9. "I posted about it back in January. It's a great doc..." In response to In response to 0
I'll restate what I wrote in the original post: It's a fantastic film that's equal parts sad, funny and hopeful, all the while being completely unflinching in its depiction of how much creative people can suffer trying to keep a dream alive.
It was really a trip for me to watch personally. I discovered Fishbone when I was in high school in the mid-'90s, around the time of the "Chim Chim's Badass Revenge" album -- the Dallas Austin produced record where it became clear the band was never going to reach the level of success hit by peers like the Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction -- and they completely scrambled the way I listened to music. I became totally obsessed with Fishbone after one mind-blowing show in 1997 and as such already knew a lot of the stuff covered in the doc, but it's crazy to see footage of Kendall starting to wig out on everybody and hear these guys talk about the group falling apart for the first time (at least for me). And I actually had no idea the band had reconciled with Kendall and Chris Dowd in the last few years, so it's even crazier to see footage of them spontaneously playing "Party at Ground Zero" together in some tiny-ass Bay Area club.
Every member is strikingly honest in discussing the band's history and downfall, especially Angelo and Norwood who don't hide their frustrations with their current situation (and each other), slogging their way around the world with hired hands, playing for small crowds and cranking out new music while still believing they can reach a wider audience almost 30 years into the band's existence. It's sort of noble that they haven't gone down the reunion path even though that seems like a viable option, but in retrospect the best thing they could have done -- at least for their bank accounts -- was to break up after "Give a Monkey a Brain..." (when Chris and Kendall left), then do a reunion of the original lineup right around now, like a lot of their contemporaries have done.
From a cinematic perspective it might be a bit overlong, but as a longtime fan who finds there to be a dearth of available archival footage of the band even in the YouTube era, I found the entire thing fascinating.
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