Recently found another article on the closing of Home Of The Hits from the UB newspaper, Generation. Quotes from Daryl Snapcase and mentions of the River Rock and Brian Foyster.
-Larry
There’s No Place Like Home: A Celebration of Home of the Hits
by Jason Bauers
As I walk down Elmwood Ave. on a bleak, gray Saturday afternoon, a brief chill runs through my entire body, not because of the cold, but because of the realization that this is probably the last time I will take this walk. I cannot help but feel the pangs of loss, sadness, and heartache that come with the reluctant acceptance of this fact. My heart is heavy as I walk up the stairs to the porch of 1105 Elmwood Ave, and I take a deep breath before I open the heavy wooden door and enter Home of the Hits for the last time.
The inside of the store looks like a friend’s apartment. A couple of windows and rooms in the back, a dusty smell of old stale smoke floats between the chest-high racks of CDs. Despite its aged appearance, the store makes the CDs and LPs they sell sparkle with newness. Unlike many other music stores, Home of the Hits didn’t sell toys, wallets, and random garbage; T-shirts on the walls are some of the only non-recording-related products sold. As the other stores came and went, this one remained for decades, due to the support of a faithful following.
After years of giving so much to the Buffalo music scene, this legendary record store closed its doors indefinitely this past Saturday. Home of the Hits has been in existence longer than I have been alive. It has been a staple in the Buffalo music scene since its inception almost 25 years ago. It evolved into a hub of cultural activity that drew some incredibly prolific names through its doors over the years.
But if you’re looking to be impressed by the fact that U2 once graced the store with its presence sometime in the early ’80s, you’re reading the wrong article. If you want to read about how Home of the Hits is closing because so-called “music lovers” of this day and age are too cheap and lazy to actually buy a record once in a while, you’re out of luck. You and I are not here to re-hash what has been said a thousand times over the course of the last month. We are here to celebrate the under appreciated epoch in Home of the Hits history, an era that truly defined the store for myself and many others, and yet goes unheralded, even at the 11th hour. I was fortunate enough to talk with owner, Jennifer Preston, on several occasions over the past two months, during which I learned that her favorite memories of HOTH were not those of Bono browsing through the record bins, but memories of the late ’80s/early ’90s, when the store was full of punkers, hardcore kids, and metalheads.
I began kindergarten in the fall of 1991. My bus stop was on the corner of Forest and Elmwood, two blocks from my house and practically right in front of Home of the Hits. I have distant , but definite, memories of seeing multitudes of kids with green hair and skateboards under their arms storming the front porch every afternoon as I got off the bus. My mother would meet me to walk me home, and on several occasions lovingly stated that she hoped I never ended up hanging around that store when I became a teenager.
This image, my earliest memory of Home of the Hits, is what Jen Preston loved about her store during the 1990s. The energy and excitement generated by the enthusiastic youth of the Buffalo punk/hardcore scene turned HOTH into more than a record store; it was a place of discovery, a place that had so much to offer every facet of the underground music scene. The front porch was constantly lined with bikes that carried eager underground music fans to HOTH from all over the Buffalo area. Some took the time to map out a bike route from Amherst. The store was a magnet, an irresistible force that compelled some to ride their bikes almost ten miles to pay a visit.
Daryl Taberski, vocalist of Buffalo hardcore outfit Snapcase, recounts the first time he made the trip to Home of the Hits; “Probably around 1985, I was a freshman in high school, and into skateboarding and punk rock…my friend and I decided to take a bus to the Elmwood area, and we went to Home of the Hits and Avenue Skates.” Taberski says the record store at the local mall simply did not have what he was looking for. So, armed with a boom box, some punk cassettes, and plenty of attitude, he hopped the bus from West Seneca to Buffalo. “Walking in there was just like, ‘Wow, look at all this stuff!’ Taberski describes, still with a hint of wonder in his voice more than 20 years later. “Everything that you saw in Maximum Rock n’ Roll, and that you heard on WBNY—all of a sudden there was everything that you had heard about.” Simply put, what you found at Home of the Hits could not be found anywhere else in the area. Taberski walked out of Home of the Hits that day with Dag Nasty’s Can I Say and Uniform Choice’s Screaming For Change.
According to Taberski, Home of the Hits was the hub of the scene. When those who grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo ventured into the city for a hardcore show at the River Rock Cafe on Niagara Street, a pre-show stop at HOTH was mandatory. In fact, chances are one wouldn’t even know about the shows at the River Rock had it not been for the Home of the Hits.
Before the emergence of the Internet, the wall of flyers at HOTH was the primary, if not the solitary, source for the latest information on punk and hardcore shows in Buffalo. It was the first thing you saw as you entered the store; a wall was covered practically from floor to ceiling with flyers giving a seemingly endless amount of information on what bands were coming to town and where you had to be if you wanted to see them. The wall of flyers was prime real estate, probably the most coveted wall space in the city. Local bands and promoters alike were constantly competing for their own little piece of the wall to advertise their latest event, often incurring the wrath of others if someone was so bold as to move a flyer to the bottom of the wall in order to clear up space for their own at eye level. Every promoter and band member in the scene knew that if word of your latest show made it to Home of the Hits, anyone and everyone would know about it soon enough.
One time local promoter Brian Foyster was a permanent fixture at Home of the Hits, often spending more time there than the employees themselves. Daryl Taberski fondly described to me the permanent groove on the surface of the black cabinet by the poster rack, worn in by the constant presence of Foyster’s ass (it remains to this day). In addition to hosting the punk and hardcore programs on WBNY, Foyster was responsible for putting on a great number of the hardcore shows in Buffalo at the time. “If he was bringing a band to town,” said Taberski, “he made sure they were playing the music in there, and had the posters up and the flyers up on the board.” His role was also vitally important in the growth and development of local hardcore acts; he was the person to know if you wanted your band to play when then-hardcore heroes Judge or Killing Time came to town. And Home of the Hits was always the place to find him.
“You were nothing, even as a very young band, until you got your demo at Home of the Hits,” Taberski said. If you wanted to get established as a band playing heavy music in Buffalo, it was essential that your demo was available at Home of the Hits. The store’s proprietor, Preston, was always ready and willing to take whatever young local bands had to offer, placing their demos in a rack behind the counter. While the qualities of some were certainly questionable, no demo was ever refused.
The influence of Buffalo’s hardcore scene during the ’80s and ’90s can be seen and heard all over the world. Would I be making such a statement today if Home of the Hits had never existed? Whether the store helped these bands directly by selling their demos and promoting their shows, or influenced their musical development by turning the youth of Buffalo on to bands that were under the radar, there is no question that Home of the Hits nurtured the underground heavy music scene in its early years, and was essential to its growth and development.
There is no denying that a great number of people contributed to the success of Home of the Hits. Carefully selected employees were sometimes pretentious, but more often than not, ready and willing to turn a young record buyer on to some cool new music. You never went to the counter and simply paid for your record. No matter who was working behind the counter, someone was always ready to look at your Minor Threat T-shirt and say, “Hey, have you heard Ian Mackaye’s new band, Fugazi, or Brian Baker’s new project, Dag Nasty?” Or if you liked what you heard playing on the stereo, and got up enough courage to ask the rather intimidating employee Slyther what you were hearing, he would gladly inform you, and name a dozen other records that you would like if you dug this one.
In the good old-fashioned days, the best way to discover new music was to simply talk to people, and Home of the Hits was the perfect venue for such discussion.
It is no wonder that the late ’80s/early ’90s were Jen’s favorite period in the extensive history of the store. The atmosphere was electric; the store was always a center of activity. According to Matt Roberts of the Buffalo hardcore band Buried Alive, “Home of the Hits was it. It was the place to be.” There was certainly no shortage of partying, both upstairs and downstairs. Whether you were there for the party, the music, the knowledge, or simply an incredible experience, Home of the Hits was indeed the place to be.
Throughout all of this, the one person who contributed the most was undoubtedly Jen herself. Home of the Hits was her vision, her project, and her labor of love. Because of her, the store remained unique and unparalleled throughout its existence. For years, she has poured her heart and soul into the store, working her ass off in the back room while everyone else took it easy up front. She spent so much time in that tiny little room placing orders and calling distributors , that I’d been shopping there regularly for a year before I even met her.
One was hard pressed to find any “hits” inside. Jen never stocked the Top 40, and never cared what record was selling the most copies in the country. She made sure that Home of the Hits was what every great record store should be; a place where you can find that record you’re dying to hear, but can’t find anywhere else. Her hard work, determination, integrity, and kindness deserve to be celebrated.
I would personally like to thank Daryl Taberski, Matt Roberts and Joe “Slyther” Kalsan for their time and contributions to this article. And last be certainly not least, I want to thank Jen for years of music and memories, and changing my life in more ways than you can imagine. Thank you.
