Well, I won't go so far as to claim that The Donnas have sold out musically given their latest release (although the overuse of a cowbell as a musical instrument clearly hints at it), but this email I just got from their mailing list really seals the deal for selling out:
Calling all San Francisco Donnas Fans...The Donnas and Levis are giving it back to their anyone of their fans that 'Take It Off' in their home town! On Saturday, December 7th, head over to the Levis San Francisco Flagship store in Union Square (at Stockton) and try on any pair of Type 1 jeans to receive a dope Donnas sweat-band! It's one day only so don't miss out on your chance to sport a Donnas sweat-band! The Donnas continue touring with the Campfire Girls and Your Enemies and Friends and rock a few hot holiday radio shows at the end of the year. Check with http://www.thedonnas.com for the latest tour dates.
I'm sorry ... did they just say a "DOPE" Donna's sweat-band? Let's recap ... band starts off as a sorta Grrrl Punk thing, then they get better as musicians and become more of a hard rock outfit ... and now they're peddling "DOPE" merchandise?!?!?
Let's take a ride in the WayBack Machine shall we ....
There it was, the heady days of the early 90s. Bill Clinton's star was on the rise, the great national nightmare of Vanilla Ice was being erased from our collective memories, and radio still played a thing called Rock & Roll.
I had the good fortune of keeping odd hours and whilst finishing my college work, often listened to the latenight All Request show in KLOL and/or the heavy-metal stylings of Z-Rock. Given the odd hours, I often had pretty good odds of winning any call-in stuff. I managed to win a few things from both stations, and then of course, that gets your name on a list that's for sale to anyone interested.
Well, one of those interested parties was a new radio station it seems. Imagine my horror as I get a phone call, asking for me by name, asking if I'm down with the hippest, hoppingest, happening, dope, fresh tunes of the day. Said telemarketer even rattled off a few names of bands this station would be playing. I replied that I hated all those bands and that I hated him for calling me. Nevertheless, that day lives on in my memory as the day Rock & Roll died. Z-Rock was not long for the airwaves as heavy metal died its all-too-deserved death. KLOL started to mix in more and more Nirvana and weening itself off of more and more Metallica, GNR, and ... well, that was about it.
So needless to say ... I am not "DOWN" with this promotion, however innocently inspired. I am not "HIP" to the ways, nor do I consider them "DOPE." Think I'm gonna run over the next young punk I see on the sidewalk when I'm driving home now.
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"I replied that I hated all those bands and that I hated him for calling me."
That is classic Greg.
So what was the station???
I'd be lying if I said I could remember, but it was one of the plethora of rap-lite (often confused with R&B) stations.
Ironically enough (and I cannot stress enough that I am not making this up) ...
Somewhere around that same time, I'm doing some Christmas shopping in a mall with my parents. While I wait for them to finish up and I need to kill time, I go to the record store. Being Christmas season, of course, all the salespeople are hounding you at every step to pressure you into buying stuff. Not only do I get this approach upon entering, I get the guy who's training the new guy on top of everything else. So he greets me by asking if there's anything in particular I'm looking for. I opt for the standard ... "Nah, just looking" which we all know really means "screw off".
This guy, being the trainer that he is, says: "Well, we've got the latest releases by ..." and then rattles off every one of the latest Top 40 artists of the early 90s. I stood there in amazement that he would dare peddle such crap ... stunned for a moment ... and all I could think to reply was: "Ya got any good music?"
I think it was then that I became a bitter old man.
Na ya think???