MMVA set up, Queen St., Toronto, ON, June 2009

Do people do throwback Thursday on Tumblr?

In honour of Now declaring MuchMusic dead, here are some photos of the set up for the Much Music Video Awards that I took back in 2009.

I hope Much Music can resurrect itself. I do believe it has a place showing Canada back to itself, and for every jaded journalist who thinks protectionism is a sign of weakness and CanCon should be burned at the stake, I’ve got the memory of a little Canadian tween who moved to the U.S. at eleven and would watch MuchOnDemand religiously to feel at home. I always hoped one day I’d be a VJ and get to walk around the Chum building like Strombo and Amanda Walsh and finally find out whose hand was up Ed the Sock’s ass. I think there’s a misconception that Canadians want to be Americans, particularly Torontonians and particularly with our media. TRL was more glamorous, but I always wanted to be on a street corner with Rainbow Sun because to me it always felt weightier, more real, more of who I was. We were always a little bootleg, but we swore more and had better videos and everyone seemed like they were having more fun.

So here’s to you not dying Much Music. I hope you re-find your voice, dig yourself out of the grave with some Canadian know-how, and inspire another generation to know it’s okay to embrace who you are, even if you don’t have the prettiest face or the best production values.

The Reason I love George Stroumboulopoulos

I was watching Jay Leno the other night and it really made me realize just how good George Stroumboulopoulos is at his job. Granted, Jay Leno will never be known as a good interviewer, nor does he host the same kind of program, but he couldn’t even keep up with Megan Fox. She says something about how she started modeling when she was fourteen or fifteen, and Leno’s next question is “so when did you start modeling?” Sweet Jesus Leno, what are they paying you for? Can you at least stay present? After that incident, all I notice is how detached every other interviewer is. I used to hate the set of The Hour and how Strombo would always lean towards his guest to the point where when they cut to the guest’s response, the corner of his head would be in the frame. I found it gimmicky, like they were visually saying look at what an effort Strombo is making to connect with his guest, but now it doesn’t seem so irritating, because weird posture or not, at least he’s ENGAGED. He is PAYING ATTENTION and asking RELEVANT QUESTIONS. Granted the testament to his skill is how easy he makes it look, but shouldn’t those two things be the bare minimum for someone who gets paid to interview someone else?

The problem is no one’s allowed to have opinions anymore. The media is just one big circle jerk, the shows need celebrities, and the celebrities need the shows, but they aren’t going to go on the shows if they aren’t going to come out looking good. So no one is allowed to ask anything but the most benign questions, because God forbid someone who is being payed millions of dollars to do something, have to justify why they’re there and someone else is not.

Obviously celebrities/politicians/whatever and the press have conflicting objectives, but that’s just the nature of things. I remember watching an episode of Disband where they school Dean Lickyer (I think) on the media, telling them the success of the interview is based on how many times they can drop their album release date in the span of five minutes. The same thing happens at the White House, the press corps literally has a meeting every morning and defines the key issue of the day, then tries to push that issue as hard as physically possible while avoiding the others. The difference is the news media will pry as hard as they can, while Sarah Taylor just stands there in leggings.

Its a damn shame, because the whole reason I used to watch Much over MTV (US) and television in general, is because I wanted to know other peoples opinions. I liked certain hosts and liked hearing what they had to say, even if I didn’t always agree with them. I mean even if George Stroumboulopoulos wasn’t explicitly bashing Good Charlotte, you knew he had an opinion. Today with music journalism you might as well just subscribe to an RSS feed and be done with it, because everything is just the same sanitized press release.

I fucking hate Gene Simmons

Man I should have liveblogged this episode of Disband haha. It would have been so epic, a perfect demonstration of the phenomena where something is so fail it becomes win.

Seeing the Universal offices made me want to shit my pants with glee. Its like looking into a secret world that I want to be in.

My only complaint was WHY THE FUCK WAS GENE SIMMONS THERE. Does he have some secret fabulous A&R career that I was unaware of? Was MuchMusic trying to add a little extra star power? Honestly, if you were a musician would you really want Gene Simmons’ name attached to you? Its not like its in his KISS heyday where he was banging a ton of pussy everynight and on coke. He’s a washed up reality star with the face of Flabber from Big Bad Beetle Borgs.

Every time I see him I just think of the episode of Family Jewels where he and his wife get couples plastic surgery and when they come home their kids start crying at the sight of them.

More importantly, Stereos target-audience has zero KISS reference point. Teenage girls do not give a shit about KISS. This is a fact. The only people under 25 who care about KISS are teenage boys in their “I’m not listening to any band formed before 1975” phase (I swear to God they all have it.)

Just Like CNN

OH LORD, HAS THE 27TH COME SO QUICKLY. THE SEASON FINALE OF DISBAND IS TONIGHT. MUCH HAS GOT ANOTHER TICKER. WHAT IS WITH ALL THE TICKERS.

Me and Teddy Ruxpin, Stirring Up a Ruckus

Maybe its just his persona but Asher Roth seemed kind of high on Much On Demand. You know, wandering around and not wearing shoes and all.

They really downplay his gingerness. That kid’s got some ginger in him. I wonder if they used special lighting in the “I Love College” video, because he was looking pretty strawberry today.

Anyways, this is why I love living in Toronto. Everything is here. I can watch Asher Roth on Much and know he’s like, twenty minutes away. I could have walked over there and saw him for myself if I wanted, but instead I settled for running into Geoff on my way to Tim Horton’s.

The cashier complimented my shirt.

margotsmokes drinking a tim horton's iced cap