Why aren't you listening to Fishbone right now?

That is an unforunate story, DB.

Aww, that's alright, Alex. My mom and the Great Danes are doing just fine, now.

And live? fuhgetaboutit.

Unyielding Conditioning
Skank N Go Nutts
Monkeydick
Let Them Hoes Fight
Karma Tsunami
Warmth of Your Breath
Demon In Here
Burnin In The Heat of Anger
Black Flowers
Get Out of the City

Post Cold War Politics
All of the Fishbone EP
Sunless Saturday
Everyday Sunshine
and Cholly

And I will defend Monkey... and Reality..., at least in parts. Truth and Soul is sometimes (often, really) the greatest album in the world.

The release of "The Reality of My Surroundings" may be one of my greatest ever musical disappointments... I love melodicism and songcraft, and the band jettisoned them almost entirely. At the time I assumed it was the lack of David Kahne's influence and that bust-up with whoever in the band getting cultified. But maybe it was a more accurate reflection of their live shows.

C/D: Fishbone

Do they still play "Fat Chicks" live? I remember them doing different versions of it over the years, and thinking they were singing "Fascist" the first time I saw 'em, when they opened for the Beastie Boys circa '87.

Did they invent "U-G-L-Y/you ain't got no alibi/you ugly" or did they swipe that from a schoolyard chant?

Sunless Saturday
Ghetto Soundwave
Bonin' In the Boneyard
Lying Ass Bitch
Cholly
It's A Wonderful Life
Those Days Are Gone
Housework

Haven't listened to them in years, but I think I'll start again! Thanks guys...

I am listening to the EP which I probably haven't listened to since H.S. and all of a sudden I'm 16 and in love with my life and the world and it's all good.

`Cos they haven't made a record worth listening to in over a decade. That's why.

Sadly, this is still true in 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChXk4R0mGNw

That doc is great.

I am listening to the EP which I probably haven't listened to since H.S. and all of a sudden I'm 16 and in love with my life and the world and it's all good.

― ENBB, Sunday, April 26, 2009 1:21 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This would probably still be true if I put it on right now.

This is ridiculous and sad and might even be the end of Fishbone:

Los Angeles-based alt-rockers Fishbone and their frontman Angelo Moore have been ordered by a Pennsylvania judge to pay nearly USD$1.4 million in damages to a woman who was severely injured during a stage dive which went horribly wrong back in 2010.

THR reports the incident took place on 23rd February, 2010, at a performance by the band at Philadelphia’s World Live Cafe. 46-year-old Kimberly Myers was transported to hospital after being knocked to the ground and fracturing her skull when Moore dove into the crowd.

Myers, who has reported various lingering medical symptoms since the incident, claimed that her immediate medical bills came to USD$15,846. She also estimated that her future medical costs would run up to USD$351,299. Judge DuBois awarded Myers compensatory damages for both amounts.

The judge also said that Myers was entitled to non-economic damages for future pain and suffering, any possible embarrassment, humiliation, and loss of the ability to enjoy the pleasures of life and disfigurement. This decision added another USD$750,000 to the tab.

Finally, Judge DuBois said punitive damages should be assessed solely against the band’s lead singer, noting Moore’s refusal to answer questions relating to his drug use and his acknowledgement of the risks stage diving posed to audience members. “Further, Moore exhibits little remorse or impetus to change his conduct,” the judge said, adding another USD$250,000 to the bill.

The decision in awarding these damages to Myers was also partially informed by Moore’s previous testimony in the original 2010 lawsuit. The judge in that case noted the fact that Moore and Fishbone had been stage diving into crowds since the 1980s, and even continued to do it after Myers’ 2010 incident.

The future of Moore and Fishbone, who have now released seven studio albums after rising to prominence in the 1980s, is unknown at this stage.

3 old members are back in the band. This is incredible. Current lineup:

Angelo, Dirty Walt, Norwood, Fish, John Bigham and Chris Dowd!!!

Whoa!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge9z7xehvWY

dude they sound awesome

Hope they tour this way. I haven't seen them since '91.

Dunno if that's a one-time thing or the current lineup tho

Current lineup! They will be touring like this and are working on a new album.

man, I remember channel surfing one summer vacation and catching Fishbone on SNL playing "Sunless Saturday". it was the most bonkers performance I've ever seen on that show

real bummer they never did a live album in the 90s

there's tons of great boots tho! the fishbone tape trading community is strong. also lots of great full shows on yt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TBILUuY4vo

Huh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As3_qn0A0yY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDQ8VdIOoKs

I'm kinda shocked at how much I like these new songs. Maybe nostalgia is overpowering my taste, or they really are that good.

My guess is the latter! It's pretty close to the classic lineup, though alas, it looks like it's not Fish on drums.

All we have is now is great too

Hell of an FB post from them yesterday:

https://www.facebook.com/fishbonemusic/posts/pfbid0vqU4Fiv9A2bguEv9i53o1unJ9GyWgNaACrRHJBHR75K9szU4D863miTgMGZUTAtzl

Much love to all that commented on the post we shared from KCRW and W. Kamau Bell yesterday. After reading the comments, one popped out that I replied to and felt I should repost here to address and answer a common question/comment… the being that if the core line up stayed together, we would have been bigger and that being a black band kept us from breaking through…
Ok.. I’m gonna address this because this comes up a lot. Here’s the facts… being black was 100% what held the band from breaking like all the others.
Will not blame the label at all.
The band was signed when nobody else was looking at us. It wasn’t like a bidding war. It was David Kahne seeing us, seeing something and taking a chance. It’s not like we signed an amazing record deal, but we got a deal. We made a great EP to start, then first full length In Your Face and so on… at that time, labels spent money and supported the bands. We toured a lot. That takes tour support that the label provided. Mainstream radio wasn't playing us or bands from our world, so it was all college radio and some (up and coming) alternative stations. They were who made it happen. The alternative and college radio departments helped us take the next steps up in radio exposure.
With each album we released, we got more popular and gained an audience album by album, tour by tour… word of mouth, press and college and specialty radio… Europe, UK, Japan all love… but for every record, the $ spent = $ owed… that’s called an unrecouped balance. The label didn’t stop giving us money to make the next album or to tour the next album.
They tried at radio, we got a little MTV (a very little), Saturday Night Live… we toured, took out bands we loved Primus Sublime Tool No Doubt and came up with Red Hot Chili Peppers Jane's Addiction and all of them blew up… we love them all, so nothing but love, but we didn’t blow up like they did and for all our achievement and accolades, we came home with nothing to show for it.
No nest egg, no homes, no fancy cars, no retirement and no health insurance… and here we are, still doing it, and trying our best to end on a high note… and we are still out here with very little help from those who we helped or came up with (minus some here and there…
Big Shout out to Tool for inking us to Tool in the Sand last year)… that’s facts…
Anyway, when we got to our last album #GiveAMoneyABrain with Columbia, that was our 4th LP and we had 3 EP’s and our deal was up.
We were on Lollapalooza and when your deal runs up, the label either picks you up for more or have to cut ties. They chose to cut ties to stop the bleeding.
We were so unrecouped, there was no way we’d pay it back.
After SNL, making a video with Spike Lee, a radio push on “Everyday Sunshine" and all the other things we did not moving the needle to where the other bands were going, they saw no upside and it would have driven them deeper into debt (and us into bigger debt)… it sucks.
This was a business move. We had a lot of fans at the label that worked their asses off for us… that plus the internal exhaustion that had members leave… so even at our best, it didn’t happen.
So when someone says if we stuck together we would have blown up… But the truth is, we were together, growing and making your favorite albums and songs…had a lot of opportunity, but didn’t break. This not only was a bummer for us professionally, but personally, it takes its toll. You see your friends blowing up, the bands you took on the road as openers blow up, buy houses, not have to worry about paying rent. Bands we just shared the stage with living a life we show be as well…not instead of. Huge difference. Someone who says “we should be” are jealous. We were never jealous, just envious we didn’t have the same success…and there was always one thing separating us from those who did break… the unspoken truth.
Anyway, the other thing you need to remember is we were kids when we started and we grew up on the road. A real family, brothers, business partners, wives… every cliche you can think of… and a lot happens between 16 and 60… Sharing the same air, space and finances. Splitting a dollar 6 ways at the end of a tour. Not having anything to show for all we did. What y’all saw was on stage for 30-90 minutes of pure magic, fire and fury… its what happens off the stage that you don’t see (for the better) and thats what you call life.
The other bands mentioned above could tour separately, have single hotel rooms, shit like that…what you call a “time out”, but we couldn't (and still can't) afford that… so that just gives more time together and vacuous, shared air and space… makes it hard to stay sane. So, that is what made it hard to stay together in the end. If any of you reading this have been married for 40+ years, I applaud you. Now imagine being married to 4 more people for 40+ years. Thats a band.
So here we are, as good as ever, new album this past year, celebrating our history and new album in the works. We are working to end in a high note, give it all we got, ask you to continue to support by coming out when we play and walk away saying we still kick everyone’s ass… we will continue to do it without depending on the help of those we helped and those we came up with…
That being said, there are LOTS of bands we don’t come up with who are showing love and that means more than anything because it means we meant something to them and to you.
Rant over… we love you W. Kamau Bell it’s people like you that keep us alive and speak the truth.
If you want to help the legacy, please continue to come to our shows. Support our releases, support the releases of members of Fishbone that aren’t on duty…
If you work in film, tv or advertising…use our music… you have no idea what being showcased like that does for discovery… blow up a song on TikTok..make that shit viral!
When The Roots and Questlove play one of our tunes on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, we get a spike… it’s these little things that help.
We hope to see you soon and thank you! Stand by!

Had to google, but I guess Bell made a little post more or less saying that Fishbone deserved more but were so much more adventurous and talented and diverse than many of the the bands that made it that radio (when it mattered) didn't know what to do with them. Maybe! But Primus had a relatively good deal of sustained success, and they were even weirder and less commercial. So I think being Black *definitely* hurt Fishbone, perhaps because they were always so unwilling to play up their Blackness even while absolutely addressing it in their lyrics? And without the more generally consistent hard rock vision of, say, Living Colour. Of course, Living Colour was similarly unable to sustain its mainstream success, but then, "Stain" wasn't a particularly good (or good sounding) record. It was released the same year (and on the same label, more or less) as "Give a Monkey a Brain ..." which iirc also wasn't particularly good or good sounding, especially coming after the epic "Reality of My Surroundings" (which makes a good adventurous pairing with "Time's Up," actually). Regardless, in terms of the post-"Nevermind" '90s explosion, being Black and weird was probably not the kind of "alternative" the avg kid whose eyes were opened by Nirvana expected or wanted.

Yeah, a cousin brought me to see them when I was 16 (with a pre-first-album two-man They Might Be Giants opening). Loved the show’s intensity, but buying In Your Face was one of my first experiences hearing an album that had none of the energy/risk/joy of the live show. Can’t be a hit band when the album sounds like that.

I had roughly the same experience, saw them on SNL and thought they were amazing, like I thought this could be my new favorite band, but when I got the CD it just didn't have the juice. good album but that was it, just good

I def. think "Reality ..." has the juice. It's chaotic and creative and fun and funny and funky and goes *hard* when it needs to. But all those things don't make it a good fit for radio. There are also something like 15 credited engineers on the album and a handful of mixers, which seems a bit ... excessive, lol. And sounds it, too!

Reality... is their masterpiece, but Truth And Soul was the closest they came to a cohesive, (relatively) radio-friendly album that also reflected their live strength pretty accurately. That's an album that, if you heard it coming out of somebody's car tape deck, would make you really want to see that band live. Insane to me that "Bonin' in the Boneyard" wasn't an actual single.

Insane to me that I never saw them live, boohoo. ‘Bonin in the Boneyard’ is INCREDIBLY catchy but probably too hard for the radio at that time.

reading that FB post brought out the Lefsetz in me, i'm sorry to say

I must have played Truth and Soul on my car tapedeck 1000 times. I did get to see them live and they were that great. Totally overwhelming.

There was definitely a Bonin in the Boneyard CD single because I can picture it in my mind (green cover, some good b-sides) and I have it around the house somewhere, but that doesn't mean it was really marketed as a single or took off - if they had a music video for it I don't remember seeing one

I totally had that. It had some eh remixes/remakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxIBDEbfPh4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uvn6HiBhrw

Stuff from the Christmas EP should pop up seasonally, if only as a novelty, but I never hear it played anywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFXxTzFriTk

Yeah, but the Bonin' EP (which I owned as well) wasn't released until 1990; it was a stopgap thing before Reality..., not a single when Truth And Soul was being actively worked.

New and Improved Bonin is not ehhh, it's fuckin fantastic!!

funky ASS BASS!

My favorite from the Bonin' EP (Set the Booty Up Right) was Hide Behind My Glasses, and I spin It's a Wonderful Life every year. I mean, I'll listen to that shit even when it's NOT Christmas. Those songs are engraved on my soul.

I've never even seen the movie, It's a Wonderful Life. All I know is the Fishbone Christmas EP.

Ha, I've never actually seen the movie, either.