THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 31, 1995 TAG: 9503310110
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
THERE'S SOMETHING comfortably familiar about Sponge. Take ``Plowed,'' the Detroit fivesome's current single that's cracked alternative radio's Top 10. With its locomotive rhythm and croaking vocal, it's a dead ringer for old-guard L.A. punks Social Distortion.
``People tell us that all the time,'' singer Vinnie - he uses just one name - said in a phone interview from Chicago recently. ``I can understand where people would see a similarity, although a lot of their tunes are about chicks and motorcycles and switchblades and stuff like that.''
No such macho stuff on Sponge's full-length debut, ``Rotting Pinata.'' The guitar-grounded sound is heavy yet hummable, the clever lyrics introspective and sometimes downright wry.
``When I think of great melody writers, I think of the Beatles, that kind of thing,'' the singer said. ``But we try to extract some kind of melody out of there, make ourselves look legit anyway.''
Vinnie, also Sponge's lyricist, finds inspiration as it comes, often in life's little mundanities. The gargantuan distorto-guitar groove ``Neenah Manasha,'' for instance, is not named after some Zen mantra; it comes from two towns in northern Wisconsin the group often passed through en route to gigs. The singer turned it into a song about the travails of a woman named Neenah Manasha.
Though Sponge is new to the radio waves, the band's members are old hands at the music biz game. Vinnie, guitarist Mike Cross, bassist Tim Cross and guitarist Joey Mazzola were once in a similarly tough-but-tuneful band called Loudhouse, signed to Virgin Records.
The group was dropped after one album in a major housecleaning at the big-time label.
After recruiting new drummer Jimmy Palluzzi, incessantly touring the Midwestern club circuit and recording a demo, Sponge was picked up by Chaos, an imprint of the giant Sony Music conglo-merate.
Sponge and fellow Detroiters Big Chief and Wig have been hailed as the brightest lights in a musical renaissance supposedly under way in the Motor City, home of Motown, MC5 and Iggy Pop. But Vinnie suspects the ``Detroit-is-the-next-Seattle'' hype is just that.
``There's nothing that's really happened there that justifies that kind of statement,'' he said. ``There aren't a lot of signed bands. There's some things going on. The club scene is pretty cool, the environment is right for it, but I think it's a little premature to say that.'' MEMO: CONCERT FACTS
Who: Sponge, with Live and Love Spit Love
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: ODU Fieldhouse
Tickets: Sold out ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL HALSBAND, Sony Music photo
Sponge is made up of, from left, Tim Cross, Jimmy Palluzzi, Vinnie,
Mike Cross and Joey Mazzola.
by CNB