2010-08-12: Planks play Alex Cieslik's "Outside Access" art opening at the Little Mountain Gallery

Alex "Scruffy Bigbass" Cieslik, who once had a painting stolen while playing guitarrón with Planks at that fateful Rouge et Noir cabaret, hasn't been seen much in a Plankian context since our Gibsons visit of June '09... but does have a new body of visual work ready to present to the public's scrutiny at the old Little Mountain Gallery (195 E. 26th Ave.) we've all logged so many hours into propping up. It's been Quite Some Time (two and a half years?!) since the last time we played an art opening there, but these strange little gigs were positively fundamental in the development of the Creaking Planks. I highly recommend playing art openings on a regular basis to all new bands!

The exhibition runs from Thurs Aug 12th through Thurs Aug 26th; we will however only be performing there opening night.

2010-08: Planks Cariboo tour

Did you see our Church set from last year's ArtsWells festival in the Barkerville ad on the inside front cover of this year's Summer Festival BC Musician issue?

Look a bit more closely...

Well, we had so much fun at last year's ArtsWells Festival at Wells and Barkerville, BC, we're going back this BC Day weekend.  Around 1:15 pm Saturday, July 31st, the Creaking Planks will be performing at the Sunset Theatre for just about an hour, following Blackbox Squeezebeard's hosting the "Bellows on Fire" accordion workshop at noon at the outdoor stage.

You'll see more Planks at the festival, including Blackbox hosting the mainstage Saturday night (featuring our friends from Fish & Bird, Geoff Berner, and The Burning Hell!) and being ritually shorn at Sunday's 1-Minute Play Contest to further fundraise for the festival beyond what we raised hosting the WellsAid concert earlier this summer... the question on everyone's lips is of course Will he have to be issued a new pirate codename?

Following the ArtsWells Festival, while we're all up in thar part of the world we've planned to join our favorite songwriter in his hometown, turning the tables, and join Raghu Lokanathan for a show in Valemount Tuesday, August 3rd, at the Anglican-United Church hall (1175 7 Ave).

The next day, Wed, Aug 4th, the Creaking Planks swing over to Prince George's ArtSpace (above Books & Company, 1685 3rd Ave) to play a show with Johnnie Ninety-Nine, our most northerly gig yet!

Time Will Tell: RIP Skulltits McGee, 2010-07-09

Over the course of the three nights of the B:C:Clettes' 2007 Rouge et Noir cabaret, three women asked if they could join the band and perform with us, one after each night's show. Anja never did, Lucy became a true Planks regular, and Glenna joined us on-stage on the following night rocking the percussive possibilities of a bike frame; when polled, the audience thought that it was not her but Scruffy Bigbass who was the fresh new Plank (as she was dressed to party while he was just in his civvies.)

Though we did lure Glenna out to a practice after the stupendous cabaret (her self-chosen pirate codename reflective of her taste in tattoo subjects and locations and fondness for the movie Anchorman), we never got another chance to perform with her; now we never will.

A day before her 28th birthday, emerging artist and competitive skateboarder Glenna Evans was killed Friday in North Vancouver when she failed to negotiate a turn at the bottom of a steep hill.

Our intersection was brief but remembered. She will be missed by a wide variety of small and vibrant communities, and the extended community of Planks is just one more star in the mourning constellation.

2010-06-13: Planks play at Velopalooza finale in Strathcona Park

Unless something goes very wrong (or, if you prefer to have a half-full view, very right), this is anticipated to be the last Creaking Planks performance on our home turf for just about three months. (Hope you got a copy of our CD to remember us by while the getting was good! Of course, our mux of live bootlegs should still be up, however long in the tooth it's getting.) The occasion is the closing party of the estimable Vancouver Velopaloloza festival of bicycles and bicycle culture, with which the CPs have been long (if loosely) associated, dating back to our performances at last year's Bicycle Music Fest, at the B:C:Clettes' Rouge et Noir Cabaret, at the RevPhil's "Bike Porn" film night and still earlier.

Speaking of "earlier", our set will be starting promptly at noon, in Strathcona Park (at Prior between Hawks and Raymur -- out behind the Casa Gelato!), for one half-hour, following a set from Buck and Jess and preceding sets by the likes of Ndidi Cascade, the Carnival Band, the Wonderful Diving Horses, The Thick of It and the Deadwax Collective.

For more information about the festival, please see their website.

2010 Winter/Spring -- What We Missed Telling You About PLUS a homophonic side project

For a season, from mid-December to mid-April, we temporarily lost control of our domain name (in fact, it switched off while I was in the middle of composing a promotional draft here!) and information about the Planks was unavailable from this site. We still played lots of great shows, however, and this is just an attempt to keep the historical record in order. Just because nothing turned up on the website didn't mean that we weren't busy little buccaneers!

2009-12-26 - the Maclean's Boxing Day party in Deep Cove.
2010-01-06 - at Bandidas' anniversary party.

2010-01-12 - Blackbox Squeezebeard on Melodies in Mind.
2010-01-14 - at Trees Organic Coffee.
2010-01-15 - featured at Beats on Broadway.

2010-01-16 - at One Two One Studios' launch.

2010-01-22 - A Night of Pleasing Squeezing with Renee de la Prade and Amber Lee Baker (the Accordion Babes), Gerry O'Brien, and Jack Garton of Maria in the Shower at Cafe Montmartre.

2010-02-26 - Dollhouse Tea Party.

2010-02-28 - Another Night of Pleasing Squeezing with Jeff Andrew, Marie-Josee Houle, Jason Webley at the LMG.

2010-03-28 - with Convertible Kids at the LMG.

2010-04-08 - with Raghu Lokanathan trio at the LMG.

2010-04-15 - Can You Hear Me Now? F*Word fundraiser at the Railway Club.

2010-04-21 - at Ubuntu LoCo at the HD Lab.

We've enjoyed a couple of shows since that we've mostly been able to keep you abreast about here, and are on the verge of splitting for the summer (one more -- set aside noon, June 13th!), but before we go we can tie some Plankian threads together with a Go-Your-Own-Waste presentation of the Music Waste festival featuring frequent CP collaborators Erin Graves and Ehren Salazar with bonafide Plank Eryn Holbrook (aka Daisy Jones-Locher of the santur) and marvelous improv outsider weirdo Aaron Read at the traditional Plank venue of the Little Mountain Gallery (195 E. 26th at Main). This Friday, June 4th! Only $5, and free for festival passholders! 8 pm 'til we're done! The most homophonic bill of the year: Erin, Ehren, Eryn and Aaron in Err On: the Side of Caution. It'll be a slice. (Actually, imagine a pizza divided into four slices, all of which are different flavours, and at least one slice of which isn't even pizza... but maybe apple pie.)

2010-05-31: Planks get good press, play Deet Street birthday party

The morning of the Cabaret of Wonders! we awoke to strange and marvelous news: the recording which we had debuted last June had garnered a positive review in Vancouver's free weekly arts paper of record, the Georgia Straight!

Attendees of early Creaking Planks shows—say, at the first Vancouver Zombiewalk after-party, where Rowan "Blackbox Squeezebeard" Lipkovits (accordion) and Lee Shoal (ukulele, kazoo) did somewhat halting covers of songs like the Kingston Trio’s "Zombie Jamboree" — could be forgiven for thinking the band a joke. A funny joke, and certainly an in-joke, but not a group you might turn to for the pleasures of polished musicianship, even of the jug-band variety. Well, here’s a surprise: as if to illustrate the truth of the saying that a fool who persists in his folly shall become wise, the Planks have benefited from playing innumerable shows locally and throughout the Pacific Northwest. While still richly swathed in irony, the traditionals on this CD (European and/or Yiddish folkie fare like "Tanz Tanz Yidelekh" and "Moscow Nights" and the absurdly deadpan covers—including a new recording of Lipkovits's delightful arrangement of the Minimalist Jug Band's "Dead Man's Pants"—are, in fact, quite beautifully conceived and credibly played.

That night, at the gobsmacking Cabaret of Wonders!, we sold our last two remaining copies of the suddenly-in-demand disc. Perhaps a reprinting will be in order -- though we may have seen the last of the limited-edition stylish metal containers.

But enough resting on our laurels! Moving on from past glories, an increasingly rump Planks (blasted summer travels -- and I'm up next!) will be wigglin' and groovin' tonight at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street) from 9:15 on with our Deet Street friends, including the slam poetry of Lara, the "folk/rock/blues stylings of the Dennis Pimm Jamtacular Experience", and our favorite -- a puppet show entitled "The Tragic Tale of Pierrot" presented by Carnival Sized Cinnamon Hearts. $7/5 for Railway members!

Bonus! A doodle from Chloe Ziner of the Mind of a Snail puppet troupe!

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!