Nearly three years after our stint at the first installment of this series, the Rio Theatre (1660 E. Broadway at Commercial Drive) swings back into action with another night of East Van bands playing its stage, this time all providing soundtracks to silent film screenings behind them. All the major players are back from last time, plus more more more!
Instead of working in tandem with the magic of Dr. T as we did before, this time we’ll be doing music and foley for a black and white animated classic on the theme of responsible libation, which will this time be possible at the Rio! Your $10 (in advance from brownpapertickets, $12 at the door) doesn’t just get you these filmic interpretations from some of East Van’s most delightfully twisted musical minds, but also an electro-swing dance party at the end!
Depending on how things go, we may have to get together an expanded set to allow us to provide soundtrack to a whole film festival at some point! And speaking of how things went, congrats to the Lunchgroup Heavy Industries’ raising of over $1100 at last week’s fundraiser show.
Bonus! For your enjoyment, a picture-in-picture presentation of the Creaking Planks providing a soundtrack and foley effects for the 1928 Felix the Cat short Woos Whoopee, performed at this event to great acclaim.
At the time the performance was a bit of a headache — a beautiful historical chapel in a refurbished ghost town, but one mysteriously without electricity to even out our disparate sound levels. (Little did we realise, the entire district was temporarily without power. Worst of all, the ice cream in the coolers was starting to melt and being given away for free!) But we’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that set, first on the inside cover of last year’s festival program, and now again, thrusting us front and centre on Page A8 of the July 22, 2011 edition of the Vancouver Sun:
Did You Know: The Creaking Planks are a duo? It’s going to be very awkward breaking the news to the other dozen or so of us… I suppose this is why it is so vital we publish our book, that at least one other print source compete with this bold claim from our newspaper of record. That said, it’s nice to be considered the epitome of what a Vancouver-based folk ensemble looks like. (And it will be nice to Mike Fawcett to get credit for that photograph as well.)
We’ll be playing at the ArtsWells festival this year at 8:30 pm at the Downstairs Hall on Saturday, July 30th. Unlike last year, we’re not playing any other shows up there, but the festival is of course very worthwhile with sets from our friends in Blackberry Wood, Fish & Bird, the Joey Only matrimonial band, Raghu Lokanathan and Jeremy Stewart, Nice Verdes, Namgar, Mind of a Snail, High Society, Linda McRae, T. Nile, Jeff Andrew, John Pippus, and of course Geoff Berner.
Blackbox Squeezebeard (or, after last year’s fundraising depilation, “Airbeard”) will be hosting the Accordions in the Round session noon to 1 on the 31st also at the Downstairs Hall, and the Rev. Lucian Rumblebucket will be teaching a washtub bass workshop at 2 pm in the school.
But first, we’re playing for a private wedding party July 23rd!
Running from 8 pm until well past midnight, this culmination of the Rio’s (1660 E. Broadway at Commercial Drive) April series of concerts will be featuring screenings and musical accompaniment by Tarran the Tailor, Blackberry Wood and Maria in the Shower, including special guests the Mind of a Snail puppet troupe (of “the Laughing Disease” fame)… and (of course!) the Creaking Planks, joining forces with Travis to demonstrate a certain magical, musical spirit cabinet. A craft market will be set up and the first few rows of chairs removed to maximalise DANCE PARTY potential! Admission is $15, but these supertoys last all summer long.
