Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone

Synopsis

Everyday Sunshine is a rock documentary that recounts Fishbone's near breakthrough. It chronicles the birth of the band, its highs and lows, and its influence on other bands. The film centers on the partnership between founding members Norwood Fisher and Angelo Moore, and their struggle to keep Fishbone going. Everyday Sunshine features interviews with members of the band, footage of the band performing live, and incorporates interviews with their friends and colleagues, including Les Claypool, George Clinton, Perry Farrell, Flea, Bob Forrest, Eugene Hütz, Ice-T, Branford Marsalis, Questlove, Tim Robbins, Gwen Stefani, and Mike Watt. The band's origin story is told in animated flashbacks in the visual style of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

Release

The film had its World Premiere at the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival followed by a semi-acoustic performance reuniting three of Fishbone's original members Chris Dowd, Norwood Fisher, and Dirty Walt. After screening at SXSW and more than 150 film festivals around the world the film opened in select theaters on October 7th, 2011 and continued to screen theatrically throughout the United States and Canada until the Spring of 2012.

A shorter, more historically themed version of the film aired on American Public Television's AfroPoP series hosted by stand-up comedian Wyatt Cenac, along with occasional broadcasts on the PBS TV station KQED documentary series Truly, CA.

In honor of Black History Month Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone debuted exclusively on iTunes on February 1st, 2012 followed by a DVD release by the home video distributor, Cinema Guild, on February 21st, 2012.

In addition to interviews on MTV and with Tavis Smiley for promotion of the film's release the band performed on ABC's late-night talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on January 30th, 2012 and Fishbone's lead singer Angelo Moore was a musical guest on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on June 27th, 2012.

Critical reception

The film was critically acclaimed. At Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 100% "certified fresh" score, with an average rating of 7.4/10, based on 43 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus reads: "Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone is an entertaining, heartwarming, and balanced documentary about the influential Los Angeles band." It was Rotten Tomatoes' highest scoring movie of 2011. At Metacritic it has a 69/100 score, based on 16 reviews.

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