About as often as I post something here, I post something music-related at
the Wolfman Fairies MySpace page. Since I remain, for some reason, unwilling to give up the pretense of maintaining this blog, I figured I'd cross-post my latest entry.
The Donnas were in town the other night, at the Hawthorne Theater. Just a couple of years ago I counted the Donnas as one of my very favorite bands, and while I still think they're great, both the show and the new songs were a bit of a disappointment.
One of the things I admire about the Donnas is how much they've evolved from their rather humble beginnings. While the "What if the Ramones were chicks?" shtick of their early records was undeniably fun, it was not terribly distinguished, and their jailbait image and the overhanging Svengali shadow of their Kim-Fowley-wannabe producer Darin Rafaelli were kind of icky. But, refusing to allow others to define them, they kicked Rafaelli to the curb after two albums and moved away from bubblegum punk and toward the hard rock and glam metal that were their first and truest loves. Along the way their playing grew by leaps and bounds, and by the release of their fifth album, and major-label debut, Spend the Night, any thoughts of "Teenyboppers with guitars—how cute!" were supplanted by "Shit, these women fucking rock!"
In particular, Spend the Night showcased the playing of drummer Torry Castellano, whose thunderous beats belied her tiny size, and guitarist Alison Robertson, who, to put it matter-of-factly, had killer riffs coming out of her ass, sounding like a cocktail of Angus Young and Ace Frehley with a twist of Southern boogie metal. The songs on Spend the Night were uniformly great: pounding, hooky hard-rock party anthems with nary a ballad in sight. Ultimately, StN was the apotheosis of the Donnas' style, a record on which they inhabited the cock-rock universe as no women had done before, on their own terms and without any actual cocks involved.
This, of course, led to the question of what they'd do next. While not a huge stylistic leap forward, the follow-up album, Gold Medal, nonetheless continued the Donnas' evolution. Robertson traded in her signature Les Paul for an SG, giving the band a leaner and meaner sound. Bassist Maya Ford contributed notably more complex lines, and singer Brett Anderson, whose limited range had always been the band's major weakness, displayed enough control of tone to indicate that she was working to stretch her boundaries as a vocalist. And even if the group was as yet unwilling to abandon their lyrical preoccupations with put-downs and partying, their songwriting as a whole grew more mature, retaining the hooky riffs and melodies while showing greater versatility in style and mood. (On the almost Beatlesque title track, acoustic guitars make their first appearance on a Donnas record.) On the whole, Gold Medal was an even stronger album than Spend the Night, and I personally had high hopes for its follow-up, expecting the Donnas to evolve even further.
Unfortunately, the new record, Bitchin', while by no means bad, is a retreat to the safety of their established style. The songs are similar to but less distinguished than those on the last two records. They've slowed their tempos down, which contributes to the overall feeling that they're getting tired. Granted, "tired" is not a word I could accurately apply to their show last Friday. These women are very good at what they do, and their performance was spot-on. Anderson is a charismatic frontwoman. Robertson was a writhing mass of sweat and hair as she effortlessly tossed off riffs. And no drummer in rock is more fun to watch than Castellano, as she tosses her befeathered blonde mane from side to side and shouts the song's lyrics to the heavens while furiously beating her kit. (When the band appeared on TRL a few years back, some hip-hop artist who was there—can't remember which one—remarked, "That drummer puts her back into it, man", which: word.) But something about the whole thing seemed…perfunctory. I'm thankful that irony has never been a weapon in the Donnas' arsenal, but it's hard not to wince when Anderson shouts out, in all seriousness, hoary rock-singer clichés like, "How's everybody doin' tonight?" and "Are you ready to rock, Portland?" For all the sweat and excitement in the air at the Hawthorne, I felt like I caught a whiff of staleness as well.
The Donnas have worked hard to become as good as the '70s and '80s artists they admire, and they've succeeded. The question now is, can they continue to grow beyond that? Can they become something greater than that which they sought to emulate? Or will they settle for complacency and a slow descent into irrelevance? It occurred to me that, in a little over a year, the Donnas, all of whom were born in 1979, will begin turning 30. If they continue with their typical pattern, they should be working up a new record around then. Will facing down the barrel of that particular gun move them to consider their legacy? I, for one, will be waiting. And listening.
