BLUSH, UPPERCUTS TAKE AIM AT MILESTONE
Calgary artist and her backing band celebrate a decade of sweet melodies
It will be a party befitting the anniversary.
When Calgary artist Heather Blush and her backing band The Uppercuts get together Friday night at the Ironwood — to celebrate a decade of making music in this city — there will be special guests, old friends, decorations, a slide show, cupcakes and surprises.
“We really like to make a big deal of things,” Blush says over a coffee in Eau Claire.
But, for the singer- songwriter, the marker is also an opportunity to reflect on that past and look toward the future.
Here are 10 things you need to know about Heather Blush.
1. IT’S NOT HER REAL NAME:
“That’s true. My name is Heather Johnson, and when I moved to Calgary ( from Manitoba) in 2003 I thought it was maybe a good idea to take on a stage name, as I was taking my music thing a little more seriously. Heather Johnson is a name that other singers already had and a very common name … I wanted to change the last name to something that would be easier to remember but maybe invokes an image and is easy to spell to be able to find online. So, I made a list and then I looked them up, and Heather Blush when put together is already the name of an iris, the name of a cocktail, and I thought, ‘ Well, that’s kind of interesting.’ So I went with that.”
2. HER MUSIC IS A MIX OF MANY STYLES:
“I always have trouble with the description. I just kind of group a few things together. I always say we’re sort of jazzy, bluesy roots … Roots kind of sums it up but add a little of the flavours of jazz and blues to it.”
3. BLUSH’S INFLUENCES ARE JUST AS VARIED:
“Vocally I listen to a lot of oldschool jazz — a lot of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong … I listened to a lot of Ella when I was just starting to sing and so I think that influenced a lot of my phrasing and different things in the way that I sing. But I’m also a songwriter, I write most of the songs that we do and so in songwriting I’ve been influenced by more Canadian singer- songwriters like Stephen Fearing and Vance Gilbert ... Just any kind of songwriters that write interesting things and don’t write the same thing in every song influence me.”
4. WHO ARE THE UPPERCUTS:
“The constant Uppercut who has been there for all ten years is Steve Hazlett — he plays the drums. We call him ‘ Captain Steve.’ … And our original bass player was Shane Sutherland — we call him ‘ Cannonball.’ And our more recent bass player is Dale Ulan, he’s been playing with us about the last five years, but he’s been out of commission for the last three- quarters of the year because of a back surgery … So actually at the show at the Ironwood we hired Jason Valleau, who’s one of the Polyjesters.”
5. THE TEETH INCIDENTS:
“It’s probably where we got our Uppercuts name. ‘ Cannonball’ Shane he has a lot of bridgework in his mouth already and one day we were messing around after a jam and he went to grab me or pick me up or something and I was completely not expecting it … and it was a literal knee- jerk reaction, I jerked my knee up and hit him in the jaw and knocked out some of his bridgework. And then probably a year later … we were all hanging out together and they brought bicycles, I came in a car, and we decided that after a couple of drinks we were going to go on the bicycles. I got on the handlebar on Steve’s bike and I fell off onto the pavement and knocked out my front teeth. I actually played one show without the teeth. I had a show that weekend at the Nickelodeon Music Club opening for Ray Bonneville and I didn’t want to miss it … So I wore a hat to try to get a little shadow over my face onstage ... and got through an opening set. Then the next week I went to Manitoba to get my teeth fixed because dentistry is so much cheaper there than it is here.”
6. SHE AND UPPERCUT HAZLETT HAVE A PAIR OF SIDE- PROJECTS:
“We do a thing called Lemon Drop, which is jazz standards, for corporate ( functions) and weddings. And then we do a children’s project which has really been taking off. In 2013, we put out our first children’s album as Rattle and Strum.”
7. BLUSH HAS A DEGREE IN MUSIC THERAPY AND CURRENTLY WORKS WITH DAYCARES IN THE CITY:
“I did music therapy for quite a number of years and I found that took up too much of my time when I wanted to focus on the band, because it’s an exhausting job. So at one point I just quit music therapy and decided I’d go full- force on the band, which of course is not very easy financially. So I found many, many little jobs on the way ( flower delivery, stone masonry, kids birthday parties, etc.). And then a few years ago I was looking on Kijiji … and there was an advertisement for a music teacher at some daycares. I followed that up and it just seemed to work out perfectly for me.”
8. WHAT SHE’S MOST PROUD OF WHEN IT COMES TO THE PAST DECADE:
“I think making a couple of CDs on our own ( Vice in 2008, and Versa in 2009). And it was pretty exciting to play at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. We played as part of the Alberta stage out there … and that was kind of a cool thing. But I think the best ones are still to come.”
9. WHAT’S NEXT FOR HEATHER BLUSH AND THE UPPERCUTS:
“Hopefully another album soon. It’s been 2009 since the last one. So we’re hoping to really get that working and maybe by 2016 we’ll have the next Uppercuts album, that’s the next direct goal.”
10. WHAT 10 YEARS MEANS TO HER:
“I guess it’s just a good marker. It sort of snuck up on us. I remember realizing it last summer, ‘ Oh, it’s going to be 10 years of playing together. That’s a pretty big chunk of time.’ And, honestly, it got me pretty sentimental ... And I’m hoping it’s just one point along the way and we’ll be here for another 10 years or more.”