(Starting off the closing party at the 3rd annual Accordion Noir Festival, September 26, 2010. Video by Alan Zisman.)
Since 2003 Rowan Lipkovits and his unlikely squeezebox have been gigging through four provinces, one territory, five states, and three countries overall across two continents, both solo (as a story-telling accordionist or raccordionteur) and with regular stints leading "the jug band of the damned" the Creaking Planks and playing a supporting role in the Joey Only Outlaw Band.
In addition to countless performances with those two bands over eleven years, Rowan has played gigs with Shane Koyczan, Zeelia, and Leah Abramson as well as impromptu one-offs with the likes of C.R. Avery, Raghu Lokanathan, Jenny Ritter and Eugene Chadbourne. If you haven't caught him on one of hundreds of stages, you might have heard him as a session player on albums by acts such as Buckman Coe, Blackberry Wood, and High Society.
If you don't make it out to concerts much, he might have crossed your path at the theatre, seen live and heard on stage most recently in the UBC Theatre production of A Dybbuk (2008) and Theatre in the Raw's production of Vatzlav (2009).
But when he's not playing music, he's hosting the weekly Accordion Noir and Sound Resistance radio shows and the Vancouver Squeezebox Circle, teaching accordion lessons and even providing accordion consulting for film. In his spare moments he enjoys penning concert and album reviews for BC Musician magazine and numerous other newspapers, magazines and blogs. We can't see into his dreams when he sleeps, but we have it on good assurance that they involve quarter notes jumping over a musical staff.
Perhaps you'd like to squeeze him in to your next event or function? Maybe you'd like to punch up your recording with the sweet tang of wind blowing past free reeds?
