Fuzzy Canada

Matthew Good Band - Load Me Up

I really owe a lot of my musical education to Canada, when I think back on it. Back in the later years of high school, we didn't have cable and my internet was exceedingly poor dial-up. Often, I'd stay up late on sunday nights to listen to the "new music" shows on the two local radio stations... which was pretty much the only place I knew I'd hear bands that weren't getting played every hour of the day. But then one day, after getting home from a new year's party, I found myself idly flipping through the UHF band channels on the TV... home shopping... infomercials... canadian music channel... indeterminate static...

Wait. What was that last one?

It was January 1st, 2000 when local public-service station WNVT started carrying MuchMusic programming. MuchMusic was basically a Canadian version of MTV, but being from our neighbors to the north, most of the bands were new and unfamiliar. I came across quite a few of my favorite bands there: Lamb, which I have become somewhat obsessed with; Our Lady Peace, which I had heard of but never really known much about; and Matthew Good Band, who I had never heard of but were apparently really popular up there.

One of the first videos I saw on MuchMusic that first day I came across it was for Matthew Good Band's "Load Me Up". I actually came in just a little bit before the middle of it, and found myself wondering why all these catholic school students were chasing the band, and also why I'd never heard of such a great rock band before. Eventually, I was lucky enough to catch the video in its entirety, and from there on out I started to watch MuchMusic for hours at a time, often simply on in the background when I was doing something else. I started taping videos when I was out, and then coming back later to watch them. I had been getting new music from my friends and through those late-night radio shows, but this was something different entirely. It was music without bias, or at least with less bias... instead of being given music to listen to, I started to pick and choose from video to video what I actually wanted to find out more about.

Sadly, WNVT only aired MuchMusic for about a year or two before they stopped carrying the programming, opting to go to a world-oriented channel with lots of programming in different languages. Thankfully, by the time that happened, I knew that there was a lot more out there, more music that was dying to be heard, and I was ready to move to College (capitalized for emphasis) where the internet and independent music beckoned like a hundred doors waiting to be opened.

Plug in, and turn it up...