Socially Conscious Lyrics, And Always Ready to Party
By NEIL STRAUSS / New York Times, Oct 29 1996

When an audience member told Fishbone's manic singer, Angelo Moore, that the Yankees had won the World Series during the Saturday night triple bill of Fishbone, De La Soul and the Goodie Mob at Roseland, Mr. Moore jumped around the stage with sarcastically feigned excitement. Fishbone, a Los Angeles band blending ska, punk, funk and metal, doesn't need an excuse to party. For 11 years its shows, full of celebratory and silly anthems enlivened by quick-rhythm guitars and energetic horn blasts, have been among rock's wildest and most fun. At the same time, the band has always brought socially conscious lyrics about prejudice, alcoholism and warmongering to the surface in the midst of the jubilation.

On the songs it performed on Saturday from its new album on Rowdy Records, Fishbone's first album since it was dropped by Columbia Records, the music was harder-edged and the lyrics were more vindictive than usual, accusing the music industry of racism and slavery. Otherwise, the performance was a fast-paced explosion, leaving not an overall impression but a collection of blurred images: saxophones flying across the stage, pants hanging halfway down bared bottoms, four security guards trying to pry a leather-jacketed audience member off Mr. Moore, Cee-lo of the Goodie Mob accidentally diving headfirst into a large gap in the audience, band members crowd-surfing halfway across the room while singing, hands attacking the rods on the vintage theremin, fistfights breaking out in the front rows and fans reluctantly dragged onstage by the band. It was a world, unlike the hundreds of bars tuned to the World Series, where catharsis came without victory.

De La Soul, which preceded Fishbone, has also turned into a party act. In seven years it has changed from a laid-back, psychedelic crossover act to devil-hating, pork-shunning Muslim-style rappers to, on its latest album, ''Stakes Is High'' (Tommy Boy), common-sense gurus looking for a good time. On Saturday, it spent much of its set pitting one side of the room against the other, using the old crowd-rousing trick of asking, ''I heard the party's round here, right?'' With help from the rapper Truth Enola, it smoothly moved between songs from each soul-searching phase of its career, becoming most effective when all three rappers (none of whom have remarkable voices on their own) rhymed in unison.

Joi, the model and rhythm-and-blues singer, appeared for a guest spot in the middle of Fishbone's set, using the group as a backing band as she does on her coming album, ''Amoeba Cleansing System'' (EMI). Bringing out two high-heeled backup singers in leopard-print outfits and delivering virtuosic but derivative funk, rock and soul like a diva version of Lenny Kravitz, she added a necessary dose of rowdy, raunchy female energy to De La Soul and Fishbone's rowdy, raunchy male energy.

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