wickedflea | bad music for bad people

Fishbone's Truth and Soul has entered my top five of the moment. I've been listening to that album for a good 11-12 years, and it never ceases to amaze me. Incredible songwriting, playing, and RANGE. It's all over the map, but in a totally good way--there's never any doubt it's Fishbone. For some reason, though, I've never gotten into much other Fishbone. The Reality of My Surroundings was good too, but the other is my favorite. And those are the only ones I've had. *shamed* What others should I get? The first one, I guess. The reviews I heard of the post-Reality discs weren't too great. Not that that necessarily means anything.

Now I'm listening to Faith No More. Jim Martin is a god. In fact they were almost a perfect band there for a while. Every bass, guitar, drum, and vocal part on The Real Thing and Angel Dust is just so tasty. I wonder what ever happened to Jim Martin. The only thing I've heard of him doing since he left FNM is a guest thing on one song from Primus's last album.

I remember watching Faith No More get really popular, and it was so weird. We were into The Real Thing many months before "Epic" started hitting. And all of a sudden MTV started playing it like crazy, and people loved it. And before ya know it, FNM's on Saturday Night Live. It was just weird to watch, because at the time that music sounded so fucked up to me, and I couldn't imagine it finding mainstream success. And I guess it is a little out there to some people, but of course I've been listening to it for so long that I've lost the perspective I had when it was new. I particularly remember being at a Skeleton Crew show (local band I mentioned some time back) and hearing FNM's cover of "War Pigs" come on. And all the teenaged Starkville chicks were singing along to it because they knew it from The Real Thing! And this was at a time when Black Sabbath was just DEAD as far as having any hipster value. For a metalhead in 1990 Starkville, that was just wild to see--especially from the chicks who looked at me and my friends as freaks for some of the other shit we listened to.

Of course, it was downhill for FNM after that, at least in terms of record sales and all that. Angel Dust was a commercial failure, at least next to The Real Thing. But it's a great album. It has the cohesion that I've mentioned before--start to finish, a great collection of songs that complement each other, not just a bunch of random tracks.

I really should start reading Circus and Hit Parader again. No I shouldn't--they're probably writing about Korn and Limp Bizkit, and that ain't gonna work, my friend. Oh, and Rip! Anyone remember that magazine? It ruled when it first came out. I remember reading about Jane's Addiction for the first time in Rip. And they had articles on the Cramps and the Misfits and the Circle Jerks, along with metal stuff like Slayer and Metallica and whatever. They ended up going in too much of a hair-metal direction (as did the world), and I guess they probably fizzled out altogether when that all became passe.

This has been your handy-dandy rock and roll update from WFLE. Send me your requests, kids, and I'll try to get 'em on. And don't forget to stay in school.