themusicaddict Would Like To Know Whatever Happened To The Donnas?

Hello,

Yesterday I enjoyed rocking out to the female led band The Pretty Reckless, which led me to Sahara Hotnights. The Sahara Hotnights certainly have some good songs although it seems they were a short lived band. They got me thinking about other female led bands or bands that were all women. I realized we haven't heard from the Donnas in several years. So I looked up their Wikipedia page. The following information is highlights from that page, with some commentary from me and some of my favorite of their songs. All opinions are mine.

The Donnas formed in 1993 to play at a "Day On The Green" show. All their original members were born in 1979, Brett Anderson, Allison Robertson, Maya Ford and Torry Castellano. Unfortunately Castellano had to leave the band in 2009 due to tendinitis. I saw The Donnas with Miss Castellano play a couple of times, she was a hell of a drummer. She was essentially John Bonham in female form, a ferocious drummer. Castellano was replaced by Amy Cesari in 2009. Don't feel too bad for Miss Castellano, she's gone on to school at Stanford and Harvard. Along with being a hell of a drummer, she obviously is very intelligent as well. (Thanks to Wikipedia for information on The Donnas.)

Like I said I did see The Donnas play twice, both times at Lollapalooza when it was a touring festival. I saw them in Atlanta and Salt Lake. I was a fan before seeing them in concert, so I knew what they were about it. They were very good in concert, although the sameness of their songs sounds stands out when played live.

The Donnas never really had any "hits", but they have a lot of great songs. They didn't break much new ground, but they brought fun to rock and roll. They didn't take themselves seriously at all and are as far from being pretentious as its possible to be. Both times I saw them in concert bassist Maya Ford told the same Michael Jackson joke.

They turned the whole male preying on women sexuality cliche on it's head. Although that's a theme of many of their songs, it's played with tongue firmly in cheek.

Their last album of all new material was "Bitchin'", although they released a greatest hits album in 2009 "Greatest Hits Volume 16", the 16 is in honor of the album being released the year of the band's 16th anniversary. I'm listening to this CD now on Spotify, thanks Spotify! (This is why I'm glad there's multiple streaming music services. I went to Rdio first, but they don't have this CD available there.)

According to their Wikipedia page, in 2012 The Donnas were working on their 8th CD, even premiering a new song "Tramp". Yep, that sounds like a song title they'd use. Also according to their Wikipedia page, they are currently on hiatus.

Typing in www.thedonnas.com leads to the purplefeatherrecords.com. As of today that site features a The Donnas logo with "The Shoppe is currently closed for maintenance". The Donnas, of course, have a Facebook page. The website is Facebook.com/thedonnas. Their last message there was a Happy New Year's greeting on December 28th, 2013. Also on their Facebook page Brett Anderson states that she was going to be playing with her "new new band" Alpha/Beta on August 10th, 2013. I posted on their page asking when we would be getting some new music? I don't expect an answer, but will pass it on if they respond.

The sound sucks, but this is said to be their most recent song, "Tramp":



Again terrible sound, but this is The Donnas' take on Kiss's "Strutter", this video features a great guitar solo:



Here's much better sound, but only the audio on their cover of "Strutter":



"Too Bad About Your Girl":



"Take It Off":



"Who Invited You":



"Fall Behind Me":



"Smoke You Out":



"Smoke You Out" (Live):



"What Do I Have To Do" (Live, the sound is very good on this video):



"When The Show Is Over":



"It's On The Rocks":



"Take Me To The Backseat":



"Not The One":



themusicaddict