Home (band)
Encyclopedia
Home is an experimental pop
band formed in Tampa, Florida
in the early-1990s, before relocating to New York
in 1996. The band released eight self-produced, sequentially-numbered, ultra-low-distribution albums on cheap Radio Shack
cassettes before signing to Sony
's Relativity Records
label, which distributed its ninth album (appropriately titled IX) in 1995. This album, Home's only release on a major label, received favorable reviews in publications such as Spin
, The Village Voice
and Magnet
. Subsequent Home albums have appeared on independent record labels, also to generally positive reviews. Dave Fridmann
of The Flaming Lips
was the producer behind at least two of Home's albums.
Though Home was originally regarded as a lo-fi
band due to its primitive recording techniques, its releases starting with IX have largely featured a cleaner sound highlighted by guitars and various electronic keyboards. In reviewing IX, The Village Voice
observed that Home's sound resembles bands from "the late '80s (Sebadoh
, Grifters) and mid-70s (Devo
, Faust
, David Bowie
) sprinkled with enough influences out of the bargain-bins (Elton John
, Gong
, David Bowie
) to push the hipster taste-envelope a smidgen closer to both prog-art and schmaltz-rock." That album received a 7-out-of-10 rating from Spin
. A year later, describing the band's independent album Elf: Gulf Bore Waltz, The Chicago Tribune wrote: "Laboring in the rock 'n' roll hinterland of Florida, the band Home has developed a refreshingly scattershot sound that wanders erratically through folky balladry, prog rock, ragged pop, and unclassifiable experimentation. Though somewhat reminiscent of indie rock
obscurantists like Pavement
, Home is both more ambitious and more consistently tuneful than many of its trendier peers."
Less charitably, The Trouser Press Record Guide opined: "When intently focused, Home can squeeze an agreeably synthetic, Devo
-esque poptone (like 'Make It Right') from its gizmos. More often, though, Home lapses into wildly freeform freakouts (like 'Atomique') that combine electronic noise, found sound and even a bit of spoken word. ... Those endowed with short attention spans will no doubt have the easiest time making it all the way through IX."
The members of Home also helped found the Screw Music Forever record label
and music collective. Besides releasing Home's own 7-inch singles, Screw Music also has released recordings by related bands such as Dumbwaiters, Pee Shy
, Leels and the 100% Storms Ensemble.
Home's 16th album, Sexteen, which the band describes as "a concept record about fucking," was released in 2006. This album also marked the end of the band's longstanding relationship with its European label, Cooking Vinyl
. During the same year, members of Home performed under the name Home Hunters during the Come The Freak On music festival at Bombshell Gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida
.
As of late 2006, Home was making preparations for its next album, Seventeen, envisioned as the soundtrack to a movie that the band members were simultaneously preparing to film.
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
band formed in Tampa, Florida
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
in the early-1990s, before relocating to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1996. The band released eight self-produced, sequentially-numbered, ultra-low-distribution albums on cheap Radio Shack
Radio shack
Radio shack is a slang term for a room or structure for housing radio equipment.-History:In the early days of radio, equipment was experimental and home-built. The first radio transmitters used a noisy spark to generate radio waves and were often housed in a garage or shed. When radio was first...
cassettes before signing to Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
's Relativity Records
Relativity Records
Relativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and...
label, which distributed its ninth album (appropriately titled IX) in 1995. This album, Home's only release on a major label, received favorable reviews in publications such as Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
and Magnet
Magnet (magazine)
Magnet is a music magazine which generally focuses on alternative, independent, or out-of-the-mainstream bands.-History:The magazine is published four times a year, and is independently owned and edited by Eric T. Miller. Music magazines with a similar focus in the 1990s era included Option,...
. Subsequent Home albums have appeared on independent record labels, also to generally positive reviews. Dave Fridmann
Dave Fridmann
Dave Fridmann is an American record producer and musician. From 1990 onwards he co-produced all releases by Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips...
of The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips are an American alternative rock band, formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1983.Melodically, their sound contains lush, multi-layered, psychedelic rock arrangements, but lyrically their compositions show elements of space rock, including unusual song and album titles—such as "What...
was the producer behind at least two of Home's albums.
Though Home was originally regarded as a lo-fi
Lo-fi music
Lo-fi is lower quality of sound recordings than the usual standard for music. The qualities of lo-fi are usually achieved by either degrading the quality of the recorded audio, or using certain equipment. Recent uses of the phrase have led to it becoming a genre, although it still remains as an...
band due to its primitive recording techniques, its releases starting with IX have largely featured a cleaner sound highlighted by guitars and various electronic keyboards. In reviewing IX, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
observed that Home's sound resembles bands from "the late '80s (Sebadoh
Sebadoh
Sebadoh is an American indie rock band, formed in 1986 in Westfield, Massachusetts by Eric Gaffney and Dinosaur Jr bass player Lou Barlow. Along with such bands as Pavement and Guided by Voices, Sebadoh helped pioneer lo-fi music, a style of indie rock characterized by low-fidelity recording...
, Grifters) and mid-70s (Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
, Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
) sprinkled with enough influences out of the bargain-bins (Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, Gong
Gong (band)
Gong is a Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen. Their music has also been described as space rock. Other notable band members include Allan Holdsworth, Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Gilli Smyth, Steve Hillage, Francis Moze, Mike Howlett...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
) to push the hipster taste-envelope a smidgen closer to both prog-art and schmaltz-rock." That album received a 7-out-of-10 rating from Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
. A year later, describing the band's independent album Elf: Gulf Bore Waltz, The Chicago Tribune wrote: "Laboring in the rock 'n' roll hinterland of Florida, the band Home has developed a refreshingly scattershot sound that wanders erratically through folky balladry, prog rock, ragged pop, and unclassifiable experimentation. Though somewhat reminiscent of indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
obscurantists like Pavement
Pavement (band)
Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...
, Home is both more ambitious and more consistently tuneful than many of its trendier peers."
Less charitably, The Trouser Press Record Guide opined: "When intently focused, Home can squeeze an agreeably synthetic, Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
-esque poptone (like 'Make It Right') from its gizmos. More often, though, Home lapses into wildly freeform freakouts (like 'Atomique') that combine electronic noise, found sound and even a bit of spoken word. ... Those endowed with short attention spans will no doubt have the easiest time making it all the way through IX."
The members of Home also helped found the Screw Music Forever record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
and music collective. Besides releasing Home's own 7-inch singles, Screw Music also has released recordings by related bands such as Dumbwaiters, Pee Shy
Pee Shy
Pee Shy were an indie pop band from Tampa, Florida, whose clever, literate lyrics and unorthodox if primitive instrumentation led them to a brief major label career that ended just as they were attracting national commercial radio airplay...
, Leels and the 100% Storms Ensemble.
Home's 16th album, Sexteen, which the band describes as "a concept record about fucking," was released in 2006. This album also marked the end of the band's longstanding relationship with its European label, Cooking Vinyl
Cooking Vinyl
Cooking Vinyl is a UK-based independent record company, founded in 1986. Its original orientation was toward contemporary folk music—notably Billy Bragg, and Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Tapes, recorded on a Sony Walkman, one of its first releases...
. During the same year, members of Home performed under the name Home Hunters during the Come The Freak On music festival at Bombshell Gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. It is known as a vacation destination for both American and foreign tourists. As of 2008, the population estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau is 245,314, making St...
.
As of late 2006, Home was making preparations for its next album, Seventeen, envisioned as the soundtrack to a movie that the band members were simultaneously preparing to film.
Members
- Brad Truax - Bass
- Andrew DeutschAndrew DeutschAndrew Deutsch is a sound artist who also teaches at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.-Life and work:Deutsch received his BFA in Video Art and Printmaking from Alfred University in 1990. He obtained his MFA in Integrated Electronic Art from Rensselaer Polytechnic...
- Guitar - Chris Millstein - Drums
- Eric Morrison - Piano
Discography
- I self-released cassette, 1992
- II self-released cassette
- III self-released cassette
- IV self-released cassette
- V self-released cassette
- VI self-released cassette
- VII self-released cassette
- VIII self-released 8-track8-track cartridgeStereo 8, commonly known as the eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, or simply eight-track, is a magnetic tape sound recording technology. It was popular in the United States from the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, but was relatively unknown in many European countries...
cassette - IX compact disc (Relativity RecordsRelativity RecordsRelativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and...
), 1995 - X compact disc (Emperor JonesEmperor JonesEmperor Jones is a small Austin, Texas based independent record label founded in 1995 by Craig Stewart. It has released albums by acts such as Alastair Galbraith, The American Analog Set, Roky Erickson, Thuja, ST37, The Mountain Goats, Stick Men with Ray Guns, Peter Jefferies, Pip Proud, Rusted...
), 1996 - Elf: Gulf Bore Waltz compact disc (Jetset), 1996
- XII Internet-only release at Screw Music Forever, 2005
- 13:Netherregions compact disc (Jetset), 1997
- XIV compact disc (Arena Rock Recording Co.Arena Rock Recording Co.The Arena Rock Recording Company is an independent record label based in Portland, Oregon, United States. Albums are distributed by Redeye in the United States and Koch in Canada.-History:...
), 1999 - XV compact disc (Cooking VinylCooking VinylCooking Vinyl is a UK-based independent record company, founded in 1986. Its original orientation was toward contemporary folk music—notably Billy Bragg, and Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Tapes, recorded on a Sony Walkman, one of its first releases...
), 2003 - Sexteen compact disc (Brah Records), 2006