Earle Peach invited us to feature at his “Beats on Broadway” open mic at the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood House (800 E. Broadway, a block or so east of Fraser), and we were thrilled to accept.  We joked that, following our feature set at Rick Keating’s open mic at the Little Mountain Neighborhood House, we would be embarking on the lucrative local Neighborhood House tour circuit.  Oh, wait… that might not be so ridiculous after all.  Unfortunately, not all of these community service locuses enjoy the prestige of the venues offered at Mount Pleasant and Little Mountain, but we’ll see how things develop.

Then, Earle invited us again.   We didn’t know how to fit it in, but we accepted nonetheless — after all, we already had an engagement there that night, but maybe we could sneak out and rush back to take the second gig.  That, or we could split in half and play two sets simultaneously — or one set in stereo!  In any case, this will be among our final summer performances for some time, after an impressive run of serious performances to pumped crowds, so consider joining us at 7:30 pm before we tip the solstice over!  (more information on Facebook)

April’s been a busy month of catch-up for us! In the aftermath of A Dybbuk, we enjoyed a fragmentary turnout at two after-parties (Squeezebeard keeps losing the addresses; he says, just gimme a treasure map an’ I’se kin find X well enough!), played two great shows back in our goofy element, the first (Apr 11th) back at Trees (to which we will be returning again in early September) and the next (April 14th) a homecoming show of sorts, acoustic with friends sitting on the floor in the gallery of the Little Mountain Studios, where we’re the house band, site of so many practices, rehearsals and residencies… as well as a big noisy party celebrating Squeezebeard’s birthday. On top of the shows, a swell arrangement with some charming PAVI students had a couple of us recording some backbone tracks at Blue Wave Studios, drawing on the next-door-recorders Company B to provide some zombie gang groans with improbably professional equipment. We’ll let you know how those turn out as we put down some overdubs on top. All that plus Lee Shoal and Planks pal Allan Macinnis got us a mention in the current issue (edit: huh! and an earful on the website) of the UK music magazine The Wire. Not bad for a couple of weeks getting back into the swing of things!

There are of course more shows coming up. Some of them are quite imminent, in fact. Tonight, Planks will be taking to the stage as features at the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House’s (3981 Main Street at 24th Ave.) weekly Thursday night open mic, hosted by the man who put the cur in curmudgeon, Rick Keating! Our fiddler Johnny Wyoming, a regular at the series, recounts that the evening tends to unfold with socialising around 7:30 pm, the open mic rolling on at 8 through 8:45 for a brief intermission before an hour of feature performance starting around 9 pm.

More is coming up quick — Planks should be playing at Beans (1804 Lonsdale Ave.) in North Vancouver next Monday (April 28th) 8-10 pm, then we have a special Tuesday morning engagement with FreeGeek, our other “house band” engagement, and new shows cropping up in May and beyond… but one thing at a time. First let’s get through tonight and see what remains when Rick’s done with us!