“It was a lengthy, organic process,” bassist Greg LoPiccolo noted in a recent interview. However, their ubiquity on the airwaves and at radio station parties was the result of five years’ worth of work.
Three songs from Here at the Home graced the station’s regular playlist, rubbing frets with such alternative heroes as The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. In the autumn of 1989, Tribe seemed to burst fully formed from the alternative radio godhead WFNX. Like the truths you’d heard at a party when you were up past your bedtime. My tastes might never mature enough for more discordant sounds of the avant-garde, but at that time, Tribe was almost more subversive. The band’s tight arrangements and singer Janet Lavalley’s wine-dark croon sounded heady and intoxicating, but the traditional song structures and melodies had a sense of sonic safety for a young listener.
Their debut LP Here at the Home sounded like a treasure chest of lush melodies, gilded with sepulchral organ parts and choirs of background vocals. Their first local hit, the provocatively-titled “Abort,” was propelled by a galloping rhythm and built to an irresistibly shuddering crescendo that would be welcome at any house party. Scratch the surface of my attempts at poetic music criticism, though, and you’ll find a grain of truth.ĭuring their decade-long tenure, the Boston quintet created music that was both festive and formal. Here At The Home: Remembering Tribe Published on November 5th, 2012 in: Music, Retrovirus, We Miss The Nineties |Īn excerpt from my diary, circa seventh grade: “Listening to Tribe makes me feel like I’m drinking wine at a party with my parents, wearing a velvet dress.” Ah, the purple prose of preadolescence.