First I want to give a shout out to Lady D. for being the special
soldierette that she is. Do you ever miss a show? I think I saw you Dave
(short blond crew cut, old t-shirt?), but you looked a little busy. And to
all the other soldiers who got to see a special show amongst all the teens
supremes, but I'll get to that a little later.

OK....so far you've probably seen the set list, and if you haven't made
plans to go see the Fishbone show coming to your town, or anywhere near you,
you'd better strongly consider adjusting your plans, because you would be
missing out on the next big thing. It's becoming obvious that with each
passing show, this current line-up gets stronger and tighter. One thing is
for sure: I'd hate to be the Stone Temple Pilots having to go on stage
after Fishbone, night after night. Getting shown up like that could be
damaging in a lot of ways.

To the Fishbone fans other than us diehards, most of them came to see
Angelo, and had said as much in the past. But very soon Spacey T. is going
to become the other headliner in the band. If its even conceivable, he is
getting BETTER. No looking across the stage for cues, no focusing on his
guitar neck throughout the show....the dude is going to blow up real soon.
I spoke with him for about a half an hour before the show. He was with his
buddy, Wes I thing his name was, who filled in on a couple of the songs
during the show. I got a real history lesson about Eddie Hazel and black
rock music in general. It was really cool hearing him talk about the whole
Eddie, Jimi, and George scene back in the day. Turns out that George going
around telling stories about Eddie knowing Jimi weren't exactly truthful.
Anyway, it seems that all of our concerns about the welfare of the band and
black rock musicians in general are a bit unnecessary. Spacey says that he
and Walt are working on some things that are going to turn things around,
and they have just been waiting for the right time to bring things out.
They are fed up with waiting for the traditional routes of getting music
out, and the word of mouth from the underground. They have a plan, it
makes perfect sense, and with the right focus and a little luck, they are
going to make a lot of money. He says that they are going to finance their
own projects, instead of having the "industry" tease you with a little bit
from time to time. I don't feel comfortable saying what's in the works, but
if they get all of this stuff to fly, this could be the hottest thing since
the flannel shirt boys from the

John McKnight and John Steward claimed to be "off", but if they were, they
fooled everyone. I haven't seen an appreciative Fishbone audience like that
in a long time. "Wet Daddy" isn't Fish, but no one is, and he does very
well as his replacement. The guy on the Magic Show, and they guy last
night, might as well have been two different people. If you get a chance to
talk to him, he really has a great sense of humor. His takes on the Super 8
days are funny as hell. He's also strong as all get out. I shook the guys
hand and he nearly broke mine, and I'm no stranger to weights ;-) One
funny side note is how one of the Fishbone groupies keep confusing one of my
BDR band buddies as John Steward at the after show party. Similar
complexion, both are bald and play drums, but that's where it ends. All of
this was going on while the actual John Steward was walking right behind
her...funny shit.

That girl was all of maybe 16 years old, which brings an interesting thought
to mind: do any of you "old timers" notice that the Fishbone fan base is
getting younger and younger? At one point I turned to my bud and said "you
realize that a lot of people here weren't even walking when 'Party at Ground
Zero" came out, much less dancing". I say it's a testament to the strength
of their music, which knows no age boundaries.

I think the scene that Dave was referring to was during "Where'd you Get
Those Pants", the band brought a parade of girls from the crowd to dance on
stage during the song. A few of them were classy soldierettes, who just
wanted to do their thing to the groove. A few of them, however, made it
abundantly clear to Angelo, Norwood, Walt and the rest of the audience at
The Garage, that they could care less about what the band was playing, and
more about what was going on in FISHBONE'S pants. I know it's a musicians
want to "get his fuck on", but I can't help but take notice and cringe when
I see the young girls who just throw themselves at musicians at shows,
tripping over one another, then turn around and ask you "which one was he"?
Maybe this has to do with me being a daddy of a beautiful little girl.
Maybe I'm just getting old (turning the big 33 on the 18th).......Nah man,
that shit wasn't funny, even when I was 21......I'm giving my daughter to
the nuns when she turns 6.

Back to the music. Right now there is a serious dearth of musical talent
and originality, and the ground is fertile for the next hot musical seed to
be planted, and it looks like Fishbone is in perfect position to take
advantage. Yet another reason to see them now, because if things go right,
in a few months the venues are going to get bigger and the dancing space a
lot tighter, and you certainly won't be able to just go up and buy a ticket
at the door on the night of the show.

It was a blast....I'm looking forward to the next time.

Peace All,

High C

I page Norwood at about 10am, 10:30am, 11am, and again at 11:30am while
makin flyers at Kinko's, and one more time at noon. His voicemail on his
pager sounds like he's holding a rainstick up to the phone or something,
which lasts about 30 seconds, then you hear his voice kinda sing 'Leave a
Message' and then the beep. Anyway, he calls me back at 12:15 and tells me
they are gonna be at the club at 2pm so I arrange to meet him at 2:30. I
left at 1:45 and drove past a car fire on the interstate. Flames
completely engulfing the front of this giant green oldsmobile. It was
kinda slow drivin past and I was in the lane next to it. Everybody slowin
down and shit and I'm thinkin 'Uhh...shouldn't we be drivin faster? I
mean damn...its on fire, can't it explode still?' I damn sure didn't
wanna be next to it when it happened, but it was all okay and I didn't get
blowed up. So I get downtown only to find out that they've added new
roads to my normal route and they're now open so I end up fuckin that up
and find myself in Georgetown, 20, 21, 22, 23 blocks away, 24 as I drive
the wrong way and finally notice the damn numbers are goin the wrong way.
So I turn around and get close enough to the club to find parking.

I get to the club to meet up with Norwood at about 3pm. He of course is
down the block havin sushi. So I'm walkin around the club lookin for
somebody that might know when Angelo, or Norwood will be back when all of
a sudden I hear this deep voice say 'You lookin for Norwood?' I turned
around and said yes and the deep voice says 'I am too. Hi, my name's
John'. I shook his hand and asked 'Steward?' and he smiles and says
'yeah'. So we talked for a few minutes while walking around lookin for
Norwood and a bathroom. The lights are out in the men's bathroom so we
find the women's. He pushes the door open and quick glances in side...no
feet. He says 'fuckit, I'm just gonna do it in here.' I ask if he wants
me to watch the door and he responds 'naw...let'em walk in I don't care'
and laughs. When he comes out I hear people moving stuff around
downstairs and decide to check and see if Norwood is back and down there.
John stays upstairs and takes a nap or somethin.

When I get downstairs, I hit the doorway of the stage level floor and
Spacey-T is talking to the club's hospitality girl. He looks at me and my
fishbone shirt and says 'I notice your a part of the fishbone familyhood.
Do you have the new album?' I answer 'yes'. He says, 'Is there a song on
the album called 'Where'd you get those pants?' I answer 'yes' again. He
looks at Miss Hospitality and says, 'see, I told you we were gonna play
that song for you tonite, I told ya I wasn't lying.' She was wearing
these tight gray flares (and I mean tight!) and well...it was definately
the type of thing that would inspire a song like 'Pants'. She was
surprised cuz she thought he was just hitting on her I guess. It's about
3:30 and still no Norwood so I sit down with Spacey-T while he's changing
guitar strings. I pull out my spiral notebook and start drawing and stuff
while were talking. I just asked him whatever came to mind, like how
often he changes his strings (every 3rd show), etc. I told him about my
roomate who DJ's 'Intelligent Jungle' that was comin to the show for his
first live fishbone experience. Spacey-T says there will be some of that
on the new album. He said that he listens to a lot of that too. He was
saying 'thats one of the things that makes Fishbone work, is that all of
us listen to all kinds of different shit'. He said he's planning to put
out a solo album soon, not just tour distribution, but full-on album this
shit is for real style. I mentioned to him that Cowboy Mouth has 4
frontmen and they each have a solo thing that they alternate doing solo
acoustic sets as opening acts before each show. He liked that a lot and
said that soon we can look forward to something like that with Fishbone
shows. I was asking him if he was the guitarist from 1997's Chim Chim tour
but he said he didnt come on til after Warped. He's never played the
Warped tour yet. He thought J.B. was probably who I saw, but when I said
I was pretty sure that the guitar player at the time had dreads, he said
it might have been Freddy Flynt(sp) or Norwood's cousin that played with
Prince for awhile (I forget the guy's name). Spacey-T finished up his
guitars and helped set up his equipment on stage. He said he isn't as
excited about the days off as the other guys, its nice and all, but he
just wants to play. 'I LIVE FOR THIS SHIT!!!' he said a couple of times
while tuning guitars, or walking back to me from the stage. He said 'I
like to help setup my stuff because I want it to be perfect, I LIVE FOR
THIS SHIT MAN!' He said he needed to go make some noise for a sec and see
how it sounded. To my surprise he gets on stage and doesn't pick up a
guitar...he drops himself behind the drums! He didnt play anything
amazing, but he's actually pretty good. He played some jazz style beats.
Its kinda like other guitar players I've known that just like to fuck
around on the drums when the drummer's not there. Some of them become
pretty fuckin good that way too. So I leave Spacey-T to play drums for a
bit and go off to page Norwood again.

Norwood calls me back immediately and I'm standing in front of the club.
I tell him 'I'm at the club man', he says 'so am I, I'm upstairs so come
on up'. I get up there and he's sittin on the couch with this huge
tupperware thing full of bud light in front of him, another one full of
heineken and snapple to my right, and a big bowl of fresh fruit. We talked
for a few minutes and I showed him the stuff I had been drawing and we
talked about that for awhile. Then Angelo walks in and starts talking to
Norwood, didnt see me yet. Then he turns around and looks at me, then
Norwood, then back to me. He's staring at me with this 'I know that dude,
but what the fuck is his name again' look on his face. So I re-indroduce
myself and he remembered that Debra had introduced us several months ago
at his MAdd Vibe show in DC. So then all 3 of us are in there talkin
about stuff and my drawings and more stuff. Then my cellphone rings. I'm
answering it and Angelo says 'Ha ha man, Yer Parasite's Ringin, Yer
Parasite's Ringin'. So of course I changed the greeting on the phone to
read 'Parasite' and all my friends will have to hear me say 'call me on my
parasite' from now on. We spent a lot of time talking business style about
some great wonderful things that will be affecting the familyhood very
soon. Details are still in the works so I won't go into it here today. I
think you all will be very happy. CAn ya FEEL IT!!!

Okay, so now its time for sound check. Of course I stayed for that. They
played a really badass 'Jah Jah on the Telephone'. It was one of those
that sounds like their just fuckin around, but man it was funky as all
shit. They played several things like that. Then they played 'Dear God',
which made me very happy after hearing everybody say that it wasn't being
played at the shows. I think they're workin out a live arrangement for it
still and some of you will get to hear it soon. Don't quote me on that
tho because I forgot to ask them. I wanted to catch Walt by himself and
see if he'd get it added to the setlist for me, but I didnt get much
chance to talk to him at all really. My roomate shows up at the club and
calls me from outside in the middle of Dear God so I went out and brought
him in. His first Fishbone show and he gets to watch soundcheck! Lucky
bastard! After soundcheck is over we went to get some food and earplugs.

When we get back from dinner we go back into the club and catch Angelo
who's lookin for me already anyway so it was perfect timing. He was
lookin to get back to the bus for his CD's. We were only 4 blocks from
the hotel, but he had been siteseeing all day and had no idea where he was
in relation to the hotel. So anyway, were goin downstairs to the
soundbooth where he's got his laptop stored. He's yellin while we bounce
down the stairs 'I love that thing! I can check my email from ANYWHERE
NOW HAhahaha!' Angelo is workin on a new book from the road right now.
He's doin his writings and stuff and sending it to Gaston, who is putting
it all together for him. So after he's finished showing me the new
Fishbone Chronicles he's making in netscape composer, he pops out of the
soundbooth and rides back to the bus so he can play DJ for awhile.

I leave my roomate sittin in the club drawing and writing his stuff (which
is really interesting, I'll see if he'll let me post some of it to the
list later) and go outside to hand out flyers to the familyhood in line.
I see John McKnight walkin up to the club so I grab him for a sec and we
talked for a few. He informed me that the show was probably gonna sell
out, which is great for DC. They usually have a good turnout here, but I
think you can always buy tickets at the door the night of the show...even
at the 9:30 club. We didn't talk long, but he was VERY approachable and I
definately recommend you talk to him if you see him at a show, its like
hanging out with a good friend.

After John went inside, Angelo and the tour manager pull up in front of
the club with the boxes of T-shirts and Angelo's CD's. He stayed in front
of the club for awhile playing with the sticks and talking to people
standing in line and just walking by. I was on the 'parasite' with
Josefek at that point, so I walked over to Angelo and gave him the phone
for a few. I flyered the shit out of the people in line with Nuttwork
Flyer #3 (get it at fishbone.net for your next show). Its amazing how
some people just refuse to take flyers no matter what they say. I'm in a
fishbone shirt, in the doorway of the club distributing flyers with
fishbone logo's on them, and people are like 'no thank you', 'not
interested' and many others. A guy said to me 'oh, i see you have some
literature to pass out.' Very bizarre. Norwood comes flying through and
I damn near flyered him, he asked me if he could have a poster instead. I
flyered half the band as they passed me and I didnt see anything but their
shoulders cuz I was separating the flyers. They all took the flyers tho
and McKnight told me that he was looking for one of those just the other
day. He also said that at the last show people were passing them out on
full sheets rather than 4/sheet. If you go to Kinko's and download the
pdf form from the internet, they will cut them in quarters for you and
everything. I did 400 flyers for about 8 bucks yesterday in about 20
minutes and yeah...they helped me.

Okay...on with the show. The opening bands were called 'Jepetto' and
'Raging Alien Communication' or something like that. They were local
bands of the rap/rock variety. Neither of them were very good. I had
asked Spacey-T who was opening and he said that they never know til the
bands are on stage pretty much, unless its a big tour like the Chili
Peppers etc. That seemed strange to me since I thought they were touring
the album. I thought this was the Nuttwerx Tour. But whatever, the local
clubs are booking the opening acts I think and they just book whatever
seems to be popular in the area. The Garage is not the normal club
Fishbone play at so, I'm not sure that the venue really knew what to
expect from Fishbone. I spent most of the opening band's sets back and
forth outside and inside passing out flyers but basically not paying
attention to the band. They all finally finish and Angelo spins records
for about 30 minutes I guess...was hard to keep track of time at this
point. He was putting CD's on and then he'd look around the room grinning
til the song was over , and repeat. Norwood comes walkin through the room
wearing a black bathrobe, shades, and I beleive that viking hat we keep
seeing him in (no braids that I noticed). He looked like somethin that
dropped right out of the Mothership. I think he was just runnin out to
tell Angelo that they were bout ready to get on stage and to stop spinnin
records, cuz about 10 minutes later they were on stage.

They come on stage and start with Party at Ground Zero. The crowd started
moving immediately and there were people already swimmin. Nobody seemed
to get thrown out for it tho. I remember seeing the same few guys doin it
over and over. They moved quickly into Question of Life, which was great
live (as usual). All Kept Startin was next and very bouncy, the crowd was
definately enjoying themselves. Then Cholly complete with 'Fat Chicks'
chant leading in. After Cholly, Angelo looks into the crowd and picks out
a couple of girls and says 'I'm gonna dedicate this next song to you, and
you, and you. Its about the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and then
the suffering.' My roomate likes this song a lot so he was very pleased.
Angelo played a smooth sax solo in this one that fit so perfectly. I
think this was right after McKnight started gettin funky with the
trombone, Angelo said, you feeling the funk...check this out..and started
his solo. (might have been a different song, I didn't take real good
notes.) Next song is When Problems Arise and Angelo finally decides to
test the waters. He jumped in, rode around for a few seconds and back on
stage to stay for the nite. The stage was very small so they were a
little cramped so I guess that was bothering him a bit. Then Bonin in the
Boneyard which was as funky as ever...then Beergut! At the end of
Beergut, 'All aboard! Get your beer mugs ready! Next stop, hops and
barley!' He has the band playin that fast paced train stuff while he's
namin off beer. 'We got Budweiser! We got Fosters! We got Red Dog! We got
Mad Dog! We got Heineken! We got Oooldd Englishhh, yeah Ooold
Englishhhahahahaha!' 'Next stop! Wine and Spirits! We got whiskey! We
got Jagermiester! We got MOON-shINE!!! Yeahhhhhh, MOON-SHINE!!!' Then
Just Allow, Ugly, Ma and Pa, and on to Where'd you get those pants. They
grabbed about 5 girls and pulled them on stage. The first girl grabbed
Angelo and didn't seem to wanna let go. Angelo was like 'I just brought
ya up here to shake them pants!' They were throwing themselves all OVER
the guys man... To me they took what could have been a cool thing, where
some girls were brought on stage and danced with the band to a song, and
turned it into what looked like a buncha hookers on stage tryin to bone
the band. Hopefully none of you were on the stage last nite, if you were,
chances are I don't mean you cuz everybody wasn't like that, but the few
that were..they made it the only thing you could really see. If you were
on stage and your one of them I'm talkin about...keep some self respect
next time man...thats all...just keep some self-respect. Oh...I almost
forgot...there was this big fat white guy that got on stage that whas
hilarious...he had no shirt on and he got up there and started dancin too.
I was laughin my ass off, looked away for a sec, and looked back and he
was gone. I guess Angelo pushed him off. The Hospitality girl was up on
stage too dancin so we cheered for her a bit. Although I did find it very
fitting that when they finished pants, they went straight into Wish I Had
a Date (Whore, Slut...Whore, Slut...hahahaha) while the girls were gettin
off the stage. Okay, this did get a little rude on my part so I'm gonna
go ahead and apologize for that right now, but I'm not gonna delete it, so
there. Next was 'One Planet! One People! One People! One Planet!' One
Planet People...got the crowd, and I enjoyed the live version very much
myself. Then Unyielding Conditioning, Aids and ARmageddon, both of which
came off beautifully. The sax solo in Unyielding, and the funk they laid
down for Armageddon, was just fuckin brillant. Then of course came the
ever classic punk rock version of Curtis Mayfield's Freddy's Dead. I
think live is the way I like this song best. They played Sunless Saturday
next and at one point in the solo, Spacey-T raised the axe over his head
and the lights were on him in such a way that I immediately thought of the
old He-Man thing. (By the Power of Fishbone, I have the Power!!!!) It
was like the gods reached down to Spacey-T all at once with a great finger
of light pointing him out to be the chosen one or something. He played
beautifully on that and every other song too. They closed the set with a
very high speed Subliminal Fascism, that for a second I thought was gonna
be Chim Chim's Badass Revenge. They left the stage with Angelo saying
'Y'all hold tight for a minute'. They then came back for their encore and
played a very slow and pretty version of Weed Plant. It was just Walt,
Angelo, and Spacey-T on the stage for this one. Then the rest of the band
came out for what Angelo called his 'Dixieland Punk Rock' (I think thats
what he said anyway) Karma Tsunami, which is fuckin GREAT live. They
closed with Housework...they must have, Chris didn't say otherwise, so I'm
stickin to that part of my story.

After the show...(yeah, there's more, not much more, but there's more)...
I gave Angelo the stack of flyers I had left so he'd have somethin to
autograph so that people might keep the shit and check out the websites
(Hmm...I should check into a marketing career.) and went upstairs to talk
to Norwood real quick. Once we got upstairs I'm walkin towards the
dressing room and there's this big muscular guy walkin around with no
shirt on near the bar. I noticed next that the guy's wearin no pants!
Its John Steward walkin around in his underwear upstairs. I was tempted
to sing to him 'Where'd you put your pants', but well...he was headin to
the dressing room and I wasn't tryin to distract him from his mission of
gettin dressed. While I was waiting for Wood to change, Walt comes walkin
by and the Hospitality girl is standin over by me in those pants. He
smiles at her and says, 'Your a very inspirational young lady.' So we
said goodbye to McKnight, Walt, Wood, and Angelo and ran out to the truck
to go home. We passed some frat kid who had passed out for awhile on some
steps next to a couple homeless guys. We had a good laugh as we debated
wakin him up or not. Decided to let him sleep cuz he looked safe enough
and kept walkin. Came accross some brand new leather boot shoes sittin
side by side like somebody put them in a closet and we stopped and looked
at them for a sec, looked around and decided it had been a long enough
nite and so we left the drunk, left the shoes, and left the city for the
nite.

So thats the story, at least what I can tell you heheheh...sorry it was so
damn long.

Dave