2011-01-26: Creaking Planks radio takeover on CaBaRadio and Accordion Noir!

In promotion of our fabulous 6-year-anniversary show next Monday night, we've hit the airwaves! Last night we joined Teddy Smooth and E-Roc at CaBaRadio again over at CiTR in the UBC student union building, where we played tunes and made strange innuendo late into the night. Always good times. We hadn't confirmed the engagement with enough advance warning to let potential listeners know, but ... in all honesty, how many of you would be tuned in to campus radio after midnight? (More than I expect, hopefully!)

We lifted a page from our friend Ryan Fletcher at CJSF's Melodies in Mind and as guest troubadors took it upon ourselves to musically interpret some public service announcements the show wanted its listeners to know about, including a very special rendition of a song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, screening this weekend... well, you'll get all the info in the recording. Also excitingly present, though you have to wait through the whole recording -- a world exclusive sneak peek of some recent studio work we've been doing on Phaulonious J Knucklebones' original songs, thanks to new friends made at the Orange Party! Admittedly this recording isn't done yet, but it's more than half-baked ... and it's been a very long time since we were committed to any permanent media in any form. A better representation of us, to be sure!

We managed to mine the Plankian portions of the show from its podcast and serve it up to you here; in the meantime, it's not too late to catch the black wave of our promotional hype, as we'll be on the air tonight down in the downtown eastside studios of CFRO Co-Op Radio at Accordion Noir, whose audience we haven't joined since an Accordion Noir Festival promo appearance back in 2008. Excitingly, we're hoping to take on the challenge to do our own version of their lovely theme song -- and would encourage you to do the same!

In the meantime, here's a log for our truncated CaBaRadio recording:

• Creaking Planks - Dead Man's Pants (Al Mader) 3:39-5:54 (2m15)


• Creaking Planks Duo - announcements medley - LIVE! 6:56-10:37 (3m41)


• Creaking Planks Duo - The Girl In The Pink Canoe (Big Rude Jake) - LIVE! 16:14-19.25 (3m11)


• Creaking Planks Duo - Womanizer / Toxic medley (Britney Spears) - LIVE! 22.28-28.28 (6m00)


• Creaking Planks - Kishka Anthem (debut!) 32.06-34.57 (2m49)

We've also managed to skip the queue usually involved while waiting for the Accordion Noir folks to post their episodes online as a podcast. It's here, 12 hours later, and though we don't have a full track listing (edit: the AN folks do, up at their website, with creative song titling), here's all the places you can hear four mighty Planks playing their hearts out:

• Creaking Planks Quartet - Accordion Noir theme (Andy Fielding) - LIVE! 0:00-2:32 (2m32)


• Creaking Planks Quartet - Insane in the Membrane (Cypress Hill) - LIVE! 11:07-14:30 (3m23)


• Creaking Planks Quartet - Flatbush Waltz (Andy Statman) - LIVE! 15:03-17:14 (2m13)


• Creaking Planks Quartet - Tanz Tanz Yidelehk - LIVE! 23:47-27:33 (3m46)


• Creaking Planks Quartet - Sometimes All Of The People Aren't Here All Of The Time - LIVE! 29:39-32:49 (3m10)


• Creaking Planks - Kishka Anthem (studio mix) 33:04-35:53 (2m49)


• Creaking Planks Quartet - Vanha Jatsi Station ID - LIVE! 42:52-43:38 (0m46)


• Creaking Planks Quartet - Psycho Killer (Talking Heads) - LIVE! 44:00-47:41 (3m41)


• Creaking Planks Quartet - the Song of the Count / Bones Bones Bones (Sesame Street) - LIVE! 50:20-56:58 (6m38)

Also eminently worth mentioning -- us welching on our word! We were going to take all January off to develop new material for our anniversary show, but we did join the cool cats at Bandidas again for their own anniversary back on Jan 6th. We didn't promote it since it was their own private party of sorts, but we played the heck out of lots of great songs there. Many happy returns and hope to see you again there next January, Bandidas!

2011-01-31: Creaking Planks 6th anniversary

Sunday January 30th, 2005, in the auditorium at the Western Front, a room which has seen so many deliberately stranger things, an accordionist with a performance poetry troupe met an outsider acoustic noise duo with slightly more underground musical sensibilities than the Shaggs had, and knew that their two great tastes must go great together. Enter: the Creaking Planks. Six years later, we skip lightly past the endless living rooms, back yards, and festivals, Vancouver's introduction to the ZombieWalk, a pirate flashmob, two stage musicals, gigs down the US Pacific seaboard (studded with the abandoned hulks of derelict tour vehicles), and memorable mixed bills -- following '50s squeezebox sex symbol Dick Contino at the 20th annual Cotati Accordion Festival, and opening in turn for free software guru Richard Stallman... our two biggest gigs!

Now we actually know how to play our instruments, and our musical sensibilities have matured from "Can we play this?" to "Should we play this?" In honour of our six years we're putting to bed many of the songs we've kept close this whole time, and celebrating onetime contributors whose paths led them through the rotating roster of Planks before settling for other, less strange projects. We may not match our record of 11 Planks on-stage simultaneously, but we should be able to at least cumulatively meet that high-water mark over the course of the night. Joining us will be musical guiding lights Petunia the yodeling cowboy and Al Mader, the Minimalist Jug Band, whose "I'm a Lousy Lay" were the magic words that got us together in the first place.

It's also a retirement for Dieter Friesen's tenure booking his Deet Street nights at the Railway Club, a long association between him and us dating back to our first appearance there in April '06 sharing a bill with his band Rick Danko's Ghost under the auspices of Tamara Nile. In short, we have numerous reasons to be celebrating this night, of things changing more the more they stay the same.

Update! Allan reviewed it, in a roundabout fashion, and an American friend came up from Bellingham to enjoy some great music and take a bunch of pictures capturing the night's wild and woolly energy!

2011-01-01: Pleasing Squeezing revisited, with Ingrid Gatin and Fang!

Proving that some of their squeezy bills of 2010 were impossible to top, CFRO's Accordion Noir is proud to present a repeat bill from a show they and us hosted in May, this time at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street) with the sing-along sensation Fang and Winnipeg's squeezing siren Ingrid Gatin. Start the year off on a high note and see if we can top it in 2011!

All that plus at midnight we turn over the Railway's stage to Gold Stars Are For Suckers, who have nothing to do with great accordion music but can still give up a good time. $10 / $8 for Railway members.

2010-12-19: Creaking Planks at Memewar launch

The jug band of the damned shows its meagre warm and cuddly festive side as we help to celebrate the launch of the 12th issue of Memewar Magazine. We're on from 9:30-10:30 pm at the Railway Club, 579 Dunsmuir Street at Seymour (upstairs).

2010-12-18: Planks and friends at a Celtic/folk/rock holiday party!

The jug band of the damned doff our hats and join Cameron Gunn and a slew of musical friends for an intense, intimate evening at the Billy Bishop Legion Hall at 1407 Laburnum Street. Join us and Craic!, the Knackers, the Gentle Infidels and the WhiskeyDicks. Admission is $12 or $10 with a donation to the Vancouver Food Bank.

Wait, here's a newer copy:

2010-12-10: Planks play at Little Mountain Gallery FUN-raiser at theRickshaw

It's time to throw our weight behind a cause that's directly benefited us, the little Little Mountain Gallery where we've brought so many good times to so many. When the house falls, you can no longer call yourself a house band!

Denied its bread-and-butter, indie live music performance, by ossified regulations from No Fun City's Big Book of No Fun, the LMG is compelled to mount another fundraiser, charitably hosted by David Duprey at the Rickshaw Theatre (254 E. Hastings.)

Acts on the bill will include Zachary Gray (of the Zolas), Pineapple, Resorts, Dandi Wind and the SSRIs... along with the jug band of the damned, of course!

"THIS NIGHT WILL BE LIKE WASHING DOWN CAKE WITH MILK SHAKE..."

Your all-ages admission is a suggested $10 - $20 sliding scale fee but they want everyone to know that no one will be turned away!

2010-11-28: Creaking Planks at Cafe Montmartre

While we made some improbable new Portland friends at last month's Montmartre gig, we thought that we might like to stack the deck a bit and power-load the evening with an old friend -- Little Mountain Gallery arts godfather (which we'll in turn be shilling for Dec 10th at the Rickshaw) and incomparable comedic musical improviser Ehren Salazar. (4362 Main Street at 28th, by donation, 8-11 pm.)