Everyday Sunshine Documents Fishbone

Even at their peak, Fishbone was a criminally underappreciated band.  Fishbone was far too out there for any form of commercial radio, RnB or not, and the indie music press of the day was always a bit too white and flannel to promote them. Fishbone blended funk with punk and ska, two musical forms without a home on radio, and moved effortlessly from songs with a serious, socio-political focus to funky, horn-filled rave-ups celebrating the joys of bonin’. Ultimately, this band remains both revolutionary and amazingly entertaining some 26 years after its first EP.

Thus, Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler’s new Fishbone documentary, Everyday Sunshine, is overdue, finally shining a light on this brilliant band.  In addition to celebrating the music, the documentary demonstrates that achieving this brilliance required a fragile alchemy. In the case of Fishbone, the societal and inter-personal forces that lead to revolutionary music also lead to band revolt.

The documentary presents the band’s development in two acts.  The first act introduces us to the band members, five of which were bussed from predominantly black South Central LA to the predominantly white San Fernando Valley.  The leader of this group was undoubtedly Norwood Fisher, the bands bassist and everyone’s older brother. In the valley, they were introduced to punk rock and one of the few black guys living in the valley, the “sheltered,” “devoid of hood sense,” “smilin’ all the damn time” Angelo Moore. After Norwood befriends him, he becomes the bands’ energetic front man. To portray these early days, interviews with the band are interspersed with archival footage, old photos, and brilliant animation depicting the young band as a seriously out there version of the Cosby kids. Thereafter, to understand their rise and influence on the LA scene, everyone from LA punk icon Keith Morris (Circle Jerks) to rap legend Ice T is interviewed.

In the second act, we see the dissolution of the band, the shrinking of their fanbase, and Angelo and Norwood’s struggles to continue their collaboration. Within this struggle, the film demonstrates how essential every member was to the whole and how that degree of intense collaboration is tough to maintain. As Norwood puts it, “it was always the band that was trying to accommodate everybody’s vision, and we had this idea that we could be a pure democracy, but looking back God damn it was a lot of fucking work dealing with everybody.”  Most bands can’t survive with even two creative masterminds. Fishbone had six.  The social conscious and most prolific writer in the band was guitarist Kendall Jones. After his mother’s death and his subsequent mental issues, Jones leaves the band and things start to disintegrate. Angelo’s eccentricities become more and more of a challenge with less members to temper them and, perhaps, less creative leadership from Kendall.  The funniest example in the film revolves around Angelo’s poetic, experimental Dr. Madd Vibe persona who wants to include the theremin—a decidedly unfunky instrument—in nearly every song.  Eventually, only Angelo and Norwood remain to carry on the Fishbone revolution with new band mates.

I recommend the film highly for fans and newbies alike.  It allows those who missed Fishbone to catch a taste of their powerful live show and long-time fans an understanding of the inner-workings of the band. The film is screening at film festivals around the country this summer, predominantly in the Midwest and East Coast, while nearly all members of the band continue to have creative outlets.  Drummer Philip “Fish” Fisher is a highly successful session drummer, and he and Norwood produce various artists.  Angelo has a solo project as Dr. Madd Vibe, and Chris Dowd has his own band.  Best of all, Angelo, Norwood, and Walt (at times) continue to release new music and play live as Fishbone, who is still red hot.

Tomorrow, we’ll feature an interview with Norwood Fisher about the band.  For now, some video.