The Creationists podcast

25/01/2022

Episode 42 - Imperfectly Kind with Julie Adam

Here's a simple question, are you a more effective boss by ruling with a iron fist and terrorizing your staff or will they run through walls for you because you treat your team with respect and kindness? Julie Adam's recently released book, Imperfectly Kind, is a treatise on building a winning team by leading with kindness.

One of the reasons that I started The Creationists podcast was in hopes of inspiring listeners to explore their own creativity. Over the past two years, I think that we've all come across friends and acquaintances who have finally taken the plunge, to do things that they always wanted to do but always made the excuse to not pursue. One of the biggest obstacles to get over is time. If Julie Adam had used the excuse of lack of time, it would have been understandable after all Julie is the president of News & Entertainment for Rogers Sports & media, one of the two largest broadcasters in Canada. But Julie didn't let time stand in the way of writing her book Imperfectly Kind.

I've known Julie Adam for over 20 years. She's come a long way from her days as an radio station intern, working her way to the very top of her profession. She is held in the highest regard in the broadcast industry and as long as I've known her, Julie has always conducted business with a smile on her face. When I heard that she had written a book, I quickly downloaded the preview and after reading the introduction I knew, right away, that she would be an inspiring guest on the pod.

Imperfectly Kind is definitely a must read for anyone who manages people. Frankly, if you report to someone you think isn't kind, you might want to think about gifting them Julie's book. Imperfectly Kind is available digitally on Kobo and Kindle. Physical copies are available through Indigo in Canada and Barnes and Noble in the US.

The Creationists is available wherever people listen to podcasts:

Apple:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-creationists/id1495833829?i=1000548906659

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/44AKASn5jRqxmJjJep5I1J?si=a66tsgIMTxGcjFNr0TK0aQ

Everywhere else: https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

Thanks for listening. Steve

29/09/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT! - The Creationists podcast
Episode 38: Creating Triple Bogey Beer with Geoff Tait

When I first met Geoff Tait he 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. It turns out that it takes much more work than just concocting a recipe.

Please join us for a listen on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Amazon, Google - heck, pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts or link online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

15/09/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT 🚨

Episode 37 - STILL LIFE WITH KURT SWINGHAMMER

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.

The Creationists podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart or anywhere else you might listen to podcasts or you can listen online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

01/09/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT! - The Creationists, Episode 36
REINVENTION WITH RIK EMMETT

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 including his grandfather, his father, his brothers and The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie.

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.

You can link to your favourite podcast platform at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com
Enjoy. Steve

25/08/2021

Josh A talks about how he has used his creativity in music to cope with his inner demons while at the same time try to present a positive path for his fans. Check out his complex story on the latest episode of The Creationists podcast - One Billion Streams with Josh A. Available everywhere and anywhere you listen to podcasts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFSg01HDqAk

► Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3nS922NFollow me if you wanna:► https://www.instagram.com/iamjakehill► https://twitter.com/JaaakeHill► https://www.facebook.com/I...

14/07/2021

World Creativity and Innovation Day with Marci Segal
Season 4, Episode 7

This is the final episode of Season 4 of The Creationists so I thought that it might be appropriate to end the season with the story behind the creation of World Creativity and Innovation Day which takes place each year on April 21st.

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.

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.

The Creationists is available on any and all podcast platforms or online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com.

Thanks for listening and watch out for Season 5.

23/06/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT - Creating A Performance with Eric Samuels
Season 4, Episode 4

Eric Samuels literally wrote the book on performing and mentalism. It's called Setting The Stage and has sold out so you're going to have to listen to this episode of the podcast to get his insights.

Though I’ve known Eric Samuels for several years, I never really knew the many roads he’s travelled to get to where he is today. When I first met Eric he was one of Canada’s leading radio programmers. At the time, I thought he was a little buttoned up the way he was always quoting market research as the reason not to play a record I was promoting. As a result, finding out that he had tried his hand at being a stand up comedian shocked me. Of course, I knew he loved music but I had no idea that he was also a musician. And years after he had suddenly left the music business, I was startled to find out that he had not only pursued a career as a mentalist but had become among the finest in his field. Even magicians Penn and Teller loved his act when he performed on their popular TV show, Fool Us. I had so many questions for Eric and he had so many answers including advice relevant beyond the lighted stage.

If you have a chance, please rate and review The Creationists on your favourite podcast platform and share the link on your socials, it helps us find new listeners and we appreciate your help. Over the course of the last year, The Creationists has charted in Canada, the U.S., Spain and New Zealand and I couldn't be more humbled.

The Creationists is available everywhere that people listen to podcasts or you can listen online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

01/06/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT! - The Creationists podcast
Season 4, Episode 2 - Creating Ingenuity with Taryn Bailey

This one's for all of the space nerds, like me.

Today marks 100 days on Mars for the rover Perseverance and the helicopter named Ingenuity. It's a day worth celebrating for the women and men of NASA.

Imagine if you worked with a team for several years on creating a thing and then that thing couldn’t even be tested properly until almost a year after it was completed. And now, imagine that you can’t even see if your creation works in real time because it’s on another freakin planet! Well, that is exactly the experience of my guest Taryn Bailey, a mechanical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California. Taryn is a part of the team that built Ingenuity, the helicopter that proved that controlled flight on another planet is possible.

I’m a child of the sixties and joined the NASA junior space program as a kid. I meticulously clipped and saved every newspaper story about the Gemini program and watched every second of Apollo. Do you realize that it only took nine months from the launch of Apollo 7 in October 1968 to the moon landing in July 1969. That’s a crewed mission every two months to achieve what many thought was an impossible dream. To put things into proper perspective, it took 7 months to put the Perseverance rover on Mars. Ingenuity hitched a ride on the belly of the rover so when the team finally had their helicopter on the ground and ready for its first flight, they were definitely on pins and needles waiting for the data to tell them whether 7 years and 85 million dollars of development had paid off.

The Creationists can be heard wherever you get your podcasts or online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

Thanks for listening. Steve

28/05/2021

Why was Pablo Picasso called a vampire by his contemporaries? What were his models for Les Demoiselles D’Avignon? The answers are heard on the latest episode of The Creationist podcast, “Creativity and the Brain”. Listen in your favourite podcast platform or online at https://theCreationists.buzzsprout.com

26/05/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT! - The Creationists
Creativity and the Brain with Anthony Brandt

Season 4 of The Creationists podcast launched earlier today and episode 1 is a bit of a departure as we explore how creativity is the distinguishing factor that separates humans from all other animals on Earth. Some of what you'll learn in this episode includes the parallels between Picasso and cell phones and computers and Georges Seurat. Listen, rate and review on your favourite podcast platform or listen online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

Please share this link with anyone you know who might be interested in what The Creationists is all about. Thanks!

24/05/2021

Tomorrow (May 25) marks the launch of Season 4 on The Creationists podcast series. Episode 1 features an interview with Anthony Brandt, co-author of The Runaway Species, a book about the brain and it's relationship to creativity. The book opens with an examination of two of my childhood obsessions, Space and Picasso. Follow The Creationists now wherever you listen to podcasts and new episodes will be delivered as soon as they go live.

27/01/2021

Robert Randolph vs Shaun Verreault

Listen to the story behind the jam on The Creationists podcast available on all of your fave podcast platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcBa48x-gOY

Hi, I'm Dave Dunwoodie, founder, inventor and president at Graph Tech Guitar Labs. " Our mission statement is just five simple words "to improve your playing...

27/01/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT - Creating Tri-Slide Guitar with Shaun Verreault

Imagine taking everything you know and throwing it out the window...

Wide Mouth Mason singer and guitarist Shaun Verreault has long been recognized as one of Canada’s finest blues rock guitarists. His long spidery fingers allow him to play incredible fiery riffs with casual ease. The exploration of the guitar’s possibilities has been his lifelong pursuit but even his closest friends weren’t prepared for Shaun putting aside everything he knew about playing guitar and covering his fingers with metal tubes.

Hailing from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Wide Mouth Mason was born in 1995 with Shaun being joined by friends Safwan Javed on drums and Earl Pereira on bass. Within two years the band had a gold-certified major label debut, played the Montreux Jazz Festival and were touring the world with the likes of AC/DC, ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones. Around the time of the band’s second album, Shaun began to incorporate bottleneck slide guitar into his sound and eventually fell down a creative rabbit hole that has led to the tri-slide guitar he can be seen playing on Facebook and Instagram and featured on the groups latest album, I Wanna Go With You. So, naturally the place to start is with the most obvious question “Shaun, how did you end up with three slides on your fingers?”

You can follow Shaun on Facebook or at sv_trislide on Instagram and watch some incredible tri-slide guitar playing. And you can watch the entire jam session with Shaun and Robert Randolph on YouTube or on The Creationists podcast page.

The Creationists is available wherever you fine people listen to podcasts or online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com. Please rate and review. Thanks.

21/01/2021

On January 20, 2001 the very first podcast (a bunch of Grateful Dead songs) was released over an RSS feed. On January 21, 2020 the first episode of The Creationists podcast was released and so, today, we celebrate our FIRST BIRTHDAY!!

I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to listen to my guests share their stories of creation. There are now over 1.6 million podcasts available to listen to so I am humbled that you have chosen to make The Creationists one of your choices.

I especially want to thank all of the creationists who joined me in this first year: Jim Cuddy, Ian Andrew, Kevin Shea, Linda Manzer, David Pearl, Hilary MacMillan, Michael Hollett, Terry O'Reilly, Alice Zilberberg, Pauline Loctin, Greg Hemmings, Gisela Schmoll, Hugh Syme, Gordon Lightfoot, Doug Brod, Susan Rogers, Ron Mann, Darryl Hurs, Shauna de Cartier, Steve Jordan, Shaun Verreault, Ebonnie Rowe, Ira Robbins and Christian Swain.

People create in so many wonderful and unique ways and their creativity adds so much to our lives. I believe that everyone is creative in someone and I hope that this podcast inspires you to go out and explore your own creativity.

If you haven't yet had the chance to listen to The Creationists, you can find a link to your favourite platform or listen online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

THANK YOU!!

20/01/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT - Creating The Polaris Music Prize with Steve Jordan

When Steve Jordan first introduced the concept of the Polaris Prize to the Canadian music industry, the idea was generally welcomed, though the artistic community was still a little sceptical going into the first show in 2006. In this episode of The Creationists, Steve talks about the initial spark of the idea and how it eventually grew into a worldwide recognized celebration of music on par with the UK's Mercury Prize.

In early 2020, it was announced that Steve Jordan was stepping down from the Polaris Prize to become the Senior Director of CBC Music. The position of Executive Director of the Polaris Prize is now being held by Claire Degenais. You can find out more information about the Polaris Prize at Polarismusicprize.ca. On the site you will find information about past winners as well as short and long list nominees. In addition to shining a light on new recordings, Polaris has instituted the Heritage Prize sponsored by The Slaight Family to honour albums released prior to 2006 - a sort of hall of fame, if you will.

The Creationists is available everywhere that people listen to podcasts or online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

13/01/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT - Creating Six Shooter Records with Shauna de Cartier
When Shauna de Cartier wanted to start Six Shooter Records, she found that it was going to be difficult to secure funding from outside sources. She didn’t have the track record to secure government grants and banks weren’t interested in lending her the money. And, when she approached the major labels, she found very little interest there too. So she had to find another way to get her artists in the studio and her label off the ground.

When I first contacted Shauna, my plan was to do a story about creating a record label but by the time we were finished talking, I realized that she had so much more to share. Whether it was figuring out how to be a manager, run a record label or mount a music festival, Shauna de Cartier never let obstacles get in her way. Six Shooter is now celebrating its 20th anniversary and they’ve become one of Canada’s most successful independent labels and Shauna has become a vocal advocate for women in the music industry.

The Creationists can be heard on Apple, Spotify or wherever else you listen to podcasts. You can also listen online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

06/01/2021

NEW EPISODE ALERT! Creating Indie Week Canada with Darryl Hurs

If knowledge is power then Darryl Hurs is empowering independent music artists around the world with his annual music festival and conference, Indie Week Canada.

In 2002 Darryl Hurs created Indie Week Canada, which has since become an annual event held each Fall in Toronto filled with music showcases by and a conference for independent artists. In the years since its inception Darryl has also helped mount similar events internationally. When Indie Week was first established though, Darryl needed to be able to articulate to sponsors what set his event apart from other similar conferences.

My interview with Darryl took place while this year's conference was still in the planning phase. By almost any measure, the event was a huge success. The final count had over 1000 participants from 40 countries who were able to network and attend seminars featuring a wide range of industry experts and special guests.

2020 was a year like no other and every industry has had to adapt to new ways of doing business. Given social distancing, artist showcases were probably not going to happen but Darryl felt that it was important to the artistic community to at least find a way to mount the indie week conference.

The Creationists is available wherever you listen to podcasts or online at https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

28/12/2020

So, I read yesterday that the New York Times' podcast The Daily gets 4 million downloads an episode. While that's certainly a number to aspire to, I think that I will set my goal for The Creationists at 4 million downloads annually. In order to achieve that though, I'm going to need you AND your friends to listen and share the episodes.

For the next ten days, I will post reminders of some of the previous episodes of The Creationists for you to consider over the holiday break and then on January 6, Season 3 will continue with Episode 5.

The Creationists is available wherever you listen to podcasts or online at the link below.

Thanks for listening!!!
https://thecreationists.buzzsprout.com

The Creationists is a podcast about people who create. Each episode will feature an interview with a different creator talking about their process and the road they travelled to achieve their goals.