Your E-mails: Tribe
I got some interesting e-mails on Tribe that I'd like to share with you.First, from DQ reader Jason Wolf:
As to why they didn't achieve stardom, I have a theory that the music industry only wants so much of a niche genre, unless it goes huge, in which case they will saturate the market.
You mentioned the Breeders, but in the early 90's time frame, the Boston music scene also produced Belly with front woman Tonya Donnalley (ex-of the Breeders). I'm willing to bet that some music exec said somewhere, "Tribe, nice sound, but the industry allready has a alt rock band with a female lead from Boston, theres not enough space for two..."
That's a plausible theory. Here's another, from Chris Gwynn:
I saw Tribe in '93, when I was living in upstate NY and they came to Cornell. If the show I saw was any indication, you can blame a lot of their failure to succeed on their booking agent. Tribe was the opener. The other bands? Blue Oyster Cult (add your own umlauts), The Violent Femmes, and Fishbone. What do these bands have in common? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And let's say that the BOC had not aged well.
Here's a look from both the music world and the gaming world, thanks to Jonathan Arnold:
As a sort of 6 degrees of freedom, I worked for Looking Glass Software on Ultima Underworld I (back then we were known as Blue Sky Productions) as a programmer. The 100+ hour work weeks for months on end meant the end of my desire to work in the game industry, but we had a good time. I knew Doug Church when he was a nobody:-)
Anyway, most of the other programmers (including Doug) lived in a house in Cambridge Mass. I picked them up on my way to Blue Sky in Salem NH - a mere 1+ hour commute. This house was a huge Tribe fan base, and they went to see them all the time.
I left just before UU I came out - creative differences, shall we say. But I'm not surprised to hear that parts of Tribe went to work for them. Doug Church and Paul Neurath can be very persuasive guys!
Small world...
Finally, from David Byron:
Also of note: Terri was the voice actress for Shodan in System Shock and System Shock 2, provided the voice of Viktoria in the Thief games, was the level designer for Thief Gold's operatic and hilarious Song of the Caverns mission and for Thief 2's amazing Trail of Blood level, and wrote the core storyline for Thief 3.
Good stuff from you guys, as always.
<< Home