Moxy Früvous

Moxy Früvous was a folk-pop, geek rock, socially conscious, politically-satirical band (1990-ca.2002) from Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, just north of Toronto. Canada and the "human experience" are a common theme in Früvous songs.

The band formed in 1990 when Jian Ghomeshi and Murray Foster, former classmates at the local Thornlea Secondary School, and participants in the school choir, joined with Mike Ford and David Matheson to busk in Toronto. They drew unusually large crowds, and, eventually, the attention of Toronto-based CBC Radio One, 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 was released the next year. Its single, "King of Spain", was only the second Canadian independent #1 hit in that country's history. (Torontonians Barenaked Ladies were first by a few months, with 1991's "Be My Yoko Ono".) Shortly after, they embarked on a touring schedule that continued, practically without stopping except to record new material, until the end of 2000.

The band reminds some listeners of the Beatles (which Früvous happily acknowledges) or They Might Be Giants. They sometimes sang with little or no accompaniment in a style similar to contemporary a cappella, drawing comparisons to Da Vinci's Notebook. A number of their songs also express the band's progressive political leanings ("The Greatest Man in America", for instance, harps on 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 performances at annual fan conventions in 2001 and 2002), and the last update to the band's website occurred in 2002. 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).

Where are they now?

* Jian Ghomeshi works for CBC Radio One and writes.
* Murray Foster is the bass player for Great Big Sea and is part of the duo Great Atomic Power, with Dave Matheson.
* Dave Matheson performs solo and with Murray Foster in Great Atomic Power.
* Mike Ford performs solo often in schools. His songs teach the history of Canada.

Band name

Moxy Früvous is one of the many bands whose name includes an umlaut. The name "Moxy Früvous" is a null phrase, although the Bargainville liner notes 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. In an interview with WBER radio in Rochester, New York, on November 23, 1999, Jian explained the band's name origin by saying that they were "trying to think of a name that wasn't easy to remember and doesn't mean anything...", going against the two conventions most bands might use in determining a band name, and further illustrating some of the higher brow humor (?) behind the band members, their songs, and their live performances.

Album discography

* Moxy Früvous (1992, demo, rare)
* Bargainville (1993)
* Wood (1995)
* The 'b' Album (1996, b-sides and other oddities)
* You Will Go To The Moon (1997)
* Live Noise (1998, live)
* Thornhill (1999)
* The 'C' Album (2000, b-sides and other oddities)

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