From: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org (alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest) To: ammf-digest@smoe.org Subject: alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest V5 #224 Reply-To: ammf@fruvous.com Sender: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest Tuesday, August 14 2001 Volume 05 : Number 224 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Jian's MapleMusic Interview [gingee@fruhead.com (Pat)] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Aug 2001 09:52:41 -0700 From: gingee@fruhead.com (Pat) Subject: Jian's MapleMusic Interview In case you don't look at MM's site too often... Cheers! Pat ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jian and the first six songs Moxy man's solo album a lyrically rich ride through history and romance The members of Moxy Fr|vous first started planning their hiatus three years ago, and since it began this year, Jian Ghomeshi has done anything but take that break. "Take the 'Type A' personality guy out of the band and watch him go!" laughs Ghomeshi, throwing his hands up in the air. "I was very scared going into the hiatus," he admits over coffee in Toronto's east-end, where he lives. "Those last few shows with Moxy Fr|vous, I was like: 'So what is it I exactly do?'" This is a pretty typical comment from Ghomeshi. He's one of those of super-confident, forceful personalities because... well, he should be. Give him a bit of time, however, and he relaxes. Ghomeshi might share a success with you, but he's just as likely to backtrack and reveal candidly the personal reservation or insecurity that accompanied that success. He doesn't always make it sound easy. So in the past year he has helped launch the career of up-and-comer Martina Sorbara, serving as manager and producer on the singer's album The Cure For Bad Deeds. He's been honing his writing skills as an essayist and, while performing and building a live persona, has written material for a brand new EP The First Six Songs. Ghomeshi released it with almost a hint of superstition. "It's also a tried and true formula. Moxy Fr|vous started with a six-song cassette, as did the Barenaked Ladies, we were selling them for six bucks. Six tunes for six bucks. And undoubtedly we sold 70,000 copies of that cassette." The First Six Songs is an album filled with pop and powerful lyrics. Opening track "Quebec City" is so gentle that it's easy to miss the angry indictment of the tear gassing of activists at Quebec City's Summit of the Americas earlier this year. Kids with their gas masks on. It's now the common fate. For those who complain to the state ... Romance remains in the form of songs like "Baby Don't Lie" and "Natalia," Ghomeshi's personal look back on a failed romance, but the storytelling returns on "Father (for Pierre Trudeau)". "With your sideburns and a carnation you brought my new country alive," sings Ghomeshi on the patriotic and historically clever ode to the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Ghomeshi's songs, are lyrically reminiscent of 60s political folk songs. Just like the Tragically Hip have placed pure Canadiana into rock songs, Ghomeshi pushes events and issues into power-pop and funky world-beat rhythms. "Fr|vous has always done some political satire but this really is my coming out as more of a political artist too," he begins. "I've always been politically interested and active back to being quite a shit disturber as head of the student union at York University, to being a member of the NDP. In a lot of ways it's my dream to bring together my worlds." "I'm actually embarrassed that it's taken me this long, I would like to have had this figured out ten years ago," he adds in a moment of self-deprecation. Ghomeshi's ability to do this has a lot to do with the Moxy Fr|vous hiatus. According to him, bassist Murray Foster is hanging out in Peru ("I really admire Murray's ability to use this time to say 'I'm going to use this time to clear my life of clutter and figure out what I want to do and what I want to write about.'"). Mike Ford is at home with his family working on music education projects.("That's so amazing, especially when it comes to Canadian history that is so Mike's thing."). And David Matheson just put out his own, well received CD. The First Six Songs and Matheson's self-titled CD are two very different works. Matheson, like Ghomeshi, can tell a good story, but Matheson opted to create a more traditional folk album. "One of the great fears I had, when I heard Dave was making a record was that I wondered if we were going to be competing?" says Ghomeshi honestly. "Dave gave me a copy. And as soon as I put it on, all those fears were deconstructed because I realized we were totally different. So not only do I think Dave's album is great already, but I can really celebrate it without any ego issues." "We ourselves forget that we're individuals. I forgot that I'm not part of this eight-legged person. It was gratifying, a few months into the hiatus, to realize: 'Of course we're different guys.'" If there is any concern about the future of Moxy Fr|vous, Ghomeshi himself doesn't seem to have any. He's pretty adamant that the band will record again. "We've done the smart thing. Some bands keep going until they hate each other," he says. "When Moxy Fr|vous makes its next record the tools we bring to it will be so heightened and refreshed." ------------------------------ End of alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest V5 #224 ********************************************