Home X (Emperor Jones/Trance Syndicate)
by Nik Rainey
A secret long-suppressed by the shadow-puppet government, y’know, the people who not only deny the whole Roswell incident but also claim that New Mexico itself doesn’t exist, has recently come to light via one of my many anonymous sources (George Throckmorton, 32 West North Street, Cambridge). It appears that compact discs were not introduced for reasons of clearer sound, easier storage, or their ability to chop celery more effectively than any Ginsu. Turns out that archaic vinyl records, when stored together in certain climates for long enough, actually breed with one another, procreating orgiastically to produce bizarre musical crossbreeds. The Feds tried to put a stop to it before it got out of hand – invading houses with SWAT teams in tow, surrounding the moldy cardboard boxes in reformed hipsters’ cellars, and separating the randier (“eclectic,” in critical parlance) specimens therein before the musical gene pool was sullied irreparably. In many cases, it was too late. In Tempe, Arizona, a copy of Coltrane’s My Favorite Things was discovered cohabitating with a boxed set of Mantovani, having bred a gaggle of hideous offspring. Authorities were able to terminate most of them, but one eluded capture, escaped, and is still at large under the name Kenny G. Only one remixed-breed vinyl rugrat emerged from the congress between a worn copy of Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark and a children’s record entitled Sounds of the Zoo (I will leave all moral judgments aside) in an attic in Atlanta, Georgia. It was abandoned by its twelve-inch parents soon after birth and was subsequently raised by an unsurprisingly pristine pressing of Yoko Ono’s Fly. Bearing traits that even its adoptive parent found repellent (indiscreet-bordering-on-profane language, inability to recognize irony or restraint, bad posture), it was cast out of its home at an early age, eventually making it over the border into Canada, where, thanks to its poor diction in front of a half-deaf border guard who asked where it was from, it was christened Alanis. The government-subsidized compact disc, with its smaller, less robust physique and digitized sterility, stanched the flow of these rough analog beasts, which, given their short periods of fertility and influence, should die out within a few years. But, as the examples above conclusively prove, the damage has been done.
I’m not telling these stories merely to frighten you (worked, though, didn’t it?). I’m writing this as a plea for tolerance, for even unholy trysts of this sort occasionally produce glorious monsters. Case in point: a subject from Tampa, Florida, known simply as Home. I wish not to imagine just what sort of Satyricon-like bacchanal produced this child, but it’s not hard to trace its mixed paternity back to the source(s). The subject, whose assumed sobriquet alludes to a cloistered upbringing, was obviously birthed by a promiscuous mother (I suspect that a thorough search of the domiciles of all of Tampa’s fiftyish hopheads will eventually turn up a copy of Cheap Thrills with a horribly distended spindle hole, a used record in every sense of the term), who “serviced” (in no particular playing order) King Crimson’s Red, Frank Zappa’s The Grand Wazoo, Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World, and a series of Henry Mancini soundtracks. Genetic traces of all of these can be found, often warped and in unexpected places, throughout the subject’s body. In the absence of a proper father figure, the subject apparently envied Chicago, the large, blandly functional family which lived nearby. Fortunately, little of their influence is found (the subject wisely kept its distance) beyond the Roman-numerological names Home obsessively gives itself. All other aspects of its personality, particularly the heavy “lo-fi” distortion, short attention span, and petulant tendency to remain silent for several minutes and pretend its work is finished before jarringly blasting back into life, seem less hereditary than environmental, probably in rebellion against its parents and/or the result of hanging out with a “bad crowd” (snide, precocious adolescents with names like Guided by Voices, Pavement, and the Palace Brothers). Like others of its’ ilk, it shows anti-social tendencies and appears disconnected from its surroundings. However, considering the nature of its surroundings at present, I consider this a good thing. In summation, I believe that Home has miraculously borne the better traits of its predecessors while avoiding their faults – perhaps the exception that proves the rule. Therefore, it is my recommendation that this youngster be not only spared, but allowed to thrive. And to all other vinyl enthusiasts out there, a word of advice: if you insist on allowing records to live together, make sure they always use their shrinkwrap. And keep the Village People away from Steely Dan if you know what’s good for you.