TORONTO –
Whereas the occasion died years in the past at MuchMusic’s broadcast centre on the nook of Queen and John streets in Toronto, the screening of a brand new documentary on Friday proved nostalgia for the nation’s music station continues to be very a lot alive.
Hundreds of individuals filed into Roy Thomson Corridor, just a few blocks away from A lot’s former headquarters, to catch the Canadian premiere of “299 Queen Road West,” a feature-length have a look at the legacy of the TV channel.
Becoming a member of the group have been a few of A lot’s most well-known video jockeys, higher often called VJs, together with Rick Campanelli, Erica Ehm, Sook-Yin Lee and “Electrical Circus” host Monika Deol.
A lot of them have been surprised by the keenness round their reunion.
“That is surreal,” stated Campanelli, identified to viewers as “Rick the Temp,” from the crimson carpet as he surveyed the group exterior the venue.
“I did not count on it to be like this — however at the back of my thoughts, I kind of hoped,” he added.
Invoice Welychka, who labored as a VJ on the station all through a lot of the Nineteen Nineties, discovered himself confused as he mirrored on his former job.
“I had no thought the fascination with A lot was nonetheless there in any case these years,” he admitted.
Filmmaker Sean Menard was much less shocked than the VJs on the thundering reception. The Hamilton native spent about six years making “299 Queen Road West” and mortgaged his home to afford the time to dig by way of the archives.
He is assured the keenness felt for A lot at Toronto’s screening shall be replicated throughout the nation when he takes the film on a national roadshow subsequent month.
The MuchMusic Expertise Tour pairs a screening of the film with a dialog between Menard and choose VJs, who will take questions from the viewers and share recollections.
The MuchMusic tour crosses the nation with 12 stops that embody Montreal (Oct. 17), Halifax (Oct. 25), Calgary (Nov. 1), Vancouver (Nov. 24) and Winnipeg (Nov. 27).
Packed to the brim with archival footage, the two-hour documentary retraces MuchMusic’s origin story, beginning round its inception on Aug. 31, 1984.
MuchMusic launched as an unpolished 24-hour music video channel created by Toronto media visionary Moses Znaimer and a staff of inexperienced however inventive younger individuals.
Former MuchMusic VJs Invoice Welychka, left to proper, Denise Donlon, Sook-Yin Lee, Rick Campanelli, Erica Ehm, Steve Anthony and Former MuchMusic program supervisor David Kines pose for {a photograph} on the crimson carpet for the documentary “299 Queen Road West” in Toronto, on Friday, September 22, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin
Three years after MTV launched in the USA, the idea of a music video station was not new, but the feel and appear of Canada’s model was a lot completely different, partly as a result of there was no rule ebook.
“We have been children within the trunk of the automobile stepping into the drive-in, that is the way it sort of felt,” recalled former VJ Steve Anthony exterior the premiere.
The documentary collects the VJ’s recollections and presents them completely in voiceover because the origin story of MuchMusic performs out by way of footage of the period.
Michael Williams remembers his transfer from Cleveland to Canada the place his do-it-all mindset finally led to the creation of the “Rap Metropolis” program, whereas Erica Ehm retells how she was upgraded from a receptionist to a TV character with no expertise.
“They gave me the chance to sink or swim and I definitely sank at the start however they did not kick me out,” she says within the movie.
“299 Queen Road West” makes pit stops at a few of MuchMusic’s most revolutionary concepts, from the annual Christmas tree toss to “Fight des Clips,” the 1-900 viewer-voted music video present.
It additionally captures a number of the channel’s largest moments, together with when the realm across the street-level studio was shut right down to accommodate rabid followers of the Backstreet Boys for the boy band’s look on “Intimate & Interactive.”
“Electrical Circus,” an in-studio stay dance membership program, is introduced as a responsible pleasure that Canadians could not deny.
“No person wished to confess they watched it,” says host Monika Deol within the documentary.
“And I used to be like, if no one is watching this present, how does all people know who I’m?”
In a stay panel dialog after the Toronto premiere, Deol returned to defending “Electrical Circus,” which was usually ridiculed on the time. She credited the dancers for being the lifeblood of this system.
Denise Donlon, who climbed the ranks from VJ to basic supervisor at MuchMusic, advised of a memorable encounter with David Bowie at one version of the MuchMusic Video Awards.
“I heard him say, ‘This place is chaos,”‘ she stated in a pretend British accent. “‘It appears to be run by kids.”‘
Whereas the documentary is a fulsome account of MuchMusic’s historical past, some matters are disregarded, together with the channel’s oft-forgotten affect exterior of Canada.
There is not any point out of how the “MuchOnDemand” program, pushed by viewers’ music video requests, helped encourage MTV’s “Complete Request Stay” or the A lot channel’s mid-Nineteen Nineties iteration south of the border known as MuchMusic USA.
Sook-Yin Lee stated though time has handed, she believes MuchMusic’s affect continues to exist within the metropolis.
Not too long ago, she walked by the previous headquarters — now dwelling to Bell Media’s places of work — and noticed a couple of “wayward younger individuals” snapping images towards the constructing’s facade.
“That nook could be very completely different now: it is far more company; it’s extremely a lot the antithesis of stay rock ‘n’ roll … (however) there nonetheless resides a little bit little bit of power.”
“That spirit of MuchMusic,” she added. “It does not ever go away.”
“299 Queen Road West” will premiere on Bell Media’s Crave streaming service in December.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Sept. 23, 2023.
