"...if people want to know who I am," she said, "they can listen to the songs."

Can't argue that. She's honestly present in them, sometimes as infectious and groovy as a rabid armadillo, sometimes deep, brilliant, intoxicating and bittersweet as a Pacific sunset swirling in your Bushmills. Pretty redundant to talk about her intelligence, her wit, her fairly frequent spasms of righteous indignation, her compassion and her general fearlessness if you've heard the songs, or spent an evening on her porch, where she might lecture you on matters of nutrition or invoke hours of metaphysical discussion centered on the magic of following your bliss and the importance of being in the moment.

Donna knows her some bliss, but she'll also tell you she's been through seven kinds of hell to get at it. Fortunately, she's one of those people for which life just gets all the sweeter in spite of it all. Also it should be said that she will probably put my ass in traction if I type another paragraph in this vein of wretched psychobabble.

Donna likes to dance, loves to laugh, and goes crazy for good rock and roll just the way all little girls do. She loves Kate Bush, Led Zeppelin, Depeche Mode, Sam Shepherd and Joseph Campbell, and yes, she dances to them all.

 

Donna has been performing since she was five, beginning with her Aunt Hilda and Uncle Amos's Bluegrass band, The Midnight Express.
In Norman, Oklahoma, while earning her degree in theatre, she was guitarist and songwriter for the experimental jazz-funk band Limbo Cafe. The band, including Donna's best friend and now husband Scott Hartzog, self-produced two CDs, I like My Pie With Cream and Sideways, both now out of print. Limbo's live shows attained a legendary cult status, treasured as near-ecstatic rites with a relentless feminine sexual energy verging on assault, indeed sometimes leaving a fleshy tableau of the more submissive devotees duct-taped to the stage in their silvery wake.

Donna made her first solo album, Future Kisses, while living and gigging in LA, with a little help from friends and all-around madmen Brian (Oblivion Express) Auger and Karma Auger.

The incarnation of The Inside on the latest album, Paper Wings, includes  Donna, Scott, Karma and an eclectic mix of players and friends from Home-Sweet-Oklahoma and all points on the globe, which it circled a few times in production.

Back at home, there's a new yet-to-be-named project in the works, a new band and new songs with old friends, and new performances growing in the wings. Donna has stressed, with disarming naiveté, that the project will be essentially theatrical and designed meticulously to rock your balls, as if anyone who knows her might imagine that it could be anything else. Stay Tuned.

 LSB--January 01, 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE INSIDE  Roll Call (Paper Wings)

Donna Monarch, Scott Hartzog, Karma Auger

Victor Rook, Beau Mansfield, David Short, Amir Alavi, Jan Henning
Geoffery Burch, Kim 'Wheatie' Mertens, Armando Rivera, Todd Balcom

Shawn O'neal, Chaz Inez, Kyle Benton, Dave Gedosh, Derrick Davis
Tammi Fleming-Willey, Mike Willey & Sofia Willey