Signifying N made some comments about meter maids in my next-to-last blog that immediately triggered a memory of an old Fishbone tune where the guy yells, apropos of nothing, "And f*** the meter maids, f*** em! That's just how I feel man!" I went back looking for this bite and found it on their 1991 masterpiece "The Reality of My Surroundings." And this record IS a masterpiece. This is the most insane, dense, frenetic music I've ever heard. I listened to it regularly back in the day but I think the music was WAY ahead of its time so I didn't fully appreciate it then. Don't get me wrong, it's very difficult to listen to in the way that "It Takes a Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back"-era Public Enemy is difficult to listen to. It's a loud, aggressive Wall of Sound. There is a lot going on here. It is not music to relax to. It is madness, and it will both thrill and disturb you.
There is:
Funk Metal With Horns
Ska Craziness With An Old West Player Piano ("Housework")
Spoken Word With Jews Harp Accompaniment (can we say Jews harp anymore? mouth harp? jaw harp?) ("Junkie's Prayer")
Radio Friendly Sly and the Family Stone Style Songs ("Everyday Sunshine')
An Awful Ballad
Strange Slave Comedy ("Asswhippin")
A New Orleans Jazz Funeral March
And the song "Pressure," about which an Amazon reviewer says: "You haven't lived until you've seen Fishbone perform "Pressure" live backed up by gospel singers while people hurl themselves from the stage like some insane church service! More fun then you can imagine!"
Here it is for you to download. You might have to download each track separately but you should be able to get them all going concurrently.
1 comment:
I haven't listened to Fishbone probably since they came out. Thanks for the reminder. You're right about Public Enemy, of course. I'm all about hard to listen to music, despite the easy listening crap I've been writing about and commenting on lately.
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