I am New to Fruhead, but Old For the Following

Hey there people! I am Shari from NY. I am quite old for the general Fruvous following I would guess, but I dig them just the same. I was introduced to them through my college-age sons who live in Syracuse...and, as much as I like many different kinds of music...I have never heard anything quite like Fruvous. Even my 5 yr old sings their praises everyday as he belts out King of Spain and Spiderman. I have never been to a concert as I only heard about them in 2004...but I too hope that their "hiatis" doesn't mean retirement, only a break. Ciao...Shari :)

Welcome! Looks like you've unseated Dr.Whofru as our resident geezer:P

Ahem...

You didn't hear him correctly, he said "our resident star gazer"... geez... old people and their hearing these days...

I'm not far behind at age 46.� You've got sons in college AND a five year old?� King of Spain is my favorite song of Fruvous these days.� I first heard them in 2002.� And, it's disappointing never having heard them in concert, never will hear them in concert.� It would be interesting to know the issues that caused the hiatus.� My sons have had several bands, and the chemistry ebbs and flows.� For awhile, one of their bands was doing some pretty good work, but they reached a point where, rather suddenly, the collection of musicians (really nice lesbian�drummer: creative genius lead guitar/manager; OK, but not great back up guitar; lead vocals/keyboard, sometime sax; female backup vocals; very experienced and skilled bass player, more experience than the rest of them put together) suddenly no longer had chemistry, and said everything they were going to say, and they broke up after their last great show.� My sons (keyboard and lead guitar) have been working with a (now reformed pot smoker) backup/harmony guitar player and have put together some new stuff, including a really cool new take on Octopus's Garden.� They are looking for a bass player and a reliable drummer.� All while going to school....

There weren't really any issues aside from "Oh my god, we've been on the road, living out of a van for 10 years. We aren't going to be rock stars (again) so let's do some different stuff and try having real lives"

Well said.

Fair enough.� Actually, one of the reasons I'm glad that my sons are doing music now is so they see first hand what a tough life it is and maybe decide it's not going to be long term.�

I know that everyone else already knows the answer to the following, but let me ask.� What are the band members doing now?� What would it have taken for the band to make a major go of it?� I've heard that success in the music business is 99% luck or who you know, and literally, only about 1% how good you are.� AND, what if my sons (their band) wanted to do some Fruvous covers.� Would they need the band's OK?

mike's site
dave's extremely outdated site--a better fan can probably give you a better update
jian's site
great big sea (murray)

i'm pretty sure you don't need an artist's permission to cover a song unless you're recording and selling it. if i'm wrong, tho, i'm probably in deep trouble with dar williams and the indigo girls and the monkees and david bowie. to name a few. :P

Thanks.� You're probably right about covering other bands.�

You definetly don't need an artists permission to perform a song. I'm not 100% sure you need their permission beforehand to record it as long as you pay royalties.

Great Big Sea is "on hiatus" as well.

You know . . .Fruvous went on hiatus right after I got into them. A band called that dog broke up as soon as I discovered them in 1997. DVN went on hiatus barely a year after I found them, and now GBS is hiatusizing . . .

I RUIN EVERYTHING I TOUCH!!!!

Oh no! you have cooties!

Oooooh you liked That Dog???? Yay!!!

oh gosh - you must be the Anti-Midas *fear* ;)

Clearly, you need to pay some Congressional Republicans a visit....

Dave has also been doing a lot with this band. In addition he has a regular gig entertaining the audiences at the Royal Canadian Air Farce as part of The Ground Crew with Toronto bassist Maury Lafoy. (They put out a fantastic cd that can be ordered through the Air Farce site). That's on break now and his recidency with Kurt Swinghammer at the Cameron House are coming to an end so I imagine he'll be doing some folk festivals this summer.

Murray and GBS are currently in the studio recording. :)

Also, the band did have fairly significant commercial success in Canada, albeit for just a few years in the early to mid 90's after Bargainville was released. When their initial popularity faded, they then went on to nurture an enthusiastic cult following in the U.S. So they put a lot of heart into it.

More than that, they consiously or subconsiously set out to undermine their own success with the release of wood. If they'd done another bargainville type album in '95 they might be a lot bigger, but also a lot less fulfilled as artists.

yeah . . .but then they did B . . .so why didn't that count as the second Bargainville?

Because B wasn't considered a "real" album. At first it was only available at shows. It was just something for the fans. By the time the Canadian general public could have gotten b, the damage was already done.

You have to realize what kind of a band Canadians saw Fruvous as. Their initial fame resulted mostly from the heavy rotation of their first 3 videos on Muchmusic. So, KOS, Stuck In The 90s, and MBLABOA is what people thought Fruvous were. That crowd not only didn't respond well to wood, but Muchmusic hardly played the videos.

In a way this was calculated. They went in a different direction with wood, because they didn't want to be typecast. But what they found was that in Canada, at least to the general listening public, they already WERE typecast. That is why the turned their attention more and more to the US, where people hadn't heard Bargainville during the Muchmusic boom and where minds were more open.

Yes minds were more open, but in a different way than you meant. Alternative music has a harder time in this country from basic population and traveling distance facts. With 10x population means 10x more open minds in a given area. And the concentration of people in the eastern mean those areas were closer together.
They were more than typecast up here, we tend to put our homegrown talent in such high rotation that the backlash is incredible, and the critics hit particularly hard if you don't get US success. And even if they do sometimes.