‘For the blues it’s all over the map. There’s suits and ties to one step above street people’
Describe your new blues bar.
The bar is wooden with a corrugated metal front. The walls are various colours that are muted: purples blues and a deep red. There’s a lot of wood grain in the beams and the floor refinished with a dark walnut stain. Unlike the previous Ironwood bar that had a lot of plywood this is a more finished look. It’s not as cluttered as the previous Ironwood. We have art on the walls as opposed to beer posters and other paraphernalia.
Is there a market for a new blues bar in Calgary?
Absolutely. Blues is a cyclical market and we are just coming off of a very low point especially as far as this city is concerned. But it doesn’t take very long to look around at other cities in the U.S. and Canada to see that they have very strong blues scenes. Calgary’s blues scene has been hobbled by a lack of venues so we’ve gotten off of the circuit for all the travelling blues acts — the ones from Winnipeg Toronto and Vancouver don’t even stop here because there’s no venue for them.
Who are you? What is your background?
I’m a son of a musician. I’ve been in Calgary since the mid-’70s. I run a computer consulting company by trade. I used to bus the King Eddie during the Saturday jams for quite some time not for any reason other than most of my friends worked there and it was such a zoo-like environment that no one would bus it and the waitresses needed help and I got to like it the people the employees the fans and the musicians and I got drawn into the inner sanctum of that place. The lack of it has left a little bit of a hole in my soul.
Do you play the blues yourself?
No I’m not a musician. My venture into the music industry is a purveyor of it not so much a player. I’m always terribly jealous of anyone with musical talent seeing that I have none. My father is a jazz musician he is pushing 80 years old and he fronts two bands.
The new Ironwood how do the owners there feel about you moving in up the street from them? Are you in competition with them?
No. We are working together to create a music destination for Calgary. You have your options of various genres of music all live all week all in the same place all on the same street or 9th Avenue in this case.
Why did you choose Inglewood?
Because I’ve lived there since 1980. Finding a building with a lease that is appropriate for a blues club is not an easy thing in this city. We’ve had a number of failed attempts at blues clubs here in Calgary with location problems or just décor problems. You can’t have it look like a plastic Holiday Inn; it’s just not going to fly. There’s a seedy element to blues and you can’t be too fancy or it just isn’t going to work.
The bands are they going to be local or from across Canada?
It will be a mix of both. We will even bring some up from the U.S. from Louisiana Chicago California and New York.
Will you have a regular house band?
We have one right now Bill Dowey and the Blue Devils. They are local and Bill is one of the top bluesmen in the country. It was also the house band at the King Eddie.
What kind of food are you serving?
We have quite an ambitious menu. It has a Cajun thread through it without being a Cajun menu per se. We’ve got snacks and a ploughman’s and a really nice poached peach salad and a selection of po’ boys. We’ve got rotisserie chicken and ribs and a blackened strip loin chicken pot pie a mac and cheese and Mardis Gras red beans and rice.
Are you open all week?
Yes.
Did you have problems starting up?
The biggest problem I had was with the landlords. Everybody told me it was going to be hell working with the city but to be perfectly honest they’ve been golden to me. Now I’m not done with them yet and this may be the lull before the storm — and this is one of the things that concerns me so much about the timing of me talking to you is if they step in and find some major deficiency in what I’m doing that could cost me two to four weeks in opening.
At the local annual blues fest much of the audience is older. Do you think this is a dying industry?
If it is it has resurged. It came back in the ’40s then in the ’60s and again in the ’80s. I don’t ever anticipate a youthful crowd. It’s not youthful music; it’s reflective music so it tends to draw a more mature crowd. Our blues festival relative to Edmonton’s blues festival or even any blues festival in North America doesn’t have much blues acts. We joke around that it is the festival of washed-up rock bands.
Are you modelling this bar after any legendary blues bar somewhere in the world?
It’s certainly more Chicago-style than what you generally see in Western Canada thus the colour and the art and the lack of Sleeman signs and that kind of thing.
What will be the range of your cover charge?
That will depend a lot on the band. We’re trying to keep it low to make it as affordable as possible. There’s a number of bars that have a business model where they charge quite a bit of money with some huge acts and a limited number of seats and we’re keeping our eyes open to that. We want to do some educational elements. We’ve got an idea for black and white and blues Sundays when we are going to show old footage from the great blues players during the ’40s ’50s and ’60s. And we’ll have it talked over by various blues musicians in town and why the music they are about to see is significant and what it means to the blues in general. We are trying to keep the cover charge low or nothing during the week. And when we have the larger bands in we’ll charge something more significant.
Your clientele who will they be?
For the blues it’s all over the map. There’s suits and ties to one step above street people. If they like good food good music and cold beer they’ll be down.
