Ottawa blues band finds fans in Alberta
If you manage to snag a multiple-award-winning, critic- and audience-beloved band to play your festival, you might as well make the most of it.
So you can understand why when hot Canadian “swamp roots rock” act MonkeyJunk rolls into town this week for the Calgary International Blues Festival, their immense talents will be put to use on more than one occasion.
The Juno-winning, 10-time Maple Blues Awards-taking trio, featuring Steve Marriner, Tony D and Matt Sobb, will team with fellow bluesman Paul Reddick to headline the opening night of the outdoor portion of the festival Thursday at Shaw Millennium Park before heading over to the Kerby Centre immediately after to perform as part of the fest’s Twilight Blues Series.
Marriner will also be called into service Wednesday night for the free A Walk Through History talk with John Rutherford. That will take place at the newly reopened King Eddy in Studio Bell.
Prior to his appearances at the festival, Marriner spoke with the Calgary Herald.
Q You’re pulling double-duty when you’re here, performing at the festival and doing the Walk Through History talk at the King Eddy in Studio Bell. Tell me about that.
A To be honest, I don’t know that much about the gig. Cindy McLeod (festival producer) asked me if I would do a talk about harmonica and its influence in blues music (laughs) so I’m pretty much going to wing it … But I’m looking forward to it, I’ve heard the new music museum is fantastic, so I’m very excited to see the venue. And I always like talking about harmonica, so it’s cool.
Q Did you ever play the original King Eddy or was that before your time?
A I jammed there once in my first time to Calgary. In the summer of 2002, I was playing in a band and we were at the Shamrock (Hotel) for a weekend and Paul Reddick, as it turned out, was playing at the King Eddy so we went to sit in with Paul.
Q Do you have any memories of the Eddy?
Unfortunately not. I was 17 at the time so they had to sneak me in … I mean I’d heard legends from all of the elder statesmen of Canadian blues; they’d talked about it, and I know about its history a bit. But I was so excited to be there when I was so young. It was my first time being in Calgary and playing a show. So unfortunately I don’t really have a deep memory other than it was just a great venue — the place was packed, people were rocking and it seemed like a great place to see a band.
Q So for your festival show, what do you guys have planned?
A Paul has a new record that we made in December — I played guitar on his record, as well. And he got signed on (Alberta’s) Stony Plain, so he’s now our labelmate. And this year it’s Stony Plain’s 40th anniversary, which is kind of why they went the package deal of MonkeyJunk plus Paul. We’re always excited to play for Holger Petersen (Stony Plain’s owner); he’s going to be there. It’s always nice to play for the boss, you know.
And MonkeyJunk has some new material. This new record we’ve been working on this past month — we’ve done it pretty quick. Our latest (Moon Turn Red) just came out in September, but we just were like, “Hey let’s do another one,” so we did. So we’ll have some new material … and we’ll do some of Paul’s new tunes.
It’s always really fun when MonkeyJunk jams with Paul because we’ve collaborated on some MonkeyJunk material where he’s helped write songs with us, and we’re all just really good buddies, so whenever we get a chance to play together there’s a lot of spontaneous stuff that just happens and it’s a really good time.
And MonkeyJunk always loves playing in Calgary. Pretty sure Calgary and Edmonton are our best markets … so coming to Alberta is always a pleasure for us.
Q Why do you think this neck of the woods is so appreciative of what you do? A I think Holger has a lot to do with it, being a fixture (as a
broadcaster) on CBC and CKUA and Stony Plain. There’s a lot of roots there with Holger.
And CKUA, not just Holger, but other shows, have been very generous in playing our music. CKUA’s been a huge help.
There’s never been a show that happens in Alberta where a bunch of people don’t come up and tell us how much they love hearing us on CKUA. So I would say that’s probably the single greatest reason, because of that public radio network in Alberta.
It’s unlike anything else in Canada, so it’s been instrumental in getting our music to the masses in Alberta.
Q The amount of roots music, the amount of blues music, the amount of local music, regional music, independent music it gets out there is quite amazing.
A It’s fantastic. Like I say, we don’t have anything like that in any other province in Canada. Other artists that we know, friends who are in other bands, everyone appreciates it and everyone notices it because it is so unique.
And because of that maybe we realized that, “Wow, we’re doing well in Alberta,” so we’ve put a lot of energy over the years touring it — we come there at least once a year. We play festivals there, we play theatres, we play venues. We’ve really hit Alberta hard in the time we’ve been a band and it’s come back to us really nicely because people dig our band.
We started the year in Calgary, we played the Ironwood on New Year’s, and that was awesome. We’ll probably be back in the fall when our new record comes out. And we’re really stoked to play the Calgary blues fest. It’s been a few years. I think the last time we played the Calgary blues fest was in 2010, so we’re pretty excited to come back.