Fishbone
Assembled in the late 1970s at a Los Angeles junior high school when mandatory busing brought inner city kids to predominately white Valley schools, Fishbone notched a record deal with Columbia before all the members were out of high school. The ensemble delivered some of the most accomplished music of the pre-grunge era, mixing ska, metal, rap, funk, reggae, punk and soul into a boisterous jumble that was as entertaining as it was ambitious. Still together decades later -- powered by remaining founding members Angelo Moore (vocals, saxophone) and Norwood Fisher (bass) -- the group made front-page headlines in 2011 when its song "Lyin' Ass Bitch" was played by the house band on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to accompany the appearance of Republican presidential nominee Michelle Bachmann.
"There was a gig in our career before we were Fishbone, but we were the same six members. This is the gig that got us to change our name to Fishbone because we were called Megatron -- which we can all agree was a bad name. We had just gotten new management and he booked us at this club called The Music Machine in West L.A. He put us on this bill that was all heavy metal bands. The booker at the club thought -- based on our name --that this would fit. Maybe he thought we were Megadeth? We were doing what we do, and we did not fit with any of the bands. It was a horrible show. There were probably like eight people in the audience, and my grandmother was one of them. ... I'm starting to remember others. Again, this was with the original six guys early in our career. We had changed our name to Fishbone, and our manager got us a show to open a Trak Auto Parts store in Compton (California), playing the parking lot of a shopping center. No one booed us. No one threw anything at us. But we got the strangest looks. It was the wrong band in the wrong part of town doing the wrong music. For once we actually bothered people more than we brought joy into their hearts."
— Norwood Fisher, Fishbone