While we made some improbable new Portland friends at last month’s Montmartre gig, we thought that we might like to stack the deck a bit and power-load the evening with an old friend — Little Mountain Gallery arts godfather (which we’ll in turn be shilling for Dec 10th at the Rickshaw) and incomparable comedic musical improviser Ehren Salazar. (4362 Main Street at 28th, by donation, 8-11 pm.)

The sun sets earlier and people enter an oasis of routine and everyday schedule between the end of summer and the start of holiday madness. Defying this so-called everydayness, the jug band of the damned takes to the Montmartre stage once again for the first time since May. By donation.

For a season, from mid-December to mid-April, we temporarily lost control of our domain name (in fact, it switched off while I was in the middle of composing a promotional draft here!) and information about the Planks was unavailable from this site. We still played lots of great shows, however, and this is just an attempt to keep the historical record in order. Just because nothing turned up on the website didn’t mean that we weren’t busy little buccaneers!

2009-12-26 – the Maclean’s Boxing Day party in Deep Cove.
2010-01-06 – at Bandidas’ anniversary party.

2010-01-12 – Blackbox Squeezebeard on Melodies in Mind.
2010-01-14 – at Trees Organic Coffee.
2010-01-15 – featured at Beats on Broadway.

2010-01-16 – at One Two One Studios‘ launch.

2010-01-22 – A Night of Pleasing Squeezing with Renee de la Prade and Amber Lee Baker (the Accordion Babes), Gerry O’Brien, and Jack Garton of Maria in the Shower at Cafe Montmartre.

2010-02-26 – Dollhouse Tea Party.

2010-02-28 – Another Night of Pleasing Squeezing with Jeff Andrew, Marie-Josee Houle, Jason Webley at the LMG.

2010-03-28 – with Convertible Kids at the LMG.

2010-04-08 – with Raghu Lokanathan trio at the LMG.

2010-04-15 – Can You Hear Me Now? F*Word fundraiser at the Railway Club.

2010-04-21 – at Ubuntu LoCo at the HD Lab.

We’ve enjoyed a couple of shows since that we’ve mostly been able to keep you abreast about here, and are on the verge of splitting for the summer (one more — set aside noon, June 13th!), but before we go we can tie some Plankian threads together with a Go-Your-Own-Waste presentation of the Music Waste festival featuring frequent CP collaborators Erin Graves and Ehren Salazar with bonafide Plank Eryn Holbrook (aka Daisy Jones-Locher of the santur) and marvelous improv outsider weirdo Aaron Read at the traditional Plank venue of the Little Mountain Gallery (195 E. 26th at Main). This Friday, June 4th! Only $5, and free for festival passholders! 8 pm ’til we’re done! The most homophonic bill of the year: Erin, Ehren, Eryn and Aaron in Err On: the Side of Caution. It’ll be a slice. (Actually, imagine a pizza divided into four slices, all of which are different flavours, and at least one slice of which isn’t even pizza… but maybe apple pie.)

The latest installment in the Accordion Noir radio show’s series of exciting alt-accordion concerts, this evening of Pleasing Squeezing (Thurs May 13th) returns to Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street at 28th Ave) with an exciting triple-bill: not only does the jug band of the damned return to its old squeezing grounds, but joining us are Fang, the new duo side-project of Barbara Adler (who last played with us there at last year’s memorable Accordion Noir Festival launch party) and Winnipeg’s fabulous Ingrid Gatin.  We play for tips at Montmartre, so you have no excuse not to join us and our joyful noise!

Sarah Jane “Blackstrap Sadie” Scouten seems to have decided to have us back! From 8 pm on tonight, a couple of Creaking Planks are outnumbered (for once) by the Lawn Dogs and a whole host of holidaying Scoutens (including Anna and Jacob) determined to make Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street at 28th Ave) as much fun as their favorite front stoop. Also on the bill: David Faber and his fabulous autoharp! Bring your most owlish nanny and make sure she’s darned good and ready to hoot!

Blackstrap Sadie (perhaps best not to ask what those straps are for) mounts the second of her extraordinary hootnannys down on Cafe Montmartre’s cozy little stage (4362 Main Street at 28th), the next best thing to a front porch, where the bill boasts “everything from blues to bluegrass to old time to originals and all the beauty that there is, in between.” Fortunately for us, that grey liminal zone is our specialty.

We (who? Anna Scouten, Andrew Beaty, Sarah Jane Scouten, Martin Riesle of Maria in the Shower), the Lawn Dogs, and more!) play for tips at Cafe Montmartre!

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!

The jug band of the damned finally has some copies of its longago-recorded CD (”Flogged Round the Fleet”) together in its swell limited-edition, first-run deluxe packaging edition, and by gum, we aim to seed the entire periphery of the Georgia Strait with them! One gig suggested a circumnavigation and so we’re spending a long long weekend making a round trip to introduce some sleepy island-dwellers to our unique brand of demented traditional music new and old.

• Friday, June 26th, Victoria, Solstice Festival for the Folk
• Saturday, June 27th, TBA
• Sunday, June 28th – an afternoon show at the Duncan Garage Showroom, then an evening show following the B:C:Clettes at Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park
• Monday, June 29th – an afternoon show at the Gumboot Cafe in Roberts Creek, then an evening show at the Wild Bistro in Gibsons
• Tuesday, June 30th – a return home at Cafe Montmartre in Vancouver

The first stop is a return to the Solstice Cafe (529 Pandora Ave, Victoria), the site of our standing-room-only Island debut last Spring, sandwiched (with David Simard and Free Range, aka Danielle LP, Meg O’mally Iredale, Marly Iredale and Shanti Bremer) in the middle of three smashing nights of splendiferous Festival performances — and just the start of a long weekend of Vancouver Island wanderings for us!

Saturday is necessarily under wraps until we finalise the remaining brass tacks, but keep posted for updates!

Sunday Longevity John squeezes us in to his Duncan Garage Showroom (330 Duncan Street, Duncan) for an afternoon show running 2-4 pm, $10, and I promise we will squeeze back. Later that evening, around 8 pm, we follow the B:C:Clettes, our red and black sistren of the bike dance community, for a third encounter for the benefit of the patrons of the Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park campground (near Parksville) at the amphitheatre there. Unplugged! Wheels will roll. Helmets will shake!

Monday, we make good on a longstanding threat to descend upon Roberts Creek’s Gumboot Cafe (1057 Roberts Creek Rd), logging an afternoon set there from 4-6 pm, then we mosey along to the Wild Bistro (682 Gibsons Way) in Gibsons to play out the evening from 8-10.

Tuesday night we shake the last of the sand off our saltwater-stained sleeves and take to the Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street) stage back in Vancouver to play late into the night (as the following day is a statutory holiday – Canada Day!) and celebrate the 25th wedding anniversary of Blackbox Squeezebeard’s parents.

Following our bombastic April Ship of Fools variety show, Ali has seen fit, in his ultimate wisdom, to turn the Montmartre stage (4362 Main Street) over to us for another Saturday night filled with much merriment and musical mayhem. Joining us tonight for a tasty set in the middle is our pal Petunia!

As an experiment into filling a whole night at Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street at 28th Avenue) with varied textures of performance from members of our multifarious crew and extended family, the Creaking Planks celebrate Blackbox Squeezebeard entering into his fourth decade with the April (Ship of) Fools Variety Show from 8 pm through “late” (past midnight!) Saturday, April 4th. Performances will include magic from Travis, interstitial improvisation and ukulele from Ehren Salazar and John Barbour, new music from familiar faces Paul Hendriks (aka the Rev. Lucian Rumblebucket), possibly demonstrating his banjo aptitude, and Eryn Holbrook (aka Daisy Jones-Locher — who worked a wonderful whimsical adaptation of Hieronymus Bosch’s “Ship of Fools” into the show’s poster!) contributing a solo set a couple of months earlier than usual, sharing her voice-and-keys songwriting not much heard since the days of her Perpetual Dream Theory project. Also joining us will be a very special set from washtub bass outsider Al Mader, the Minimalist Jug Band, and of course a couple of sets of Creaking Planks creaking and planking.

At Montmartre we play for tips, but we anticipate your generosity in support of this jam-packed night and its auspicious occasion.

Edit: phew! What a night! Check out VanCityMike’s gallery of shots from the variety show up on Flickr!