((Golden Donna)) Band Profile and Upcoming New York City Concerts - Oh My Rockness

Madison's Joel Shanahan is Golden Donna. He is the guitarist in Julian Lynch's band. Golden Donna does not sound like Julian Lynch though. No. Golden Donna does not.

Golden Donna creates goth-y instrumental electronic using mostly budget synths and somewhat functional retro machines and other assorted plugged-in things. No one would mistake him (or me - see: "plugged-in things") for a gearhead. No one is gonna say this guy is overproducing. This seems to be made just from what was around. And that's exactly what I like about it.

Golden Donna's slow-building songs throb their way down a brilliantly shady path. It leads to a place that's haunting and enchanting and uplifting and deflating. So no, this isn't the kind of electro that's the big time club music kind of electro that goes "boom-CHK-boom-CHK-boom-CHK" until seemingly the end of time and we all die in a drowning pool of empty sweat. But it's not music made for haunted houses and witch parties either. It's somewhere in between. Fine by me. I'll take nuance over a crummy box any old time.

One of my favorite writers is Larry Brown (RIP). No. Not the basketball guy. The guy who did Faulkner almost as well as Faulkner guy. Anyway, he liked to write a lot about riding around in his truck at twilight, a couple of cold beers icing in the chest on the floorboard, soaking in "the gloam" - that not dark not light time of casual regret and muted nostalgia. Golden Donna's latest EP is called "Gloaming Thirst." I don't know if Larry Shanahan knows Larry Brown's work. But I think Larry Brown might've known what Shanahan meant by that title. I think he just might've.

Published March 7, 2013
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