The Spongetones are a band from North Carolina. My first exposure to The Spongetones was via a Short Takes album review in Musican Magazine in the mid 1980s.

The album reviewed was "Beat Music", and was described as "Beatle-y" as I vaguely recall. That's all I needed to read, and Beat Music was added to my list of must-have albums. I found the record in a small used record shop in East Lansing Michigan. I was hooked on first listen. 20-odd years later, Beat Music is still one of my favorite albums.

To describe the band as a Beatles-like band is an attempt to lock them into a box to which they don't want to fit. What you get with The Spongetones is excellent musicianship, superb writing, and great enthusiasm. Certainly the band's earlier material is very Beatle-like, and in fact the band made a "no-apologies" go at tongue-in-cheek Beatlisms with quite convincing accuracy.

However, subsequent albums since the early 1980s have proven The 'Tones to be far more than just a Beatles-rip-off band.
Check them out at http://www.spongetones.com