The Planks are buffing their splinters for a filthy, filthy return to the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street at Seymour, upstairs) for the third time in two month (and the second time this week! a big change of pace from the nearly two-years’ gap prior!)  Hopefully things will be almost-but-not-quite as off-the-hook as last week’s show, at which we took the stage of the sold-out Railway Club an hour late (Geoff Berner was well in his element — some kind of formaldehyde, I think — and on top of his game can halt a 10-piece band in its tracks with a well-timed anecdote!) well after 1 am.  An hour later they didn’t want to let us leave the stage, though we’d exhausted the set.  Roar! Finally, the crowds were beaten back by urging them to become members of Co-op radio and to revisit us six mere days later… at this occasion!

This time we’re all playing our hearts out to celebrate the launch of issue #7 of Memewar Magazine, with its focus on censorship (The Song Of The Count: censored!) and obscenity.  (And really, what could be more obscene than a nerd on a squeezebox plaintively crooning songs about explicit matters of sexuality?) Also in the upcoming issue you may find an advertisement for our upcoming album release! (No, this isn’t it.) Other performances will include the Girls on Top burlesque troop (there are two words that don’t go together well!), an erotic poetry slam courtesy of R.C. Weslowski, C.J. Leon, Fernando Raguero and Jane “Break Your Freak” Panek with accompaniment from her companion.  There will be guest readings from the issue, possibly recited by acclaimed pottymouths Elaine Miller and Nathaniel Wolfe, and more musical performances from Bells Clanging and the Barcelona Chair, who will be surrounding our 11:15-starting set like a splinter sandwich.The show starts at 8:30 pm (your $10 admission gets you a complementary copy of the magazine!) and further boasts “more Cereal Junkies” (?!) and naughty prizes!  And here is a low-resolution copy of its poster, swiped from its Facebook event listing:

 (And then we’re off to HPVII!)

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

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!)

All aboard!  It’s been a while since we played at this stately Vancouver venue (not since a strange set of Christmas tunes December 10th, 2006)… and it seems the recollection of our last visit has worn off, since we’ve been invited back by Jeff Younger to play a closing set (starting ~11:30 pm) following performances by Hilary Grist and a scaled-down version of his psychedelic country outfit the Family Stump.  Simply everyone who isn’t at Radiohead will be there (local music historians note: Radiohead themselves played the Railway in 1995!)

(Poster ripped shamelesly from Rodney Matthews’ 1985 poster “Heavy Metal Hero” beacuse, c’mon, if you’re going to be part of a railway club, why not go for the gusto?)

Wyoming Johnny’s Seattle pal KT took a photo of us and some YouTube footage!