Anne-Marie Withenshaw of MusiquePlus
Another interview (and another, and another...)
Maybe Anne-Marie Withenshaw doesn't realize the extent of her popularity yet. She still gets the inquisitive peer from strangers on the bus or metro who know they've seen her somewhere before but just can't put their fingers on it. She also gets the occasional oddball sending e-mail about the perkiness of her upper body.
But for the relatively short time she has been a VJ or video jockey at MusiquePlus (Quebec's equivalent to MuchMusic) she has learned a lot about the toils of working in the music business, the disillusionment of interviewing musical icons, and her absolute passion to move onto rock stardom... someday.
The sleek and spunky Withenshaw describes herself very as much an idealist, especially when it comes to work. The process of interviewing artist after artist is a frustrating task, she explains, because of its shallowness. She visualizes a world of television reporting where people are sincere and sympathetic - but alas, her fantasy fizzles at the end of every interview.
"I'll talk to someone for 45 minutes and learn about his or her life for the last six months. Then we shake hands and I never see them again," she says. "It's very intrusive." Withenshaw admits that being the interviewer feels like encroaching on people's personal lives, something she feels quite guilty about. Withenshaw's first eyeopener came when she spoke with the singer from Incubus in a phone interview; afterwards, when she attended the show, she approached him only to realize he had no clue who she was or what she looked like, because they had never met in person. Yet, Withenshaw is not bitter about any of it.
"I realized that artists need us as much as we need them," she says. The challenge of putting together her own reports and getting paid to research music is somewhat of a dream come true. Withenshaw's industry savvy and her love for music paved her way to where she is today. Her mother, Raymonde Renault, says that Withenshaw's job is just cut out for her.
"She's always loved music since she was young," Renault assures. "It's a big part of her own personality . . . it's good experience for her."
Musicality, though, runs in the family. Her grandfather, David, was a trumpet player in the Canadian Black Watch Legion, and her father, John, was also a trumpeter. Although her parents never encouraged her to take up an instrument, Withenshaw got her first dose of music-making with a recorder she received for Christmas when she was nine. Her parents soon discovered, however, during a car trip to Sherbrooke - where she tooted the whole trip through - that she couldn't play. "My parents made me unscrew the recorder," Withenshaw says ruefully. She eventually graduated to clarinet in grade nine, and then to her current love, the guitar.
Withenshaw first arrived at MusiquePlus as a FAX reporter, late in the summer of 1998. At the ripe old age of 20 (soon to be 21), she had accumulated some experience as one of the hosts of La Grande Traversée on CISM-FM radio, Université de Montréal's student radio drive-home show.
Like starting any other new job, she was nervous at first because everyone around her was older - not to mention appearing on the same channel she watched while growing up also spooked her a little. For instance, Withenshaw credits Claude Rajotte, one of the remaining original VJ's at MusiquePlus, as being an inspiration in what she calls her "alternative music education."
"I remember when [Nirvana's] Nevermind just came out and Claude played it for the first time on NuMusik," she reminisces. "It was just too cool." On the MusiquePlus web site, she's described as someone who "eats, sleeps and drinks" music.
Now that she's on cable television across the province, she doesn't seem to mind the frenzy of juggling her work and school schedules. Nevertheless, she still finds time to munch on a little rock 'n roll in her spare time.
- Michelle Chow is a Montreal journalist