2015-12-23: Sex Elf

One final video to ring out 2015 with, the Planks saved the strangest for last! Seemingly a one-off gag visited at a 2012 Christmas party and then discarded by the wayside, for unclear reasons (perhaps in the interest of completely exorcising it completely once and for all) we opted to revisit our re-written holiday rendition of Soft Cell's already-strange Sex Dwarf. Unlike our artful "Kiddie Closer", consisting of entirely new material crammed inside the sausage casing of Nine Inch Nails, this re-write was executed in the crudest, most brutal fashion possible -- the syllable-matching noun and verb search-and-replace hackjob, leaving us with an unforgettable holiday anthem that is more than a little creepy (especially with the original "naughty children", here understandably diluted down to "frosty snowmen.") (But come now: is it really any worse than "Santa, Baby" or "Baby, It's Cold Outside"?) Strange as it is, we can testify that we didn't really end up with any worse a song than the original. I know, shooting for the stars. (If sharing this video constitutes getting the song out of our system, perhaps this blog post can also give me an opportunity to be done with my related Dadaist joke:

Q: What's the opposite of a "sex dwarf"?

A: An "abstinence giant".)

Happy holidays, everyone, and see you all in the New Year at our 11th anniversary concert Jan 29th!

2015-12: Never Give A Puppy Redux

In August of 2007 Blackbox Squeezebeard, scrunched in a Greyhound bus seat rolling back from a "silent movie"-themed wedding in Washington state, scribbled its couplets in a notebook balanced across his knees to appear in that winter's "Very Vancouver Christmas" (Vol 2) fundraiser compilation for the SPCA, a pilot project of Rave On Studios. Brooke & John covered it and we released our "charts" (lyrics and chord progressions) out into the wild; then we by and large ramped down the aggressive pursuit of holiday party gigs (due to a basic kind of thematic mismatch), and due to the song's seasonality, it disappeared from our set lists.

But wait! Covering every holiday all year 'round, as it does, it is actually eternally relevant -- and so we have revived our Christmas charity single, "Never Give A Puppy For Christmas", to appear in our video series. It is, ah, more accessible than our other holiday song this year, so we hope you enjoy! (Featuring Drongo on the guitarviol, a full array of Planks regulars and Backwash Sally on guest whistle solo and tambourine!) (PS, nothing against puppies per se -- just introduce them into a family as forever friends when their arrival can be the big focus, not one more distraction in a context of disposable consumerism and annual turnover.)

2015-12: T-shirt deals for Toronto and Portland

So, did you avail yourself of a hot Creaking Planks octopus/accordion T-shirt? We sure went through a lot of them -- maybe the local market is now saturated, but maybe we'll take a gamble and get a new run printed for our 11th anniversary. But suppose you live away from Vancouver and never had a chance to pick up a shirt by attending one of our concerts? Well, a few of you availed yourselves of our online ordering and payment system... but in the shift over to the new website, that is no longer a straightforward process. Fear not, however, as for fans in a limited number of locations, there are forgotten and neglected stashes of shirts available to interested parties at fire sale prices!

Do you live in the biggest city in Canada? While the band's numerous members have mostly spent some time there, the band itself has never visited -- and yet, a trove of Creaking Planks T-shirts was brought there in a deprecated effort to make it easier for our fans in the Greater Toronto Area to have convenient access to them. Our impromptu warehouse, Dieter Friesen (of Deet Street productions, a longtime cornerstone of our reign at the Railway Club), is decamping to Prince Edward Island, and he is aiming to not bring all the shirts with him. So if you wear a Men's S, M or XL, or (like GTA-based cover model Nico, rocking the Planks shirt as hard as the bedhead) a Women's S, M, L or XL, then you're in luck! If you care to coordinate with Deet you can skip the shipping and go home with a Creaking Planks T-shirt today for only $10! (Steeper discounts may arise as we approach his departure date.) They make excellent Christmas presents, but will also suffice for Hannukah and Kwanzaa in a pinch! If the design is a winner but the sizes just aren't quite the right fit, you can always cut it out and turn it into a stylish patch!

We know we have friends in Toronto, but we also know that we have more friends in Portland, Oregon, where a small shipment of small shirts managed to make its way to this year's Horace Phair party without us. (It's... a long story.) Any Plank friends or octopus enthusiasts in the environs who wear a size S shirt, please make a connection with Jenn Dolan (or write us, we can facilitate the hookup) to get your sweet paws on a small shirt before the New Year, strictly by donation! (Apologies to The Big Smoke, that's just reflective of the regional economics of the matter.)

(And to the thwarted locals in Vancouver, Canada, fear not -- there are still a few on the racks over at Spartacus Books.)

2016-01-29: Planks' 11th Anniversary party with the Sidewalk Cellist & the Myrtle Family Band

Thanks to everyone who made it out last night! Tomorrow we return to the video shoot dungeon, following which we get a little time to rest up and strategise in anticipation of our next public gig -- that weird annual tradition, our latest band-birthday show!

Staggering out of their first decade looking markedly changed, East Van's jug band of the damned take to the stage to do their unique combination of holy idiocy, colliding the canny with the foolish, the sacred with the profane, and Britney Spears with the accordion. Doors at 8:30, $10.

The Benedict Arnolds of the trad set, The Creaking Planks squander perfectly pleasant old-timey acoustic instruments on unlikely repertoire that ranges from inappropriately avant-garde to downright bizarre. But why? It’s anyone’s guess, but happily as it turns out, the unexpected end result is pretty fun: a mystery wrapped in an accordion wrapped in an enigma wrapped in bacon.

The members of the Myrtle Family Band are bound by a tie thicker than blood. Those mysterious Myrtle Sisters boil down a thick, juicy slice of Americana to a potent syrup both sweet and salty, then apply it judiciously.

Vancouver’s Sidewalk Cellist takes the classics out of the concert hall and throws them into the streets, with the help of her nearly-indestructible carbon-fiber cello! She provides a musical mix of everything from Bach to Nirvana, jazz to heavy metal, and more, building bridges between genres for audiences of all shapes and sizes.

Join us, won't you?

2015-12: Born Slippy cover video

The most improbable (and consequently, most delightful) of our recent run of fresh cover songs, we have been cooking up a spare acoustic version of Underworld's 1996 electronic music single "Born Slippy", best known from the "Choose Life" sequence in the movie Trainspotting. It was an early attempt to put a human face on techno music -- in contrast to, say, whatever it was The Prodigy thought they were doing -- and we like to think that this arrangement is a culmination of that aspiration: raw, ethereal, vulnerable. A little bit earnest, a little bit haunting? Being a goofy band is fun, but as we "mature", an important lesson we've taken home is that ... it's all right to strive for a little bit of beauty as well from time to time.
This was actually part of our first set of DIY videos, but wouldn't you know it -- the battery ran out in the camera halfway through a take. But the sound recordings ticked on, giving us some ear candy that was well-enough received that it inspired us to take another kick at the can.

Well, we returned to the living roomstudio and took another crack at it, because anything that is liked when only heard, must be loved when seen. (Doesn't that stand to reason?) And if that doesn't put you in the zone, try cracking a glow stick and waving it around while flicking the lights on and off. Now, because these are live takes, there is some variance between the two versions -- maybe you can choose your favorite! So here we go, without further ado -- the Planks take 2 of Born Slippy:

2015: our re-invention as a virtual idol group

We're getting old! The 11th anniversary of our inaugural gig is coming up and phoo-ee, in that time we sure have killed a lot of time in bars: load in at 6pm, sound check scheduled for 7, sound check starts at 8, first band starts at 9, second band starts at 10:15, we start at 11:45, we wrap at 1 am, strike the stage setup and load out by 1:30, get paid out by the bar once the end-of-night cash tally is completed at 2, drop band members off at their homes and get to bed by 3 am... up and at the day job by 7! But it was well worth it to play to the eight people who were still there at the end of the night. We're still going out to play shows whose bookers are motivated to host us (and, y'know, wedding receptions and interesting and well-remunerating functions), but our drive to seek out further punishment has been diminishing.

Instead, we've devised a new approach. We still enjoy each other's company, getting together and playing music, but why does it have to happen at places we wouldn't otherwise want to be, at times that are inconvenient for us? Instead, we can meet up in the evening in one of our living rooms and jam on comfortable sofas, with a cup of hot tea at our side and no flatscreen television sets subjecting us to brutal MMA mishaps. And by setting up a camera, we can allow you to sit in that living room with us, at your convenience, from your own comfiest chair, regardless of just how far away you live or how much room there is for additional human beings in our living room. You're all welcome to join us!

This is a way of saying that we've launched a YouTube video series of us workshopping and playing standards, originals and covers (and who knows, perhaps your suggested song could be next on the hit list?) The channel overall can be found over here, where recent recordings will always be available for interested parties to get up to speed. As of press time, we have four videos available for your enjoyment:

• Our version of the Virgin Prunes' lost gem from 1982 "Sweethome under White Clouds":
  
• Gena the Crocodile's Russian birthday song (Jason Webley translation):
  
• Autobiographical Planks original (heck, you can hear echoes of it in this post's introductory paragraph) Your Sister's Wedding:
  
• And one more Planks original, Boo Jupiter's request for "music for a pie-eating contest" at a 2008 county fair-themed warehouse party:
  

There will be ... quite a bit more of these -- basically, we intend on continuing to meet and record songs a few times a month until we reach the end of music. I figure that will take a while. There are more in the works already recorded at this moment and just being pieced together in spare moments on MacBooks. Will I update this post to reflect the new additions? Well... no. But probably they will get their own announcements here on our blog! So stay tuned (or, y'know, SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube feed) to keep yourself posted...

2015-12-06: Creaking Planks with Professor Gall and Carolyn Mark at the WISE Hall

OK, time to inaugurate this "new" website with a fresh gig promotion post! (Don't go back too far, folks, or the pages might break on you -- but we're working double-time to get all seven years of the website up to snuff.) We've never yet had a successful intersection with Portland's Professor Gall (even the most recent failed attempt was over a year ago, at a now-closed venue! The locations change but the urge remains constant...) and as for Victoria's Carolyn Mark, well she burned things down with us at Bernerland in February, but before that we haven't crossed paths since the Blackberry Wood house concerts at the Big Blue House in 2012... so clearly we've got some catching up to do!

This show is coming up this coming Sunday night, December 6th, running from 8 pm until late (but not too late, it's a Sunday night people 8) at the WISE Hall (upstairs 1882 Adanac at Victoria.) Tickets are $10! See you there!

Get your dancing shoes ready for December 6th at the WISE!

Professor Gall
A Tincture of Junkyard Folk and Steampunk Jazz, Professor Gall seeks to uncover the contradictions of an ambiguous and native-less society, "dreaming the existentialists' dream", while at the same time pleading for individualism, peace, and more fun at funerals.

Carolyn Mark
The Queen of Vancouver Island, Mint Records recording artist and all 'round sweety with a dark side! Country, folk and Americana delivered with a smile. Please welcome all the way from Vancouver Island: Canada's Best Country Cabaret Trio Carolyn Mark and the New Best Friends. Featuring Joel Fernandes (aka The Portuguese Stallion) on lead guitar and Dennis "The Ingrate" Siemens on the (barely) upright bass. Carolyn and her band sure love playing The Wise Hall and are glad The New Asshole Neighbours didn't get it shut down. The New Best Friends are delighted to share the bill with ...

The Creaking Planks

(Come on, you know us already!)