We opened for him last year at the Cotati accordion festival and now we’re going to do it again at the 4th annual Accordion Noir festival — San Francisco’s infamous Duckmandu, the man who married the unhip squeezebox to the entire back catalogue of the Dead Kennedys, is joining us for the fest’s closing party Sun, Sept 25th at Cafe Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial Drive). Show $10, starts at 8 pm!
Now, enjoy one of the strangest posters we’ve ever had:
It’s true: much like our legendary Nina Hagen show that never quite was, the Planks sometimes move through circles that enable us to eat above our weight class. Elizabeth Fischer of Dark Blue World is now booking at Kozmic Zoo (53 W. Broadway, formerly the Hennessey Lounge) and has sagely folded us into a bill with legendary noisy improvisor Eugene Chadbourne, with Darren Williams and Kenton Loewe in tow.
Accordion Hallucinations - September 6, 2011
This is a bit of a dry run for the following night, where plenty of Planks are performing — but not in any Creaking configuration — at Nyala (4148 Main St.) for the Accordion Noir Festival precursor show ACCORDION HALLUCINATIONS on Sept 6th. Lee Shoal will be handling and mangling the squeezebox in Ejaculation Death Rattle, Rumblebucket will be exploring the darker side of bent and tweaked reeds as Polly Hatchet, and Airbeard should be backing up Mr. Chadbourne — desperately trying to keep out of the way most likely. Also on that bill is a set from the Cross-Disciplinary Studies Department (Dream Casino) and the Antique Accordion Orchestra (BYO!)
Bonus! A fragmentary clip of us in action at the Kozmik Zoo!
The third annual Accordion Noir fest is upon us again, a whole week of festivities already underway (click here for full details) and as with the previous twoyears, the Creaking Planks simply had to log an appearance celebrating the bountiful local supply of the wonderful squeezy weirdness whose virtues the Accordion Noir radio show / podcast extols weekly. Otherwise put:
This Friday night, we celebrate two of the greatest mechanical inventions of the 19th century: the accordion, brought to life in the hands of some of East Van’s most bombastic purveyors of dance music from the Balkans and points further out in left field, and the bicycle, rolled along Vancouver’s moist lanes and byways in defiance of the notion that the change of season has to bring with it a change in attitude.
Enjoy an earful of the sweet people-powered music that ruled over the pubs and campfires before steam power ruined everything, starting at 9 pm upstairs at the Grandview Legion Hall (2205 Commercial Drive) and running late into the night. Everyone can enjoy the show for the low price of $10, but helmet-clad Critical Mass riders pay only $8!
We had so much fun closing last year’s Accordion Noir Festival in the middle of the night (sold out, line-up down the stairs and out on the sidewalk) that we just had to open a supplementary stage at this year’s festival to give us another chance to play at it (while opening some room on the mainstage the next day for Story and Jason Webley.) Seeking some squeezy acts with smaller stage footprints and performers with lower individual profiles in this town, we managed to secure a very exciting line-up of some of Vancouver’s choicest bellowers: Andy Fielding, Dawn Zoe (Alchemy), Tina Tew (Wintermitts), Barbara Adler (of the Fugitives), Joanna Chapman-Smith, the Balkan brass razzmatazz of Mezamazing at what can charitably be described as long last… and the Planks close again, because why mess with a tradition of such success? We’ll be starting at 8 pm and seeing just how much we can squeeze in by 1 am. We play for tips at Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main at 28th Ave.) but a suggested donation would be seven dollars for all these great acts!
With all September’s transitions, we’ve been a bit out of sorts recently, as a result of which some of our recent performances have slipped past without being commemorated here, including a three day spree — this year’s community circus at the Four Sisters Co-Op (Sat Sept 13th), the start of a new GoGo season at Hoko’s with Francis Mantis and the Sun Aristocrats (Sun Sept 14th), and a monthly cultural night at the Cedar Cottage Community Garden (Mon Sept 15th)… plus another great evening at Trees Fri Sept 5th at which some of our number sat in with Erin Graves! ( — an impromptu backup stint that can be witnessed through Youtube videos.)
But that’s not what this post is about! Not catching up, but boldly bounding forward, like a hell-bent golden retriever hurtling lemming-like off a cliff in pursuit of a glowing tennis ball. (But not quite as, y’know, ominous.) Squeezebeard Blackbox’s weekly side project Accordion Noir, the world’s only all-accordion radio show / podcast, is putting on the first annual Accordion Noir Festival of Squeeze… mainstage performances from 9 pm on at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir at Seymour, upstairs) Friday, October 3rd! Admission should be in the vicinity of $10, a bit less for Railway Club members. The Planks will be giddily closing the night sometime after midnight! (And please, dismiss those nepotistic thoughts from your head — we were hand-picked by festival headliner Geoff Berner, the man who first inspired Squeezebeard to pick up his blackbox, along with Amy Denio from Seattle and Natasha Enquist from Victoria, making this a Pacific Northwest summit of sorts.)
For your entertainment, education, edification, and for interior decorating purposes, here is its poster:
… and here is an audio promo for the festival! For further synergy, the Planks will be sitting in on the episode to be broadcast Friday, September 26th, in order to promote the festival to local listeners with (as before) some live performance on the air. We should be audible during the show’s typical runtime, from 9:30-10:30 pm Friday night on CFRO 102.7 fm CO-OP Community Radio… or, for those of you who plan to be huddling in concrete bunkers deep underground, on their audio stream. (For those who enjoy deciphering cryptic filenames, it should also turn up for a couple of days after broadcast in their mp3 archives… and several weeks later on the AN site 8) (Edit: and here it is! A short set, a small Plankian turn-out… but still a good time!)
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Natasha Enquist caught us in action!
Squeezebeard feels it would be remiss were we not to mention, as does the poster, that the Railway show is actually only the second day of the festival, which opens 7 pm the previous night Thursday Sept 2nd at Spartacus Books’ new location (684 E. Hastings at Heatley and no, it doesn’t just sound familiar — I knew we’d find a way to play at that site again! It’s Gabe’s old Gaff Gallery!) and will include not only hot live performances by real squeezeboxers (and not just him! as is so often the case at the monthly squeezebox circle regularly held at that place and time) but Bruce’s pet project the accordion fashion show and a 9 pm screening of the Accordion Tribe movie. (5-minute teaser trailer!)
(For posterity’s sake, though it’s long since been forgotten in the post’s narrative, here is the poster from our Trees show. Since we always have such a nice time there, we should be back like clockwork in six months’ time, March 6th 2009!)
