We haven’t played a show with our Victorian friend Natasha Enquist since the Accordion Noir festival four months ago, but her luscious leiderhosen made a compelling case for welcoming her back to town.  Besides, she sat in the front row when we played the Solstice, so we owe it to her to make her feel welcome.  Similarly, with some false alarms accounted for it’s been a while since we last played the Little Mountain Studios (almost seven months! can it truly be?  unprecedented!), but perhaps the absence will make our return to our first “house band” assignment all the sweeter.  And how better to cinch the deal than draw on our renaissance man of the arts, Ehren Salazar, improvisatory master of every medium he sets himself to.  (Need we remind you of the thrilling account of the reverse zamboni?)  All that plus we hope to fool Dr. Steelhand into bringing out the cards and coins again for some legerdemain and fine trickery, and it can be yours for a suggested five dollar donation to help us float Natasha out with her squeezebox.  (For a sneak preview, catch her the night of Friday the 2nd from 9:30-10:30 pm on Accordion Noir at CFRO 102.7 fm!)

Nice photo, eh? It’s by Samantha King!

Edit: arguably our best LMS performance ever, despite virtually no PA and the bitter end of Vancouver’s surprise winter weather (the LMS formerly being a butcher’s shop, the back area is actually designed precisely for making meat cold; in any case, the hoary frost kept Daisy Jones-Locher away, but otherwise it was a nice Planks reunion to get the year off to a good start) — we filled every chair in the place and all the acts were well-received, with special audience guests the Mezamazing crew who we hope to join us on stage there in a few months.

Calgary visitor Sean handily took a photo of the proceedings, the space still decked up for the holidays. Can you spot the new member?

Sean took a photo of the Planks in full array

What’s more, Cap’n Jack Spareribs posted a live video from the concert of Natasha playing the old Russian standard “Dark Eyes” or Ochi chyornye … and Planks Lee Shoal and Wyoming Johnny cutting a rug to it!

and one last pic for the road!

It ain’t Portland, but sometimes us Planks don’t have to travel quite so far afield to find friends to hang out with on New Year’s Eve.  We’ll be sharing the stage at Chapel Arts (304 Dunlevy Avenue at Cordova) with our pal Petunia and the Vipers as well as the Highballs.  All that plus appetizers, champagne at midnight and a chance to get an eyeful of the Galatians 3:19 group show currently hanging there!Admission is $40 in advance, $50 at the door and $20 after midnight.  For further information, you can go right to the source!

…

And here we were!

The Creaking Planks’ alter egoes, the Clinking Pints, come through here in musical celebration of some tasty brews that, though they may not quite be our hallowed and vaunted “Schmutzigesocken”, still get the job done. Also, there’s some solstice thing happening — ask a Wiccan.

Doors at 8:30 pm, inexpensive drinks (”$3.25 beers; excellent, high-end scotch for $4.50; coolers for $3.75″) until ~2 am.  Further entertainment (but really, when you have a gaggle of Planks, what more is truly called for?) is suggested as including “the comedic stylings of Richard Lett” and “the gorgeous ring of Jill Binder’s ukelele!”  This all goes down in the rented Jericho Garrison Combined Mess hall at 4050 West 4th Ave.

Julie Peters made a report on the events on her blog!

Last summer (August 2007), following a kind word from our rare musical saw player par excellence Rusty Sawbones during a recording session at Rave On Studios, the Planks were invited to contribute a tune to the second annual Very Vancouver Christmas SPCA benefit compilation (of which volume three is now available!)  Taking a tip from Andrea Hector’s “Old Mutt For Christmas” the first year around (as well as perennial holiday novelty favorite “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas“), during a reading material-less Greyhound trip back from a silent-movie-themed wedding in Washington State, Blackbox drew up a list of holidays and animals associated with them, aiming to distill them down into a document stating a central core thesis: that animals are pals for all year round, not just holidays.

Of course, knowing that everyone else on board would capitalise on the donation of their work to demonstrate their soft-pop radio friendliness, and knowing that even if we tried the Planks could do no such thing, instead we perversely went for contrast and dwelled gleefully glumly in our trademark melancholic sound… but with goofy lyrics, however cogent to the matter at hand.

Our local animal shelters are still earning royalties from our somewhat terrifyingly sloppy recording (second only to the terror of the photoshop jobs that incrementally crammed the entire band into a single frame), so it can’t be dished up for your enjoyment without stealing valuable pennies from the pound (but here’s a fun way you can send some kibble their way!), but Plank alumnnus (and filk superstar!) Strong Brew Lundervillain did record an uncannily spirited version of her own with musical partner John (and here is their website) and here you can even download it.  Gadzooks!

Now, for the first time, if you like you can even have the option of reproducing the tune for yourselves courtesy of one of Blackbox Squeezebeard’s bastard streamlined lyrics/chord arrangements, not entirely dissimilar to the ones the Planks learn all their songs with!

		intro:
 	   A-          D-          E7
 	(I want a hippopotamus for Christmas...)

A-           E7        A-       E7 A-           E7              A-  A7
Never give a puppy for Christmas / Never give a chipmunk in the fall...
D-           A7            D-              E7            F+         E7
Never give a woodchuck for Groundhog day / Never give an octopus at all!
A-           E7       A-    E7 A-           E7           A-     A7
Never give a bunny at Easter / Never give a cat for Valentine's...
  D-                A-  E7 A-           B7            E7              A-     A7
A Passover pig is a bad idea, and don't even think of New Year's porcupines!

 	D-		     A-                        E7                                   A-          A7
 On St. Patrick's Day don't bring in any snakes / St. Patrick drove them out but you can't undo his mistakes...
       D-                             A-                 B7                          E7
 Don't give a caged bald eagle on the day of July 4 / On Hallowe'en a raven we'll be giving NE-VER-MORE...

(two instrumental verses, restart first line of first verse, then)
D-                         A-              E7         F+       E7                             A- D- E7 A-
Never give a woodchuck for Groundhog day / Never, no never, no never, give, an octopus at all!