It was a cold, wet, late night at UBC, and as the witching hour approached we wondered if any of our fans would be hearing the three of us make merry music over the airwaves, courtesy of Teddy Smooth and E-roc at CiTR’s CaBaRadio. Maybe not. But still — there’s always the Internet’s long memory (sorry, tail) to fall back on. Thrill as we (eventually) reflect on our origins and quip regarding the recent Accordion Noir Festival! And enjoy three great tunes, including one recently exhumed while Stateside from the ancientpast.
Picking up on an invitation from former Butchershop Floor cohort Ben Lai, the jug band of the damned convokes at UBC for the first time ever in order to spread our curious musical taint out over the public airwaves (CiTR 101.9 fm or later as a podcast) as the second hour of a special two-hour station fundraising extravaganza installment of the long-running live music radio show Live From Thunderbird Radio Hell. Beware! We go live from 10-11 pm!
On Friday February 6th, Free Geek Vancouver (one of our now three “house band” arrangements, though admittedly they don’t have incredibly frequent occasions on which to call on us) invited us to do a brief set opening for a speech on copyright and freedom by renowned hacker Richard Stallman at the Maritime Labour Centre. We rolled out a couple of technological standards (Korobeiniki aka “the Tetris song”, Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love”) as well as a new piece for the occasion (Flanders and Swann’s “the GNU song” — enjoy this rendition by the Muppets!) Most harrowingly, however, the organizers hoped for us to join the evening’s main speaker for a stirring rendition of his Free Software Song, in the unorthodox time signature of 7/4. Due to complications, we were unable to secure either a sound check or a moment’s rehearsal with the main attraction, so what follows is a raw document (c/o Alan Zisman, who recorded our whole set — perhaps to be exposed here once it’s recovered) of us bucking up and boldly plunging once more unto the breach.
(The Feb 19th, 2009 episode of Each For All at Co-op Radio used a recording of our Korobeinki rendition to open the episode before discussing Free Software and rebroadcasting Stallman’s lecture.)
Also, cheers to Julie Peters who threw our new, “kid-friendly” rendition of Closer (straight from our CJSF apperance, from one campus station to the next) on the Feb 11th episode of her radio show Audio Text (on CiTR, 101.9 fm) alongside passionate appearances from RC Weslowski, Magpie Ulysses, and Duncan Shields. If you like, you can download a podcast recording of the episode here — though we only turn up with the one song. The rest of the crew do their bit to make it a charged, erotic recording that meets its holiday occasion head-on.
Unrelatedly, If anyone out there (I’m looking at you, Portland) has ended up with any early Creaking Planks demo material, would it be possible for you to send us a digital photo of the design and packaging (such as it is)? We’re perversely interested in putting up a gallery here of merchandise that is essentially unobtainable. See what you missed?
Building somewhat from the somewhat meagre turnout the previous time we had representation on this showa year ago, Ryan Fletcher kindly invited us back and we now offer a wider selection of Planks for delightful infernal noisemaking from 8 through 8:30 pm, after which we give up the mic for a half-hour to Seva … then jump back in to the song circle from 9 through 9:30, with Sayde Davis Black, Sillken and Vanessa Silva. If you can’t catch the station on the air, you can try to stream its signal online!
Then we’ll be back in a week to play the Highland Pub Monday Feb 2nd… if we have it in us to scale Burnaby Mountain twice in one month! Phew!
Update: Blackbox, Rumblebucket and Cap’n Jack Spare-ribs made it up through the fog and snow and had a gas on the air… then, later, the episode was kindly made available to us. A groomed recording of the show (largely omitting the other guests) will shortly be made available in this very spot (and here it is)! Highlights of the show include:
43:09 Snazzy Portland (guess we shouldn’t have bothered with that kid-friendliness!)
Bonus! Our stalwart horn stepped in to join Sayde Davis Black for a tune, “Livin’ it Right” from 32:12-36:44! Also from 41:01-42:07 we improvise a tune to a public service announcement (a bit of flavour particular to this show) which is unlikely to turn up on any of our set lists despite its distinctive and unmistakable Plankian flavour. All that plus a pile of interviewish remarks and sorry wordplay. Makes you kind of wish you were there… and now, through the miracle of technology, you can be!
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.
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!
