Music Library: Fishbone, Fivehead, Flamin' Groovies

Fishbone - Truth and Soul (1988), The Reality Of My Surroundings (1991), and Still Stuck In Your Throat (2006). I'm going to catch some flack for this from friends, but I'm not really crazy about Fishbone's albums. I saw them live back in the day and enjoyed the hell out of their show, but their albums all race along at the same breakneck tempo, insisting that you feel the fun fun fun plus the outrage outrage outrage. The best of these is Truth and Soul, an album I picked up while still in high school, and even that one starts to wear on me after a while. I bought The Reality of My Surroundings when it came out, and it was one of the first CDs I sold when I was broke. I think there's about an EP's worth of good material on there, but the whole of it is utterly exhausting. This copy and the 2006 album were part of a gift from a friend, but although I have much affection for my friend, there's not a single song on the latter that I like. OK, fire away.


Fivehead - Big Mistake Factory EP (2001) and Guests of the Nation (2004). Fivehead were an Austin indie rock band that cranked out the hook-filled post-Pavement rock. These albums may break no new ground, but I like 'em more than my Fishbone albums, maybe because they're shorter and less pushy. Their bassist engineered the lone EP from my prior band Trouble Down South, too.


The Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head (1971). Huh, I thought I had a copy of Shake Some Action, too. This one is a bluesy rock album. The expanded version has a bunch of classic rock and rockabilly covers that are bar-band worthy at best, but the album itself is pretty decent rock music. Shake Some Action is, of course, a power pop classic.