Moxy Früvous

Moxy Früvous

Moxy Früvous, 1993 (left to right: Dave Matheson, Jian Ghomeshi, Murray Foster, Mike Ford)
Background information
Origin Thornhill, Ontario, Canada
Genres Folk rock, comedy rock
Years active 1989 (1989)–2001 (2001)
Labels Warner Music Canada, Bottom Line, Atlantic
Website fruvous.com
Members Jian Ghomeshi
Murray Foster
Mike Ford
Dave Matheson

Moxy Früvous was a politically satirical folk-pop band from Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. The band was founded in 1989, and was active until 2001. Common themes in Früvous songs include Canada and the "human experience".

History

The band formed in 1989 when Jian Ghomeshi (then going by Jean Ghomeshi[1]), Murray Foster and Mike Ford, former classmates at the local Thornlea Secondary School and playing in a pub band called The Chia Pets at the time, joined with David Matheson to busk in Toronto. They drew crowds, and, eventually, the attention of Toronto-based CBC Radio, which commissioned songs about political and local issues for the radio show Later the Same Day. Some songs written for the show later appeared on their albums; these songs include "The Gulf War Song" and "My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors", which was written for a Toronto authors' festival.

They cut a six-song demo tape in 1992, and their first major-label album, Bargainville, was released the next year. Shortly after, they embarked on a touring schedule that continued, practically without stopping except to record new material, until the end of 2000.

On August 14, 1997, their song "You Will Go to the Moon" was used by NASA to wake the crew of STS-85.[2]

The band sometimes sang with little or no accompaniment in a style similar to contemporary a cappella. A number of their songs also express the band's progressive political leanings ("The Greatest Man in America", for instance, mocks Rush Limbaugh, and "Big Fish" lambastes former Premier of Ontario Mike Harris). Früvous was also known for their close relationship with their fans and their live shows, which were full of political commentary, humorous banter, and musical improvisation.

The band gave its last concert in 2000 (excepting a performance at an annual fan convention in 2001).

Post-breakup activity

On September 5, 2005, Ford, Foster and Ghomeshi performed on CIUT, the U of T's campus radio station, as part of the morning program Toronto Unlocked, an ad hoc program produced and hosted by locked-out CBC Radio One staff.

The last update to the band's website occurred on July 8, 2008. The website was replaced by a default webserver page in mid-2009. Although the page returned for a time, it has since become unavailable again.

Ghomeshi, Foster, and Ford performed on CBC Radio One on March 1, 2010, as a goodbye to Metro Morning host Andy Barrie.

Ghomeshi-CBC controversy

On October 26, 2014, the CBC announced the end of Ghomeshi's tenure as host.[3] In response, Ghomeshi said CBC fired him because officials feared that a former girlfriend might release details about his sexual life.[4] In late 2014, Ghomeshi was arrested and charged with four counts of sexual assault, and one count of choking, in relation to three complainants.[5] He was charged with three additional counts related to three more women on January 8, 2015.[6]

Murray Foster posted an "official response from the other former Moxy Fruvous members":[7][8]

"As former colleagues of Jian (our last show was in 2000), we are sickened and saddened by this week's news. We had no inkling that Jian engaged in this type of behaviour. We abhor the idea of a sexual relationship of any sort being entered into without full consent from both parties and condemn violence against women in any form. We wish only health and healing to everyone involved. We have no further comment on this matter at this time."

Ghomeshi was acquitted of all charges in March 2016.[9]

Current projects

Band name

The name "Moxy Früvous" is a nonsense phrase, although the liner notes of their first CD Bargainville contained a faux-dictionary listing of definitions for früvous. The band was known to never provide a straight answer (and for that matter, almost never the same answer twice) when defining the band's name. However, in an interview with WBER radio in Rochester, New York, on November 23, 1999, Ghomeshi explained the band's name origin by saying that they were "trying to think of a name that wasn't easy to remember and didn't mean anything," satirically going against two conventions most bands might use in determining a band name. The name also includes a heavy metal umlaut, again hinting at the satirical when naming a band because though Moxy Früvous was known for crossing a very wide range of genres, heavy metal is not a genre most listeners of Moxy Früvous would associate with the group, thereby creating humour.

Album discography

References

  1. ↑ The Canadian Pop Encyclopedia
  2. ↑ STS-85 Wakeup Calls, Spaceflight.nasa.gov
  3. ↑ "Jian Ghomeshi, host of Q, no longer with CBC". CBC News. October 26, 2014.
  4. ↑ Donovan, Kevin (October 26, 2014). "CBC cuts ties with Jian Ghomeshi after receiving "information" about Q host". Toronto Star.
  5. ↑ Visser, Josh; Alcoba, Natalie (November 26, 2014). "Jian Ghomeshi charged with four counts of sexual assault, released on $100K bail". National Post. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
  6. ↑ "3 more sex assault charges against Jian Ghomeshi". Toronto Star (January 8, 2015). Retrieved January 8, 2015.
  7. ↑ "Official response (Facebook post)". Facebook.com. October 31, 2014.
  8. ↑ "After a rough week, here's the official response from the three other former Moxy Fruvous members: ow.ly/DE8uL". Twitter.com.
  9. ↑ "Jian Ghomeshi not guilty decision triggers outrage online, outside court". CBC News. March 24, 2016.

External links

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