They tell you never to meet your idols, but I’d tend to disagree based on my experiences in the past 40 years of my existence. Well realistically the experiences mentioned took place mostly over the past 20 years of my existence, the second half, my second act – the layup to my current over-the-hill-dom (lolz! I turned 40 last week and just wanted to shove that in here somehow!)
And maybe I wouldn’t use the word “idols” either, as idols to me are golden calves worshipped by Israelites in the book of Exodus while Moses was away (I know right?) But, in noticing the room clearing I’ll get to my point: I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of my favorite musicians, and they’ve mostly been pretty cool to me. I’ve had conversations, hugs, and of course coveted autographs of a decent number of musicians representing a certain level of notoriety in the world that is, if not underground, then tied to the underground. Which is to say I’ve never talked to, hugged, or received the autograph of a Madonna or a Sir Paul McCartney*, but rather a number of band members whose music has great meaning to me have taken the time to pay attention to this little ol’ fanboy (me.)
Sometimes there’s the cool band member selling their own merch. That is just some down-to-earth, badass shit right there. I remember Jason Navarro, lead singer from the Suicide Machines (but on this date, representing a side project which I think was J. Navarro & The Traitors) and he was doing that band-member-merch thing at Reggies in Chicago, just talking to everybody that came up to him. We talked and I didn’t even buy merch that day.
Other times a performing dude or dudette will come down from the stage at the end of the show and talk to audience members. Frontman Marc Paffi from Bear vs. Shark did this when I saw them doing a Terrorhawk anniversary show at Thalia Hall, also in Chicago. I’ve got that autograph (on their merch, a Bear vs. Shark tote bag of all things) hanging on my wall in the basement/man cave.
I know it’s not always possible and these are the most ideal musician-meeting circumstances. Other times I simply cross paths with the rocker/rapper/etc. around the venue after the show but that’s tricky because you tend to be ushered out quickly. I make it seem like I get lucky in that situation but I do generally try and time it to run into somebody. That’s probably annoying though, for the musician trying to pack up at the end of the night. Killah Priest (at Subterranean) and a couple members from The Armed (at Thalia Hall again) were chilled out examples of right-place-right-time meetings after shows.
Let me pivot this story before I’m just writing a novel about middle-aged-fanboy autograph strategies. Because perhaps you wonder where this story starts being about Fishbone, whose name is in the title of the post. Patience my friend. For you see, there was a time where I didn’t so much meet Fishbone as Fishbone met me. This part of the story also clashes with the pins I set up earlier because this was not one of those triumphant moments of band meetings for me.
I don’t know the exact fateful date but this was in 2018, and it was a hot summer day dominated by the smell of exhaust from passing buses. Not my bus though…I was still waiting for mine, and I was getting a bit antsy. So I started walking from my own bus stop to the one directly before it, at the bigger intersection (Belmont/Western/Clybourn), to see if that would kill some time. Waiting for the bus sucks. At this point I thought I might be late for work.
So that’s when a figure came up in front of me. I lived in Chicago and if it were just somebody honking their horn at me, I was immune to the noise of the city and wouldn’t have even noticed. But this guy had jogged from the other side of the street straight towards me. I made room on the sidewalk for him to pass me, but he didn’t pass. Instead he smiled at me and said, “Hey nice shirt!”
The nice shirt was a wrinkled Fishbone Truth and Soul shirt that I hadn’t really thought twice about since throwing it on at the start of my day. My job at the time permitted me to wear wrinkled Fishbone t-shirts to the office, which was a nice perk (much nicer than when they changed their tune and outsourced all of our positions.) As for my new friend, he reached out and shook my hand, adding to my immense confusion. Recap, I was waiting for the bus and a dude complimented me and shook my hand, and next he was asking to take my picture because he liked my shirt so much. You have to understand this: it was genuinely my experience living in Chicago that a dude might just throw his car in park, run up to you, compliment your shirt, shake your hand, and take a picture of you. Who was I to question it? Am I the fun police? I said: “Yeah okay. Go ahead.”
The guy took the picture and I had almost no expression/was slightly confused/kinda worried I’d miss my bus if I continued taking random pictures with strangers who really liked my t-shirt. But then the guy kind of hung out for a minute, still smiling, looking at me like he wanted me to say something. And so we looked at each other some more before eventually, just nodding, still still smiling, I think he patted me on the back or something and then ran back out of frame as I saw the bus coming. I shook my head a couple times but now it was time to go to work and I pretty much forgot that scene ever occurred (for a little while.) Later, though, when I was on break at work, a little bored, I got on my computer and started scrolling on Facebook. I did a double or triple take because I saw an image of myself wearing what I was currently wearing, confused, and notably not posted from my page – it caught me off guard. The page it was posted on was that of Fishbone, a band I followed on Facebook, the band that also was advertised on my t-shirt. “Wait…” I thought as math was taking place in my head, like, 1 enthusiastic photo-taking dude must = 1 Fishbone rocker. In fact it was revealed from the post that it had been their bassist Norwood Fisher, one and only, who had made my acquaintance that day.
I definitely felt like an idiot seeing the description Fisher wrote as: “He looked bewildered and I don’t think he recognized me.” Although…I don’t know how else you could possibly describe that blank stare in my eyes in the image. “Bewildered” is kind of an appropriate word to use even if I wasn’t thrilled to read it at the time. And I wasn’t even star-struck or anything like that, as some of the Facebook fans suggested in the comments. Nope, I was just wondering what the fuck was going on.
Go down a list of your favorite albums throughout history from your favorite bands. Would you recognize one-on-one every member of every band that you “represent” by wearing their t-shirts and rocking their songs out of your open car windows? Maybe you would, and you would have bested me in that regard good sir or madame. You better believe I know what Fishbone looks like now ever since this encounter but at the time, I just thought I lived in Chicago and some dude was taking a picture of me and shaking my hand while I waited for the bus to come.
You can see how this wasn’t like one of my idealized experiences where I would wait to meet a band member after a show. This was a different type of experience where I was kind of put on display as someone who had no idea what was going on, so that the fans of the band could comment about it because the same shit would never have happened to any one of them. I tried to save face a tiny bit by commenting on the same post like, “Can you guys believe I did that? Right?” but I don’t think that really made much of a difference.
It’s important to note that I’m not bad-vibing Fishbone at all. In fact I’m listening to them right now, I listen to them a lot, and they’re legendary to me. Through different eras of their career they could give you ska, punk, metal, soul, or some blend of those elements. I personally rock Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe regularly…like…often. That album had their heaviest moments for sure, plus still incorporated the typical blend of styles they’re known for. It might not be regarded as a fan favorite historically among their more name-checked releases but to me it’s great – I love that album.
Really this was more so a bizarre thing that happened in my life and an ironic situation because I always go out of my way to try and meet musicians, but when one just sort of came over to me, I was entirely caught off guard. I was so in my robot swing of weekday life that no logical conclusions at all were drawn. Starting with the basic question of, “I wonder who this dude is?” So what I’m doing now is making flash cards of notable band members and exactly what they look like. I will do this alphabetically. Note: I am not actually going to do this.
*I’m not the type to chase an autograph that’s up for auction (or really, for sale at all.) Generally if I’m coming home with an autograph it means I’ve met the person who signed it. That’s got a lot of value for me.
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