How to Vanquish Racist Scumbags With One Bad Brains Cassette

Fishbone's Angelo Moore on the tape that (literally) saved his life

In this edition of “WHAT’S IN YOUR TAPE DECK,” I talked to Angelo Moore, lead singer and saxophonist for the LA band Fishbone, about the Bad Brains’ cassette-only 1982 debut, The Yellow Tape.

Angelo Moore: Growing up, I was part of the fly-in-the-buttermilk generation in the Valley. We were one of the first black families to move into all-white neighborhoods in the suburbs in the early seventies. No, more like ’74, ’75. It was all black in the house but when I went outside, it was all white people.

Eric Spitznagel: Did you feel like outsiders?

AM: To some extent, yeah. But culturally, it was eye-opening. I got turned on to a lot of rock and alternative music. At home, it was all R&B and soul. But then I’d go to school in the Valley and hang out with these white boys and they’d be listening to Led Zeppelin and Rush and Billy Joel. [Sings:] “Sing us a song, you’re a piano man!” That shit was catchy.

ES: Did you stick to the Valley, or did you ever explore the rest of LA?

AM: I took the bus down to Hollywood from the Valley. It was a two-and-a-half-hour trip to the inner city to see my dad. I also went to Hollywood to dance.

ES: To dance?

AM: Street corner dancing and shit, pop-locking and breakdancing. We’d dance on the corner of Sunset & Vine. I’d get on the bus after school with my boombox and two hours later I’d be on the street. I’d put it right there on the corner and get my dance on. Until somebody stole it.

ES: Somebody stole your boombox?

AM: Somebody stole my boombox, man! When I was going down to visit my dad in the hood. Crazy shit, man.

ES: Did somebody grab it out of your hands?

AM: I was on the bus and some gangster motherfucker was like, “Give me your radio, punk!” It was terrible. But that bus ride, man, it was everything. It was where I discovered the Bad Brains.

ES: How so?

AM: I was at a bus stop, somewhere in Hollywood. And someone handed it to me. The first Bad Brains cassette. 

ES: The Yellow Tape? They just gave it to you?

AM: This dude just walked up to me and said, “Here, listen to this.” He pushed it into my hands. And I was like, “What?” I didn’t even have a chance to react. It was like… a green cover, I think?

ES: I’m pretty sure it was yellow.

AM: I remember the cover was the Capitol Building getting struck by lightning. 

ES: That’s the one.

AM: I was like, “Bad Brains? What the fuck are Bad Brains?” The first thing I thought about was maggots. Bad Brains? Oh my god, somebody’s got maggots in the brain!

ES: Not really the best imagery.

AM: Naw, maggot brain, that’s a good thing. “Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic is probably one of my favorite songs.

AM: I started listening to it, and I was like, “Goddamn, man, these white boys are killing it.” Then I looked at the back, with a photo of the band, and they were these Rastafarian dudes!

ES: Not what you were expecting?

AM: Not at all! It really fucked me up. The music is this mixture of punk rock and reggae, which are just polar opposites in terms of music genres. It was like the North Pole and the South Pole. And it was all ridiculously fast. I listened to this shit and I was like, “Shit, anything is possible!”

ES: This was what? 1982? You were in a band at that point, right?

AM: Yeah, ’82, right. Fishbone got together in junior high, man. 

ES: Did the Bad Brains cassette color your songwriting?

AM: Not right away. But I put “Ma and Pa” over one of those Bad Brains songs. I wrote “Ma and Pa (What the Hell Is Wrong With Y’All)” as a poem while I was listening to the Bad Brains reggae song “I Luv I Jah.” When I recorded it, I used a four-track recorder and read my lyrics while “I Luv I Jah” was playing underneath it. That was some of my early demo days, man.

ES: When you listen to The Yellow Tape now, does it bring you right back to riding the bus between the Valley and Hollywood?

AM: Yeah, man. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of being scared for my fucking life because some motherfucking racists are trying to kill me.

ES: Seriously?

AM: Seriously. I’d get chased every once in a while, get called names and shit. When I ended up going to Bad Brains shows in Hollywood, it gave me an opportunity to let out a lot of anger. I was going through a lot of shit during those times. It goes beyond the Bad Brains, man. The Bad Brains was the first band that I discovered. Then shortly after that, it was the Dead Kennedys and Jello Biafra. That motherfucker is a whole encyclopedia. You learn a lot from him.

ES: So, the Bad Brains was your gateway drug?

AM: They absolutely were. Because of them, I discovered the whole punk rock scene. Circle Jerks, Black Flag, the Anti-Nowhere League, all that stuff, I was like, wow, man. It was the complete polar opposite of the funk and R&B that I grew up in. 

ES: You mentioned racists trying to kill you. Was that a regular thing? Were you being harassed?

AM: All the time, man. All the time.

ES: Did the music help? I mean, obviously, it can only help so much. But did it make you feel less afraid? Less powerless?

AM: Let me tell you a story. It was, I don’t know, sometime in the early eighties. I’d just gotten off the bus from LA. Two and a half hours after dancing in Hollywood with my boombox. I walked off the bus in the Valley and this redneck dude, this guy in a truck, started hassling me. He was shouting, “Hey, nig**r! Fuck you, nig**r!” 

ES: Jesus Christ.

AM: I walked away, trying to ignore him. But he kept following me, shouting all this shit at me. Finally, I yelled back at him, “Fuck you!” Well, that set him off. They turned around and started yelling, “We’re going to get you! We’re going to kill you, you fucking nig**r!” 

ES: They?

AM: Yeah, there were a bunch of guys in the truck. So, I take off running, and I’m holding my ghetto blaster and my saxophone and I had a backpack on. Right? 

ES: Oh my god.

AM: My hands are full.

ES: You don’t throw any of it to the ground?

AM: What? Fuck that. I’m not dropping my saxophone or boombox for a fucking racist piece of shit.

ES: Fair enough.

AM: So, they chase me into a Vons, and I’m just walking around the store, waiting for them to leave.  I hear them outside, shouting, “We’re waiting for you, nig**r!” I’m getting angrier and angrier, and I realize I have the Bad Brains tape in my boom box. And I was like,. “Fuck these motherfuckers!” So, I pressed play and I walked outside with it, and the Bad Brains were blaring. The rednecks turned their truck around and drove away.

ES: Holy shit!

AM: They just took off.

ES: You repelled them with the power of the Bad Brains!

AM: [Laughs.] It felt like it, man.

ES: A punk/reggae hybrid played at a ridiculous time signature negated their racist hate!

AM: I listened to the rest of the tape, and I felt pretty good. I felt pretty good that night, man. That’s some wild shit, right?