Growing up in the mean streets of South Eugene, where it still resides today, Medium Troy has always embodied the soul, style and tradition of this humble West Coast college town. It calls its style “Bohemian Dub Hop” – a tribute to the eclectic stylings of a Northwest renaissance of the spirit of the ’60s.
The band maintains the positive vibes, but like most of us who grew up in the age of cable TV and poorly executed wars, it’s just a bit cynical. Maybe you’ve seen a Medium Troy T-shirt or flier around town, or maybe you were one of the people hucking garbage at the group at Mac Court when you heard Lil Wayne wasn’t going to show up – or, shoot, maybe you’re a part of the Squirrel Crew that never misses an opportunity to go awkwardly dance at one of its shows. Regardless of who you are, you have no excuse not to be at the WOW Hall this Saturday to see who fans voted Best Local Band 2007 – after all, it’s free.
Medium Troy has quickly grown to local prominence combining the electronic with the instrumental, forming its trademark blend of dub reggae, Northwest hip-hop and good ol’ rock and roll. But this was not without a lot of fine tuning by brothers Jesse and JoJo Ferreira.

“We’ve been playing for at least 10 years,” said Jesse Ferreira, the guitarist. “We were in a jam collective throughout our high school years at South Eugene. We did that for a while before we formed the band.”
“We originally started making hip-hop tracks under Medium Troy about five years ago but started playing as a live band two years ago on Halloween,” added JoJo Ferreira, the band’s vocalist and producer.
In the beginning, the band took its lumps as any new band would by playing to small, empty bars in and around the Eugene area. After playing for more than a year and cutting its debut album, “Bohemian Dub,” the band’s popularity grew to where it could call its own shots.
“Now we only really try to play really big shows every couple of months,” JoJo Ferreira said. “We like to do the benefit shows that go toward a good cause.” The band played the fundraiser for Holy Cow Café at Agate Hall two weeks ago to support the long-time on-campus vegan alternative. And when it’s not benefiting causes, it’s benefiting the fans, just like Saturday’s show, which is entirely free thanks to Ninkasi Brewing and Better Than Most Records.
Medium Troy recently finished its first West Coast tour that proved to be a little shakier than expected but not without providing the band its biggest opportunity to date.
“We planned it all last-minute so it was really hectic. There was a bunch of shows where we couldn’t get there on time and we were late to soundcheck. And 10 minutes on into the trip the van window fell off,” JoJo Ferreira said. But, coincidentally, Medium Troy met the founder of the Vans Warped Tour, who happened to enjoy the set enough to bring the band on tour. You can catch Medium Troy playing outside all summer with three Northwest dates on the Warped Tour, stints at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and World Reggae Festival, and some potentially guerrilla appearances at the Oregon Country Fair.
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