2009-08-08: Creaking Planks with Raghu Lokanathan and the Joey Only Outlaw Band at Cafe Deux Soleils

Having been exposed to his striking work at ArtsWells past, when the Creaking Planks learned that songwriter Raghu Lokanathan had moved from Prince George down to Victoria we just had to invite him to do a show with us there, which went off like a house on fire back in early 2008.  He helped us with some travel complications as best he could as well as delivering an immaculate set.  Now another ArtsWells is upon us and immediately following, this musical man will be in our general vicinity (featuring at the Jericho Folk Club Tuesday August 4th as well as on the Accordion Noir radio show Friday Aug 7th from 9:30-10:30 pm.)  (And here that radio session is!)  Needless to say, we're champing at the bit to present him to the hairy hippies of East Van, and have dovetailed a couple of plans in order to do so the evening of Saturday, August 8th, at Cafe Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial Drive).  The Planks will be tasty sandwich filling in the middle, followed by a dense slice of psychedelic country punk from the Joey Only Outlaw Band!

A tip o' the hat to postermeister Daisy-Jones Locher!

2009-08-01: Creaking Planks at the ArtsWells Festival

Blackbeard Squeezebox has been several years running with his bit on the side, the Joey Only Outlaw Band, but finally this year he gets to reconvene with his old Living Closet cronies with the jug band of the damned in tow!  ArtsWells, BC's biggest little indie arts festival takes place over the BC Day long weekend in the little town of Wells, BC (and neighbouring historical Barkerville) in the Cariboo, from Friday July 31st through Monday August 3rd.  Sharing various stages with us at various times are a whole bevy of buddies both accordion-slinging and non-; a partial look at the stellar line-up this year includes such friends as Ana Bon-Bon, Blackberry Wood, Geoff Berner, Jess Hill and Raghu Lokanathan (we'll be playing a show with him in town the following week) and luminaries such as Fish & Bird, Linda McRae, Rae Spoon and the Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra!

We're slated to be performing an afternoon set at the Barkerville venue Saturday (2-3 pm) and in the downstairs of the main hall Monday afternoon (3-4 pm) but you'll be finding various and sundry Planks all over the festival grounds, nosing out jams and sating our hunger for knowledge at workshops like the accordions in the round session Saturday at noon or Dr. Steelhand's slide guitar workshop Sunday morning (11 am-1 pm) in the school classroom!  (Our regular hunger will be sated by Martin in the kitchen, no doubt!)

2009-07-25: Creaking Planks close the Hidden Agenda #25 Variety Show Spectacular

We've been scattered in recovery from our trip to Vancouver Island at the end of June (expect a recap post soon!), but in honour of another visit from Becky Johnson of Sweetie Pie Press, EC Salazar and the goons of the Little Mountain Studios (195 E. 26th Avenue at Main) have gotten together with us to put on another program of mixed nuts including:

* Dave Shumka
* Ryan Beil
* Officer Mazaltoff, The Beat Cop Poet
* the charming crafty wares of Sweetie Pie Press
* and Unflattering Portraits by Reverend Aitor (by donation)

All that plus a closing set from the jug band of the damned, in what has practically been our only show together since the month began! Suggested donation $5.

2009-06-26 through 30th: the Flogged Round the Fleet tour of Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast

The jug band of the damned finally has some copies of its longago-recorded CD ("Flogged Round the Fleet") together in its swell limited-edition, first-run deluxe packaging edition, and by gum, we aim to seed the entire periphery of the Georgia Strait with them! One gig suggested a circumnavigation and so we're spending a long long weekend making a round trip to introduce some sleepy island-dwellers to our unique brand of demented traditional music new and old.

• Friday, June 26th, Victoria, Solstice Festival for the Folk


• Saturday, June 27th, TBA


• Sunday, June 28th - an afternoon show at the Duncan Garage Showroom, then an evening show following the B:C:Clettes at Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park


• Monday, June 29th - an afternoon show at the Gumboot Cafe in Roberts Creek, then an evening show at the Wild Bistro in Gibsons


• Tuesday, June 30th - a return home at Cafe Montmartre in Vancouver

The first stop is a return to the Solstice Cafe (529 Pandora Ave, Victoria), the site of our standing-room-only Island debut last Spring, sandwiched (with David Simard and Free Range, aka Danielle LP, Meg O'mally Iredale, Marly Iredale and Shanti Bremer) in the middle of three smashing nights of splendiferous Festival performances -- and just the start of a long weekend of Vancouver Island wanderings for us!

Saturday is necessarily under wraps until we finalise the remaining brass tacks, but keep posted for updates!

Sunday Longevity John squeezes us in to his Duncan Garage Showroom (330 Duncan Street, Duncan) for an afternoon show running 2-4 pm, $10, and I promise we will squeeze back. Later that evening, around 8 pm, we follow the B:C:Clettes, our red and black sistren of the bike dance community, for a third encounter for the benefit of the patrons of the Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park campground (near Parksville) at the amphitheatre there. Unplugged! Wheels will roll. Helmets will shake!

Monday, we make good on a longstanding threat to descend upon Roberts Creek's Gumboot Cafe (1057 Roberts Creek Rd), logging an afternoon set there from 4-6 pm, then we mosey along to the Wild Bistro (682 Gibsons Way) in Gibsons to play out the evening from 8-10.

Tuesday night we shake the last of the sand off our saltwater-stained sleeves and take to the Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street) stage back in Vancouver to play late into the night (as the following day is a statutory holiday - Canada Day!) and celebrate the 25th wedding anniversary of Blackbox Squeezebeard's parents.

2009-06-13: Planks play another wedding and the Railway again!

Juggling two offers we couldn't refuse, the Creaking Planks plan for a scorching Saturday night whipping down from playing at Phil + Kimla's wedding up at SFU to open the second anniversary of JEff Younger's night (third Tuesday of every month!) at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street, upstairs)! and he's programmed some of his favorite acts from the series to join him on the stage there that night.

Here's the lineup: in addition to having the jug band of the damned back for the opening slot at 10:30 pm, you get a wild and wacky set of unshorn spoken word from RC Weslowski, a set from Joseph Blood and the Blue Tick Houn' Dogs, JEff Younger's own inbred redneck orchestra The Family Stump, the WhiskeyDicks (who "blast their way through traditional tunes and modern hits with the spirit of the mad and the thirst of a sailor who just got kicked out of his metal band") and finally (late into the night) Very Good, the band which won't have too difficult a time surpassing their name.

Doors at 8:30, admission is $10, $8 for Railway Club members.

PS -- pardon the slip in chronology -- this show happens the day before the Car-Free Festival mentioned in the prior post.

2009-06-14: Planks play Car-Free Festival afterparty!

How better to follow Vancouver's biggest party but with another party? That's right, folks, Vancouver's Car-Free Festival wraps up at 6 pm (8 pm on Main Street) but its fabulous afterparty will already be opening its doors a mere one hour later -- almost precisely as long as it takes for Festival volunteers to fold up tables -- at the ANZA Hall (3 West 8th Avenue at Ontario Royal Canadian Legion hall at 2205 Commercial Drive (at 6th, upstairs). Admission is free for Festival volunteers (a humble $5 for everyone else, though no one will be turned away due to lack of funds) and those who just can't stop giving of themselves should have a blast at the start of the night with a jam session. It's true! That unscripted musical mayhem will be followed by live music from two acts -- a blast of Balkan brass with the Orkestar Slivovica and an uncanny visitation from East Van's jug band of the damned, the Creaking Planks. All this plus sest on the decks from DJs Osmunda and Kaminanda, hosting by Jessica Rabbit, and the much-vaunted blinking lights of the Revelry Society!

PS -- if you're not careful, you might catch us earlier in the day visiting John Barbour's musical barricade and logging an appearance at Venus' birthday party amidst all the festival hubbub bustle and hustle.

2009-06-06: Planks at Lugz Coffee Lounge

A mixed evening (as they say, "COME EARLY OR STAY LATE!!!") of what is billed as "spoken word / pirate jazz", at the corner of Broadway and Main (Lugz at 2525 Main Street), the Creaking Planks enjoy the unusual distinction of having the most staid name of all the performers on the bill, sandwiched between Sacred Mint and Cosmic Cobbler. (We have since been joined by Johnny McRae, whose name is harder to poke fun at.) $6. Doors at 9 pm; we should be taking the stage around 9:45 pm, if all goes according to schedule, for a first set of about 45 minutes... then returning for further strangeness later on.