Galen Niles, one of the bandmembers in this month’s Under-Appreciated Rock Band, HOMER was previously in a legendary garage rock band called the Outcasts and was later in a previous UARB, Ultra.
Chet Himes and Galen Niles were the co-founders of Homer and lived at the same apartment complex when they were both in college at Texas State University. Himes recognized Niles as being in the Outcasts – which had only recently broken up – and tried to persuade him to join a band that he was putting together, but Niles said that he wasn’t interested. Himes kept at it; he recruited a lead singer, Frank Coy and a rhythm guitarist, Pat Cosgrove, so all he needed was a lead guitarist and a drummer. Finally, Galen Niles agreed to at least jam with them; he even brought in Gary Crapster, a drummer that he played in a band with while in high school.
Homer started out as a cover band; Galen Niles recalls that their varied playlist included the Zombies’ “She’s Not There”, Deep Purple’s “Hush”, and Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1,000 Dances”. After numerous gigs in the dance circuit in and around San Antonio, Homer decided to put out one of their best received songs, Willie Nelson’s “I Never Cared for You” as their first single, backed with a Homer original called “Dandelion Wine” (written by Frank Coy). Galen Niles’ dad knew Howard Edwards, the morning DJ at KONO, and he got their single on the radio in San Antonio. Later, another local station, KTSA began playing the song as well, and they sold about 5,000 copies before they were even approached by a manager, never mind a record company. Galen Niles revealed in a 2002 interview given on lysergia.com: “The record peaked at number 2 in San Antonio on KONO’s Top 40.”
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Homer secured a record deal with Columbia Records – but then their A&R man asked about the other songs they had recorded. Well, there weren’t any, so the band hurried back to Tyler and recorded “On the Wall” b/w “Texas Lights”; both songs were written by Galen Niles. By the time they got the songs in the mail, “I Never Cared for You” was beginning to slip in the local charts, so the Columbia deal went away. An independent release of “On the Wall” failed to chart.
For their next single, Homer went to Walt Andrus’ recording studio in Houston. By this time, Pat Cosgrove had exited and was replaced on second guitar by Howard Gloor. The next single was another original song (also written by Galen Niles) called “Sunrise”; this single too had little success.
Phil Bepko came up with an ambitious rock opera called Hieronymus, but he would leave the band along with Gene Coleman; Don Evans and Van Wilks, respectively, took their places before Homer took this new music on the road. Galen Niles recalls: “Man, [Homer] was a smokin’ band then – the fact was, the only reason we had a vocalist was to take up some space between the guitar solos.”
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By contrast, the people at Gear Fab Records – one of the better reissue record companies – are quite enthusiastic about Homer; Galen Niles was brought in to write the liner notes for the 2012 CD, Homer. (The record company name comes from two Beatles-era expressions for “cool”; both are featured in the background singing on “All Those Years Ago”, the 1981 George Harrison song honoring recently assassinated John Lennon and also featuring the other two living Beatles in the band). Roger Maglio at Gear Fab worked for 10 years to bring the Homer music to CD; he first heard their songs in 2002 on an “unauthorized Italian release”: “I was amazed that their level of professionalism could be coupled with such a rawness that just seemed to work”. Nor is that the only coupling that he noted: Maglio called their sound “progressive rural rock”, and progressive rock with a rural flavor is so rare and improbable that I am hard pressed to think of another example.
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Past UARB Ultra was every bit as different from Homer as the Outcasts; this hard rock band grew out of the final line-up of Homer, with Galen Niles and Don Evans joining the new band. Chet Himes continued his career as a recording engineer, working with Ted Nugent, Carole King, Christopher Cross, and others. Van Wilks left to start a solo career.
(April 2014)
