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!

2009-01-16: Creaking Planks at Cafe Montmartre with Rick Keating

Last night, however well-received, was just a warm-up.  Friday night we plan to pull out everything we proudly displayed and more, with two full courses of Plankification sandwiching a very rare set by the host of the Thursday night open mic at the Little Mountain Neighborhood House, Rick Keating.  The man strums, he stomps, he puts up a godawful fuss.  And we love the bastard for it.  It's like a primer in Folk 101, skipping right past the student exercises and landing directly in a master class where they have learned to tune their instruments and stop whining.  Doors at 8, and we should be cooking by 9... by pass-the-hat donation, at Café Montmartre (4362 Main Street at 28th).

(Thanks to Leah Nilson for taking the photo at the bottom so long ago that has now ended up on two posters!)

Update: a Plank rump (sax, fiddle + squeezebox) drummed up business a bit the night before with appearances at the Little Mountain Neighborhood House open mic and a surprise revival of the Hidden Agenda series at the Little Mountain Studios, a benefit for Sweetie Pie Press.  Aren't their wares swell?

...

We were caught at that engagement also!

Photo by Mike David Hawley

2009-01-11: Planks and Petunia at Montmartre, redux!

The Jug Band of the Damned revisits Main Street's little slice of Paris, Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main at 28th) courtesy once again of the western swingingest flower in the whole dagblamed garden, Petunia, sandwiching us between two sets of him playing with a small combo and featuring scattered smatterings from Al Mader, the Minimalist Jug Band -- the visionary behind "Lousy Lover" and "Dead Man's Pants". Not to be missed!

We'll be back there later in the week with Rick Keating, so stay tuned!

2009-01-03: Planks and Friends at the Little Mountain Studios!

We haven't played a show with our Victorian friend Natasha Enquist since the Accordion Noir festival four months ago, but her luscious leiderhosen made a compelling case for welcoming her back to town.  Besides, she sat in the front row when we played the Solstice, so we owe it to her to make her feel welcome.  Similarly, with some false alarms accounted for it's been a while since we last played the Little Mountain Studios (almost seven months! can it truly be?  unprecedented!), but perhaps the absence will make our return to our first "house band" assignment all the sweeter.  And how better to cinch the deal than draw on our renaissance man of the arts, Ehren Salazar, improvisatory master of every medium he sets himself to.  (Need we remind you of the thrilling account of the reverse zamboni?)  All that plus we hope to fool Dr. Steelhand into bringing out the cards and coins again for some legerdemain and fine trickery, and it can be yours for a suggested five dollar donation to help us float Natasha out with her squeezebox.  (For a sneak preview, catch her the night of Friday the 2nd from 9:30-10:30 pm on Accordion Noir at CFRO 102.7 fm!)

Nice photo, eh? It's by Samantha King!

Edit: arguably our best LMS performance ever, despite virtually no PA and the bitter end of Vancouver's surprise winter weather (the LMS formerly being a butcher's shop, the back area is actually designed precisely for making meat cold; in any case, the hoary frost kept Daisy Jones-Locher away, but otherwise it was a nice Planks reunion to get the year off to a good start) -- we filled every chair in the place and all the acts were well-received, with special audience guests the Mezamazing crew who we hope to join us on stage there in a few months.

Calgary visitor Sean handily took a photo of the proceedings, the space still decked up for the holidays. Can you spot the new member?

Sean took a photo of the Planks in full array

What's more, Cap'n Jack Spareribs posted a live video from the concert of Natasha playing the old Russian standard "Dark Eyes" or Ochi chyornye ... and Planks Lee Shoal and Wyoming Johnny cutting a rug to it!

and one last pic for the road!

2008-12-31: New Year's Eve Party with Petunia & the Vipers and the Highballs

It ain't Portland, but sometimes us Planks don't have to travel quite so far afield to find friends to hang out with on New Year's Eve.  We'll be sharing the stage at Chapel Arts (304 Dunlevy Avenue at Cordova) with our pal Petunia and the Vipers as well as the Highballs.  All that plus appetizers, champagne at midnight and a chance to get an eyeful of the Galatians 3:19 group show currently hanging there! Admission is $40 in advance, $50 at the door and $20 after midnight.  For further information, you can go right to the source!

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And here we were!

2008-12-21: Planks play at the Winter BEERstice

The Creaking Planks’ alter egoes, the Clinking Pints, come through here in musical celebration of some tasty brews that, though they may not quite be our hallowed and vaunted "Schmutzigesocken", still get the job done. Also, there’s some solstice thing happening -- ask a Wiccan.

Doors at 8:30 pm, inexpensive drinks ("$3.25 beers; excellent, high-end scotch for $4.50; coolers for $3.75") until ~2 am.  Further entertainment (but really, when you have a gaggle of Planks, what more is truly called for?) is suggested as including "the comedic stylings of Richard Lett" and "the gorgeous ring of Jill Binder's ukelele!"  This all goes down in the rented Jericho Garrison Combined Mess hall at 4050 West 4th Ave.

Julie Peters made a report on the events on her blog!

Never Give A Puppy For Christmas

Last summer (August 2007), following a kind word from our rare musical saw player par excellence Rusty Sawbones during a recording session at Rave On Studios, the Planks were invited to contribute a tune to the second annual Very Vancouver Christmas SPCA benefit compilation (of which volume three is now available!)  Taking a tip from Andrea Hector's "Old Mutt For Christmas" the first year around (as well as perennial holiday novelty favorite "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas"), during a reading material-less Greyhound trip back from a silent-movie-themed wedding in Washington State, Blackbox drew up a list of holidays and animals associated with them, aiming to distill them down into a document stating a central core thesis: that animals are pals for all year round, not just holidays.

Of course, knowing that everyone else on board would capitalise on the donation of their work to demonstrate their soft-pop radio friendliness, and knowing that even if we tried the Planks could do no such thing, instead we perversely went for contrast and dwelled gleefully glumly in our trademark melancholic sound... but with goofy lyrics, however cogent to the matter at hand.

Our local animal shelters are still earning royalties from our somewhat terrifyingly sloppy recording (second only to the terror of the photoshop jobs that incrementally crammed the entire band into a single frame), so it can't be dished up for your enjoyment without stealing valuable pennies from the pound (but here's a fun way you can send some kibble their way!), but Plank alumnnus (and filk superstar!) Strong Brew Lundervillain did record an uncannily spirited version of her own with musical partner John (and here is their website) and here you can even download it.  Gadzooks!

Now, for the first time, if you like you can even have the option of reproducing the tune for yourselves courtesy of one of Blackbox Squeezebeard's bastard streamlined lyrics/chord arrangements, not entirely dissimilar to the ones the Planks learn all their songs with!

  intro:
     A-          D-          E7
  (I want a hippopotamus for Christmas...)

A-           E7        A-       E7 A-           E7              A-  A7
Never give a puppy for Christmas / Never give a chipmunk in the fall...
D-           A7            D-              E7            F+         E7
Never give a woodchuck for Groundhog day / Never give an octopus at all!
A-           E7       A-    E7 A-           E7           A-     A7
Never give a bunny at Easter / Never give a cat for Valentine's...
  D-                A-  E7 A-           B7            E7              A-     A7
A Passover pig is a bad idea, and don't even think of New Year's porcupines!

  D-       A-                        E7                                   A-          A7
 On St. Patrick's Day don't bring in any snakes / St. Patrick drove them out but you can't undo his mistakes...
       D-                             A-                 B7                          E7
 Don't give a caged bald eagle on the day of July 4 / On Hallowe'en a raven we'll be giving NE-VER-MORE...

(two instrumental verses, restart first line of first verse, then)
D-                         A-              E7         F+       E7                             A- D- E7 A-
Never give a woodchuck for Groundhog day / Never, no never, no never, give, an octopus at all!