1008 - MuchMusic: the early years, plus Bowie and Peter Gabriel, on music videos.

2024 marked the 40th anniversary of MuchMusic – which, for our non-Canadian listeners, was essentially Canada’s version of MTV.  And while MTV had a profound impact on the music industry, MuchMusic arguably had a massive impact on Canadian culture.

          So, we’re going to spend a bit of time talking about MuchMusic – and since Christopher is the original Much veejay, it’s kind of a no brainer. 

          In fact, most of Tom’s “in-depth” research for this episode came from Christopher’s excellent book, “Is This Live: Inside The Wild Early Years of MuchMusic, The Nation’s Music Station”.  So in other words, Christopher did ALL of the heavy lifting for this episode!

 

 To help us tell the Much story is one of our favourite people – and a MuchMusic veejay from the early years – Laurie Brown!  Laurie explains about the freedom accorded to her and the other veejays in creating compelling content (while staying within the confines of a miniscule budget) and the camaraderie of the Much family.

 

Other highlights:

-        Laurie talks about interviewing music legends like David Bowie

-        Christopher tells a story about an unknown big-haired band that made their first Canadian TV appearance on his show City Limits.  That band was Bon Jovi.

-        Audio from Duran Duran, who couldn’t believe their luck as they flew to exotic locations to film the videos for the Rio album. 

-        We’ll talk to one British band that looked back on some of the early videos… and cringed!

-        Laurie and Christopher discuss dealing with the absolute mayhem of the legendary and chaotic “Intimate & Interactive” interviews.

-        Peter Gabriel and David Bowie, who themselves released game-changing videos, discuss the promise of music videos as an art form.

-        Former MUCH veejay Bill Welychka talks about the responsibility and pressure of interviewing major artists – especially to the fans of those artists.

-        Christopher & Laurie explain why they had to stop playing the most popular video on the station.

-        We discuss how MUCH provided the connective tissue between Canadians, their culture, and the musicians that benefitted from exposure on MuchMusic.

All in all, it’s a MUCH-needed deep dive into the early days of The Nation’s Music Station!

 

Famous Lost Words, hosted by Christopher Ward and Tom Jokic, is heard in more than 100 countries worldwide and on radio stations across Canada, including Newstalk 1010 Toronto, CJAD 800 Montreal, 580 CFRA Ottawa, AM 800 CKLW Windsor, 610 CKTB St Catharines, CFAX Victoria, AM1150 Kelowna and 91x in Belleville.  It is in the Top 20% of worldwide podcasts based on the number of listeners in the first week.