If you’ve ever found yourself in front of the tube on a Friday night clicking from station to station, chances are you’ve encountered the strange television otherworld that is Rockinitis.
While other locally produced cable shows, such as The Rush and Go! Vancouver, resemble slick, small-budget facsimiles of primetime lifestyle magazine programs and celebrity talk shows, Rockinitis has the look and feel of a cable access show of old.
Imagine an unironic, rock ’n’ roll-themed Between Two Ferns with slightly higher production values than the 24-hour burning log channel over the Christmas holidays.
Approaching its 10th year skipping the light fandango on Shaw TV’s channel 4, Rockinitis is the brainchild of devilishly goateed ringleader, musical encyclopedia and host Michael Willmore.
Most episodes consist of Willmore sitting at a table cluttered with an ever-changing array of memorabilia — concert posters, vinyl records, a miniature jukebox, inflatable music notes — conversing with a rotating cast of guests and learned co-hosts about the minutiae and history of rock ’n’ roll.
Interspersed between geeky discussions about obscure ’60s garage bands, debates over whether Harmonica Frank Floyd recorded the first rock ‘n’ roll record and droll factoids such as Elvis’s biggest regret was that he never married Ann-Margret, there is music — often played in 30- to 40-second clips due to licensing restrictions.
Every musical interlude begins the same way, with Willmore and his guest fluttering their fingers over a toy record player, like wizards casting a magical spell. While the song plays, the shaky camera searches for something to focus on, usually settling on Willmore and his co-host listening to said record while intently studying the album cover or prepping the next record.
Awkward silences are not uncommon and there’s no studio audience. The special effects can be cheesy. Occasionally there’s random film footage shot by Willmore. Sometimes there are burlesque performers. There have been issues with the smoke machine.
“Basically, it’s a rock history show, but we try to make it so people don’t realize they’re being educated, so I try to make it as entertaining as possible,” Willmore says. “I don’t want it to be slick. I want it to be campy. It’s just the way I am.”
When asked if he considers himself a musical ambassador or historian, Willmore answers, “I’m a conduit to cool.”
Willmore, who took early retirement after 28 years at Molson Brewery, was born and raised in Vancouver with stops along the way in Europe, Langley and the Okanagan. He’s been collecting records since he was 10 years old after he met a kid from England who raved to him about Bill Haley and the Comets. Willmore estimates his current record collection numbers in the tens of thousands, but he prefers to remain blissfully ignorant of the precise tally.
“I don’t really want to know. And when I was married I didn’t want my wife to know.”
The roots of Rockinitis go back to 1975. At the time, Willmore was a “hippie type” living in a communal house when someone suggested that with his vast knowledge of music he should have his own show on the newly launched Vancouver Co-op Radio. Later that year, Willmore began hosting Co-op Radio’s first music show, a weekly program called Rock Talk, which he still does today. By the late ’90s, between shifts at Molson, his radio program and collecting more records, Willmore decided he’d take his rock ’n’ roll history lessons to the masses, or at least the masses who watched community television.
“I went to virtually every television station in Vancouver and of course none of them would give me the time of day,” he says. “So then I went to Rogers, which became Shaw.”
They turned him down too, and Willmore, ever the archivist, kept the rejection letters to prove it.
Then he learned of ICTV, a non-profit cooperative, community television production office, whose mandate is to “offer training and equipment for the production of television that reflects the local community” and provide “a place for voices and ideas that are excluded from the commercial and public broadcast systems.”
After some early wranglings with Shaw and the CRTC, ICTV was allocated six hours of programming a week on the cable station. One of those slots was given to Willmore, who launched Rockinitis in 2005. “The first couple of shows were pretty lame,” he admits. “But I got pretty good pretty fast.”
For most episodes, Willmore works with a crew of a dozen or so volunteers. He takes an evening to prep and decorate the same set used for The Rush, and then shoots the next day, hoping to get anywhere from five to eight episodes of footage, which he’ll later edit himself.
“I don’t try to aim for professionalism, per se. I try to be viewable and listenable. I try to do what I would like if I was watching it. And if I wasn’t me, I’d like my show.”
One person who regularly watches Rockinitis is legendary Vancouver broadcaster Red Robinson. And while he says the show’s aesthetic leaves something to be desired, it’s not without its charms.
“It looks like Wayne’s World. It’s access television its best,” Robinson says. “I think that is what Shaw should be doing more of, more local stuff.”
Robinson adds that although Rockinitis is essentially like watching a radio show on TV or “like you’ve turned on your first television show in 1953,” Willmore and his guests’ knowledge can’t be beat.
“I’ve always been fascinated with our history and heritage, and you’ve got to give these guys credit, they hold onto stuff. They can tell you that Ike and Tina Turner played Danceland and all that stuff. I just wish somebody would give them a buck or two to make a new set.”
On average, Willmore produces a show a month, with episodes airing three times a week — Monday at 1:30 and 9:30 p.m. and Friday at midnight. And, as with most media, Willmore acknowledges the future of Rockinitis might be on the Internet.
“But then again the show might be a little slow paced for the Internet. People have said, ‘It’s just two guys sitting there talking… They just sit there.’”
From Nite Dreems and Soundproof to CHAOS-TV and The Gina Show, Vancouver has a colourful history of underground music programs and community television that registers high on the quirk meter — labours of love, which remain charmingly rough around the edges. Rockinitis is no different, and the show’s creator and host wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Thank God for public access,” Willmore says. “Because a guy like me who is basically a round peg trying to fit into a square hole or whatever, a person like me can go in there and wail.”
mkissinger@vancourier.com
