Fishbone revered in Documentary at GIFF film fest
By John Delia
The Gasparilla International Film Festival has a gem waiting for film lovers, rock enthusiasts and a look at music in a historical sense. The documentary is called Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone and features the rise, establishment and finally the erosion of the funk band’s amazing existence. Told by Lawrence Fishburne, featuring tons of actual footage and interviews with the band members, after seeing the film it’s heard to get it out of my head. Truly amazing, the film is surly one of the highlights of the 2011 film festival.
An all black band, the story starts when they meet by chance in a small all white high school in 70’s Los Angeles. Bussed in from outlining black neighborhoods during desegregation the boys decide to form an unusual musical group that plays a wild and funky rock. Not the music norm for their ethnic heritage they are not taken seriously until their first gig after graduating where they bring down house at Madame Wong’s oriental restaurant. From these surprising roots comes the historical band Fishbone and in the film you will see actual footage of the rockers throughout their musical career.
A rocky career that remains together through ragging civil rights riots in Los Angeles and the hatred of the black population revealed with the Rodney King incident. In spite of many changes in the group as they evolve, a kidnapping ordeal, resignation of band members, they survived for over 25 years playing in concerts all over the world.
The original 1979 Fishbone featured lead singer Angelo Moore, bassist Norwood Fisher, drummer Phillip “Fish†Fisher, guitarist Kendall Jones, keyboardist Chris Dowd and trumpet Walter Kirby II.
The film’s soundtrack features dozens of Fishbone’s songs, music videos (including one produced by Spike Lee), and movie interviews with the famous in the music and film industry including Flea, Ice-T, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani, Perry Farrell, Bob Forrest, Branford Marsalis, George Clinton, Tim Robbins and Jason Lee.
The film is scheduled for a showing on March 25th at the Centro Ybor Muvico 20
1600 East 8th Avenue in Tampa, Florida at 7:30 PM as part of the Gasparilla International Film Festival. On hand will be producer/director Chris Metzler who will entertain a question & answer interview following the showing. For more information on the documentary and tickets you can log on to www.giff2011.com
FINAL ANALYSIS: remarkable and tunefully contagious. (A)