Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Since I had a few people tell me that they've never heard of the SpongeTones after I posted one of their Christmas songs in the Who Am I thread located in The Groove Yard section of this forum, here's some of their stuff.

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The video for Here I Go Again.

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Another early video - She Goes Out With Everybody.

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And a tribute video from a couple of years ago celebrating the 25th anniversary of their first release, Beat Music.

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Thanks for posting and reminding me of these guys. I think the Spongetones were the first band I saw when I moved to Athens in the early 80's. They were playing a frat party that my buddies and I went to for the free beer. I liked them, although they never received the press I thought they should have.

If they had only got rid of the face fuzz they'd have been famous...

Never heard of them, not bad!

"She Goes Out With Everybody" is one of my favorite songs; it is power pop at its best. The Spongetones recorded their first album at Reflection Studios in Charlotte, and R.E.M. were in the house at thye time (making Reckoning, I believe) and took a break to record handclaps on the Tones record.

Got their first LP "BeatMusic", I think it was, back in the early 80s, been a fan ever since.

These days, Beat Music is combined with their second effort, the four song EP Torn Apart, and is available on CD as Beat and Torn. Great stuff!

'She Goes Out With Everybody' is in regular rotation here. Top band. Have to agree with Jeremy here, the facial hair may have been success-prohibitive.

Great harmonies, great tones, great guitars...

I purchased "(My Girl) Maryanne" after it popped up frequently on one of my Pandora stations (Pleasant Valley Sunday as the seed). I would have guessed this was circa 1965. Terrific song--sounds like I need some more...

Pick up Beat and Torn - It's full of British Invasion influenced stuff like that.

Check out "Children of Nuggets" boxset for lots of good stuff like The Spongtones.

I never asked, but maybe Steve (the bass player) was going for the late period/"farm in Scotland" McCartney look with his beard! He's clean-shaven these days. By the way, Jamie Hoover and Steve Stoeckel put out a record last year called English Afterthoughts which reminds me a bit of the "pastoral" side of XTC; everybody needs to buy this!