Still Stuck in your Throat review (Joey Chickenskin)
by Denis Nov 22 2006
First of all, if you don?t know about Fishbone?.Well, there?s the problem. In a parallel universe to ours that has ten percent more justice, The Chilli Peppers play clubs and Fishbone play Stadiums and have consistently been the biggest live draw of the 90s and twenty first century so far. I know people who fell in love with them based on a seven second clip of Angelo cart wheeling around on TV. In the early nineties they were one of the most incredible and more importantly exciting and entertaining bands you could ever go to see. Flawless musicians, a huge sound and a front man who must spend half of his day shaking his head at the people with a quarter of his charisma and a tenth of his voice who somehow overtook him and his band.
It?s not a complete mystery though. While the big ?crossover? bands of the eighties were learning to separate out their rap and metal and funk into bite size chunks so that the audience knew where they were, Fishbone didn?t care and still don?t. Listen to ?Premadawnutt? and you?ve got metal drums and guitar with soul and ska horns. Songs can flip genres every four bars mixing Bad Brains punk, old school ska, the stax sound, jazz, metal the list goes on? I think the problem has been that for a lot of people they just don?t know where they are with Fishbone, the music is sometimes juuuuust the wrong side of being too hard and too eclectic where X number of people are going to love the metal energy of ?Let Dem Ho?s Fight? and get the ?skank and go nuts? but a fraction of X people who can also get on board for the the slow soul of ?Forever Moore?. I think for this reason, Fishbone fans love the band, put the work in and get more out of an album where a guitar chugs in unexpectedly after it?s been skanking cleanly away than when it chugs away relentlessly for forty eight minutes.
The band are still amazing musicians and with so much going on you have to stop and listen to realise how amazing the arrangements are. ?We Just Lose our minds? would stand head to toe with ?What?s going on? era Marvin Gaye in terms of how the song has been layered. One criticism I?ve had with Fishbone in the past is that the records are a little indulgent. Obviously, a band should please itself but I sometimes get the feeling that it?s all about outdoing themselves musically and you get the impression they take that one eye of the people listening and are having more fun playing than the people listening. This is less of a criticism of this album and while, I?m sure, big fans will reel off why some of the older albums are stronger, this would be an easier place to start if you?re discovering the band.
There is a lot of fun on this album. Angelo mixing simple commentary with that party sound singing ?We will see the end / if we party ?till our colours blend, party ?till Saddam?s your friend / never drop a bomb again? and if you step back you just get how much personality falls out of that voice. In other parallel universes, Angelo plays Vegas three times a year and lives in a castle, Angelo?s an actor and does voiceovers for Disney films, if you ever get to see this band playing in a room that should be too small to be their dressing room, you?ll shuffle your top ten performers around to give him a place.
If you like that punk filtered ska you?ll enjoy ?Skank and go nuts?, ?Party with Saddam? and you?ll love the cover of Sublime?s ?Date Rape?. If you have a stack of metal records you?ll enjoy ?Let Dem Ho?s Fight? and the metal-punk of ??Frey?s Fuckin Nerve Endings? but what you?ll get is a lot more with Fishbone. You?ll see what a token gesture a lot of crossing over really is and realise that in twelve seconds of any given genre, they can outshine the careerists who can only do one thing.
This album is a good place to start; they?re also touring soon. Don?t miss them. In that parallel universe, people are paying ?45 to see them and the show you?ll go to will be smaller and better.
Originally posted by Joey Chickenskin on http://www.rock-city.co.uk/, website for the Nottingham club RockCity where Fishbone played in 1992 and 2002. Still Stuck in your Throat is in stock at amazon.co.uk
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