American Soccer Purchased the American Soccer Home

Extraordinarily emo about this.
Photograph: Polyvinyl

The members of Illinois emo greats American Football by no means truly lived in the home that graced the quilt of their first self-titled album in 1999. However now, they personal the unlikely musical landmark. Polyvinyl, the indie label from Champaign, Illinois, that launched American Soccer, revealed that the label and band bought the home, alongside the photographer who shot the quilt, one other photographer, and a Chicago art-gallery group. In a news release, Polyvinyl mentioned the home, in close by Urbana, was put up on the market in fall 2022, and so they apprehensive it might’ve been demolished — so the consumers “made a pact” to guard it. “Just a few days in the past, we held true to this promise and formally signed the closing papers, preserving each the area and its distinctive legacy inside the group that formed its existence,” the label mentioned.

When American Soccer was first lively within the late ’90s, the home at 704 W. Excessive Road was a preferred spot for punk reveals and events close to the College of Illinois; Chris Sturdy, who took the quilt photograph, lived within the basement. However the home didn’t turn into a part of the band’s iconography — and that of emo at giant — till American Soccer broke up the yr after the album’s launch, leaving that photograph as a serious a part of their legacy. When the band returned in 2014, Sturdy shot a music video inside the home for his or her 1999 music “By no means Meant” (the best emo song of all time, and we do mean that) and put one other inside shot on the quilt of their second album in 2016. Now, it’s turn into a preferred pilgrimage website for emo followers within the Midwest — and might keep that means. “The American Soccer Home has come to signify a nostalgic dream of chance and the great thing about the start,” Polyvinyl mentioned. “We couldn’t let that dream go.” Did someone say Museum of Emo?