Thursday, May 22, 2008

Fishbone 101

A while back on Jeff Liles' History of Dallas Music MySpace page, I took it upon myself to leave a brief dissertation on the true greatness of - and sad lack of appreciation for - Fishbone in a comment on one of the ticket stub pictures I gave him.

For those who don't know much about them, there's not much more I can say here that I didn't say in the aforementioned comment...although, I would recommend a quick read through the band's Wikipedia page. So instead, I'll just share this clip. Crank it up if you can. And pay attention to just how tight those guys really are in the midst of the absolute onstage chaos they created. Then imagine experiencing that intensity for, like, two solid hours. It left you exhausted, exhilarated and in awe. At their peak, they were the best band in the world. Past their peak, they were still the best live band in the world. Unbelievable shit.

(Oh, and in case you are wondering who the Kendall Jones both I and Wikipedia reference, he's the guitar player on the left who sings the bridge to "Party at Ground Zero." I hope he's better now because his life was a tragedy for a while...)

Turn the shit up, pogo and enjoy...!


And lest anyone think Fishbone were strictly a ska band, you can check out some of their heavier shit here and here and in this additional live clip below. There wasn't anything those guys couldn't do better than anyone else. The first of those links makes me particularly sad in a way because Kendall wrote and sang the song. However, he'd already fried and left the band by the time it was released and they'd joined the Lollapalooza festival in '93. So in the video, it's keyboard/trombone player Chris Dowd shown singing. But it's a particularly poignant song in hindsight given its religious theme and the "religious" reasons for Kendall leaving / freaking out.

Swim (seriously heavy)...

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