Curt Holden's Review of 1987-06-xx

Curt Holden, a friend of Nat, reviewed the Sponge Rockers' first show. The text is found here.

Review
"i was at this show because me and nat are friends irl. so i thought i'd say what it was like.

the band introduced themselves as robert, patrick, nat, and roger. they talked about what song to play, they decided to play a song called shrimp claws again or something like that. robert was very hard to hear over the furious riffs patrick was playing and roger beating the shit out of his drums. nat was playing a muted bass, so i couldn't hear him. what i did hear of robert was very fierce vocals. no seriously, they were almost guttural. the chorus went something like "shrimp claws again, it's nothing new, it's happened quite a few times, with me and you."

after that, they played a very fast song. patrick yelled "fuck!" when he broke a string. the band stopped that one and started playing a song that didn't have a title. nat played a deadly bass riff to begin, which was then followed by the amplified distortion of patrick's chords. robert sung and his voice was way less guttural, and roger persisted the drum beating like he was spanking kids.

song number four was cut off after about two minutes due to a short power outage. the band continued the song, all the way to the end of the nine-and-a-half minute glory when the power came back. five was a pretty nice song that nat said dated back to early 1982. only nat and pat knew the song, so nat sung whilst robert played bass and improv'ed a bass track, which was absolutely glorious. song six was i think six pack by black flag.

after song six, nat and robert got into an argument, where robert pushed nat into the opposite wall, giving him a concussion. nat did not play for song number seven, which was a rhythm that kept going up and down a couple notes at a time. nat seemed to have gotten over the concussion by song eight, where nat called robert an asshole. nat went over to the bass and started playing.

the song sucked due to the lyrics. they weren't that good and were very shallow. everything else was good though. patrick played some powerful notes'n'riffs. number nine was kind of just a song where robert rambled to a backing of guitar, bass and drums. after this, the band got in an epic fight, nat gave patrick a bad concussion with his bass. then roger knocked nat out with a cymbal. roger and robert fought, the former coming out victorious. roger said "we were the sponge rockers. see you on july 12!" and just like that, the show was over.

here's my setlist i compiled that's all i have!
 * 1) shrimp claws again
 * 2) i'm agitated again
 * 3) untitled
 * 4) i need water
 * 5) ranked number 5
 * 6) six pack (black flag)
 * 7) ups and downs (or as i like to call it, bipolar song)
 * 8) river's bank
 * 9) robert rambles

-curt