Saturday to Monkey Around in the Center Of the Universe

Clearly I have a thing for monkeys.

When I was sixteen years old and tripping on mushrooms for the second or third time, I got hip to the glory of Fishbone‘s amazing 1993 album Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe.  Aside from having one of the best titles of all time, this record contains some of the heaviest tunes the ‘bone ever recorded, with guitars and drums sounding HUGE… so if I ever recommend the band to a metalhead, this is where I tell them to start.  Not that the other albums didn’t have some bouts of crush, but these jams just downright rip.

And the lyric “may a dog’s colon be familiar with the warmth of your breath”…….well, that just speaks for itself.

What’s that, you say?  “Isn’t Fishbone a ska band?”  They certainly have that too, as well as some seriously funky forays as well.  Permit me to demonstrate:

Props/thanks to Alexander LeGrand, who has the entire album uploaded on his YouTube channel (as well as The Reality of My Surroundings, which was the first Fishbone album I ever bought when I was 11 and freaked the shit out of me!)