A Human Being In Conversation – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Way back in 1988, guitarist Rik Emmett stunned fans when he left the successful Canadian rock group Triumph to pursue a solo career. He left many questions on the table in the wake of his departure, most of which he answers in Chapter 5 of his autobiography Lay It On The Line.   Now, when I call the book an autobiography I’m using air quotes because this is also a self-help book and an instructional guide to song writing and making your way through the music industry. Lay It In The Line is also much like Riks career. Why just be a rock star when you can also be a columnist, a jazz guitarist, a baseball coach, a teacher and a poet, as he proved with his 2021 book of poetry, Reinvention.

Jane Harbury has been a beloved figure in the Canadian music industry from her days washing dishes at Toronto's legendary Riverboat Folk Club to acting as publicist to some of the world's most revered musicians. A couple years ago I met Jane for coffee where she shared her origin story growing up in England. That afternoon has stuck with me all this time so recently she and I arranged to record our conversation so that we could share her story with the rest of you. In part one of our interview, Jane talks about growing up in England where she worked as a child actor, an au pair and a matron in a boys school.

Over the course of his 45 year career, Doug McClement has established himself and his company, LiveWire, as the go to for capturing live audio on location for broadcast or recordings. He’s had a number of dream gigs over the years but in 2010 when the Winter Olympics were awarded to Vancouver, he thought that his ultimate dream of working the games was about to come true.  

In Canada, when you want to capture live sound you don’t say “call LiveWire” you say “call Doug McClement”.  Doug is one of the good guys in the industry and he did eventually get to work the Olympics a few years later but the story of how he got there is truly fascinating so I started our interview at the very beginning. 

Before we started recording our conversation, Doug caught me up on some of what his upcoming schedule looked like.  Like everyone else in the industry, the 20 months of COVID lockdown pretty much shut down his business but now that events are starting up again, he barely has time to breathe. In addition to his broadcast work, Doug is running the sound studio at the newly reopened El Mocambo club in Toronto where he is capturing live recordings multiple nights a week providing content to artists of every genre and level of success. Remember, The next time you’re watching an award show coming from Canada, you're probably listening to the work of Doug McClement.

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Toronto’s Massey Hall joins Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall and Boston’s Symphony Hall as one of the world's classic concert venues. But as author David McPherson discovered while researching the history of Massey, the hall has hosted plenty of events over the years in addition to iconic concerts it has been  associated with. 

In 2018, Massey Hall closed its doors for a long overdue massive restoration which promises to bring the hall into the 21st century and at the same time retain its charm and restore some of its hidden beauty. Around the same time, David McPherson and his publisher Dundurn Press met with Massey Hall’s management team to propose a comprehensive book chronicling its 125 year history. 

Whether you’ve only been to Massey Hall once or you’ve enjoyed dozens of nights in the venue, the experience is one that you’ll never forget. I have so many of my own fond memories such as seeing Elvis Costello there in 1978 or LL Cool J bringing  in the first full production hip hop I ever saw. I sang (poorly albeit) with Brian Wilson in one of the tiny backstage dressing rooms and I saw AC/DC for the first time in 1979. As a matter of fact, a photo I took of singer Bon Scott that night is included in David’s book. 

The plan is for the lights to turn back on at Massey Hall this November. Naturally the first live show will be with Gordon Lightfoot. When the total renovation is finally finished, in addition to a refurbished concert hall, there will be an expansion next door called the Allied Music Centre which will include a state of the art recording studio, a nite club, a performance theatre and collaborative workspaces for artists. In the meantime, David McPherson’s book chronicling the history of Massey Hall is in stores in early November and is available for pre-order now HERE. 

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Steve Waxman created this podcast.

In the early 2000's, Geoff Tait was running his fashion forward golf apparel company Quagmire.  The business was flying and Geoff was hanging out at the Masters with golf icons Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and partying with Kanye, Jay Z and John Legend.  And then it all came crashing down.

Like any good entrepreneur, Geoff picked himself up, dusted off the disappointment and found a new venture to dive into. This interview is about that journey.  Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an avid golfer. I had the good fortune to watch the growth of Geoff’s Quagmire brand and I remember the early days when he first introduced Triple Bogey as a beer for golfers. Recently I was on the course and one of my playing partners asked the cart girl specifically for a Triple Bogey. That’s when I thought that, though I don’t drink myself, you might like to hear the story of how Geoff went about creating a beer. 

If you want to find out more about Triple Bogey and their products, head over to triplebogey.com. In addition to information about their drinks, you’ll find a listing of all of the locations they are being sold.  I’m told on good authority that the taste is great.

In the late 1980s and early 90s, Kurt Swinghammer’s artwork became synonymous with the city Toronto as well as the Canadian hip hop scene. Art critics dubbed it  neo-primitive and his abstract work could be found on radio station logos, business signs and in music videos. His bold improvised artwork eventually  became ubiquitous and a go to stile in the advertising world.

 Kurt Swinghammer has had an extraordinary creative career that has encompassed both the visual arts and music. The artwork he first gained recognition for took visual clues from folk art from around the world and Saturday morning cartoons of the sixties. Over the past decade he has developed a more mannered graphic of painting that began with his Red Canoe series. 

 Kurt was kind enough to invite me to interview him in his downtown Toronto studio which is where we sat surrounded by paint splattered easels and original works of art, paintings of melting icebergs, canoes floating by forests, a psychedelic portrait of Scotty, the mascot from the Canadian Tire hardware store, a painting from his Red Canoe series and his latest work of wood carvings hung on the wall. Over the course of our wide ranging interview Kurt shared stories of his sister taking his cardboard sculpture of a telephone to school for show and tell when Kurt was 4. He also shares the story of selling his first work when he was 15 and why art and music became his salvations.

If you would like to check out Kurt Swinghammer’s art, I’ve posted photos of a number of pieces discussed in this episode on The Creationists Podcast page on Facebook and Instagram. You can purchase his work through inabstracto.com or you can visit his website kurtswinghammer.bigcartel.com. Also, Kurt’s music can be heard on all streaming platforms.

Read the transcript of this interview at imstevewaxman.com

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for future guests, please contact us at thecreationistspodcast@gmail.com

The Creationists is mastered in post production by Paul Farrant.

The Creationists is recorded and edited by Steve Waxman. Theme music performed by Steve Waxman.

As a member of the Canadian rock trio Triumph, Rik Emmett has sold millions of records and toured the world performing for millions more. Since leaving Triumph in 1988, Rik has enjoyed a successful solo recording career and, until recently, spent two decades as a faculty member at Humber College in his hometown of Toronto where he taught Songwriting, Music Business, Creative Development and Directed Studies. Writing has always been a part of Rik's life whether as a songwriter or as a regular contributor to Guitar Player Magazine. In 2001 he self published Bric-A-Brac, a book of short stories, poems and unreleased lyrics but now he has taken a unique approach to writing a memoir as a book of poetry called Reinvention.

With 56 poems collected in seven sections, Reinvention shares stories from Rik’s life as well as his thoughts on religion, politics and the general state of society today. The book also features tributes to a number of important people in his life which is where we started our interview with Rik reading the poem about his grandfather titled 11,11,11,12.

In his lifetime, Rik Emmett has been a son, a husband, a father, a guitarist, a songwriter, a rock star, a columnist and a teacher. And now, add to that, a published poet. Reinvention is available through ECW Press as of September 14, 2021. Pre-order Reinvention HERE.

If you want to find out more about Rik, his career and the music and books he has created, simply visit rikemmett.com

Read the transcript of this interview at imstevewaxman.com

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How did his music get to one billion streams?
Why is he not interested in signing with a record label?
Why won't he show his face in photographs?

People are motivated to create for many different reasons. For some, it’s merely self-satisfaction and an escape from the rest of the world. Some people use creativity as a way to find new solutions. As a teenager, Florida based rapper and producer Josh A turned to creativity as an outlet to escape the harsh realities of a troubled home life. With it, he found the kind of success that he hoped would take away the pain he felt inside, but he discovered that success wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

 This might be the first time you’ve heard of Josh A. If so you might be shocked when I tell you that his music has been streamed  close to one billion times since he first started posting tracks on SoundCloud and YouTube in 2015. Diving into his work in order to battle his inner demons has been an all consuming process for Josh who, at 25, has already released an astonishing 16 full length albums including his latest, Lonely Vibes. A large part of Josh’s success stems from the personal nature of his lyrics which provides a voice for his fans to relate to with their vulnerable tales of self-doubt and lost hope.

Listen to Josh A on Spotify

Read full transcript at imstevewaxman.com

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Marci Segal was the first Canadian graduate of the International Center for Studies in Creativity program at the state university in Buffalo. She has the distinction of being the first creativity specialist hired on staff at an international advertising agency as well as being a creativity consultant at NASA, Bosch, Ricoh and CIBC among many others. She has been featured in Fast Company, Best Health and Strategy magazines and, in 2001, Marci and some colleagues established a day to acknowledge the important contributions creativity and innovation make in our lives. In 2017, the United Nations officially designated April 21st as World Creativity and Innovation Day and it is now observed in over 90 countries around the world.

One would think that you shouldn’t need a special day for creative thinking in your life or business but isn’t it nice to know that there is one out there? If you want to find out more about World Creativity and Innovation day and Week, please visit wciw.org. Poke around the site for some inspiration and new approaches to thinking. You can watch a video highlighting the UN’s 17 sustainability goals HERE.

Read the full transcript of this episode at imstevewaxman.com

Thanks for listening to The Creationists podcast.  This is the final episode of Season 4. If you've enjoy what we're doing, please rate, review and share the podcast and follow on your favourite podcast platforms to be informed when new episodes go live.  We're lining up guests for Season 5 now.

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Anyone who knows Vince Ditrich probably knows him as the merry mirthmaking drummer of Canada’s wildly popular Celtic rock band Spirit of The West. With the days of long haul touring behind him, Vince has settled into a much quieter life on the West Coast. As you’ll see in our interview, Vince has always had an interest in writing and has kept up the practise with his blog Random Note Generator. But  it was the encouragement from some friends that led to Vince creating wannabe rocker Tony Vicar who lived an ordinary life in the imaginary BC town of Tyee Lagoon until something magical happened that turned his life and his world upside down.

Stick around to the end of this episode to hear Vince read and excerpt from the book.

The Liquor Vicar comes out in Canada on August 17 and in the UK and the US in September. You can order your own copy of The Liquor Vicar now on Amazon.ca

You can read the full transcript of this interview at imstevewaxman.com

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The Creationists is mastered in post production by Paul Farrant.