We would have blacked out our site today in honour of the SOPA / PIPA protests, but as Cap’n Jack Spareribs said — here in Vancouver we had a white-out instead. Besides! There’s too much at stake! If we closed our doors today we might lose one last opportunity to remind you about our fabulous concert tonight tonight tonight, celebrating our 7th anniversary as a band, down at the Railway Club.
The West Ender didn’t forget…
(And thanks to Robin Hunt for snapping that shot back during the Steamer Tea Party in Feb 2010)
And we hope that you don’t forget either!
Now you can’t say that nobody reminded you. But wait, there’s more! Of course, our 9 pm show features the Creaking Planks, but also two other grand acts you don’t get many chances to enjoy in these parts — Raghu Lokanathan of Prince George, and Ana Bon-Bon visiting from London, England! If those names don’t mean much to you, perhaps you’d enjoy a refresher while you’re not killing your lunch hour surfing Wikipedia. We took over 4 hours on the air last week in promotion of this show and here’s two and a half of them for you to enjoy, resplendently chock-full of the music of Raghu, Ana, and even some relatively recent recordings by our very own Creaking Planks to bring you up to speed. First we devoted 60 minutes to canned tunes on Accordion Noir Wed the 11th, then on Fri the 13th we did much the same for 90 minutes on Sound Resistance — but this time with SpongeDev SquarePlanks joining in, allowing some spirited, if rump, dual-Plank performing live over the air.
We’ll have many more than two Planks on-stage tonight, with our lovely show running until midnight! Three swell acts will run you only $8 ($6 for Railway Club members!) and we look forward to you helping us with some ridiculous audience interaction antics.
We first crossed paths with them during the Great Website Outage of early 2010 and we were all so blown away we nearly neglected to leave ourselves time to play a set! Then they did us a good turn, bringing three of us into their home turf later that summer (a tale still to be told). Renee de la Prade of Culann’s Hounds and Amber Lee Baker are the two roving ambassadors of the Bay Area’s thriving accordion community, championing the underdog instrument with their annual pin-up cheesecake calendar / album, presenting sights and sounds of a bakers’ dozen of awesome lady accordionists, and thanks to our ties with them through the weekly Accordion Noir radio show / podcast, they will be playing two shows in Vancouver this weekend.
Ours is the latter of the two: Saturday, November 5th, from 8 to 10 pm, the Little Mountain Gallery (195 E. 26th Avenue at Main) will be huffing and puffing with an intense and intimate acoustic squeezebox session, when the Accordion Babes Renee and Amber Lee are joined by the jug band of the damned (that’s us!) and, for a $10 admission fee, you as well. This could well be your only opportunity to get your hands on the 2012 calendar without having to resort to the hassle of mail order, and they can autograph and dedicate the calendar in person to whichever fan of kick-ass female-fronted bands is on your holiday gift list!
(If you can’t make it out Saturday night, the Accordion Babes are also performing in town the night before, Friday, Nov 4th, at Spartacus Books (684 E. Hastings), also from 8-10 pm, with a babelier line-up of our friend Natasha Enquist from Victoria and Katheryn Petersen (with Trumpet Babe Melissa Hammer in tow). And, of course, there is nothing keeping you from attending both performances!)
Spring’s coming up wonderfully strange all around! Building on past strengths, we’re celebrating the return of the sun on Easter Sunday with the return of our friendJason Webley, the mad genius behind the Monsters of Accordion tour, joining us and most of the merry minstrels of Maria in the Shower, again at the Grandview Legion Hall (2205 Commercial Drive) which we used to such good effect with them at last year’s Accordion Noir Festival. This show, also, is presented by the weekly Accordion Noir radio show / podcast — and what better way to celebrate the gritty, punky rebirth of accordion music also than with this over-the-moon lineup? Don’t worry about Monday morning the next day — that’s EASTER Monday you’re thinking of! After our show you can feel free to Morris dance and conduct pagan rites until you’re satisfied with your Maypole’s braid. And if your employer disagrees with us, uh, well then we’ll have to have some harsh words with him. (Or her. But bosses are, by definition, The Man.)
Tickets are a steal at $15, and we’d like to thank our friends at the Work Less Party for helping to make this show possible.
Proving we don’t have the market quite cornered on the goofy covers, here’s an old Jason Webley chestnut you most likely won’t be hearing at this occasion:
We missed out on a chance to play with them last August en route to our legendary trip down to California, but the fates have intervened and seen fit to give us another opportunity to share a stage with Portland’s Underscore Orkestra, thanks to Jeff Andrew, last seen giving up his own performance spot to allow us to play his double-booked Hallowe’en show at Cafe Deux Soleils, 2096 Commercial Drive!
Of course, there will be no double-booking there this time. The Underscores straddle all sorts of lively genres from gypsy jazz and swing to Balkan and klezmer music — with a shot of heady bellydancing thrown in — and even gruff-voiced Jeff will be having a squeezebox backing him up, qualifying this show to be presented by Accordion Noir, Vancouver’s (and, yea, the world’s) pre-eminent all-accordion-music weekly broadcast.
Us Planks are still sharpening our alternate set of heady tunes we haven’t been coasting on five years of perfection with, so if you missed our anniversary show, we should still have some fresh musical tricks in store for you… and of course, more is yet to come.
(And thanks to Robin Hunt for snapping that shot back during the Steamer Tea Party in Feb 2010)
