Journalism

Calgary Herald
Saturday, June 7, 2003

Radiohead’s sixth studio album, Hail To The Thief, will be released on June 10.

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When Radiohead’s OK Computer came out in 1997, praise of biblical proportions was lavished upon the disc.

The British pop media pronounced it The Greatest Album in Living Memory and called Radiohead the Saviours of Rock. And Radiohead was in turmoil.

The band of Oxford schoolmates was thrust out of its niche as a mid-level English act with reasonable sales into the stratosphere of Rock Superstars, capital R, capital S.

Suddenly, says bassist Colin Greenwood, “things got more lifestyle-oriented. There was more pressure on you to have a famous boyfriend or famous girlfriend and go and hang out with famous people who had done famous things famously.”

It didn’t take long for imitators to flood the market with weaker copies of Radiohead’s attention-getting sound.

A disgusted Thom Yorke, frontman of the group, chose a decidedly more experimental route for his band’s next two albums. Kid A (2000) and its successor, Amnesiac (2001), muffled Yorke’s cherubic voice with electronica only hinted at on 1994′s The Bends.

Radiohead has now returned with Hail To The Thief, out Tuesday, and Greenwood says he and his bandmates are happier than ever. They’re feeling that finally, they are in control of their careers. That contributed to the success of the band’s Kid A tour.

“We worked really hard to make it enjoyable,” says Colin. “We toured Kid A to places in the sunshine. Mediterranean places and alpha theatres and lovely green forests in the middle of America. We changed our whole philosophy.

“Instead of going where the music business wanted us to go, we decided to go where we wanted to go. I think that’s all it was about, really. We ended up playing in places that were more fun for us and our fans. And, ultimately, we felt more in control of our destiny.”

Colin is the intellectual one in the band. He’s the older brother of Jonny, guitarist, the fey one. Thom, vocalist, is the frustrated genius; Ed, guitarist, is the handsome one; Phil, drummer, is the quiet bald one.

Greenwood is humble, polite and witty. He makes it a point to apologize when he cuts you off, and repeatedly speaks of how things are “really good” with the band these days.

“Yeah, it’s really good,” he repeats, “the vibe is really good. We just want to enjoy the experience because you never know how long these things are going to go on for. And we don’t want to have any regrets of not enjoying these times.”

The members in the band are now in their mid-30s, and Yorke is the father of a two- year-old.

“It’s funny because I was talking to Stanley (Donwood), who does the album artwork with Thom,” Greenwood says. “And he was saying, before having kids, you’d just be angry at the world and shake your fist. Once you have kids, then obviously that’s not a valid response anymore because you’re denying them a future by saying there is no future.

“I think there’s a different attitude on this record because we are getting older and having children. Some of the darker concerns are getting even stronger. I think it’s an even heavier record in some ways, because there’s more relaxation.

“Thom’s voice on it is just amazing because he’s singing clear and loud. I think it’s less effort for more passion, and more scary, but it’s from the soul and that’s what matters. There’s a humour there to it. There’s a dark, sarcastic humour running through it. There’s a lot of colours on this record, not just the front of the album cover.”

The phrase Hail To The Thief was a popular anti-war slogan during the recent U.S.-Iraq conflict, but its title has to do with more than just the band’s politics. A stolen, unmastered version of the album was leaked on the Internet 10 weeks before its June 10 release. A mastered CD-quality version showed up two weeks before release.

“We wanted a bright, brash, bold title for the record, because that’s the sort of album we believe we’ve made,” Greenwood says. “And we wanted it to cover things that were being taken away from people, whether it’s personal space, environments, public spaces, forums that people share, or files stolen from the Internet.

“I mean there are so many different things that it points to beyond just a single issue of whether or not George Bush stole the election in America. And the response that we’ve had from writers and from people who’ve taken it on board and reflected it, has been very gratifying.”

The album leak has been the band’s only source of frustration of late, but even so, the aggravation had more to do with people listening to an unfinished product.

“It’s music, it’s not gold bullion or uranium,” Greenwood says. “You know, it’s meant to be shared and spread about.”

When he’s told this journalist also has a pirated version of the disc, but that it hasn’t left his CD player, he responds with a quip.

“Why, is your tray stuck? Is it jammed in the player?”

Radiohead’s six-album contract with EMI is now complete, and Yorke told British publication the New Music Express that Radiohead would be “completely unrecognizable” in two years.

“Yeah, we’ll be heading off to Mexico City for some extensive plastic surgery,” Greenwood says with a laugh. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve deliberately left everything open-ended because we’re reaching the end of our six records with the record company. We just don’t know, we don’t have any plans. We might carry on, we might not. It’s all up in the air. which is great, you know.

“It’s a scary feeling but it’s a great feeling too.”

Conquering the Airwaves

█ Thom Yorke, Phil Selway, Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien met at a small private boys’ school in Oxford, England. They shared a love of the music of Joy Division and The Smiths.

█ The band’s name initially was On A Friday. Their first gig was at the now-defunct Jericho Tavern in Oxford in 1987.

█ Radiohead’s debut album was 1993′s Pablo Honey, with the single Creep. Creep was ignored when released in September 1992, but its re-release in 1993 made it big in the United States, where fans loved its self-loathing lyrics (“I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.”)

█ The Bends was released in March 1995, featuring the singles Fake Plastic Trees and Street Spirit.

█ OK Computer was released in 1997 and universally hailed as one of the best rock albums ever. Singles included Paranoid Android, Karma Police and No Surprises. Britain’s Q Magazine called Radiohead the Best Band Of All Time. In polls (notably the All-Time Top 1000 Albums book) the band received massive press exposure when they became the first and only band in recent history to really threaten the Beatles’ domination.
“We assumed that radio stations around the globe would let it gather dust on some corner shelf and carry on playing Green Day or whatever turns them on,” says Yorke at the time.

█ Radiohead changed directions for 2000′s Kid A, going for a more experimental, electronic sound; 2001′s Amnesiac, from the same sessions, continued that creative phase.

█ The band’s latest record is 2003′s Hail To The Thief, which was leaked on the Internet two-and-a-half months before its June 10 release.

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Calgary Herald
Saturday, February 18, 2006

Captain's log. Stardate 140206. I am. Not. Repeat, not. Boldly. Going where. No man has gone before.

William Shatner laughs over the phone as he dismisses the rumour.

When billionaire Richard Branson announced his Virgin Galactic space fleet would be taking civilians on a week-long jaunt into the galaxy for a mere $200,000 apiece, a number of news reports claimed Shatner —Captain Kirk himself — had reserved a seat.

"No, no, that's not true," the actor, a month away from age 75, says from the set of Boston Legal. "Well, they're saying I did, but I did not. They're getting some mileage out of it, that's for sure. I'm asking for a cease and desist.

"Who the heck wants to go out into space?!"

I remind him that if the rumours were true, then by the time of that first space flight — 2008 — he would tie John Glen for being the oldest man in space at age 77.

"Yes, but John Glen had to train for two weeks. . .," he says with a laugh.

Shatner is in high spirits these days. Coming off back-to-back Emmy Awards for his role as the sleazy Denny Crane, first on The Practice, then on Boston Legal, he says he's having the time of his life.

"The uniqueness of Denny is what drew me in to that role," Shatner says. "David Kelly, the producer, is really a genius. He asked me to have a meal with him, and he talked to me about his concept of what he had. And the combination of the genius of David and this extraordinary character, drew me back out into a series when I really didn't want to do television any more.

"Now I've got myself in this flow of work, which is great. . . but I had in mind more leisure time. I'm probably enjoying it more than any other acting work I've done in a long time."

Besides the awards, the Montreal-born actor has been in the news for all sorts of reasons. Even more interesting than the space story is this tidbit that happened three weeks ago.

GoldenPalace.com, an online casino site, paid $75,000 for one of his kidney stones. You know, the pebble of hardened body waste you dispose of after surgery. What's even more surprising is that Shatner turned down their initial offer of $15,000 because, he figured, it was worth more.

"It's absolutely true, I turned down their initial offer of $15,000," he says. "I turned it down knowing that my tunics from Star Trek have commanded more than $100,000. And it went from $15,000 to $25,000, and then when this thing got to Calgary, I said, look, even Calgary's talking about it, give me $75,000."

It wasn't that Shatner's ego had reached galactic proportions -- selling off the stone was his way of raising money for Habitat for Humanity, which builds homes for needy families, and he was aware of how much it costs to build a house.

"I said to them, look you're getting more publicity than you ever imagined," he says. "And they upped it to $75,000. It's amazing. And then with the $20,000 that the (Boston Legal) cast had raised as a Christmas gift, it gave us $95,000, which was enough to buy an entire house for Habitat For Humanity, and they're constructing it at the lot. They're going to send us pictures of developments on the way and then eventually of the family that will be residing there. I mean, it's just remarkable what happened. And I was delighted, I was thrilled."

Shatner jokes that when he got the stone removed, he was wheeled around in a gurney with stirrups, screaming in pain. As he passed a couple of strangers in the hospital, he says, one remarked, "Look, there goes Captain Kirk, and he's having a baby!"

"I still retain visitation rights to the stone," he jokes.

It's another charity that's bringing him to Calgary. He's hosting a charitable event called Once Upon a Chair, which will auction off five chairs uniquely decorated by local artists, with the proceeds going to the Canadian Intensive Care Foundation. Four other chairs will be donated to patients who benefited from a Calgary intensive care unit, and one chair will go to the family of a patient who died in a unit. Shatner says the uniqueness of the event inspired him to offer his services as host.

It's a coup to have someone of Shatner's status hosting the event. He has, after all, been in the spotlight for half a century, through times that have been both cruel and kind. The McGill University graduate struggled in Hollywood until finding a role in Star Trek. Shortly after its cancellation, his first wife left him with all the money from it. He slept in a truck bed camper until meatier roles came along. After the success of T.J. Hooker and a few Star Trek films, in 1997, his third wife, Nerine Kidd, accidentally drowned in their swimming pool.

But Shatner says he has no regrets.

"I made the decisions I had to make based on what I was doing at the time, to the best of my ability," he says. "The way it's all turned out, with all the storm and rain that went on, I'm happy now and I've got a full and loving life. I can't in my right mind say I would have done anything different, even though there have been a lot of terrible moments in my life."

The success of the sleazy, egotistical Denny Crane is the closest the actor has ever come to stepping outside the giant shadow of Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

"I don't know if it's helping me step out of that shadow," he says.

"If you think so, then it's so. My way of looking at it is Captain Kirk was a long time ago and there are a lot of things that have gone on since. If Denny does it for you, then so be it."

His Star Trek dialogue, peppered with dramatic pauses, has long been fodder for comedians everywhere, and is part of the reason he's plagued by the character.

But no one has had more fun making fun of Shatner than Shatner, who seems to play a caricature of his former Kirk self with almost every new role. He did it as Captain Buck Murdock in Airplane 2, as Star Commander Berserk on Eek! The Cat, as the Big Giant Head on 3rd Rock From The Sun (for which he was nominated for an Emmy), and many times on Saturday Night Live.

"Well, I don't know what William Shatner is," he says.

"I guess William Shatner is whatever he is at the moment. And the tongue-in-cheekmuffles the sound a lot, doesn't it? It makes me somewhat unintelligible, which is good, because then you can't really tell what I'm saying."

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Calgary Herald
Friday, May 2, 2003

The decision on whether the most expensive painting ever sold in Western Canada will leave the country has become a clash of cultural and commercial values.

Paul Kane's Portrait of Maungwudaus, painted in 1851 as a tribute to the world-renowned Ojibwa performer and orator, sold at auction in Calgary last December to an American buyer for $2.2 million.

It has been sitting in a shipping crate inside a city warehouse since, the sale incomplete because of a federal export restriction on items deemed of historical significance to Canadian culture.

The Canadian Cultural Property Review Board says it will wait until the end of June in hopes that a Canadian buyer will match the $2.2-million bid from the unnamed buyer.

"Works that are deemed of national significance and importance should remain in Canada and we should give institutions a chance to acquire them," said Shirley Thompson, review board director. "But if that's impossible, then the board will issue an export permit."

Thompson said if an offer is made by a Canadian, the American purchaser would be turned down for the sale and the vendor would have the option of accepting the Canadian bid. Shortly after the painting was sold, an application was made for its export. That permit was denied; the second time in three years the same painting had been denied export to the United States.

An American buyer initially bought the painting at Sotheby's in Toronto for $523,000 in 1999, but an export permit was denied because the work was deemed significant cultural property.

"This time, the board established a delay period of three months -- the first time was a delay of six months," Thompson said. "Because it's the second time, we understand the importance of the work, but also understand that the last time around it was not acquired by another institution.

"So should the delay period end, and negotiations not begin before the end of the delay period . . . the piece then can be exported and bought by the American buyer."

Auctioneer Doug Levis, of Levis Fine Art Auctions & Appraisals, sold the painting on behalf of an unidentified consignor. He says a few international buyers might have been reluctant to bid on the Kane when it was up because of Canada's cultural restrictions.

"One of the things that I would really resent is some governmental power saying, 'No. we're not going to allow that to be exported. We don't care what the value is.

Go away,' " he said. "That is rather inappropriate, in my opinion.

"The argument for allowing it to be exported is that there is then a greater awareness of Canadian artwork outside Canada," he said.

The painting has a twin at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and it is uncertain which Kane painted first.

The artist was known for painting some of his subjects more than once, especially on commission.

Kane, who died in Toronto in 1871, set off on a two-year journey across Canada in 1846, documenting the lives of the natives and early settlements. He was the first Canadian artist to travel across the country, basing many of his paintings on what he saw out West.

Maungwudaus was a Mississauga Indian who travelled the world with his Wild West act. Don Smith, a history professor at the University of Calgary who has studied him for the past 30 years, said Maungwudaus is not merely an important Canadian figure, but a North American one, since he spent a number of years in the United States.

"As a historical figure, he is very important," Smith said, "because few First Nations people can be documented with the same detail we can do with him.

Let's get our cultural people to make the judgment on whether it's vitally important to our heritage."

Kane's Portrait of Maungwudaus is the most expensive painting ever sold outside Toronto, more than doubling the $1 million price of an Emily Carr painting sold in Vancouver in May 2000, which previously held the record.

Thompson says the painting's cultural value should not be overshadowed by its commercial value.

"If you're doing a study on the Group of Seven, you don't want to go to Florida to do it, you want to go to Toronto or Calgary or Vancouver," she said. "It's important for school kids, for tourists, for foreigners, for Canadian adults, to go to our institutions, no matter what part of the country, to see our heritage."

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CPACanada.ca
Friday, May 19, 2023

A new study uncovers the experiences of Canadian women trying to become corporate board members

Progress has been made in the diversity of board composition in Canada since mandatory disclosure rules were implemented for federally incorporated public companies in 2015. But a new study by Mount Royal University and the DirectHer Network found that 20 per cent of disclosing organizations still had no women or gender diverse individuals on their boards.

We spoke with the lead author of the 2023 Industry Report, Dr Rachael Pettigrew, an associate professor at Mount Royal University. She will be leading the Pathways to Board Work for Women session at CPA Canada’s virtual ESG Symposium, May 30-31, 2023.

CPA CANADA: How did the project come to be, and what, for you, were its most surprising results?

Rachael Pettigrew (RP): In the summer of 2021, I was introduced to Chantel Cabaj, a lawyer and Founder and President of a DirectHer Network, a Calgary-based not-for-profit that provides governance training to women and gender diverse people. Chantel and I shared a keen interest in the importance of diverse representation in leadership, including boards. Founded in 2019, DirectHer and Chantel have generated a community of thousands of women across Canada who are in pursuit of board opportunities in all sectors and board types.

As an associate professor in Mount Royal University’s Bissett School of Business, I research topics related to gender in the workforce. Given our backgrounds, we formed a strong research partnership aiming to explore the aspirations, experiences and barriers experienced by women and gender diverse people in board governance, with intentional consideration for those entering the board pipeline, as there is little research on this group. With the support of a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant and an amazing student research assistant, Quinn Pelland, we conducted a survey and focus groups in 2022 and wrote a publicly accessible report for key stakeholders. We are thrilled to present our early findings to CPA Canada at its upcoming ESG conference.

CPAC: What can organizations do to create a better pipeline for women to join their boards? Are they incentivized to diversify at the top?

RP: Previous research has shown that diverse boards make better decisions and prove to be more successful, though moving beyond the business case to ensuring our decision-making bodies reflect the diversity of our population is also essential. What our study highlights is the depth of talent available and how eager participants are to serve on all types of boards (e.g., for-profit, not-for-profit, and government).

Our preliminary findings report makes several key suggestions for boards, including reviewing their recruitment strategy and the importance of moving beyond personal networks that are often filled with people similar to ourselves. Boards should cast an intentionally wide net to counter this. This may include developing relationships with board listing services/platforms, recruiting agencies, professional associations and diverse community groups to intentionally expand awareness around your board opportunities. However, in doing so, the board should be careful to honour the time and effort these organizations have taken to develop their networks.

CPAC: The highest proportion of women participating in board work in Canada is at not-for-profit organizations, while the lowest is in for-profit organizations. Why is this?

RP: Our research found three groups of candidates—those who had board ambitions but had not yet served on a board, those who were solely interested in sharing their knowledge and experience to support a NFP they cared about, and those that were on a strategic pathway to escalating board size and responsibility, with a final aim for a for-profit, paid board position.

NFP boards often have fewer barriers to entry, are more accessible, and rely less on sponsorship, holding senior leader positions or special training. For those on the strategic pathway, they often begin in a small NFP to gain experience and then move to a larger NFP, then a government board, to a smaller for-profit board and so on.

Participants in our research perceived barriers increasing as they move along this pathway. For example, sponsorship (i.e., someone leveraging their personal/professional network to put your name forward for an opportunity), or lack thereof, was a key barrier for all boards, with 46 per cent identifying this as a barrier for not-for-profit boards, 59 per cent for government boards, and 71.5 per cent for profit boards. Access to opportunities, access to networks needed, past board experience\ and training were also considered barriers. However, it should be noted that those who have completed training were much more likely to be serving on a board.

CPAC: Though the majority of participants reported feeling competent and prepared for board work, and 70 per cent of them had some previous board experience, about half cited lack of confidence as a barrier. What reason did they give for this lack of confidence?

RP: The sample of women and gender diverse people in this study are extremely successful and highly educated, but they have likely been receiving messaging about what an ideal board member looks like, and sometimes they don’t perceive themselves as a fit. Some participants felt boards were only interested in lawyers and accountants, while others, especially those targeting for-profit boards, felt that job title or position (being a CEO or SVP) was the key qualification for board work. For others, this concern was rooted in not seeing representation of people like themselves holding board positions, so board work felt unattainable.

As previously mentioned, the real and perceived barriers for for-profit boards are much higher than for NFP boards and confidence levels are no different, as 28.7 per cent of the sample felt confidence was a barrier for NFP boards, while 46.6 per cent felt this was a barrier with for-profit boards. Confidence is not solely an internal or intrinsic quality—rather, it is impacted by external realities, including lack of representation.

Confidence is also largely impacted by qualification expectations, with women and gender diverse people more likely to forgo applying for positions where they don’t feel they meet all of the qualifications. Therefore, boards should mitigate this by providing a clear description of who they are targeting for board work, recognizing applicants may hold inaccurate assumptions around required career stage, job title and profession.

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