Fishbone - Give A Monkey A Brain And He'll Swear He's The Center Of The Universe

My freind Reiner Krämer is right, Fishbone is across the board amazing. Unfortunately, i don't have the kind of money it takes to import their albums from Europe, so we'll have to youtubalisten to their 4th album Give A Monkey A Brain And He'll Swear He's The Center Of The Universe (median value is currently $106). 

Best album title ever? Definitely a contender. Sample of Damon Waynes in between opening the pool and heavily criticizing the Christian Right. Make no mistake, the "holy rollers" are the bad guys. 

Fishbone is tragically underrated. Look at their competition though, Living Colour, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, it's a bit unfair that Fishbone comes across SQUIRREL! by comparison. That's not a criticism, it's just reality. Mainly known as a Funk Rock/Ska band, their late transition to Rock/Metal kind of gets lost in the shuffle. Here for example we get 3 rock/alt-metal tracks and then full on Ska for Unyeilding Conditioning and Funk for Properties Of Propaganda. Sadly you can't say "Git together yo' shit, and move your ass to a proper toilet" on commercial radio. The world would probably be a better place if you could, though. 

That's not even the best lyric on the album either. "May your dog's colon be familiar with the warmth of your breath!" is straight up Mr. Bungle level insanity. 

I don't exactly know what Lemon Meringue is supposed to be about, but i highly suggest you don't try to figure it out for yourself. Refer to my review of that Tonic album and just stay away from lemons altogether. 

I'll stop the track by track rundown here, because the album is what's actually the thing. This album is actually heavily derived from Principia Discordia, the first published text of the religion of Discordianism, an absurdist school of thought that considers order and disorder as illusions created by the central nervous system, and therefore equally inaccurate and subjective. In short, order is exactly as delusional as disorder. Whether or not Discordianism is a parody religion is both highly debated and completely nonsensical. Essentially chaos is the only capital T Truth, and all claims to the ordered or disordered nature of that chaos are merely filters through which the true chaos of observable phenomena is being interpreted. If that sounds exactly like what i've always been saying, then you're probably almost as surprised as i am because this is the first i've ever heard of it. I got all my Absurdist schooling from Camus. Vonnegut fans will be pleased to note the Bokonon is a named Saint. I just like the fact that yin and yang have been renamed "hodge" and "podge." 

I only bring it up because you might go listen to it and think "clearly this is one of Bottle's what the hell did i just listen to albums," when it's not. I know full well the "goddess" refered to on this album is Eris, the Goddess of Discord. I know exactly what i'm listening to, and it is disturbingly spectacular.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ntWLdWp-IOlSgQ1J_3zhicHZQxJrV7SHA

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