Sounds From The Junkshop #52 - The Donnas

 

"'Cos I'm hedonistic and I stay up all night/And I dunno what's wrong and I dunno what's right" - The Donnas - Hyperactive!

The Donnas were an odd one looking back. Basically imagine if Kenickie had come from California rather than Sunderland and had the indie instincts mixed in with their love of glam rock replaced by a fondness for the flashier end of '70s US stadium rock. They were also a bit of a rarity in that they were a US band who crashed into my conscience when about 90% of the stuff I was listening to was British indie.

I first heard them on a free CD with Melody Maker and the track Hyperactive which was being played by Steve Lamacq on the Evening Session a lot around this time as well. Similar to the Hellacopters and the Backyard Babies, there was something about its sheer stripped-down Ramones style no-nonsense punk that was just irresistible (I'd just discovered da Bruddas at this time which may have had a bearing on things). Compare this to the dull grey monotony that was running rampant in the alternative music scene at this point (yer Starsailors, Coldplays and Travises) and it was a much needed dose of attitude and, more importantly, FUN.

I picked up what turned out to be the group's third album Get Skintight! soon afterwards and it was a much needed dose of teenage energy in an age where most of the Teen-C groups of a couple of years before had either split up (Kenickie, Symposium, Dweeb) or got prematurely old and boring (Ash's disappointing attempt to go grunge five years too late with Nu-Clear Sounds) and songs like the ominous Searching The Streets and the sheer adrenalin rush of Doin' Donuts quickly became regulars on my radio show on KUBE.

Although they superficially could've been part of the whole Teen-C scene if they'd hailed from say Peterborough rather than Palo Alto, the Donnas definitely had a much more American set of influences to their sound, shamelessly dropping Motley Crue and Kiss covers into their set and having a much more flashy guitar sound - certainly guitarist Donna R (Alison Robertson to her friends and family) was a pretty accomplished axewoman and could comfortably hold her own against nearly all of their counterparts on the pop-punk scene at the time while Donna A (Brett Anderson - no, not that one...)'s deadpan snarl and the rock solid rhythm section of Donna F (Maya Ford) and Donna C (Torrie Castellano) made the Donnas a lean, mean rock 'n' roll machine musically. I saw them a few times in the live arena (they seemed to be the opening band on the "rock day" at the Leeds Festival for about three years running!) and they always delivered a high energy moshalong live show with lethal precision.

The group had formed in the mid-'90s and had started out as Raggedy Ann for one EP before becoming the Electrocutes for their second and finally settling on the Ramones style gang image and name. The group's profile was growing rapidly by this point and their next album, 2001's Turn 21, would be their last on the indies before Atlantic swooped in to sign them. It was a good effort as well with the likes of Do You Wanna Hit It?, 40 Boys In 40 Nights and a better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be cover of Judas Priest's Livin' After Midnight being high points.

The group's major label debut Spend The Night in 2002 and thankfully it was pretty much a straight continuation of Turn 21 with Take It Off giving them their first and sadly only Top 40 hit and the likes of Dirty Denim (a brilliant takedown of Strokes-copying garage rockers with the line "You paid $200 to look like that?/You wanna check out the laundromat") and Who Invited You? packing the same gleeful knucklehead punch that they always had. Unfortunately, 2004's Gold Medal was where it started to go wrong as the group decided to try the dreaded "mature" approach with acoustic guitars and more laid back songs (the producer here was Butch Walker who I generally like but he was the wrong choice for this 'un) ignoring the fact that this was precisely the opposite reason people liked them in the first place. I'm not sure if this was Atlantic trying to push them towards being "more commercial" or the group trying something different but sadly it just didn't work - the cheeky humour was still there but it just didn't mesh with the new approach (the cringy I Don't Wanna Know If You Don't Want Me being the worst offender) the album bombed and they would soon be gone from Atlantic.

There would be one final twist in the tail though as the group would set up their own label for their next release Bitchin' which was a big step back in the right direction if not quite up to the standard of their earlier stuff as it saw the group go full on '80s rock (looking back not such a bad call as the genre was enjoying a bit of a renaissance at this point). Although it had a few misses on it such as the messy What Do I Have To Do?, the chugging Don't Wait Up For Me and the rifftastic Here For The Party and Smoke You Out at least showed the group's sense of fun, largely absent on Gold Metal had made a return.

Unfortunately, as of 13 years later, Bitchin' remains the final Donnas album. During the tour to complete it, Castellano had to sit several dates out due to the onset of tendonitis and although the group completed the tour, things went very quiet afterwards. Given that the band had been playing together since their early teens, I think it may have been a case that they felt it wouldn't have been right to break up the original four line-up and decided to call it a day which, while gutting, is pretty commendable really when you look at how many bands are doing the rounds these days with just one or two original members.

It's a real shame that the Donnas' career got cut short but on the other hand, I suppose by this point they were all heading into their thirties and maybe Torrie's injury was the cue for them to realise that they didn't still want to be singing about partying till you puke when they were forty-odd. I guess I can't really blame them - I mean I wish I could stay out drinking and rocking all night the way I used to be able to when the Donnas were at their commercial peak but we all get older, our tolerance and energy drops, real life starts to annoyingly get in the way and we end up hopefully with enough good memories and the occasional night out to keep our spirits up. At least they left behind a good rock 'n' roll legacy and that three album run of Get Skintight!, Turn 21 and Spend The Night remains well worth a look for anyone with a love of simple no-nonsense rock 'n' roll. Oh to be young, drunk and daft again...