2010-08-12: Planks play Alex Cieslik’s “Outside Access” art opening at the Little Mountain Gallery

Alex “Scruffy Bigbass” Cieslik, who once had a painting stolen while playing guitarrón with Planks at that fateful Rouge et Noir cabaret, hasn’t been seen much in a Plankian context since our Gibsons visit of June ‘09… but does have a new body of visual work ready to present to the public’s scrutiny at the old Little Mountain Gallery (195 E. 26th Ave.) we’ve all logged so many hours into propping up. It’s been Quite Some Time (two and a half years?!) since the last time we played an art opening there, but these strange little gigs were positively fundamental in the development of the Creaking Planks. I highly recommend playing art openings on a regular basis to all new bands!

The exhibition runs from Thurs Aug 12th through Thurs Aug 26th; we will however only be performing there opening night.

2009-05-08: Planks play Gutter Punk Space Opera opening at the Gallery Gachet

Pre-Plank Colin Upton’s old buddy Bryce-Thing (né Rasmussen) finally makes good on a longstanding threat to recruit the Planks into performing at an exhibition of his visual work at the Gallery Gachet (88 East Cordova). We will give it our anarchic best (cutting ourselves short only of Puke Theatre), and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Also featuring the opening of Florida artist Jordan Massengale’s work Sub-Urban Commentaries.

But what of Bryce’s work?  Let the curatorial blurb speak for it:

Vancouver-based Bryce Rasmussen’s Gutter Punk Space Opera chews on the themes of outsider, a reflection of his childhood, weaving epic personal myths, populated with monsters, spaceships and bedraggled heroes that seem to stumble through the backwaters of the mind. The work emerges through a liberal use of whatever medium is available – most often from the alleys around town. Focusing on isolation and rebellion, filtering the street culture through a wonky lens.

The only thing that could improve this grouping would be if his co-exhibitor’s show was instead entitled “Sub-Human Commentaries”. For a taste of his work, enjoy the two (decade-old) photos below of some of his earlier work on similar themes:

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Clark Nikolai took a heaping tablespoon of photos over the course of the evening:

the Planks Creak on

Our fervour was so vehement, we even stopped people in their tracks passing by on the sidewalk

The show was visited by our friends in the Margaret Charles Chopper Collective (MC3)

The joint, as they say, was jumping... albeit while we were still setting the PA up.

Caught in the act!

Rumblebucket manipulates his intriguing theremin.

Daisy Jones-Locher's santur also provoked its fair share of questions.

The artist is moved to join us on the harmonica

At long length, the Puke Theatre principals determine they can't keep up with us

2008-03-07: Planks at Little Mountain Studios

Courtesy of the illustrious history of the Butchershop Floor gallery that formerly occupied the space, the Creaking Planks have maintained fairly chummy relations with the Little Mountain Studios that assumed its lease… not least due to sporadically guitarrón-slinging Scruffy Bigbass’ participation in both organizations. Though it’s a tradition that, as recently remarked upon, has been disrupted for a while, we’ve long been considered the “house band” for exhibition openings, and have enjoyed on-again-off-again “residency” (which is fancy musician jargon for free practice space that the public can drop in on.) In addition to the openings in the front-of-house, with the back vacated by the improv pioneers the staff have been occasionally curating small music shows in the back studio.

This Friday, you get both: “The Danger of Disappearing“ opens, featuring new drawings by “This is the story about how everything got ruined” auteur Erik Lyon, plus a concert around back featuring the SSRIs, Russian Words and Emmett Hall. Hymn For Her fell off the bill, and proprietor Ehren Salazar was invited to occupy the vacuum; he in turn invited us to join him in helping to fill that space with glorious sound. We may be playing the opening up front; we may be playing the concert around back; we may be playing both! (but likely not at the same time… unless we straddle the middle and broadcast in both directions simultaneously.) However it goes down, we’ll be on relatively early — think 8 pm — to give Blackbox Squeezebeard time to hustle down to Natasha Enquist’s star turn on the International Women’s Day episode of Accordion Noir at 9:30 pm.

Find attached two thumbnails, one of Erik’s new work, and one of the original concert poster before we sinisterly replaced Hymn For Her — click for the full pictures: