We haven’t played a show with our Victorian friend Natasha Enquist since the Accordion Noir festival four months ago, but her luscious leiderhosen made a compelling case for welcoming her back to town. Besides, she sat in the front row when we played the Solstice, so we owe it to her to make her feel welcome. Similarly, with some false alarms accounted for it’s been a while since we last played the Little Mountain Studios (almost seven months! can it truly be? unprecedented!), but perhaps the absence will make our return to our first “house band” assignment all the sweeter. And how better to cinch the deal than draw on our renaissance man of the arts, Ehren Salazar, improvisatory master of every medium he sets himself to. (Need we remind you of the thrilling account of the reverse zamboni?) All that plus we hope to fool Dr. Steelhand into bringing out the cards and coins again for some legerdemain and fine trickery, and it can be yours for a suggested five dollar donation to help us float Natasha out with her squeezebox. (For a sneak preview, catch her the night of Friday the 2nd from 9:30-10:30 pm on Accordion Noir at CFRO 102.7 fm!)
Nice photo, eh? It’s by Samantha King!
Edit: arguably our best LMS performance ever, despite virtually no PA and the bitter end of Vancouver’s surprise winter weather (the LMS formerly being a butcher’s shop, the back area is actually designed precisely for making meat cold; in any case, the hoary frost kept Daisy Jones-Locher away, but otherwise it was a nice Planks reunion to get the year off to a good start) — we filled every chair in the place and all the acts were well-received, with special audience guests the Mezamazing crew who we hope to join us on stage there in a few months.
Calgary visitor Sean handily took a photo of the proceedings, the space still decked up for the holidays. Can you spot the new member?
Sean took a photo of the Planks in full array
What’s more, Cap’n Jack Spareribs posted a live video from the concert of Natasha playing the old Russian standard “Dark Eyes” or Ochi chyornye … and Planks Lee Shoal and Wyoming Johnny cutting a rug to it!
With all September’s transitions, we’ve been a bit out of sorts recently, as a result of which some of our recent performances have slipped past without being commemorated here, including a three day spree — this year’s community circus at the Four Sisters Co-Op (Sat Sept 13th), the start of a new GoGo season at Hoko’s with Francis Mantis and the Sun Aristocrats (Sun Sept 14th), and a monthly cultural night at the Cedar Cottage Community Garden (Mon Sept 15th)… plus another great evening at Trees Fri Sept 5th at which some of our number sat in with Erin Graves! ( — an impromptu backup stint that can be witnessed through Youtube videos.)
But that’s not what this post is about! Not catching up, but boldly bounding forward, like a hell-bent golden retriever hurtling lemming-like off a cliff in pursuit of a glowing tennis ball. (But not quite as, y’know, ominous.) Squeezebeard Blackbox’s weekly side project Accordion Noir, the world’s only all-accordion radio show / podcast, is putting on the first annual Accordion Noir Festival of Squeeze… mainstage performances from 9 pm on at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir at Seymour, upstairs) Friday, October 3rd! Admission should be in the vicinity of $10, a bit less for Railway Club members. The Planks will be giddily closing the night sometime after midnight! (And please, dismiss those nepotistic thoughts from your head — we were hand-picked by festival headliner Geoff Berner, the man who first inspired Squeezebeard to pick up his blackbox, along with Amy Denio from Seattle and Natasha Enquist from Victoria, making this a Pacific Northwest summit of sorts.)
For your entertainment, education, edification, and for interior decorating purposes, here is its poster:
… and here is an audio promo for the festival! For further synergy, the Planks will be sitting in on the episode to be broadcast Friday, September 26th, in order to promote the festival to local listeners with (as before) some live performance on the air. We should be audible during the show’s typical runtime, from 9:30-10:30 pm Friday night on CFRO 102.7 fm CO-OP Community Radio… or, for those of you who plan to be huddling in concrete bunkers deep underground, on their audio stream. (For those who enjoy deciphering cryptic filenames, it should also turn up for a couple of days after broadcast in their mp3 archives… and several weeks later on the AN site (Edit: and here it is! A short set, a small Plankian turn-out… but still a good time!)
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Natasha Enquist caught us in action!
Squeezebeard feels it would be remiss were we not to mention, as does the poster, that the Railway show is actually only the second day of the festival, which opens 7 pm the previous night Thursday Sept 2nd at Spartacus Books’ new location (684 E. Hastings at Heatley and no, it doesn’t just sound familiar — I knew we’d find a way to play at that site again! It’s Gabe’s old Gaff Gallery!) and will include not only hot live performances by real squeezeboxers (and not just him! as is so often the case at the monthly squeezebox circle regularly held at that place and time) but Bruce’s pet project the accordion fashion show and a 9 pm screening of the Accordion Tribe movie. (5-minute teaser trailer!)
(For posterity’s sake, though it’s long since been forgotten in the post’s narrative, here is the poster from our Trees show. Since we always have such a nice time there, we should be back like clockwork in six months’ time, March 6th 2009!)
(Edit: 
