spongetones Archive
21 Mar 2017
Quick Takes, Part Two
More quick-take reviews … Pop Co-op – Four State Solution Making an album via file sharing – instead of the old-fashioned method of gathering in a studio – is now a well-established practice. The title of this set refers to the approach used to make it. Steve Stoeckel’s name will be familiar to pop connoisseurs;
15 Jun 2015
Album Review: The Weeklings
Beginning in the early 1980s out of their home base in Charlotte NC, The Spongetones offered up what was then a new and unique concept: new and original songs, written in the style of The Beatles. Though they’d later expand upon their sound and develop a style they could call their own, on early records
20 Jan 2015
Hoo-Ever Land: A Chat with Jamie Hoover, Part 2
Continued from Part One… What I didn’t realize at the time is that the setback of rotator cuff surgery and recovery wouldn’t keep Jamie Hoover from creating new music and new recordings. “I thought, ‘Well, I’m not gonna be able able to play guitar for while,’” Hoover recalls. “So I got interested in the idea
19 Jan 2015
Hoo-Ever Land: A Chat with Jamie Hoover, Part 1
For the last thirty-plus years or so, Jamie Hoover has been known as a highly regarded producer, musical collaborator, and member of the Spongetones. I first noticed his production credit on 1983’s Emotional Geography, an excellent (if obscure) album from Charleston SC’s Killer Whales, a Police-like trio who frequented the Atlanta clubs I haunted in
21 Jul 2014
Hundred-word Reviews July 2014, Part One
I’m bound and determined to reduce the contents of my in-box to manageable levels, so this week I’ll be covering 25 albums, each adhering to a 100-word limit. Don’t mistake brevity for a negative review; these are all worthwhile releases. Today’s five – all new releases – are all more or less pop (in its
30 Jan 2013
Album Review: Jamie & Steve — Imaginary Café
I’ve probably told the story before: growing up in Atlanta, I discovered the Spongetones‘ debut LP Beat Music in the bin of an indie record shop not long after its release. I was taken in first by the cover photos, images that clearly suggested these guys has a Beatles fixation (always a good thing in