Posted: December 15th, 2010 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Fang, Gold Stars Are For Suckers, Ingrid Gatin, Pleasing Squeezing, Railway Club | No Comments »
Proving that some of their squeezy bills of 2010 were impossible to top, CFRO’s Accordion Noir is proud to present a repeat bill from a show they and us hosted in May, this time at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street) with the sing-along sensation Fang and Winnipeg’s squeezing siren Ingrid Gatin. Start the year off on a high note and see if we can top it in 2011!
All that plus at midnight we turn over the Railway’s stage to Gold Stars Are For Suckers, who have nothing to do with great accordion music but can still give up a good time. $10 / $8 for Railway members.
Posted: December 9th, 2010 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: magazine launch, Memewar, Railway Club | No Comments »
The jug band of the damned shows its meagre warm and cuddly festive side as we help to celebrate the launch of the 12th issue of Memewar Magazine. We’re on from 9:30-10:30 pm at the Railway Club, 579 Dunsmuir Street at Seymour (upstairs).
Posted: June 1st, 2010 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Aaron Read, Accordion Babes, Amber Lee Baker, anniversary, Bandidas, Beats on Broadway, Boxing Day, Cafe Montmartre, CFRO, CJSF, Convertible Kids, Dollhouse, Ehren Salazar, Erin Graves, Eryn Holbrook, F Word, feature, Fraea Morgana, fundraiser, Gerry O'Brian, HD Lab, Jack Garton, Jason Webley, Jeff Andrew, Joanna Chapman-Smith, Kidnap Kids, Lauren Cochrane, Little Mountain Gallery, Marie-Josee Houle, Melisa Devost, Melodies in Mind, Mount Pleasant Neighborhood House, Music Waste, One Two One Studios, Pawnshop Diamond, Pleasing Squeezing, radio, Raghu Lokanathan, Railway Club, Renee de la Prade, SFU, Trees Organic Coffee, Ubuntu Vancouver LoCo | 3 Comments »
For a season, from mid-December to mid-April, we temporarily lost control of our domain name (in fact, it switched off while I was in the middle of composing a promotional draft here!) and information about the Planks was unavailable from this site. We still played lots of great shows, however, and this is just an attempt to keep the historical record in order. Just because nothing turned up on the website didn’t mean that we weren’t busy little buccaneers!
2009-12-26 – the Maclean’s Boxing Day party in Deep Cove.
2010-01-06 – at Bandidas’ anniversary party.
2010-01-12 – Blackbox Squeezebeard on Melodies in Mind.
2010-01-14 – at Trees Organic Coffee.
2010-01-15 – featured at Beats on Broadway.
2010-01-16 – at One Two One Studios‘ launch.
2010-01-22 – A Night of Pleasing Squeezing with Renee de la Prade and Amber Lee Baker (the Accordion Babes), Gerry O’Brien, and Jack Garton of Maria in the Shower at Cafe Montmartre.
2010-02-26 – Dollhouse Tea Party.
2010-02-28 – Another Night of Pleasing Squeezing with Jeff Andrew, Marie-Josee Houle, Jason Webley at the LMG.
2010-03-28 – with Convertible Kids at the LMG.
2010-04-08 – with Raghu Lokanathan trio at the LMG.
2010-04-15 – Can You Hear Me Now? F*Word fundraiser at the Railway Club.
2010-04-21 – at Ubuntu LoCo at the HD Lab.
We’ve enjoyed a couple of shows since that we’ve mostly been able to keep you abreast about here, and are on the verge of splitting for the summer (one more — set aside noon, June 13th!), but before we go we can tie some Plankian threads together with a Go-Your-Own-Waste presentation of the Music Waste festival featuring frequent CP collaborators Erin Graves and Ehren Salazar with bonafide Plank Eryn Holbrook (aka Daisy Jones-Locher of the santur) and marvelous improv outsider weirdo Aaron Read at the traditional Plank venue of the Little Mountain Gallery (195 E. 26th at Main). This Friday, June 4th! Only $5, and free for festival passholders! 8 pm ’til we’re done! The most homophonic bill of the year: Erin, Ehren, Eryn and Aaron in Err On: the Side of Caution. It’ll be a slice. (Actually, imagine a pizza divided into four slices, all of which are different flavours, and at least one slice of which isn’t even pizza… but maybe apple pie.)
Posted: May 31st, 2010 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Allan Macinnis, anniversary, Carnival Sized Cinnamon Hearts, Chloe Ziner, Deet Street Productions, Dennis Pimm Jamtacular Experience, drawings, Flogged Round the Fleet, Georgia Straight, Lara, Railway Club, Tamara Nile | No Comments »
The morning of the Cabaret of Wonders! we awoke to strange and marvelous news: the recording which we had debuted last June had garnered a positive review in Vancouver’s free weekly arts paper of record, the Georgia Straight!
 |
Attendees of early Creaking Planks shows—say, at the first Vancouver Zombiewalk after-party, where Rowan “Blackbox Squeezebeard” Lipkovits (accordion) and Lee Shoal (ukulele, kazoo) did somewhat halting covers of songs like the Kingston Trio’s “Zombie Jamboree”—could be forgiven for thinking the band a joke. A funny joke, and certainly an in-joke, but not a group you might turn to for the pleasures of polished musicianship, even of the jug-band variety.
Well, here’s a surprise: as if to illustrate the truth of the saying that a fool who persists in his folly shall become wise, the Planks have benefited from playing innumerable shows locally and throughout the Pacific Northwest. While still richly swathed in irony, the traditionals on this CD (European and/or Yiddish folkie fare like “Tanz Tanz Yidelekh” and “Moscow Nights” and the absurdly deadpan covers—including a new recording of Lipkovits’s delightful arrangement of the Minimalist Jug Band’s “Dead Man’s Pants”—are, in fact, quite beautifully conceived and credibly played. |
That night, at the gobsmacking
Cabaret of Wonders!, we sold our last two remaining copies of the suddenly-in-demand disc. Perhaps a reprinting will be in order — though we may have seen the last of the limited-edition stylish metal containers.
But enough resting on our laurels! Moving on from past glories, an increasingly rump Planks (blasted summer travels — and I’m up next!) will be wigglin’ and groovin’ tonight at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street) from 9:15 on with our Deet Street friends, including the slam poetry of Lara, the “folk/rock/blues stylings of the Dennis Pimm Jamtacular Experience”, and our favorite — a puppet show entitled “The Tragic Tale of Pierrot” presented by Carnival Sized Cinnamon Hearts. $7/5 for Railway members!
Bonus! A doodle from Chloe Ziner of the Mind of a Snail puppet troupe!
Posted: November 5th, 2009 | Author: Blackbox Squeezebeard | Filed under: Show announcements and recaps | Tags: Cereal Junkies, magazine launch, Maria Lenart, Memewar, MT-40, Neil Rayner, Railway Club, Thor Polukoshko, Wintermitts | No Comments »
Celebrating the 10th issue of Memewar Magazine (on the theme of “Adaptation”) at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir) with the Planks at midnight and other musical acts Wintermitts and MT-40 as well as readings from Neil Rayner and Maria Lénàrt — and the thrilling conclusion to Thor Polukoshko’s multimedia post-modern advertising genre mash-up Cereal Junkies!
Doors at 8:30; $10 admission includes a copy of the magazine.
