Tribe

Tribe stood among Boston’s leading acts through the late 1980s and early 1990s, yet its strong regional draw and repeated local honors never produced wider recognition. Janet LaValley fronted the group, her powerful vocals and dark, regal image—echoing Siouxsie Sioux through a Sandra Bullock lens—earning her a devoted hometown audience along with three consecutive Boston Phoenix prizes for Best Local Female Singer. Bassist Greg LoPiccolo, guitarist Eric Brosius, and keyboardist Terri Barous, who sometimes handled lead vocals, crafted material that fused heavy riffs with brooding words and dense, gothic-tinged keyboard layers, while David Penzo completed the lineup on drums.

The band first gained notice when WFNX began airing the four-track demo of “Abort” on regular rotation. Following three years of growing local support, two additional Boston Phoenix awards for Best Local Band, and the independent release of Here at the Home, the group secured a deal with Warner Bros. and issued its major-label debut, Abort, in 1991. That album reworked eight tracks from the earlier self-released set and introduced four new ones, yet even with Gil Norton’s production it failed to register beyond New England. After Sleeper was tracked in 1993, Penzo departed and session drummer Mike Levesque took over; despite continued road work the band still lacked a national breakthrough and disbanded the following year. Barous and Brosius later married and turned to writing video-game scores, while LaValley mounted a short-lived solo attempt that did not succeed.