| When Soren Borch arrived to begin his first day of refurbishing a run-down building in Inglewood, which he had only taken possession of two days earlier, he walked through the front door and found a surprise. Mark, one of Borch’s regular customers from his former venue, Karma Local Arts House, was inside covered in dust and removing a wall.
Mark, who Borch hadn’t seen in months, had already put in two-and-a-half hours of work when Borch showed up for work. Borch hadn’t told him about the new place, but news travels fast in Calgary’s roots music community. Soon, more than two dozen volunteers, who each donated dozens of hours, joined Borch in constructing a new venue, the Ironwood Stage and Grill.
"These are people who are looking for a certain vibe, a certain atmosphere," says Borch, who adds that this vibe can’t be manufactured and put in a box. It has to be nurtured, and that’s where the energy of the community comes into play. Whether it’s music fans looking for a new hang-out, or a local musicians like Tom Phillips – who, along with his Men of Constant Sorrow, will be the house band at the Ironwood – they all need a place to call home.
In addition to Borch, other Karma alumni working on the project include business trainer Marty Park and operations manager Lynn Thorimbert. Promoter Josh Marantz is also on board, booking music and using his connections to bring in acts like Colin Linden.
Serendipity has featured greatly in Borch’s tale of success. After dropping out of his English classes at the University of Victoria, Borch took his tuition and ended up on a beach in Southeast Asia, reading books by the pound. Later, broke and back in Calgary, he tended bar at Cowboys, where he saved his wages for the future while other bartenders were blowing theirs on parties and clothes.
One day, when Borch went for coffee at Esquire’s Coffee Shop near his Marda Loop home, he found the place closed. That was the location that would, with Borch’s touch, become Karma. Not wanting to end up a bartender without prospects, Borch knew that whatever came next, he’d do it on his own terms.
"It was patched together and we didn’t have a clue what we were doing," he says of Karma. "Lynn came into the process because we had just started dating. It was the addition of people that made it good.
"We were going to do soups and sandwiches – Lynn and I are well known for burning Kraft dinner. Then we hired a chef who came back with baked shrimp gamberetti.
"Now we had a restaurant, not a deli. I was scrambling to fill the days musically with anyone I knew that played music. Tom Wilson came by and wanted to talk about doing an open mic and all of a sudden it turned into a music venue due to Tom’s passions and abilities."
Guided by their hippie ideals, Borch, Thorimbert and Park were surprised when, three years into their stint with Karma, someone offered to buy it. It was the first time they had considered that it was an asset with considerably increased value. Within six weeks of the offer, Borch and Thorimbert were on a beach in Thailand, and put an 18-month moratorium on any serious work.
When they came back, Thorimbert began to waitress and within months had hooked Borch into getting Jimmy Dean’s in the Coast Plaza Hotel back on its musical feet, a job that took mere weeks with Borch’s magic touch. They both realized how much they missed live music, which led them to create the Ironwood.
It’s based on the same concept that made Karma great – excellent food, live music seven nights a week, funky atmosphere – but with a few fresh ideas to provide texture. Borch wants to raise the bar, musically, and has fully wired the room for digital and audio recording, in hopes of leasing out the space overnight as an inexpensive studio for local musicians. As well, he envisions non-denominational gospel brunches on Sunday, and Saturday afternoons that alternate between big band music and children’s events.
"We want it to be a community place that supports music, and it’s still a business so music supports us…. We come at it with an entrepreneurial background, but we have a hippie sentimentality. Anyone who gets into folk music to make money is a moron – make money elsewhere….
"A lot of venue owners treat the musicians like the help, (like) they’re just a louder dishwasher. We asked people to be quiet, to listen, we sold their CDs for them. The sum is greater than its parts if everyone’s working together on it."
Ironwood Stage and Grill opens Saturday, April 19 with a performance by house band Tom Phillips and the Men of Constant Sorrow. |
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