Posted: January 19th, 2011 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Al Mader, anniversary, Deet Street Productions, Petunia, Railway Club, Tamara Nile | 4 Comments »
Sunday January 30th, 2005, in the auditorium at the Western Front, a room which has seen so many deliberately stranger things, an accordionist with a performance poetry troupe met an outsider acoustic noise duo with slightly more underground musical sensibilities than the Shaggs had, and knew that their two great tastes must go great together. Enter: the Creaking Planks. Six years later, we skip lightly past the endless living rooms, back yards, and festivals, Vancouver’s introduction to the ZombieWalk, a pirate flashmob, two stage musicals, gigs down the US Pacific seaboard (studded with the abandoned hulks of derelict tour vehicles), and memorable mixed bills — following ’50s squeezebox sex symbol Dick Contino at the 20th annual Cotati Accordion Festival, and opening in turn for free software guru Richard Stallman… our two biggest gigs!
Now we actually know how to play our instruments, and our musical sensibilities have matured from “Can we play this?” to “Should we play this?” In honour of our six years we’re putting to bed many of the songs we’ve kept close this whole time, and celebrating onetime contributors whose paths led them through the rotating roster of Planks before settling for other, less strange projects. We may not match our record of 11 Planks on-stage simultaneously, but we should be able to at least cumulatively meet that high-water mark over the course of the night. Joining us will be musical guiding lights Petunia the yodeling cowboy and Al Mader, the Minimalist Jug Band, whose “I’m a Lousy Lay” were the magic words that got us together in the first place.
It’s also a retirement for Dieter Friesen’s tenure booking his Deet Street nights at the Railway Club, a long association between him and us dating back to our first appearance there in April ‘06 sharing a bill with his band Rick Danko’s Ghost under the auspices of Tamara Nile. In short, we have numerous reasons to be celebrating this night, of things changing more the more they stay the same.
Update! Allan reviewed it, in a roundabout fashion, and an American friend came up from Bellingham to enjoy some great music and take a bunch of pictures capturing the night’s wild and wooly energy!
Posted: May 31st, 2010 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Allan Macinnis, anniversary, Carnival Sized Cinnamon Hearts, Chloe Ziner, Deet Street Productions, Dennis Pimm Jamtacular Experience, drawings, Flogged Round the Fleet, Georgia Straight, Lara, Railway Club, Tamara Nile | No Comments »
The morning of the Cabaret of Wonders! we awoke to strange and marvelous news: the recording which we had debuted last June had garnered a positive review in Vancouver’s free weekly arts paper of record, the Georgia Straight!
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Attendees of early Creaking Planks shows—say, at the first Vancouver Zombiewalk after-party, where Rowan “Blackbox Squeezebeard” Lipkovits (accordion) and Lee Shoal (ukulele, kazoo) did somewhat halting covers of songs like the Kingston Trio’s “Zombie Jamboree”—could be forgiven for thinking the band a joke. A funny joke, and certainly an in-joke, but not a group you might turn to for the pleasures of polished musicianship, even of the jug-band variety.
Well, here’s a surprise: as if to illustrate the truth of the saying that a fool who persists in his folly shall become wise, the Planks have benefited from playing innumerable shows locally and throughout the Pacific Northwest. While still richly swathed in irony, the traditionals on this CD (European and/or Yiddish folkie fare like “Tanz Tanz Yidelekh” and “Moscow Nights” and the absurdly deadpan covers—including a new recording of Lipkovits’s delightful arrangement of the Minimalist Jug Band’s “Dead Man’s Pants”—are, in fact, quite beautifully conceived and credibly played. |
That night, at the gobsmacking
Cabaret of Wonders!, we sold our last two remaining copies of the suddenly-in-demand disc. Perhaps a reprinting will be in order — though we may have seen the last of the limited-edition stylish metal containers.
But enough resting on our laurels! Moving on from past glories, an increasingly rump Planks (blasted summer travels — and I’m up next!) will be wigglin’ and groovin’ tonight at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street) from 9:15 on with our Deet Street friends, including the slam poetry of Lara, the “folk/rock/blues stylings of the Dennis Pimm Jamtacular Experience”, and our favorite — a puppet show entitled “The Tragic Tale of Pierrot” presented by Carnival Sized Cinnamon Hearts. $7/5 for Railway members!
Bonus! A doodle from Chloe Ziner of the Mind of a Snail puppet troupe!
Posted: October 21st, 2009 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Al Mader, Deet Street Productions, Gadjo, Hallowe'en, Railway Club | No Comments »
It’s that spooky time of year again and in the run up to All Hallow’s Eve, the Deet Street is getting psyched to bring a couple sets from some Railway veterans to get you movin’ your ghostly feet. The Creaking Planks, Vancouver’s own pirate jug band of the damned is back to bring you a musical experience unlike anything you’ve ever heard, the perfect accompaniment to your haunted pre-hallow’s Monday evening.
But before their spooky set, be sure to check out Gadjo’s Django Reinhardt-inspired gypsy swing; jazzy virtuosic mellowness at its best.
But wait, there’s more: be sure to get there early so you don’t miss a very special set from Al Mader, The Minimalist Jug Band. Al’s inimitable brand of beatnik punkabilly is something you won’t find anywhere on this earth.
Furthermore, being as we’re approaching Halloween, the Deet Street invites all of you to dress up as your favourite dead (ie: Michael Jackson, but he’s still merchandising his ass off), almost dead (ie: Amy Winehouse, poor girl needs to chill out) or should be dead (ie: Keith Richards, PS: WTF how the hell is he still going) musician. As always the beers will be cold, the music rocking, the company excellent and the times great. It’s the spookiest Monday night this side of a Scooby Doo Halloween Special.
The Railway Club is at 579 Dunsmuir Street (at Seymour, upstairs). Doors at 8:30PM, show at 9. Admission is $7 / $5 for Railway members.
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Even if we were on too late for the photographer to catch us, Lauren Eldridge of Backstage Vancouver soundly enjoyed this show, and wasn’t afraid to tell everyone — on its blog and on its Twitter feed! She came back for more the next night and got a very different beast at Blackstrap Sadie’s 
Posted: November 21st, 2008 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Connect, Deet Street Productions, Lawn Dogs, Railway Club | No Comments »
As part of a noble (if irrelevant) lineage of shows going back to the spring’s SeaBus pirate party and further yet to an appearance at the Railway in April of 2006 that Tamara Nile set up for us, the Creaking Planks (need I remind you: THE JUG BAND OF THE DAMNED!) are once again descending upon the stage of the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street) like a plague of, I don’t know, sizzling bacon bits hurtling hatefully from the angry sky. We’ve been paired this time around with The Lawn Dogs, a band billed as the best-dressed bluegrass band on Bowen Island… at our most elegant and dandified, conversely, we wear basic BC:Clette black and red with costume facial hair in places and styles it should never, ever, be growing. These baying hounds should be taking the early set ~9:30-10:30, leaving us to close the night in our fourth Railway appearance in as many months. As Mike Zinger of Whiskey Jar would be inclined to exclaim… “Not bad!”
