Artist Hum

For a band that officially parted ways in 2000, Champaign's Hum certainly plays an awful lot of live shows—which are unusual, but completely welcome occurrences. The space-rock quartet released four albums in the '90s, most memorably the sublime You'd Prefer An Astronaut (which yielded the single "Stars") and Downward Is Heavenward (best known for "Comin' Home"). Commercially the group peaked with Astronaut, which led to less support from RCA, disappointing sales, more and more time on the road, and, eventually, the band being lost in the major-label-merger shuffle and unceremoniously dropped. The group gave its "farewell" show on New Year's Eve of 2000 but Hum keeps popping up to say hello again.

Updated 05/19/2010