A Human Being In Conversation Steve Waxman

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.

Welcome to episode 50! When I started this podcast  I had no idea whether anyone would listen or how far I’d be able to take it and yet, here we are.  For this episode I reached to an old friend, Jeff Woods, to talk about his longtime love affair of writing and telling stories to turn people on to the things he loves. 
Many of you who are listening will instantly recognize Jeff’s voice from his days at rock radio and hosting his syndicated Legends of Classic Rock radio program. Most people might think of Jeff as the guy with those amazing pipes. But as we discuss in this episode, there are a great many people who under estimate Jeff’s other talents, not the least of which is writing, a talent his grade school teach recognized earlier on.
Anyone who read Jeff’s book Radio, Records and Rockstars can already attest to his talent as a writer. It is a fun read. As you’ll hear from our conversation, Jeff is passionate about many things in life. After radio he continued to turn people on to music with his radio and records podcast.  On his Instagram he shares his passion for music, art, motorcycles and beautiful women. Which brings us to his latest project. As host of The Blue Hotel podcast, Jeff interviews a different guest each episode to talk about life, love and sexuality and then ends the conversation with a self-penned story Jeff’s talent as a writer is why I asked him to be the 50th Creationist.

Discover Jeff Woods at jeffwoodsradio.com

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The Creationists is created, produced and hosted by Steve Waxman (that's me!). 

We all tell stories in our daily lives.  Some are just the mundane answers to the question "How was your day?" But others are the stories we use to try to entertain or convince people of something. Whether it's a sales person presenting a product or an artist doing an interview, there's a story to convey and the best way to tell it is with authenticity. But not everyone is comfortable sharing their story and, in some cases, they don't think they even know what the story is.

Erin Rodgers is a story coach, someone who helps people get to the authenticity of their story and then coaches them on their presentation. If you or someone you know have a hard time expressing themselves, Erin might be able to help.  Give the episode a listen and then contact Erin at:

storystarcoaching.com

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Gordon Valiant is a bio-mechanics engineer and 30+ year veteran at Nike where he helped develop ground breaking athletic footwear.  In this episode of The Creationists, Gordon talks about what goes into the research and development of new products and shares some of his experience as a part of the team that helped build the Nike Shox, a unique shock absorber first introduced in 2000.

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The Creationists is mastered in post-production by Paul Farrant.

Hosted and produced by Steve Waxman

Tim Sommer has had a remarkable life in the music industry. He became a rock journalist at the age of 16 writing for Trouser Press and then as the New York correspondent for Sounds Magazine in the UK. He was the first American to interview U2 and Henry Rollins called him out in print for a negative review Tim once wrote. He hosted an influential hard core punk radio show on WNYU and then learned how to play bass and became a recording artist in the art rock band Hugo Largo, working with Michael Stipe and Brian Eno. He’s worked at MTV and in the mid-90s he became, because of his background, perhaps the most unlikely of A&R people to sign Hootie & the Blowfish. 
With the release of Only Wanna Be With You, The Inside Story of Hootie & the Blowfish, Tim can now add author to his resume. His background and relationship with the band made him uniquely qualified to write this book. Here is some of what I learned after reading the book: before they ever had a record deal, Hootie & the Blowfish were making close to one million dollars a year as a cover band; if they could be any other band in the world, they would be REM; once signed to Atlantic they were victimized by label politics; their 25th Anniversary tour in 2019 was more lucrative than when the band was in their heyday; and Darius Rucker finally speaks out about his experience as a black man in America. This music biography is unlike any other I’ve ever read before as Tim is able to write from the perspective of an outsider as well as an insider and a music historian. After reading his book, I told Tim that it could have been subtitled, How To Make It In The Music Business and Not Die Trying.
The first time I heard the name Hootie & the Blowfish was over a dinner I shared with Tim in Toronto a few months before the release of the band's major label debut.  He had recently signed them to Atlantic Records and he explained that almost no one at the label believed in Hootie and then he laid out how the plan for how the record was going to break - and it did, big time, just like he said. If you’re interested in insider stories, you’ll really dig this one and stick around for Tim's thoughts on the responsibility of music journalism - lessons he learned from his own experiences.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to read Only Wanna Be With You, The Inside Story of Hootie & the Blowfish, you can buy it HERE from Amazon.com. You can also read some of Tim's more recent entertaining and sometimes controversial musings in Rock and Roll Globe HERE.

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The Creationists is mastered in post-production by Paul Farrant.

The Creationists is created and hosted by Steve Waxman.