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!

2009-03-26: Planks back at Beans on Lonsdale

Slightly under a year later, the Planks return to the wilds of North Van, packing along their unruly brand of demented trad. Starting at 8 pm, we'll be playing a couple of sets at Beans on Lonsdale (1804 Lonsdale).

For the occasion, we re-worked Daisy Jones-Locher's poster template -- a revisitation of old imagery, reminiscent of our previous engagement but still very different. Maybe our set will be, too!

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!

2009-03-06: Planks at Trees

Every few months, John Pippus invites us on over to open a session of his weekly Friday night songwriters' circle. The other performers tend to be solo acts, so as we often do, our role here is: contrast. There have been some highs and lows there, but Trees (450 Granville) is a lovely room (dare I say the sole survivor of the war of attrition on the Granville Mall?) with awesome cheesecake. But that's describing the food, not the performances from Susanna Lonsdale and Jesse Nicholson following our inaugural set at 8 pm.

Enjoy and hope to see you out!

2009-02-28: Planks at Cafe Montmartre with Erin Graves

We're back at our monthly appearance at Cafe Montmartre (down at 4362 Main Street at 28th Avenue) with our friend Erin Graves who we met last September at Trees and resolved to do more work with.  The usual sequence of events there has us playing an opening set starting by 8:45 for 45 minutes, then our guest plays a similar set (possibly with some Planks sitting in!), then another one from us.  We play on a pass-the-hat basis, so bring some friends and a great hunger for crepes, wine and hat-filling.

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And here we were!

Photo by Erin Graves. Daisy Jones-Locher can't be seen just off to the left.

2009-02-19: Memewar Launch "Gods and Idols" issue at the Railway Club

We had so much fun with the crew of Memewar magazine at their last release party that they invited us back.Here's it's poster:

As you can see, once again it's at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street at Seymour, upstairs), and we're being joined by readings from the magazine (and its "Gods and Idols" theme) from C.J. Leon, Rhoda Hodjati and Tony Power and music from Wintermitts and Victoria's Ballgag 'n Chain Gang... and something involving the Vancouver Cantata Singers.  Admission gets you a copy of the magazine (it's a great business model -- each party's cover pays for the subsequent issue, whose release party pays for the subsequent issue... and so forth).

Next up we've got a private engagement on the 27th (then see how fast we can peel off to catch Geoff Berner's CD launch at the Biltmore!), but stay tuned for another Planky evening at Cafe Montmartre Saturday February 28th!

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And here we were!

Photo by Missy Clarkson