Somehow we knew we’d end up back at the Gaff Gallery, and even though it’s been some five months, the fates have us returning to 684 E. Hastings to perform at a new venue occupying its old site — now Vancouver’s premiere anarchist bookstore, Spartacus Books!  Squeezebeard having run so many installments of the 57 Varieties open stage and the Perpetual Motion Roadshow at the old Spartacus (to say nothing of Accordion Noir, and its subsequent monthly accordion circle, being merely a byproduct of a chance encounter on its floor), it was truly a no-brainer to get the Planks on board to perform at its grand re-opening.

Live performances are going on from 7-10 pm, including sets from The Holdouts, Joey Only, and DJ Like the Wolf; in addition, there will be the unveiling of a new hipster art exhibition by Miranda Nelson, “Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Robots” (where are the Zombies?), as well as spirited readings of radical children’s books earlier in the day. To top it all off, they’re celebrating their new location by holding a massive sale on all their used books!   At prices like this, it just doesn’t make sense to prop up authoritarian systems!

Update: Erin Bee took photos!  Only two of us made it, but we gave everything we had!

Gaff proprietor Gabriel Deerman’s opening “All in the Deck” was the most recent LMS function we’d performed at as “house band”, making a sufficient impression that he invited us to play a rent party in his space in early October, with nos amis Trike. I don’t know that it was a commercial success, and we discovered an advantage of a conventional stage where personal space issues are concerned, but we got an invitation to return and by gum we intended to honour it. And here was our last chance! Because Vancouver venues are always, for various unfair reasons, closing, it’s difficult to establish a “scene” around even something people can agree they enjoy! There tonight we were gleefully received by the Jacques Brel fan we met at Betty Kracker’s annual August backyard Pirate picnic via Betty Kracker (through the Joey Only Outlaw Band show at the Cobalt with Gertrude — what a tangled tale! See what kind of supreme historical grasp you need to maintain in order to try to figure out where gigs and fans come from?), cutting a rug, and the bemused ladies from the LIVE Biennale Cabaret in November who unusefully retained only the semantic content of our name, which got them 90% of the way there but still unable to find us again because our name is the Creaking Planks and not the Slanting Floorboards. (Still, that’s a keeper for names to tour under incognito.) And having found us again here, it’s not like they can find us there again — since the space was closing up three days later! It’s a real quandary. I guess we just have to go everywhere and hope to randomly encounter repeat customers. (Oh wait, we’ve been doing that anyhow!) And so we busted our hump (and our voice, cough cough) singing everything we knew from heart in a savage blitz to a motivated audience of four (and one cellphone) in a crowded room. (I’m sure we made a secondhand impression on everyone else around; they may just have needed to appear and act oblivious and disaffected so as to maintain their art scene credibility.)

For the time being, Gabe is now doing sound at the Astoria, and the Planks ought to return (?!) there sometime soon to join him some night for some improbable karaoke/open mic jamming. In the meantime, however, we’ve got an island to storm.