Much Music Celebrates Its 30th

MuchMusic celebrated its 30th anniversary on 31 August 2014. The music video television network launched the same day in 1984 when Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” was the #1 song in Canada. Prior to Much, a number of established networks began regular MV segments. Local TV in Metro Vancouver had Soundproof and the CBC had Good Rockin’ Tonight with Terry David Mulligan (who later joined Much as a VJ). The channel has helped catapult a number of new recording artists to stardom over the years. Through MuchFACT, MuchMusic funds the creation of new Canadian music videos and produces the popular various artist compilation album series Big Shiny Tunes and MuchDance. The channel has also developed the internationally renowned MMVAs or MuchMusic Video Awards. Much was licensed by the CRTC to CHUM when it debuted. A few years ago it was acquired by Bell Media.

Much celebrated its 30th birthday with a number of special features showing footage from the past, and counting down its picks for “The 100 Greatest Videos Ever”. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was named #1. Many former MuchMusic VJs are now broadcasters for the CBC. These include Sook-Yin Lee, Laurie Brown, and George Stroumboulopoulos. J.D. Roberts is a correspondent for Fox News. Below is a brief 1984 interview with Corey Hart on MuchMusic sending a message as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.

2014 MMVAs Go Down As Shindig of the Year

In honour of the passing of one of the sweetest broadcast personalities of all-time, Casey Kasem, Fathers’ Day 2014 saw a batch of rising stars, augmented with some veterans, showcase their talents to the world thanks to the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto. It was the outdoor spectacle’s 25th anniversary. The ides of June brought thousands of screaming, cell phone raising music fans together in Canada’s most populous city with homegrown heroes and international guest superstars performing on state-of-the-art outdoor stages backed by flashy displays of colourful lights. It was a classy affair free from boos, foul language, and wardrobe malfunctions (whether intentional or not).

The Red Carpet Arrivals

The MMVAs known for their outrageous red carpet arrivals had a few doozies this year. British superstar Ed Sheeran arrived in a fast food truck and even served some fries (er chips) to the crowd. Virginia to Vegas and Alyssa Reid rode motorcycles onto the strip. The members of Marianas Trench were in a bed surrounded by a bevy of beauties engaged in a pillow fight; feathers flew every which way. In keeping with the title of her newly released album, Accelerate, Victoria Duffield’s vehicle of choice was a sports car while Down With Webster’s was a Mack truck. English footballer Jermain Defoe showed up in a double decker bus.

The Main Show

West Coasters Hedley opened the two-hour show complete with a vocorder followed by English superstar soloist Ed Sheeran. Co-hosts the Jenner sisters, after poking fun at themselves for a former teleprompter malfunction at the Billboard Music Awards, presented the award of International Video of the Year (Soloist) to New Zealand’s Lorde for her mega-smash “Royals”. Joking on stage together were dance music princess Victoria Duffield and jazz-pop wonder Nikki Yanofsky. Hollywood actress (and musician) Jena Malone passed some doughnuts out to the crowd and introduced Toronto band MAGIC! who performed hit “Rude” which incidentally has just topped the iTunes USA chart.

Canadian actress Laura Vandervoort gave out the award for International Video of the Year (Group) to Imagine Dragons for “Demons”. Incidentally, the American band became big in Canada before anywhere else, and the band thanked the whole country for embracing them. It was band member Wayne’s (a.k.a. “Wing”) birthday and the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Mia Martina and SonReal exchanged some comedy and then model/actor Kellan Lutz introduced Calgary’s Kiesza who recently topped the British charts with “Hideaway”. This was her debut Canadian televised performance, and she nailed it with a squadron of dancers … and a taxi too.

Down With Webster presented the award for Best Rock/Alternative Video which went to The Sam Roberts Band for “Shapeshifters”. More comic relief was provided by Fefe Dobson and Arkells. Habs star player P.K. Subban revealed the P.K. stands for Party Killer and gave the award for Best Pop Video to Hedley for “Anything”. New Zealand teen superstar Lorde gave a killer performance of two of her songs which involved a lamp.

The Weeknd introduced an excellent performance by Montreal’s The Sam Roberts Band.

Serena Ryder announced the winner of Your Fave International Artist or Group Award which went to Selena Gomez who appeared in a pre-recorded video of thanks. Members of Marianas Trench introduced the performance by Virginia to Vegas and Alyssa Reid who banged a drum together for some extra zest.

Teen actress Kiernan Shipka handed the Your Fave Video Award to Hedley. Colton Haynes introduced Imagine Dragons who performed two of its hits.

Your Fave Artist/Group Award winner was announced by movie star Chloë Grace Moretz; it went to Justin Bieber. Ed Sheeran revealed the grand prize winner – the Music Video of the Year award went to Hedley for “Anything”. Capping off the evening was a tour de force performance of “Problem” by new sensation Ariana Grande.

If you missed the 2014 MMVAs, the show can be seen both inside and outside of Canada for free online at:

http://mmva.muchmusic.com/live.

You can also see more pictures of the show at:

http://mmva.muchmusic.com/category/pictures.

The Big Jingle 2012

Jingle Balls have been popular in the United States.  These are concerts held in various cities during the holiday season hosted by radio stations with performances by lineups of major stars.  This year, MuchMusic is hosting one in Toronto called The Big Jingle.  The concert will take place at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on December 2 and will be broadcast on the network on December 12.  The concert will include performances by the following artists:

Quebec’s Simple Plan

British Columbia’s Carly Rae Jepsen

Ontario’s Shawn Desman

The United States’ Austin Mahone

The United States’ Bridgit Mendler

The United States’ Sky Blu (of LMFAO)

Australia’s Cody Simpson

The United Kingdom’s The Wanted

More info on the concert can be found at MuchMusic’s WEBSITE.

Blast from the Past: Soundproof

Before MTV, MuchMusic, and Good Rockin’ Tonite, local TV cable channel Shaw in North Vancouver launched a weekly show called Soundproof. It was pioneered by music writer Tom Harrison (Georgia Straight) and hosted by two Canadian hosers Dave Toddington and Buzz E. Miller (real name Martyn Stubbs). Dave was the serious “Bert” character who was very knowledgeable about music and recording artists in the days before the internet, while Buzz was the “Ernie” who offered comic relief. Occasionally, Tom came on the show as did local TV personality Terry David Mulligan.

The show began as a platform to help promote local artists who would perform live in the studio. This became unfeasible to set up every week, so the show began to air music videos which were becoming more common. In keeping with the show’s vision, videos were played of non-mainstream artists (what we would call “indie” or “alternative” in today’s musical jargon). Not only were local artists featured, but national and international artists as well. In the early 1980s there was a huge “underground” music scene. Many people were into artists that were not getting played on the radio. So Soundproof offered those into alternative styles of music a way of discovering new bands and artists. Examples of some of the artists they played: Modern English, Echo and the Bunnymen, Moev, Gary Numan, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Images in Vogue, Ultravox, Tears for Fears (before they became famous), and D.O.A.

They also did album reviews (scale of 0 to 10) which were often quite comical. I remember Tom giving a punk album a 0. The following week he said that another punk album was even worse than the one last week, so he gave it a “negative zero”. Below is a video of Tom Harrison talking about the show with some clips. Even though it was simply a local North Vancouver show that played indie music videos, many of the techniques they used influenced other widespread, mainstream music video shows like MuchMusic. It was a very cool little show and those of us who grew up with it remember it fondly. Thanks guys!