Day 6: The Donnas- Wednesday Night Live in Palo Alto, CA 1995

Another band the Smugglers frequently toured with were Lookout label-mates, the Donnas. The Donnas were an all-girl punk rock band from Palo Alto, California who attended school together and before they became the Donnas, they're first band was known as Ragady Anne before changing their name to the Electrocutes (I posted about them here in 2008). They created the Donnas as a separate band simultaneously with the Electrocutes and distinguished the bands from each other by each member taking the name Donna and their surname would be the first letter of their last name (Donna A,R, F, C) when they were performed as the Donnas. The Electrocutes were a raw fast
hard edge-metal band while the Donnas had a garagey punk sound, not unlike the Ramones (in some ways they were the reverse Ramones). The Smugglers played shows and toured with the Donnas around 1998-2000 and check out chapter 41 "Hot Boxin" in Grant Lawrence's tour diary/rock bio, Dirty Windshields for some very interesting road stories with the Donnas. Around this period, the Donnas were starting to create some buzz and attention from the major labels, their albums were selling and their tours were gaining more fans. Think of what a PR dream they would have been when they first started out, they were young (high school young), they wore matching "letter shirts" and spandex pants (later skin-tight leather and t-shirts), they were good looking with a persona that suggested a rebellious edge (can we say, female Ramones or think, Nikki & the Corvettes or Leather Tuscadero from Happy Days), they sang about boys, hooking up and 40 boys in 40 nights, say no more. They progressed from a high school punk/metal band(s) to cool indie label rebels to a cleaned up polished image with commercial success on a major label band as they performed on TV talk shows, and their music was used in movie/video game soundtracks and played main stage at Lollapalooza.

I was trying to decide which Donnas show I would post, because I have a couple great sounding soundboard/FM recordings from the early 2000's. Unfortunately a recording from when the Donnas performed in town didn't turn out too good. I saw them at the Pyramid Cabaret in 2005 and I was using some new Sound Professional mics (with a battery pack, the most money I've spent on sound recording equipment) with my minidisc recorder. For every recording I used these mics, the sound was overly bassy and it affected the overall sound noticeably. For the Donnas show, the sound coming from the stage already had too much bass in the mix, it's the kind of bass you can feel your pant legs flap against your leg because the bass was blowing way too hard towards you. Usually my (other) mics sounded okay because my body seems to absorb a lot of the high and low end of the sound. This recording though was completely unlistenable, with the bass brickwalling the sound to such an extent you could not hear the vocals or any guitar. Just a booooming blast of bass and drums! I only have a handful of live recordings that are impossible to enjoy and most of them were with these microphones. Fortunately, I only used them a couple years before I found a better (and cheaper) alternative.

Instead, we're going back to when the Donnas were just starting out, a couple years before their first full length album was released. Since the band members were all born in 1979, the girls would be around 16 years old at the time of this concert. This is a decent sounding FM broadcast on local radio in their hometown that captures their raw talent and how unflappably good they already were at this time. Many of the songs they play in the set are from singles they had recently released that later would appear as bonus tracks on the re-release version of their first album, The Donnas. As a bonus for this live recording, there's an interview with the band members! A rare and early glimpse of a band that would continue to grow up and mature with every release. Another must listen for fans of honest to goodness no frills all-girl rock' n' roll!
Enjoy!
#12daysoftrouble

Please do NOT sell or convert to lossy format (except for personal use)
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THE DONNAS
KZSU Wednesday Night Live
Palo Alto, CA
October 4, 1995
FM broadcast

01. Da Doo Ron Ron
02. High School Yum Yum
03. Boy Like You
04. Let's Rab
05. Let's Go Mano
06. Last Chance Dance
07. I Wanna Be A Unabomber
08. Get Rid Of That Girl
09. Interview (The songs from their 1st 45's are cut during the interview since they are released material)

THE DONNAS- 1995-10-04 Palo Alto, CA FLAC. rar