How do you accurately describe what growing up in the '90s was like to someone who only knows it from the stereotypes? They know the fashion crimes, the top 40 music, and the pop icons, but they don't know all the little things. The one-hit wonders, the things that were popular for only a second and didn't get added to the caricature of the time. Those things are for the true survivors, the people who absorbed every inch of this decade.
There is one place that dictated so much of these little things. It was the captain of pop culture, the leader of our musical cult, and for Canadians, our window into the mainstream
MuchMusic was our answer to MTV, but it hit different. It had less structure - the VJ's would do their segments just walking around the studio, people working on computers behind them, pedestrians on the street walking by. There was a booth on the north side of the building on Queen St and John called "Speakers Corner" where anyone could go in and just spew their thoughts into a camera.
Most of the time the videos were just a melange of current hits and old deep cuts, and whatever the VJ wanted to play, but there were genre specific segments too like The Wedge (Indie and Alternative), RapCity (self explanatory), Electric Circus (dance and electronic), and Power Hour (Rock and Metal) hosted by different VJ's according to their musical predilections. There were the weekly staple shows like MuchOnDemand a video request show, and Countdown which showcased the top 30 music videos every week. And then there were the once a year shows: Fromage where Ed the Sock read to filth all the top music videos of the year on New Years Day, and Snow Job - a winter music festival weekend, broadcast from a different ski resort every Spring Break. I think one year they tried to go somewhere hot but I think that was just an excuse to use the name Sand Job instead.
Canadian teenagers consumed MuchMusic as an essential ingredient to life. Every single high school dance you hoped would finally be a "Much Video Dance" party where they'd set up screens and show the music videos of the songs being played. But if you lived in British Columbia, the "nation's music station" was all the way across the country in Toronto.
Any time an artist would tour in Canada, it was often exclusively in Toronto, sometimes Montreal, if you were really lucky they might come to Vancouver, but when you live in the middle of the mountains, these things seemed about as far away as Jupiter.
I wanted to be one of those people just standing around outside the Much building while some famous musician stopped by for a surprise set. I wanted to be where the magic was happening real time, I wanted to spew my thoughts into the Speakers Corner booth - I wanted so desperately to fit into that world.
Queen St W and John St
And then were the VJ's.
Bill Welychka, Ed the Sock, Juliette Powell, Master T, Nardwuar, Rick the Temp, Sook-Yin Lee, Terry David Mulligan
These were more than just video jockeys - they were on-air personalities that you could relate to based on their music tastes, and everyone had their favourite. Bill and Rick were my evergreens, but I loved how weird Sook-Yin could be, and nothing beats an interview with "Nardwuar the Human Serviette," even to this day. My love for the VJ's almost paralleled my love for any musical artists; the way they talked made me feel like for the first time I was being included in a conversation, even if only peripherally. I knew I was a teenage nerd person who felt awkward in most social situations - there would be no way, even if logistically I could be in their sphere, that anything even remotely close to normalcy would emerge from my mouth.
I think I had kind of resigned myself to accept that MuchMusic happened elsewhere. Toronto was this place I'd never go, these were people I would never meet, and I should be happy just to observe and take in the culture where I could.
And then...
It was March 1998 and I was going with my best friend Sarah and her family to the Sun Peaks Ski Resort outside Kamloops for Spring Break in a few weeks. I was doing what I always did after school - I was watching Much when an advertisement for this year's Snow Job event paraded across my television screen.
It was the bit at the end that made me lose my mind - this year's location was Sun Peaks Resort in Kamloops.
If you ever wanted a snapshot of what 1998 was like musically in Canada, this might be it.
My stomach dropped into the core of the Earth - the idea that something Much related was going to be in my vicinity felt like the biggest lie I'd ever heard. And when I called Sarah to share my absolute mental breakdown over this news, she'd informed me that her Dad had already got us tickets.
I am unsure how I didn't pass away on the spot.
I think this is a trend that has followed me my whole life: the idea that people and things in movies or on TV, or musicians were inaccessible to me. I've mentioned that my hometown was remote - 7 hours from the capital city of BC and nestled in the Monashee mountains, it was easy to feel like you lived in another universe because everything just felt so far from your reality. Even when I actually moved to the bigger cities as an adult, I was too poor to be able to go to all of the many events I'd see advertised.
But I don't think I'd trade this wonder I felt as a kid, (or even now,) when I get to be apart of something I never thought I'd have access to. This would be the first time I felt the magic of a collective experience exclusive to those that were there in person, and the feeling has been the same every time after.
It's a six hour drive to Kamloops from Rossland, and the whole way there we listened to the CD's of the bands we'd be seeing. When we finally arrived at the mountain, it was dark and the "condo" Sarah's parents had rented turned out to be a whole damn house, complete with, to our unending delight, stereo volume to the sound system in every room. We spent a solid twenty minutes just running around the house like maniacs and feeling fancy as hell.
The next day, we went and got fitted for our skis and planned to hit the slopes for the daylight hours. We were heartbroken to find out that both Big Wreck and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones had already played up the mountain the Wednesday and Thursday before we arrived, but were endlessly excited to see the giant stage being erected in front of the lodge at the base of the hill.
All of my photos were taken on a disposable camera, a.k.a. a potato
We finally got on the chairlift to ski a bit before lunch and tried very hard not to be too judgemental of how easy we were finding all of the runs. Red Mountain is an extreme ski hill in comparison to Sun Peaks, but it was also severely less developed so we still had fun taking in all the differences.
Around lunchtime when we went back down the hill for some food, we noticed a lot more activity around the stage and that Terry David Mulligan, the VJ that hosted Much West was interviewing Holly McNarland - an alternative artist who wrote the song "Elmo" that Sarah and our friend Dayna had performed at the Air Band competition that year.
Are you...are you sure you can't tell who that is? Is it because of the potato picture?
We sat at a table next to the windows overlooking the stage and watched everyone working on it. We were already so excited to be seeing the spectacle of all the musical mechanics being assembled like an erector set, but when we finished eating and went outside to return to skiing, we were wholly unprepared to be confronted with the magical MusicMusic Unicorn:
Rick the fucking Temp.
Standing in his snow boarding boots in front of the lodge with Juliette Powell who hosted Electric Circus and Terry David Mulligan who must have finished up his interview with Holly shortly before, were right there in front of us as we exited the lodge.
I became mute. I couldn't possibly be expected to behave normally when one of my favourite VJ's was just EXISTING in front of me.
Fortunately, Sarah's dad Peter had no qualms stepping in and asking if we could get a picture. I don't even care that it was supremely uncool, there was no chance that I would have been able to muster up the chutzpah to breathe in his general direction, let alone form the mouth shapes to create words.
I have never felt more like an alien inhabiting the body of a teenage girl than when I tried to act normal for this photo.
The rest of the day passed in a blur, and we almost decided to just retire to the condo and regroup for the night when we noticed a sign posted in the lobby of the lodge:
Much Music Video Dance Party - Bento's Day Lodge, Friday.
Our time had come. Finally! Finally, we'd get to experience the elusive Video Dance Party that made us feel like all of our school dances, held in the aging auditorium of our rinky-dink little high school - sans video screens - were nothing more than the lamest gatherings of lame people dancing lame moves to songs we couldn't even see.
What if the VJ's were there again? What if the bands were there? My deluded little teenage brain started going through all the possibilities and felt compelled to wear my coolest outfit - a black racer stripe v-neck tee with a black and white Curious George on the front, wide leg jeans, several leather cord necklaces cascading down my neck, centre-parted straight hair and a nervous smile. I had to dress cool, do my hair cool, think cool, be cool. Something you can absolutely manufacture overnight.
Sarah and walked through the doors, and whatever hopes I had for developing social skills in the few hours we were gone were dashed almost instantly. There weren't a ton of people there, and it felt like something was missing, like this wasn't the real party. Which, lets face it, this absolutely wasn't the real party. This was the kids table party, which I realized as we sort of stiffly meandered through the room and noticed that it was filled almost exclusively with other awkward teenagers.
I felt a little bit put out, like somewhere out there a magical musical night of hobnobbing with famous musicians was just out of reach because, what? I was a 14-year old child? Whatever.
But not all hope was lost.
Suddenly, Rick and Juliette were there again, and they were signing posters. We got in line immediately and while we waited, I tried to content myself that this was enough - you don't need to be best friends with famous people to appreciate what they do and marvel that you're there experiencing it first hand. Right?
I think these were from the previous weekend and they had extras or something
I actually had to form words this time, when it was my turn and he asked me my name. I think I whispered it at first because he had to lean closer and ask me to repeat myself.
Did the lingering effects of my parasocial brain think that we were going to become best friends after I magically developed conversational game out nowhere? Maybe. Was I still proud that I managed to sort myself out enough to articulate the syllables of my name coherently enough for him to sign my autograph properly? A resounding yes.
We didn't stay too much longer after we got our autographs - I think we recognized that we weren't comfortable in the social situation and we had a whole day of skiing tomorrow before the final concert.
The next day, we noticed the small changes to the stage area every time we went to get on the lift for another run.
Fencing now sectioned off the area in front of the stage, where I assumed the crowd would be corralled. On one such pass by the stage when we were heading to queue up for the lift again, we noticed someone doing soundcheck.
I'm pretty sure this is Chumbawamba, if my memory serves me. Lord knows the potato picture sure isn't.
The rest of the day was a blur; the stage area becoming more and more sectioned off the later it got. We thought we should head back, change, and eat something before heading back to the stage. Getting a good spot was imperative and we'd already started to see people milling about when we got back from the last run.
By the time we returned that night, there were already a ton of people crammed against the barricades and the closest we could possibly get was about 30 feet back. We would slowly get closer throughout the night as the taller people ahead of us took mercy on my vertically challenged friend and let us in front of them.
First on the ballot was Holly McNarland, who we'd seen being interviewed earlier. I think her vibe was initially a little low key, some acoustic ballads etc, and people were really itching to rage and, frankly, stay warm. Once "Numb" and "Elmo" closed our her set, we were all jumping and singing along.
YouTube doesn't have all the performances available, but Holly's whole set is.
The thing they don't tell you about music festivals, is there's about 30 minutes between sets where there is NOTHING happening. You're just standing there in the snow, toes freezing, hopping around to keep the circulation going and it's quite easy to fall into irritability, especially when the next act didn't even have instruments!
I was sort of ambivalent about All Saints - my sister had their CD but it wasn't really my jam. They sang well, even though they looked quite frozen in the low temps.
This is the music video for their seminal hit "Never Ever", famously known for having a spoken word intro that lasts over a minute:
Now we get to the good stuff. Chumbawamba was the group Sarah and I were most excited for. Neither her or I were R&B fans so she joined me in my All Saints ambivalence, and lets face it, LL Cool J's demographic definitely wasn't young white Canadian girls, so while we appreciated several of his songs, he wasn't the one for us. Holly McNarland was maybe our favourite performer, but she's since she's Canadian, there was something less exotic about her in our minds.
Chumbawamba was of the moment. "Tubthumping" was one of those songs that was played constantly and was simultaneously a party anthem and a dance song and a sing-along.
They were also not very happy about being here apparently.
At the time, Sarah and I were sort of confused why the lead singer seemed so angry. As far as I could tell someone threw a bottle on stage and it had either hit him or he'd taken offence that it had been thrown, but all of a sudden he's popped this mickey on the end of his middle finger and is flipping the crowd the bird.
I've since heard that earlier in the day or week, someone in the band had made some kind of disparaging comment about Kamloops during an interview and the locals weren't happy about it. Enter the bottle and enter the bad vibes. Sarah and I could feel the tension from within our little 14-year-old pocket, trying to see over the shoulders of angry men and hoping nothing would escalate further.
There was one point I remember the crowd sort of calming and it was during "Anti-Nazi Song" - I think at that point the crowd realized that maybe this wasn't just some pop band singing about nonsense and drinking, they had something real to say too.
At this point in the night, our toes were so cold, poor Sarah's nose was bright red, we couldn't see over most of the people in front of us, and we were just trying to make it through the final dead space between acts. I seem to remember this dead zone of time taking longer than all the rest, but I'm not sure if that's just my frozen recollection of our discomfort, or if it was some kind of diva rapper behaviour, but finally LL stepped on stage with a hoarde of scantily clad dancers and began his set.
It was a very good performance, however all I could think of was that I hoped the dancers were going to be okay in the negative temperatures. I also remember thinking - he's out there in a red puffy jacket, all toasty warm, and these girls are freezing their buns off to bump and grind behind you? OOF.
I think that a large portion of the crowed (a.k.a. the bros) were most excited for LL. Sarah and I started getting jostled around and we could start to feel like the space around us was growing smaller and smaller. We eventually decided that the directive Mama gave to Knock Us Out was a little too real and we inched our way backwards out of the crush of people.
As we walked back across the frozen field to the condo, I couldn't help feeling like the whole experience simultaneously didn't feel real, but also felt like something completely normal. The notion that these were just people, whether it's you or me, be it VJ, or musician, or backup dancer - we're all just people.
Logically, I know this, but I don't think I've ever learned to master the concept. To this day, I para-socially place famous people on pedestals of admiration - usually it's because their personality has shone through in an interview or in the crowd banter of a concert - I think it's fine that I do this as long as I recognize it for what it is. Just fun.
As long as I don't let it take over my person and the dopamine hit I get from hyper-focusing on a famous person doesn't morph into a delusion that we are actually real friends.
I had these fantasy thoughts as a teenager, but in a harmless, lets write fan fiction about it after school kind of way. As an adult, I recognize that it's just a means to focus my energy on something.
Pop culture feeds my emotions and nourishes my soul - this includes music, actors, movies, songs, people, etc. It may seem like a shallow avenue to admire, but my study of pop culture has given me so much context to what was going on around me that I will be forever grateful that I found it.
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