Sponge got their guitars stolen on Tuesday. I know this because the band's publicist, Leo Lavoro, is going above and beyond his job description by trying to get them back. My email address must still be on a distribution list somewhere, thanks to my previous life as a music critic, because I received the following email on Wednesday:
Hi there -
Publicist Leo Lavoro checking in. I represent the rock band Sponge who are currently touring through the Maryland area. Last night, the evening of October 20, while the band were asleep in their hotel they had their trailer broken into while parked at the Holiday Inn in College Park, Maryland. The following musical instruments were stolen:
-Vintage 1990’s Orange Reverend Commando guitar
-Black Reverend Signature Pete Anderson Eastsider S guitar
-Reverend Warhawk Avocado guitar
-Fender Stratocaster California Corona guitar
-Black Fender Jaguar bass
-Back Fender P bass
Pics of the stolen items are attached.
We would greatly appreciate it if you could help spread the word about this robbery by posting a news item.
Among the man bites dog elements to that news: Sponge is still touring, and somebody out there thinks guitars are still worth stealing!
Sponge, for the unfamiliar, is a Detroit quintet that signed a major-label deal not long after Nirvana broke up. If you had an alternative rock station in your town in the mid-1990s, you heard “Plowed,” Sponge’s signature song. A lot. (Listen here to confirm. Tunes don’t get post-grungier than that right there!) It’s been 30-something years since their last radio hit, but Sponge has continued recording and releasing guitar-heavy rock with various lineups, and is currently on the road opening for Seattle-based contemporaries and damn-near-soundalikes, Candlebox.
Hours after Tuesday night’s gig in Silver Spring, Md., somebody broke into a trailer holding all Sponge’s gear in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in College Park and made off with lots of rock implements.
“We lost four guitars and two basses, some wireless transmitters, some pedals and cables,” says Lavoro. "Thieves tried to silence the music.”
Lavoro provided a photo of the lock that the bad guys smashed, and also pictures of the stolen goods. The most prized of the purloined axes is a vintage orange Reverend Commando, a very rock-looking offset solid-body guitar, which would command a price in the low four figures on online reseller sites.
In response to Defector’s request for the status of theft probe, the public information office of the Prince George’s County Police would only issue the following statement:
On 10/21/26, at approximately 7:00 am, officers responded to a reported theft that occurred in a hotel parking lot in the 10000 block of Baltimore Avenue in College Park. The victim stated band equipment was stolen from their parked trailer during the overnight hours. No injuries were reported. This remains an active, ongoing investigation.
Defector has also asked P.G. County authorities for copies of any related 911 calls. The hope is that Vinnie Dombroski, Sponge’s 63-year-old lead throat and the only guy still around from the band’s mid-1990’s heyday, hailed the cops with the same rasp and urgency he channeled when shrieking, "In a world of human wreckage!" on “Plowed." County officials assure us they’re working on the request, but had not delivered the goods as of time of publication.
Guitar theft is a quaint sorta crime. A manager of a D.C. pawn shop who asked only to be identified as Nick recalled the days when junkies with stolen guitars were almost cliche in the hock business. He remembered a morning years ago when a guy came in trying to unload a cache of rock goodies that the store determined, with the help of police, had been stolen hours earlier from a band playing celebrated downtown rock club, the Black Cat.
“We still get people trying to sell stolen items, sure,” Nick said. “But not guitars so much anymore.”
Eric Schwelling co-founded and owns Atomic Music in Beltsville, Md., just a mile and half from the hotel parking lot where the crime occurred. It’s one of the great used guitar shops in the region or anywhere on the planet. Schwelling told Defector that the day before the crime, Sponge came into his store to shop, as any decent rock band with a D.C. tour stop would. He’s not sure if band members bought anything, but says none of the stolen guitars look familiar. His amateur sleuthing opinion after briefly looking into the thefts is that the criminal or criminals knew exactly whose trailer they were breaking into and what was inside. If he’s right, the perp likely won’t come running to his store looking for a quick buck. But Atomic staff is on the lookout nonetheless. The typical stolen-guitar seller, Schwelling said, is a doofus who shows up with an instrument that they can’t play with no case and a backstory that “they got it from a dead uncle.”
“It would be great if somebody was dumb enough to bring them in,” Schwelling said of the Sponge haul. “After 30 years of doing this, if somebody comes in with a hot guitar, you can almost feel it in your gut. There’s just something about them that you can tell. We’ll be looking.”
He said he only catches about one guitar thief a year redhanded these days, though.
Crimes notwithstanding, the show must go on. For last night’s show in Buffalo, Sponge borrowed guitars from Candlebox and delivered the same eight-song opening set they’d been performing before the thefts. They’re scheduled to rock tonight in McKees Rocks, Pa., and then play five more shows through the end of the month. They want their stuff back: Within hours of the Sponge heist, the band took to social media to offer a $500 reward for the return of the guitars, “no questions asked.” Lavoro reported today the bounty has been raised to $1,000.
Sure, that’s not Oceans 11 money. But it’s a lot for a throwback band just trying to keep rocking. And thieves might be wise to take the band’s offer, not just for moral reasons, but pure economics. Electric guitars are becoming less valuable and more disposable by the day; what was a $400 guitar on Craigslist only a few years ago is now a $150 guitar. I know this because I’ve been buying guitars for about 40 years, and although I don’t keep accurate stats about the size of my guitarsenal to avoid facing my sickness, I’m certain I’ve brought more new-to-me axes home in 2026 than any year ever, and the holiday sell-off that us hoarders look forward to each winter hasn’t even hit yet.
There are a lot of reasons for the uptick. Offshore guitars, once despised by American snobs, are now indistinguishable from their domestic counterparts; anybody who says our stuff’s still better than the rest of the world’s is lying. Plus kids don’t hear electric guitars on the radio anymore and don’t play ‘em. And guitar hoarders are aging out or dying or growing up. There are really so many “bargains” out there these days that I’ve got more in common with a cat rescuer than an instrument collector. Every instrument I buy means the world to me for at least a few days.
So, if you have information about the missing instruments, or actually have the guitars, and you don’t want to deal with cops or the band or pawn shop or music store gumshoes, you can reach out to me at dave.mckenna@defector.com. Please include photos of what you have, and how much you want for it. I’m particularly interested in that Reverend. What a beaut!!!
Just a joke! Do the right thing, thief, and give the guys their damn guitars back! And rock on, Sponge!
