House of Vibe All-Stars

I was looking for live video of Philip (Fish) Fisher playing drums. I have seen him a few times with Fishbone (way back in the day) and he was seriously amazing. He eventually was the touring drummer for Justin Timberlake, so that gives you an idea of how he's revered within the pop music. With Fishbone, there was an insane stage show happening in front of him, so I imagine people didn't notice him much. They would have been moving, though, and the motor driving the entire building was Fish.

First time I saw him live, I assumed there was some kind of drum trigger trickery happening. Didn't seem like a human could be playing some of that stuff with only two arms and two legs. On the Beastie Boys tour, he had a small electronic set (to fit on the huge Beasties set) and it was set up sideways, so every stick and pedal hit was visible. It was all real. Amazing.

There are some Fishbone live videos, but Angelo and the antics take the frame, so you don't get to see Fish much. I happened across this rooftop jam session in the search, and while it's pretty tame music, you can easily see why he was such a huge influence on me:



Rock solid. Oh, and Chali 2na in the mix as well.

Rodan - Before The Train (Peel Sessions)

I was knee-deep in the Jesus Lizard, Slint, and a ton of other stuff when a pal of mine from Record Revolution asked me if I had ever heard Rodan. I hadn't. There wasn't much to hear (only one full record, I think), but once I got my hands on the album, I listened to it over and over and over again.

There are only a handful of bands that have completely caught me off guard upon first listen, and Rodan was definitely one of those. The intro to Rusty is a languid, intertwined string arrangement (played on guitars). It's not really what I expected given the pedigree of the members of the band, but it went on for a few minutes and lulled me into a confused state just as the first wrecking ball hit.

Holy cow.

I remember hearing the Jesus Lizard for the first time, and the first Fugazi song I heard was Waiting Room. Those were both transcendent music moments for me. When Bible Silver Corner ended and that first snare hit initiated the angular, rolling assault of Shiner, I was hooked. Have been since.

Anyhow, in researching them, I found very little outside of Rusty (or the various projects of the members post-Rodan) to further scratch the itch they started. There were, however, the Peel sessions. This is one of my all-time favorite songs for a lot of reasons. It's somewhat symmetrical. It has a certain comfortable feel to it despite the myriad parts and starts and stops. There are no words. It's marvelously long, but never gets boring. It seems like we're all on a musical trip together.

See what you think: