Donerail's Official Website — Portland Band

The lineup for southern California’s inexplicably located rock festival was recently announced, and I think that both the organizers of Coachella and the LA Times writers must be nearly 80 years old. The Times claims that organizer, Gary Bongiovanni has tried to attract a younger audience for this year’s festival by building a package “around Pavement, Public Image Ltd.”

Wow

I didn’t know that a band started in 1978, with a 53 year old lead singer would bring a bunch of spoiled indie/emo kids from southern California out of the woodwork. Maybe Pavement has the ability to allure the perfect youth audience. You know the kids we’re talking about, those born the same year that Pavement started their career.

So, that takes care of a couple of the big names, surely the youth can be found elsewhere. Let’s see what the Times said

The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival will bring a youth movement to the low desert this year. After several years of graybeard headliners, California’s signature festival is going back to the future with younger acts including Gorillaz, Muse, Jay-Z, Thom Yorke

Blerg

While it’s true that Jay-Z (40) and the Gorrillaz (band created last century) led by Damon Albarn (41) have large youthful followings, I’d argue that they still have a fair share of mid-30s and hip 40 year old fans. Muse has been blowing up of late, but it’s amazing to me how few people knew about them 5 years ago, when they were 15 years into their careers. Hey, look at that, Muse has been around as long as the youngest member of the Coachella demographic, while Pavement has been around as long as the eldest.

It gets worse from there folks, Thom Yorke ???? (41), Faith No More (started in 1981), Them Crooked Vultures (featuring the reanimated John Paul Jones at 64)…where is this supposed youth?!

Now, before we get all up in my business about ragging on the old folks, let’s take a step back. Am I saying that none of these acts deserve to play Coachella? No. They all do, and frankly I’m thrilled that this time around Muse will get some attention. I was at Coachella in 2004, and they were given a mid-afternoon slot that attracted only their hardcore audience of kids that bought from the import shop. I’m glad that Paul McCartney isn’t the headliner this year. I’m glad that Pavement is playing. I’m not jaded.

However

I do think that using “youth” as the story here is blatant manipulation. None of these acts are “youth.” MGMT, they’re young; and shit, they’re popular too. That’s the angle the Times and Coachella should have taken instead of trying to lie to us about middle-aged rockers being appealing to the “youth.”

Well, well, well. Another year, another Christmas. Tis the season for overeating, fat men in red suits, overbearing relatives, more overeating and overspending. Tis also the season of the Christmas song. (duh. Guess who’s brilliant…this guy over here…me. I tend to have a nose for spotting the obvious) Every year at this time radio stations are hi-jacked by singing chipmunks and dogs barking jingle bells, while it seems that every artist and his/her brother/sister are releasing albums of often sugary feel good Christmas music (99% of which are not even remotely close to being good). This got us over at Camp Donerail thinking, what are our favorite Christmas songs? We’re guessing that you’ve undoubtedly been bombarded with Christmas music since about June, so you won’t see a bunch of traditional carols, cheezy 50’s/60’s holiday pop, or anything by Mannheim Steamroller. We’ll try to keep this entertaining. Without further ado:

10 -“Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)” – The Ramones

Peace and love the Ramones way… begging for it in a poppy surf punk song. Added bonus.

9 – “Twelve Days Of Christmas” – Bob Denver And The Muppets.

It’s The Muppets. Enough said. Oh yeah, there’s some hippie named Denver in there too. Is there anyone in their late 20’s early 30’s that didn’t have this record growing up? Pure genius. From Fozzie forgetting his lines (the best part is when he looks of at Bob Denver and cluelessly asks “…what?”) to Miss Piggy showboating (Ba-dum-dum-dum). Ah Christmas…what would you be with out muppets?

8 – “Santa Claus And His Old Lady” – Cheech And Chong

7 – “You’re a Mean One (Mr. Grinch)” – Thurl Ravenscroft.

6 – “Blue Chistmas” – Elvis Presley.

Even though I can’t help but think of Porky Pig’s version everytime I hear this, The King makes the cut. I will give him one thing, Elvis does inject a little bit of soul into this song, and how can you not sing along with the background singers? (Ah-Whoo-ah-oooo-oooo)

5 – “Christmas In Hollis” – Run DMC.

From the King of Rock, to the Kings of Rap. Run DMC spins a modern day Christmas yarn of the Holidays in Queens. My one question is, why does Santa have a pit bull pulling his sleigh?

4 – “Must Be Santa” – Bob Dylan. Okay, this is a bit of a new one, at least this version (shit, I didn’t realize it, but a lot of artists have covered this, including Skerik and Raffi). I’ll admit when I heard that Bob Dylan was releasing a Christmas album, I was aghast! WTF? Christmas albums routinely turn out nothing short of deplorable, and can seriously tarnish and otherwise great career, I don’t care if you are Bob Dylan. (Just look what happened to the Rev. Horton Heat…wait…) Then I saw this video. In the grand scheme of things, there’s nothing overly special about this song, except for the fact that it reminds me of The International Friendship Song. The thing I love about this version is it seems to have a quality that reminds me of more of a drunken stumble. A big part of it is the imagery in the video: the setting, the lighting, this impromptu fight/chase scene, even Bob’s creepy wigs (at least I think those are wigs…theres’s no way those aren’t wigs) and the special looking cross-eyed drummer.

3 – “Senor Santa Claus” – Jim Reeves. Growing up, there were a lot of intrestesting, and at times bizarre, Christmas songs swirling around the home on Christmas morning. From Polka, to country to folk, to traditional, I think this one by “Gentleman Jim” may be near the top of my list of all time favorites, even with his bad attempt (possibly borderline offensive, depending how well you can take a joke) at a broken Hispanic/English accent. I can’t tell you why I like this song so much. I think a big part of it is that is brings back warm memories of childhood Christmases. Presents, fuzzy Snoopy pajamas, mom bustling around making sure we’re all happy and comfortable, and my dad playing The Jim Reeves Christmas record(s) on the stereo. (please excuse the cheesy video. It isn’t my doing)

2 – “Happy Christmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon.

Instant Classic by a great artist/peace activist/person. I don’t know how anyone cannot like this song, regardless if they like John Lennon, Yoko Ono, The Beatles, the sounds of kids singing, the idea of peace, or the concept of humans being rational beings or not. This is a modern view of what is supposed to be the Christmas Spirit: Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men (read: human kind which includes male and female…just in case anyone was confused.)

1 – “Father Christmas” – The Kinks. This is where I should insert “Merry Christmas” By Donerail, but that would be shameless self promotion (psst…you can find “Merry Christmas” on Destiny & Dishonor – available on iTunes) As far back as I can remember, I have loved this song, with it’s “anti-over consumption while there are needy people”  agenda (Just for the record, I don’t necessarily disagree with it) and it’s “hidden” Christmas cheer. . I’ve eagerly awaited this song arrival on the airways every year since I was about 8 or 9 nine. I think it was probably the first time I had heard anything that was even close to being punk rock. Maybe I liked it because I thought it was silly, I don’t remember. I just know it always brought me joy, and I liked it! In Fact, I still do. (Pardon the fuzzy video.)

Happy Holidays From Donerail!

Back in September 2009, Donerail got together with Mr. James Dineen and Mr. Jimmy Jazz Prescott at Jambox Studios, in Southeast Portland, to record a podcast for the Sessions From The Box website. We recorded a few songs and sat down for a conversation with Mr. Dineen, in front of the mic and on record.

“Sessions From the Box features intimate performances and interviews from up and coming and established artists”, and we were tickled to be asked to participate. It’s pretty exciting to be in the same company as artists like Erin McKeown, The Crosswalks, The Hydropods, and Gliss. Said podcast is now up on on the Sessions website and can also be found on iTunes. Go ahead, pop in and have a listen!

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Sessions From The Box – Donerail

Donerail...as a Cartoon Artwork by Emily Block.

Donerail’s second album, Destiny And Dishonor, was reviewed recently on Seattle music blog Fensepost.com. You can see it here.

Donerail descended on fair Beaverton, OR for our second appearance at The Tillicum Club. Once again, we were the only band on the bill, which allowed us  about 3 hours to spread our proverbial wings and explore, not only what directions we could take with our own music, but we were able to test drive some new covers and take a second look at showcasing some individual talent within the band.

Even though we were missing some of our favorite friends, we were happy to entertain a pretty good crowd that contained some very unexpected new fans.

Highlights:

• Duncan’s performance of St. James Infirmary … or Gambler’s Blues – Great old traditional song. Leave it to Dunc to bust out an old timey gem!
• JP’s performance of Thirteen – JP channels Big Star is this tender ballad. No, seriously…tender. Alex Chilton would have been proud.
• Jake’s performance of 14 Cheerleader Coldfront - Jake doing his best Robert Pollard, minus getting butt-ass drunk and throwing awkward high leg kicks.
• A mostly acoustic version of Portland – Slightly different, and much tighter than on the first Donerail album: Disconnected.

Wilco (The Album)

Wilco understands that musicians need to embrace the Web in order to survive today. The album format is almost dead, save for the diehards like Duncan and I who crave Vinyl, and it seems that the only way to really sell the album format to the masses today is to let them listen for free.

Anyhoo, I’d go into a thousand words about the industry and the perils, but the song Bull Black Nova just came on, and it’s seriously the best Wilco song in years. I’ve missed the uber-creative Wilco. I’ve been wondering for years, when Nels would go ahead and take a song and run with it and he has. Thank you Nels!!!

Oh, and thanks Wilco; you always share with your fans first, and we appreciate it.

…aw snap, that’s Feist on there too…cute.

So, now that everyone has moved on to digital audio the Beatles are finally giving proper reissues to their catalog!

Honestly, though – it looks to be a pretty rad collection. Every album will have an accompanying documentary and be packaged as their original (and superior) UK releases. In addition, the first half of their collection that was released before stereo recording will be available in the wonderful original sound of Mono.

Hey, when the do things, they do ‘em right…and, 10 years late.

More details here and from Apple/EMI.