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On this day, 26 August 1999, American rock band The Donnas played Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach.
Formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1993, the band consisted of Brett Anderson (lead vocals), Allison Robertson (guitar, backing vocals), Maya Ford (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Torry Castellano (drums, percussion, backing vocals).
Amy Cesari replaced Castellano, who left the band in 2009 due to tendonitis. They drew inspiration from the Ramones, the Runaways, Girlschool, AC/DC, Bachman–Turner Overdrive and Kiss.
Rolling Stone has stated that "the Donnas offer a guileless take on adolescent alienation; they traffic in kicks, not catharsis, fun rather than rage". MTV has stated that the band offers "a good old-fashioned rock & roll party".
All four founding band members were born in 1979. Lead vocalist Brett Anderson on May 30; guitarist Allison Robertson on August 26; bassist Maya Ford and drummer Torry Castellano, both on January 8. They all became friends by eighth grade and formed as a band in May 1993 to play for their school's "Day on the Green." One of two all-female bands in their town Palo Alto, California, they were relatively unknown until they were out of high school. They are all self-taught musicians and practiced in Castellano's garage nearly every day during their years at Palo Alto High School. They called themselves "Ragady Anne" in their early days and shortly thereafter changed their name to "The Electrocutes".
Towards the end of their high school days, while they were still known as the Electrocutes, they decided to create another band (with the same members) that would play softer tunes without distorting the metal queen image of the Electrocutes. To help their fans distinguish between the two bands, they all took matching "Donna" monikers, where all of their names were Donna and their last names were the first initial of their last name (Brett Anderson became Donna A, etc.), which they used only when performing as "The Donnas."
They worked with producer Darin Raffaelli for their first two albums, the first of which, simply called The Donnas, was released on Raffaelli's Super*teem! record label. (It was later released again on Lookout! Records.) They took a week off their senior year of high school to tour Japan as The Donnas, and were promoted and organized by Pinky Aoki [ja] of The Phantom Gift [ja].
Afterwards, they signed with Lookout! Records. As the band grew, they were urged to sign with a major label company. In December 2001, they signed with Atlantic Records.
