1. WWW.CHRONICLEJOURNAL.COM SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2012
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Billboard named
Katy Perry its woman of the year,
but the pop star thought her year
was 2011.
“I felt like my year was last year . .
. I thought my moment had passed,”
Perry said in an interview with Jon
Stewart at Billboard’s Women in Mu-
sic event Friday in New York City.
Perry released Teenage Dream in
2010, and the double platinum album
sparked five No. 1 hits on the Bill-
board Hot 100 chart that spilled over
to 2011. She tied the record Michael
Jackson set with Thriller for most
hits from a single album.
She re-released the album this
year, which launched two more hits
and a top-grossing 3-D film.
Perry thanked her fans, who stood
outside of Capitale hoping to catch a
glimpse of her.
“I don’t really like to call myself a
role model for my fans, but I hope I’m
an inspiration, especially for young
women,” she said when she accepted
the honour.
Perry also thanked her mom at
the event, which honoured women
who work in the music industry.
In like fashion, newcomer Carly
Rae Jepsen also thanked her mom —
and stepmom — when accepting the
rising star honour. The Call Me
Maybe singer said she’s happy and
surprised by her success.
“It was sort of the key to unlock-
ing the rest of the world for me and
was something that none of us were
expecting,” she said, in an interview,
of her viral hit.
British singer Cher Lloyd per-
formed Perry’s E.T. at the luncheon,
which also featured a performance
from rising country singer Hunter
Hayes.
Perry, who wore a fitted pink
dress, joked about recording a follow-
up to Teenage Dream.
“Have you heard it? I haven’t,” the
smiling singer said on the red car-
pet.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — After
months of high-profile fundraising
that drew celebrities’ attention and
dollars, a group of Native American
tribes has raised $9 million to buy a
piece of land in South Dakota’s Black
Hills that they consider sacred, an of-
ficial with an Indian land foundation
said Friday.
The Indian Land Tenure Founda-
tion president Cris Stainbrook told
The Associated Press that the tribes
raised enough money to purchase the
land from its current owners. The
foundation was one of several groups
and organizations leading the effort
to buy the land.
Stainbrook said the deal should be
finalized yet Friday, which was the
deadline for the tribes to raise the
money.
The land, known as Pe’ Sla, went
up for sale after being privately
owned. Members of the Great Sioux
Nation have been allowed to gather
there every year to perform rituals.
The site plays a key role in the tribes’
creation story, and members fear new
owners would develop it.
Landowners Leonard and Mar-
garet Reynolds cancelled a public
auction of the property earlier this
year after tribal members expressed
outrage. The Reynolds’ then accepted
the tribes’ bid to purchase the land
for $9 million, should they raise
enough money by Nov. 30.
The couple has repeatedly said
they will not speak publicly about the
land sale.
The fundraising effort drew sup-
port from several celebrities. P. Diddy
tweeted about as did Bette Midler,
who donated money to the cause.
Actor Ezra Miller, who appeared in
the recently released film The Perks
of Being a Wallflower, and music pro-
ducer Sol Guy flew to South Dakota
last month to film a nine-minute doc-
umentary-style video about the land
that was used as part of an online
campaign to raise funds.
“I think this represents a massive
shift for people standing up for what
they believe in and the people who
are originally from this land. We have
a lot to learn and we as a community
our stronger together. It’s super in-
spiring,” said Sol Guy, whose TV
show 4Real on MTV Canada and the
National Geographic Channel takes
celebrities to places like Peru and the
Amazon.
The fundraising effort has been a
monumental and controversial un-
dertaking for the Sioux tribes. An
1868 treaty set aside the Black Hills
and other land for the Sioux, but Con-
gress passed a law in 1877 seizing the
land following the discovery of gold
in western South Dakota.
A 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
awarded more than $100 million to
the Sioux tribes for the Black Hills,
but the tribes have refused to accept
the money, saying the land has never
been for sale. There are Sioux tribes
in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana,
Nebraska and Canada.
Some members of the Sioux tribes
didn’t agree with trying to purchase
the land. Bryan Brewer, president-
elect of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said
his tribe did not allocate any money
to the land purchase.
“I’m still against buying some-
thing we own, but I’m thrilled the
tribes’ are buying it. I’m very happy
about it,” he said.
Sioux tribes
raise $9M
to purchase
sacred land
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI — Grammy-winning
singer Chris Brown will not face
criminal charges for snatching a
woman’s cellphone when she tried to
snap a photo of him outside a Miami
Beach club, prosecutors said Friday.
A memo released Friday by Mia-
mi-Dade County State Attorney
Katherine Fernandez Rundle con-
cludes there is no evidence that
Brown intended to steal the phone in
February or that he deleted any pho-
tos. One or the other is necessary for
him to be charged with robbery or
theft.
Prosecutors said that Brown
tossed the phone from his limo and
that it was picked up by Devon
Blanche, head of security for rapper
Tyga, who had performed with
Brown at the Cameo club that night.
According to the memo, Blanche
tried to find out if someone had lost
the phone, ultimately took it with
him to Atlanta during the rapper’s
tour and said he intended to find its
owner.
A felony charge against Brown,
24, might have triggered a violation
of his probation for his 2009 assault
on singer Rihanna, who was his girl-
friend at the time. The two have re-
cently collaborated on a new duet,
Nobody’s Business, and have been
spotted out together in recent weeks.
Rundle said the investigation’s
findings would be forwarded to pro-
bation officials in Los Angeles for re-
view.
“We are grateful for the decision
and the thorough investigation,”
Brown’s attorney Mark Geragos said
in an email.
According to the memo, after
Brown and Tyga — real name
Michael Stevenson — finished their
performances, both got into separate
limos to head for their hotels. Wit-
nesses told prosecutors about 30 fe-
male fans gathered outside Brown’s
vehicle, at least one of whom
reached inside to take a photo.
Brown was accompanied by at least
two women in the limo.
Stevenson told prosecutors that
he saw Brown throw a white cell-
phone out of the limo. The phone’s
owner, Christal Spann, said Brown
used a derogatory term for women
and said “this will not run the web-
site” when he grabbed the phone.
Spann began beating on the limo’s
windows, according to the memo,
until someone in a front seat told her
the phone had been tossed out. She
could not find it, however.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Children’s enter-
tainer and advocate Raffi says he
was “shaken” and “angry” when he
heard about the death of Amanda
Todd, a British Columbia teen who
committed suicide in October follow-
ing years of Internet sexual ex-
ploitation and bullying by her peers,
and that’s why he co-founded the Red
Hood Project.
Billed as a movement to make so-
cial media safe for young users, the
project includes a website, a Face-
book and Twitter page, and a letter
the beloved Baby Beluga singer-
songwriter co-wrote and sent to
Facebook chief operating officer Sh-
eryl Sandberg on Nov. 14.
The letter, which includes Todd’s
mother’s signature, says that the 15-
year-old was blackmailed through
Facebook and urges the social media
company to correct “the security
failures that made such victimiza-
tion possible.”
“Of course education of parents
and young users is important, we
recognize that, but we think the
onus ought to be on those businesses
— social media companies who cre-
ate the risk in the first place — to do
all that they can,” Raffi Cavoukian,
who goes by just his first name on-
stage, said in a recent interview.
“The Red Hood Project comes
from Little Red Riding Hood. Our
young are alone in the cyber woods,
so to speak, vulnerable to the wolves
out there. The Red Hood Project says
the responsibility, social media com-
panies, is on you to fix the security
gap systemically.”
The founder of the non-profit
global awareness group Centre for
Child Honouring said he’s also writ-
ing a book about the perils of social
media for young children as he con-
tinues his recently launched beluga-
grads — Family Concert series,
which hits Toronto on Sunday and
Ottawa on Monday.
“What I say to people is: ’This is
not a phone — this is a car on the in-
formation super highway . . . and no-
body who’s not old enough to drive
should have one of these things,”’
Raffi, who published an autobiogra-
phy over a decade ago, said as he
held up his smartphone.
Proceeds from the shows — which
also include stops in Calgary and Ed-
monton in March — benefit Raffi’s
Centre for Child Honouring.
“I’ve been away from the concert
stage for 10 years, but now that I’m
making a comeback and the fans are
loving it, I think I could run for
prime minister. I think I’d really
have a shot at that,” the 64-year-old
said jokingly.
“No, I’m kidding. But I’m having a
wonderful time in the concerts. It’s
just great, and to know that I can do
it, I feel good — tall in the saddle.”
Raffi said he took a break from the
stage for so long in order to develop
his Child Honouring philosophy
through his centre on Salt Spring Is-
land, B.C., where he lives.
In recent years, he’s co-edited the
book Child Honouring: How To Turn
This World Around, released two
CDs for adults and recorded a couple
of new tunes, including On Hockey
Days and Letter to a Nation, which
was inspired by the late MP Jack
Layton’s parting letter to Canadians.
Last year Raffi also posted a video
entitled Raffi 4 Canada to YouTube
to encourage “Beluga grads” to vote
in the federal election.
“The Child Honouring message
has always been in the songs,” said
Raffi, whose other cherished tunes
include Bananaphone and Down by
the Bay.
“In concert I don’t get into Child
Honouring in terms of a message for
parents who are there. In concert,
we’re just having fun and singing.”
Respecting children is a principle
that has guided the Egyptian-born
musician’s entire career and is why
he rejected a request from the pro-
ducers of Shrek to turn his Baby
Beluga classic tune into an animated
film six years ago.
“We asked the producers of Shrek
two questions. One was, ‘Will you
market this film directly to young
children?’ and they said, ‘Yes, we
will.’ We said, ‘We don’t like that, it’s
unethical,”’ recalled the founder of
the record label Troubadour Music
Inc.
“The other question was, ’Will
you make a whole bunch of ancil-
lary products, cheap products most-
ly made of PVC materials and so on,
cheap plastics, toxic?’ And they said,
’Well, yeah. Products, merchandise,
that’s got to be part of the deal.’ We
said, ‘No, we don’t like that, not good
for the children, not good for ecolo-
gy.”’
“So we turned down a potentially
hugely profitable offer on principle,
and that’s what I’ve been doing
throughout my whole career. I just
do not take part in anything that ex-
ploits the innocence of the young,
I’ve never marketed directly to chil-
dren and I wouldn’t do so now.”
Billboard names
Katy Perry
woman
of the year
No charges
against Chris
Brown in Florida
Children’s singer launches safe media project
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. —
The Hollywood Foreign Press Asso-
ciation has named its newest Miss
Golden Globe.
Francesca Eastwood was intro-
duced as the 2013 honoree Thursday
at Cecconi’s restaurant in West Hol-
lywood. The 19-year-old is the daugh-
ter of Hollywood icon Clint East-
wood.
Miss Golden Globe is traditionally
the child of a celebrity who is invited
to help during the ceremony. Previ-
ous honorees include Rumer Willis,
Laura Dern, Melanie Griffith and
Joely Fisher.
Francesca Eastwood is an actress
who also stars with her stepmother,
Dina Eastwood, her half-sister, Mor-
gan Eastwood, and the South African
boy band Overtone in the E! reality
series Mrs. Eastwood and Company.
She’s currently enrolled at the Uni-
versity of Southern California.
Eastwood’s
daughter named
2012 Miss
Golden Globe
BY KRIS KETONEN
THE CHRONICLE-JOURNAL
For Ian Thornley, it’s all gravy
these days.
The Big Wreck frontman had no
expectations leading up to the re-
lease of Albatross, the first album to
bear the name “Big Wreck” in 10
years. None.
In hindsight, several months after
the Canadian release of Albatross,
some expectations would have been
reasonable. The album and its title
track earned fan-voted CASBY
awards this year (favourite new al-
bum and favourite new single) in ad-
dition to charting high: Albatross
the album peaked at number five on
the Canadian albums chart, while
the song Albatross — with its
classic Big Wreck tone — and
the second single, Wolves, hit
numbers one and four on the
Canadian rock charts, re-
spectively.
“It feels really, really great, what’s
going on now, personally and musi-
cally,” a candid and friendly Thorn-
ley said in a recent phone interview.
“It’s a really, really healthy environ-
ment, and feels like it’s what’s sup-
posed to be.
“I’m pretty happy with the way
things are right now.”
Thornley admitted he wishes he
knew what it was about the new al-
bum that’s appealing to fans. But he
suspects it all ties in to why the
band’s 1997 debut, In Loving Memo-
ry Of . . . , was itself such a big hit.
“Obviously, whatever’s appealing
to people now about this music is
probably the same thing (that ap-
pealed then),” he said. “And the only
similarity that I can draw about how
anything was done between the first
album and this last album is the fact
that there was no interference.
“There was no ‘well, you’ve gotta
be more like this,’” he said. “We just
sort of let the songs guide the ship.
“As blase as that sounds, it really
is the truth. . . . You just sort of let
the song dictate where it wants to go,
you don’t let some guy behind a desk
do it.”
That, too, is something Thornley
is familiar with. After the success of
Big Wreck’s debut — which included
such classics as The Oaf (My Luck is
Wasted), That Song and Blown Wide
Open — Thornley and Big Wreck
found themselves in a very different,
and tense, situation when they start-
ed working on the follow-up, The
Pleasure and the Greed.
“I can hear the tug-of-war in that
(album),” he said of The Pleasure
and the Greed. “I find it frustrating,
you know? Because there are some
great ideas, and there’s some great
music in there.”
The album was not a hit, and
it led to the breakup of the origi-
nal Big Wreck a year after its re-
lease. Thornley con-
tinued on with a
new band, called
Thornley. Two albums were re-
leased, 2004’s Come Again and 2009’s
Tiny Pictures.
The rest of the original Big Wreck
members went their own ways, too.
There was, Thornley hints, bad
blood.
But Thornley and Big Wreck gui-
tarist Brian Doherty would eventu-
ally rekindle their friendship, which
opened the door for the return of Big
Wreck.
“I had missed him,” Thornley
said frankly. “It was sort of a sore
spot, the way it was left between him
and I, because we were so tight and
then all of a sudden weren’t.
“It was not a ‘hey man, you wanna
come and do some gigs’ at all. We
were just hanging out backstage at a
(Thornley) show, and got an offer for
a show in Edmonton, but (guitarist
Paulo Neta) couldn’t make it; he was
going to be in Portugal.
“So Paulo suggested ‘why don’t
you ask Brian to do it?’ And Brian’s
like ‘ah, okay.’ So he came and played
the Thornley show, and it felt
wicked, so it was like ‘well, why
don’t we do a tour of Thornley mu-
sic and Big Wreck music?’”
Originally, they planned on split-
ting performing duties along band
lines — the Thornley members
would play Thornley songs, and Do-
herty would step in for the Big
Wreck segment. But it became evi-
dent during rehearsals, Thornley
said, that approach didn’t make
sense.
“What made sense was all five of
us playing at the same time, because
it was just so massive and wonderful
sounding,” he said. “It just, in my
mind, became a whole new band, a
whole new thing.
“When we went into the studio
(for Albatross), I didn’t know what
we were going to call it. I didn’t real-
ly want to think about it, because I’m
horrible with band names. But I
think (producers Nick Raskulinecz
Eric Ratz) were the ones who were
really, really gunning for it, they re-
ally wanted to call it a Big Wreck al-
bum.”
It didn’t sit right with Thornley
himself at first, however, given that
Dave Henning and Forrest Williams
— the other two members of the
original Big Wreck — weren’t in-
volved. As recording progressed,
however, Thornley got used to it, and
now, the new Big Wreck feels, he
said, “like its own thing,” something
different despite the name.
But what about Williams and Hen-
ning?
“I talk to Dave every now and
then, but not so much Forrest,”
Thornley admitted. “I don’t know
how they feel about the record, or if
they dig it or if they think it sounds
like (expletive deleted). I don’t
know.”
Big Wreck plays the Thunder Bay
Community Auditorium on Wednes-
day night along with Theory of a
Deadman.
New and improved
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Big Wreck plays at Thunder Bay Community Auditorium on Wednesday with special guest Theory of a
Deadman.
N
E
W
S
www.bigwreckmusic.com
Big Wreck returns with new members, album