This article is from:
http://www.smh.com.au/metro/content/961206/music.html
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The big bang theory 

By JOHN ENCARNACAO


Fishbone make nutmeg music. To you and me it may
sound like a motivatin' stew of funk, rock, ska and
hardcore but to Angelo Moore his definition of nutmeg
is infinitely more appropriate: "Nuts, meaning your nuts, your testicles, everything
comes from the nuts. Life comes from the nuts. Of course, life is growing in the uterus
but it comes from the nuts. Fishbone is the five extraordinary sperms searchin'
simultaneously for the egg sac."

It gets better. "Nutmeg. Nut, right, like you go nuts, when you get a nut, a musical nut
or a physical nut, you get nuts at how good a nut feels. Meg meaning big, meaning
mega. Nutmeg: A big, extraordinary nut. Nutmeg music. So the music is based off a
musical nut, all the kinds of music you have when you have a nut."

But the five 'Boners have more on their minds than their nuts. The past three years
have seen a whole lot of changes. For instance, in '93, the group parted company from
Sony or, to quote a track from the recent Chim Chim's Bad Ass Revenge disc, the
"mass corporate plantation-slash-slavery compound".

For a group of five African-Americans, the analogy was too obvious not to find its way
on to disc. "It is slavery, man," exclaims Moore. "Once you sign that contract, they
own you. They give you the tools you need for your craft, and, like, slave wages."

Moore believes that, despite the exposure and distribution afforded by a major, many
groups are simply buried by labels that don't begin to understand what their artists are
doing.

If forces outside the group weren't always helpful, there were also internal problems.
Two years ago, guitarist Kendall Jones joined a cult as a result of what Moore terms
"manic depressive Jesus overload". Then Chris Dowd, who played trombone and
keyboards, quit, leaving Moore (vocals, sax and theremin), Walter Kibby (trumpet,
vocals), Norwood Fisher (bass), Fish (drums) and John Bingham (guitar).

With three writers in the group now rather than five, the "too many cooks" feeling that
was a mixed blessing on previous recordings may gradually fade. Though Chim Chim
shows a group still coming to terms with the lineup shuffle, there's little doubt that the
live shows will still be a funkin' skankin' rockin' housequake.

Fishbone play on Saturday at Selinas, coogee Bay Hotel.