George the Cat song with him again!
Come out Wednesday and maybe you could, too! J.R. Hill is touring the great Canadian West and we are proudly presenting him to you at, oh, let's say 8 pm this Wednesday evening (May 7th); the LMS remains at 195 E. 26th Avenue (at Main) and after our most recent engagement there last month we are pleased to report that following renovations its acoustical properties are still quite simply beautiful. We'll really be putting it through its paces a month later, on a night of musical numbers... but one thing at a time!
Squeezebeard is pleased as punch to have moved on from using a word processor as a poster design tool; if you're on a Windows XP box with the .NET framework installed, can't afford Photoshop (an' what kind 'o pirate be ye precisely ta be's worried by such a problem?) and can't grok The Gimp, he endorses Paint.NET, used here to synthesize a lively doodle straight out of Mr. Hill's sketchbook with a flipped panel from Gustave Dore's illustrations for Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (really it's a marvel the two hadn't collaborated earlier!):
Due to a lack of confirmation, Lise Monique of Wintermitts was not ultimately billed as appearing on tonight's bill, but appear she did -- and thank goodness, as despite the split in our promotions, I think most of the crowd turned up just to see her (and her skilled French glockenspiel player). We had a blast and now have one friend in Winnipeg... and if we're lucky we may someday get to play the George the Cat song with him again!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
2008-04-28: Creaking Planks in North Van, at Beans!
Due to the vagaries of city planners and zoning bylaws, there are some neighborhoods in which live music is performed publicly on a regular basis and others in which it rarely is. (See: the whole south-east quarter of Vancouver, in which we haven't had a single engagement in our three years. We invite you to help us overturn that awful record!) Compound this with a tendency to stick to the tried and true on top of a certain gravitating toward familiar venues near the abodes of band members. If you live just off of Commercial Drive, as many Planks do, this is a tendency that works in your favor. If, conversely, you live in North Vancouver, this means a godawful haul just to get to practice!
This has been the case for stalwart Planks percussionist Felonious P, who has tirelessly crossed bridges and bodies of water time and again, hauling his ironing board and rhythmic rummage sale on countless occasions for what are often only minor gigs and never complaining even once. While technically we performed in North Vancouver back in February while waiting for pirates to return on the SeaBus, we have never enjoyed the extravagant cachet of a show there in, say, an indoor venue. This time, he turns the tables, having arranged for us to come play a show on his home turf: this Monday night, Creaking Planks descend upon North Van to tirelessly bombard the denizens of Beans on Lonsdale (1804 Lonsdale Ave., to be precise!) with our unique brand of, well, damnable jug band musicmaking from eight through ten pm.
And presenting: our first use as intended of Daisy Jones-Locher's outstanding Planks poster template, reworked by her to include the vital details!
This has been the case for stalwart Planks percussionist Felonious P, who has tirelessly crossed bridges and bodies of water time and again, hauling his ironing board and rhythmic rummage sale on countless occasions for what are often only minor gigs and never complaining even once. While technically we performed in North Vancouver back in February while waiting for pirates to return on the SeaBus, we have never enjoyed the extravagant cachet of a show there in, say, an indoor venue. This time, he turns the tables, having arranged for us to come play a show on his home turf: this Monday night, Creaking Planks descend upon North Van to tirelessly bombard the denizens of Beans on Lonsdale (1804 Lonsdale Ave., to be precise!) with our unique brand of, well, damnable jug band musicmaking from eight through ten pm.
And presenting: our first use as intended of Daisy Jones-Locher's outstanding Planks poster template, reworked by her to include the vital details!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
2008-04-24: open mic feature at the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House
April's been a busy month of catch-up for us! In the aftermath of A Dybbuk, we enjoyed a fragmentary turnout at two after-parties (Squeezebeard keeps losing the addresses; he says, just gimme a treasure map an' I'se kin find X well enough!), played two great shows back in our goofy element, the first (Apr 11th) back at Trees (to which we will be returning again in early September) and the next (April 14th) a homecoming show of sorts, acoustic with friends sitting on the floor in the gallery of the Little Mountain Studios, where we're the house band, site of so many practices, rehearsals and residencies... as well as a big noisy party celebrating Squeezebeard's birthday. On top of the shows, a swell arrangement with some charming PAVI students had a couple of us recording some backbone tracks at Blue Wave Studios, drawing on the next-door-recorders Company B to provide some zombie gang groans with improbably professional equipment. We'll let you know how those turn out as we put down some overdubs on top. All that plus Lee Shoal and Planks pal Allan Macinnis got us a mention in the current issue (edit: huh! and an earful on the website) of the UK music magazine The Wire. Not bad for a couple of weeks getting back into the swing of things!
There are of course more shows coming up. Some of them are quite imminent, in fact. Tonight, Planks will be taking to the stage as features at the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House's (3981 Main Street at 24th Ave.) weekly Thursday night open mic, hosted by the man who put the cur in curmudgeon, Rick Keating! Our fiddler Johnny Wyoming, a regular at the series, recounts that the evening tends to unfold with socialising around 7:30 pm, the open mic rolling on at 8 through 8:45 for a brief intermission before an hour of feature performance starting around 9 pm.
More is coming up quick -- Planks should be playing at Beans (1804 Lonsdale Ave.) in North Vancouver next Monday (April 28th) 8-10 pm, then we have a special Tuesday morning engagement with FreeGeek, our other "house band" engagement, and new shows cropping up in May and beyond... but one thing at a time. First let's get through tonight and see what remains when Rick's done with us!
There are of course more shows coming up. Some of them are quite imminent, in fact. Tonight, Planks will be taking to the stage as features at the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House's (3981 Main Street at 24th Ave.) weekly Thursday night open mic, hosted by the man who put the cur in curmudgeon, Rick Keating! Our fiddler Johnny Wyoming, a regular at the series, recounts that the evening tends to unfold with socialising around 7:30 pm, the open mic rolling on at 8 through 8:45 for a brief intermission before an hour of feature performance starting around 9 pm.
More is coming up quick -- Planks should be playing at Beans (1804 Lonsdale Ave.) in North Vancouver next Monday (April 28th) 8-10 pm, then we have a special Tuesday morning engagement with FreeGeek, our other "house band" engagement, and new shows cropping up in May and beyond... but one thing at a time. First let's get through tonight and see what remains when Rick's done with us!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
2008-03-27 through 2008-04-05: A Dybbuk
During a 2005 Planks practice in Grandview park, a passer-by observed Squeezebeard's accordion and stopped by to inquire as to whether we were a klezmer band. Blackbox began clarifying that we had in fact been playing Turkish music when Lord Eel, a founding Plank, cut across and established that yessir, ma'am, we here are the Creaking Planks, Vancouver's best pirate klezmer zombie shanty band, and that we play weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs and brises. He must have more of a killer business instinct to close the deal, for that exchange ended up getting us engaged for a week-long run as a klezmer back-up band in Melinda Gidaly Mayor's Fringe Festival production of "Jew! A Musical". We weren't, at that time, actually a klezmer band, but we had an appetite for learning and an instinct for show business, and eventually got up to speed though sweat and tears. When the run concluded, Lord Eel suggested that for our next engagement we re-invent ourselves as a flamenco band for the hat-shop proprietor's costume party! After all our hard work jumping into a new musical idiom for which we were largely unprepared, at the prospect of taking on another... well, suffice it to say that if our tall ship hadn't been in drydock, there might well have been a mutiny.
Fast-forward a few years. Coming out of musical semiretirement, Lord Eel again calls us together with a strangely familiar pitch: to become a klezmer band in a play about a Jewish wedding! Where have I heard this before? With oodles more experience gigging under our collective belts atop our earlier immersive experience into the klezmer idiom, a crack squad of Planks decided to take on the UBC Theatre production -- Squeezebeard on accordion, Dr. Steelhand on the very traditional klezmer ukulele and steel guitar, percussionist Pawel Piechocki (on Daisy Jones-Locher's lent santur!) and introducing Kat-'o-Nine-Tails on the clarinet. (Really having us play is a natural fit, since as was noted -- Squeezebeard is already the subject of the poster!)
The Fringe Festival gig was a zany, upbeat madcap comedy about wedding planning and reconciling matters of faith with life in the modern world. This play, Pulitzer-winner Tony Kushner's adaptation of A Dybbuk, is considerably more somber and austere in tone, dealing with a harrowing ghost story of love from beyond the grave among an extinguished people. All the same, there is a wedding, and we are a klezmer wedding band; we do get to stretch our roles a bit (not just for the actors anymore!) and also produce all manner of eerie soundscapes one might expect at free jazz night at the Western Front to underscore the workings of supernatural forces man was not meant to know. The intersection of avant-garde and traditional Jewish music: it's not just John Zorn's turf anymore!
Opening night is tonight; the curtains raise at the Freddie Wood at 7:30 pm every night through April 5th, barring Sunday March 30th (giving us a chance to rest up from our two-gig night with the County Fair Saturday night following our Dybbuk performance!) Typically the Creaking Planks will be trying to make audiences laugh or dance, but here you have a chance to catch us in an unprecedented third motivation.
...
Called out in a Courier review (Apr 2, '08)!
Composer Patrick Pennefather's music--drawn, as he writes in his notes, "from existing Yiddish, Klezmer and Hebrew music, prayers and chants"--is beautifully integrated into the story and performed live on a shadowed balcony by The Creaking Planks, a four-piece band featuring accordion, santur, steel guitar, ukulele and clarinet.
In a look back at the project the director David Savoy seemed quite pleased with our work:
November 12, 2007: May have a lead on a band – The Creaking Planks. My posting at Hillel House may have paid off!
Saturday, March 29, 2008: The Creaking Planks are great. I am so glad I stuck to my guns and pushed for live music. The fact that they stay in place is actually working out to be a visual blessing. They are like silent watchers of all the action. If only some of the cast could mirror their discipline!
Chapter 4 – Reflection. I am glad I stuck to my guns and pushed for a live band. The Creaking Planks were amazing, sitting like a ghostly presence above the action, and more than willing to jump in and provide various effects and noises as required.
2008-03-29: 2nd Annual Panty Parade presents a County Fair!
The Creaking Planks are proud to once again return to what is by now almost an unofficial home for them, the Secret Location, to contribute a performance at a Seamrippers fundraiser benefiting the Purple Thistle. Also on the bill are Coral & Emily Rose, AmberDawn, Tricksy and her Next Top Stud Contest, DJs Hi Def, Spook Silo, Pork 'n' Beans, plus our own Lee Shoal... as well as the long-rumoured square dancing, a pie-eating contest, a petting zoo and more! The Planks plan to go on no earlier than 11:30 pm, as a pack of 'em are hustling on over from UBC to play immediately following that evening's production of A Dybbuk! (... and a schizoid change of pace these easy-sleazy country-folk tunes will be, that's fer darn tootin'!)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
2008-03-07: Planks at Little Mountain Studios
Courtesy of the illustrious history of the Butchershop Floor gallery that formerly occupied the space, the Creaking Planks have maintained fairly chummy relations with the Little Mountain Studios that assumed its lease... not least due to sporadically guitarrón-slinging Scruffy Bigbass' participation in both organizations. Though it's a tradition that, as recently remarked upon, has been disrupted for a while, we've long been considered the "house band" for exhibition openings, and have enjoyed on-again-off-again "residency" (which is fancy musician jargon for free practice space that the public can drop in on.) In addition to the openings in the front-of-house, with the back vacated by the improv pioneers the staff have been occasionally curating small music shows in the back studio.
This Friday, you get both: "The Danger of Disappearing" opens, featuring new drawings by “This is the story about how everything got ruined” auteur Erik Lyon, plus a concert around back featuring the SSRIs, Russian Words and Emmett Hall. Hymn For Her fell off the bill, and proprietor Ehren Salazar was invited to occupy the vacuum; he in turn invited us to join him in helping to fill that space with glorious sound. We may be playing the opening up front; we may be playing the concert around back; we may be playing both! (but likely not at the same time... unless we straddle the middle and broadcast in both directions simultaneously.) However it goes down, we'll be on relatively early -- think 8 pm -- to give Blackbox Squeezebeard time to hustle down to Natasha Enquist's star turn on the International Women's Day episode of Accordion Noir at 9:30 pm.
Find attached two pictures, one of Erik's new work, and one of the original concert poster before we sinisterly replaced Hymn For Her:
This Friday, you get both: "The Danger of Disappearing" opens, featuring new drawings by “This is the story about how everything got ruined” auteur Erik Lyon, plus a concert around back featuring the SSRIs, Russian Words and Emmett Hall. Hymn For Her fell off the bill, and proprietor Ehren Salazar was invited to occupy the vacuum; he in turn invited us to join him in helping to fill that space with glorious sound. We may be playing the opening up front; we may be playing the concert around back; we may be playing both! (but likely not at the same time... unless we straddle the middle and broadcast in both directions simultaneously.) However it goes down, we'll be on relatively early -- think 8 pm -- to give Blackbox Squeezebeard time to hustle down to Natasha Enquist's star turn on the International Women's Day episode of Accordion Noir at 9:30 pm.
Find attached two pictures, one of Erik's new work, and one of the original concert poster before we sinisterly replaced Hymn For Her:
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