2011-07-30: Creaking Planks back at ArtsWells!

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!

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2009-06-26 through 30th: the Flogged Round the Fleet tour of Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast

The jug band of the damned finally has some copies of its longago-recorded CD (”Flogged Round the Fleet”) together in its swell limited-edition, first-run deluxe packaging edition, and by gum, we aim to seed the entire periphery of the Georgia Strait with them! One gig suggested a circumnavigation and so we’re spending a long long weekend making a round trip to introduce some sleepy island-dwellers to our unique brand of demented traditional music new and old.

• Friday, June 26th, Victoria, Solstice Festival for the Folk
• Saturday, June 27th, TBA
• Sunday, June 28th – an afternoon show at the Duncan Garage Showroom, then an evening show following the B:C:Clettes at Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park
• Monday, June 29th – an afternoon show at the Gumboot Cafe in Roberts Creek, then an evening show at the Wild Bistro in Gibsons
• Tuesday, June 30th – a return home at Cafe Montmartre in Vancouver

The first stop is a return to the Solstice Cafe (529 Pandora Ave, Victoria), the site of our standing-room-only Island debut last Spring, sandwiched (with David Simard and Free Range, aka Danielle LP, Meg O’mally Iredale, Marly Iredale and Shanti Bremer) in the middle of three smashing nights of splendiferous Festival performances — and just the start of a long weekend of Vancouver Island wanderings for us!

Saturday is necessarily under wraps until we finalise the remaining brass tacks, but keep posted for updates!

Sunday Longevity John squeezes us in to his Duncan Garage Showroom (330 Duncan Street, Duncan) for an afternoon show running 2-4 pm, $10, and I promise we will squeeze back. Later that evening, around 8 pm, we follow the B:C:Clettes, our red and black sistren of the bike dance community, for a third encounter for the benefit of the patrons of the Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park campground (near Parksville) at the amphitheatre there. Unplugged! Wheels will roll. Helmets will shake!

Monday, we make good on a longstanding threat to descend upon Roberts Creek’s Gumboot Cafe (1057 Roberts Creek Rd), logging an afternoon set there from 4-6 pm, then we mosey along to the Wild Bistro (682 Gibsons Way) in Gibsons to play out the evening from 8-10.

Tuesday night we shake the last of the sand off our saltwater-stained sleeves and take to the Cafe Montmartre (4362 Main Street) stage back in Vancouver to play late into the night (as the following day is a statutory holiday – Canada Day!) and celebrate the 25th wedding anniversary of Blackbox Squeezebeard’s parents.

2009-06-13: Planks play another wedding and the Railway again!

Juggling two offers we couldn’t refuse, the Creaking Planks plan for a scorching Saturday night whipping down from playing at Phil + Kimla’s wedding up at SFU to open the second anniversary of JEff Younger’s night (third Tuesday of every month!) at the Railway Club (579 Dunsmuir Street, upstairs)! and he’s programmed some of his favorite acts from the series to join him on the stage there that night.

Here’s the lineup: in addition to having the jug band of the damned back for the opening slot at 10:30 pm, you get a wild and wacky set of unshorn spoken word from RC Weslowski, a set from Joseph Blood and the Blue Tick Houn’ Dogs, JEff Younger’s own inbred redneck orchestra The Family Stump, the WhiskeyDicks (who “blast their way through traditional tunes and modern hits with the spirit of the mad and the thirst of a sailor who just got kicked out of his metal band”) and finally (late into the night) Very Good, the band which won’t have too difficult a time surpassing their name.

Doors at 8:30, admission is $10, $8 for Railway Club members.

PS — pardon the slip in chronology — this show happens the day before the Car-Free Festival mentioned in the prior post.