2010 Winter/Spring — What We Missed Telling You About PLUS a homophonic side project

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.)

2009-04-04: Blackbox Squeezebeard’s April Ship of Fools birthday celebration at Cafe Montmartre

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!

2008-06-07: 6⋅7⋅8 ⋅ a night of musical numbers

We played tag for a year and a half trying to get Eryn Holbrook (occasionally aka Daisy Jones-Locher) a gig at the Butchershop Floor, and then when we finally had it clinched, the space closed down.  But because it is the only way for us to get a chance to hear her compositions on voice and keyboard, we put together another show for her (and us) at the Annex for last year’s Music Waste festival — also the first Plankian appearance of (ir)regular Peg-Leg Right-Eye Ryan!  A year later we had a hankering to hear her stuff again, and so we bring it full circle back to the Little Mountain Studios, on the site of the old Butchershop, at 195 E. 26th (at Main), for a night of musical numbers. Hosting the proceedings is LMS proprietor Ehren “Monsterdinosaur” Salazar, doubtlessly regaling us with tales and tunes of ages so bygone they haven’t happened yet.  Also on deck is a magic show from our own Dr. Steelhand of the slide guitar!  Doors at 8, $3 cover.  Sure to be one of our most charming summer evenings yet!