Sponge (Not Bob)

When we used to have Comcast Cable (It’s Comcraptic!), we’d listen to their classical music channel during dinner. They had three different channels, one for opera and the other two for hardcore and pop classical music. We almost always picked the pop classical channel and dined whilst listening to such fine far as Pachelbel’s Canon or Air on the G String (also known by me as Playing Air while wearing a G string.)

AT&T has a similar service, but it’s much worse. They’ve got just one channel they dub as classical and it plays mostly piano and opera music. And the opera selection is downright horrible. Most of the chicks and dudes “singing” sound like Mel Gibson at the end of Braveheart. I’ve often been forced to interrupt my dining to shut off the caterwauling.

The other day, apparently when some opera singer was having their genitalia forcibly removed and someone recorded it, I wandered up the channel selection rather than shutting the receiver off. I stumbled upon a channel they called alternative. I have no faith in this designation anymore. It used to be a tightly packed subgenre of rock music, but it’s gotten so bloated, it no longer means anything to me anymore. Nevertheless, the channel was playing something that caught my attention. A familiar riff, a catchy tune.

It was Sponge! And the song playing was Plowed. I played the hell out of that CD, Rotting Piñata, back in the day. In fact, when I moved to Houston back in ’96, Sponge singles off of Rotting Piñata was virtually the only thing The Buzz played back then. Usually, when The Buzz plays a band or a song into the ground, I grow to hate that particular artist forever. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones would be an excellent example of this phenomenon. To this day, I still get an uncontrollable urge to punch someone in their fat face when I hear ANY Mighty Mighty Bosstones song.

But I didn’t get sick of Sponge. I liked the songs from Rotting Piñata so much, I ran out and bought the CD. Twelve years later, my TV is blaring Plowed and I’m floored at how one song brings back so many memories of my first years here in Houston. The songs on that album have held up remarkably well this past decade. The Buzz could add them to their current play list today and they’d fit right in with some of the best new music out there. I think Molly (Sixteen Candles Down the Drain) got even more playtime than Plowed and I’m not even sure Fields even made the radio, but the entire CD is strong.

I’m grateful I accidently found it again.