Erica Ehm needs no introduction to Canadians. Or at least she shouldn’t.
Back in the ’80s and ’90s, she spent a decade on the air at MuchMusic as one of the pioneering video channel’s original VJs, along with Christoper Ward, J.D. Roberts, Michael Williams and others. Now, decades later, she and her former coworkers have been reunited (at least cinematically) in the excellent new documentary 299 Queen Street West. A labour of love by director Sean Menard, the exhaustively researched and superbly edited two-hour film traces the rise, reign and inevitable fall of The Nation’s Music Station through hundreds of vintage film clips and new voice-over interviews with Much stars and staffers. With the film heading out on a national tour this fall — complete with Intimate and Interactive VJ Q&As at every screening — filmmaker Menard and consulting producer Ehm Zoomed in to talk about Much’s cultural impact, who should play her in a sitcom version, and what should happen to all that vintage footage. Enjoy. And watch my interview with fellow VJ Christoper Ward HERE.
