Ah, was it only a year ago that
we logged our final appearance playing at the Accordion Noir Festival? How did we put it?
[T]his year marks ... the final AN Fest appearance of the Creaking Planks. Gasp! Shock! Say it ain’t so! [T]he programmers have spoken... (And who knows, maybe in time we can be brought back... But it won’t be in 2015.)
Well... what can we say? We're big, fat, lying liars. We saw this year's Sunday afternoon community event promoted with an accordion parade, and then got a fire lit under us when we were told that no one had organized one. But the location, Spartacus Books, so close to Trout Lake! All you need is two people (a small parade, granted, but one person alone is never a parade) to musically march one block and do a loop of the park. Surely we could round up two people in 48 hours!
Well, those 48 hours were a roller coaster ride, I can tell you. Squeezebox Circle luminaries confirmed their availability, then cancelled hours before the parade. Planks themselves boldly issued "yea"s which then somehow twisted cruelly into "nay"s. But having been announced, the show had to go on! So I strapped the baby accordion on my three-year-old and went to Spartacus Books to rendezvous with Daisy-Jones Locher, the only constant element in my hair-brained, last-minute cockamamie scheme.
There we found additional accordionists! Accordionists setting up raffle tables, adjusting stage lights, setting up video cameras... accordionists, otherwise put, unavailable to join us in our parade. But the hosts of the afternoon's fest program, the Kate & Rich duo from Halifax, were there early and opted to join us for strange kicks. (Just as well, I'd be lying if I said that our motivation was so very different.) A further ancillary accordionist loitering around the facility also followed suit, and we were off!
Without necessarily being a criticism, I feel confident in making the observation that the sunny Kate & Rich, likely highly lucrative on the busking circuit, may despite their affiliation with this festival this year, perhaps be the least Noir ensemble in existence. It didn't help that to lighten her load, Kate elected to play & promenade not on her regular 120-bass accordion, but the student model being offered as a raffle prize -- the one with no minor chord buttons. But we were so happy just to not be certifiably crazy weirdos out there all alone in the world (instead, crazy weirdos out there in a very small group in the world) that we tempered our planned park-circuit set (mostly klezmer) to suit the limitations of the instrument. But it sure made for an emotional roller coaster: we played "Creep", they countered with "You are my Sunshine"; we upped the ante with our G-rated rendition of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer", and they centred the mood back with "When the Saints Come Marching In". But our bizarre procession did garner some attention and drum up some interest in the imminent proceedings nearby at Spartacus -- notably, the final notes of Closer were recognized ("No freaking way!") by a park patron who was squatting a picnic table for a goth clothing swap.
OK, throwing together a last-minute accordion parade flashmob was stupid, what can I say. But also it was fun. (It was also, I think, the third most successful accordion parade in the festival's 8-year history, and this time no one had to play through garbage bags to keep their instruments from being drenched by a torrential downpour.)
Anyhow, thanks to the Accordion Noir Festival for waiving their prohibition of us, and thanks to Kate & Rich for mellowing our tartness with some sugar -- and thanks to all the goths out there, who have no choice but to be themselves in this world gone mad. Now, we have another announcement coming up for early October, so stay tuned!
