(Album ©1988, Columbia Records)
As I have already written, after I had my 
senses rattled awake by Guns-N-Roses in college, I got my soul funked up when I found Fishbone! Their second LP was an amazing mix of rock, funk, punk, and soul, all of which were really good songs. “Bonin’ in the Boneyard” was my 1989 summer jam (before that was a saying). “Mighty Long Way” was a great upbeat song about overcoming obstacles, and “Change” was the most meaningful song I had heard in a quite a while.
The guys in Fishbone were so talented – great musicianship, great songwriting across multiple genres, and great energy. They all wrote songs, and three or four of them sang, so the album had lots of different sounds on it. Unfortunately it didn’t sell very well, which I find strange, because it seemed that everyone I knew either had this record or had heard it and liked it.
The cover depicts the logo that their producer, David Kahne, created on an old Mac II computer as the cassette case insert for the band’s demo tape that he had taken around to the record companies in hopes of getting them signed four years earlier. That logo has appeared in all kinds of TV shows and movies since then, attesting to the popularity that the band had. John Cusack was apparently a big fan, displaying Fishbone logo shirts in Say Anything and Hot Tub Time Machine. Tim Robbins wore one as Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham. Then, Robbins and Cusack had them appear in a movie they made together called Tapeheads, playing a fictional band Ranchbone. Marlon Wayans wore a Fishbone t-shirt in Mo’ Money.
It’s too bad that the band began a slow disintegration following their next LP (1991’s The Reality of My Surroundings), as one original member after another quit the band, eventually leaving only two founders slogging it out in small clubs trying to hold on to the dream. But oh what a glorious dream it was.
Agreed. Great live show. Sad they came apart the way they did.