Order the Donner Party album

2xLP / CD / Hi-Res Download – available to order on Bandcamp.

Order on Bandcamp – 2XLP/CD/DL

Fabled San Francisco–based indie rock band – Donner Party – will be re-releasing their coveted debut album ‘The Donner Party’ this Autumn.
Out of print since its landmark release in 1987, the cult record will be available once more nearly four decades later on LP, CD and digitally.
Featuring the full album, lovingly remastered by Mikey Young, the vinyl release will also be available with a special bonus 12” of demos and rarities.
Donner Party were formed in San Francisco in 1983 by Sam Coomes and two friends from his local school. While Coomes remained a constant in the band with his contributions to guitar/violin/banjo, between 1986 and 1989 personnel changes would see the enlisting of Melanie Clarin (also of The Cat Heads/Harm Farm) on drums/accordion and Reinhold Johnson on bass, to complete the band’s classic line-up.
At the peak of their powers Donner Party would release two self-titled albums in 1987 (via Cryptovision Records), and 1988 (via Camper Van Beethoven‘s Pitch-A-Tent label), attracting a cult audience for their jangling college-rock melodies, uplifting harmonies, and wryly dark sense of humour.
Named after a group of 19th-century American travelers who turned cannibals while stranded, true to their moniker, Donner Party’s songs prominently satirised themes of death, anxiety, and the occult. Making waves with their penchant for an unusual subject matter, on their 1987 debut tracks like “When You Die Your Eyes Pop Out“, “John Wilkes Booth“, “The Ghost“, and “Godlike Porpoise Head of Blue-Eyed Mary” were certainly a case in point.

“I really had no aspirations to be a singer or songwriter – but a band needs songs & they don’t write themselves” says Coomes of the songs on ‘The Donner Party’. “I had taken an art history class in school & was introduced to some of the concepts behind surrealism. Stream of consciousness – that’s t! You don’t need ideas – just go with whatever pops into your head – there’s your song! That was pretty much my method. But luckily rock n roll isn’t really about the song: it’s about the energy, the feeling, the style, the sound, the spirit…if you happen to have excellent songs, great, but they won’t mean much without all those intangibles.”
Recorded at the intimate Lowdown studios (which is now buried under the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium), the tracks of ‘The Donner Party’ were thrashed out as-live, with that palpable sense of urgency still evident in the recordings.
“We bashed out the songs on our first record live in the studio, vocals and all, as if we were playing a gig. We mixed the songs in another studio, which I believe was eventually razed to build a freeway onramp, then sent the tapes off to Cryptovision, who duly released the record a few weeks later.”
Flying out NYC for the first time to promote the release, word about the Donner Party was beginning to spread with prominent gig offers, support slots with well-known touring acts, and even a “ridiculous Mafia run cocaine party at former church The Limelight” all head-hunting a band discernibly on the rise.

But despite a growing audience and the release of a warmly received second album in 1988, Donner Party would part ways the following year, collectively feeling they had “hit our ceiling as a band”.
With both Clarin and Reinhold opting to hold down the comfortable jobs that had “pretty much kept the band afloat” thus far, Coomes would go on to play in Heatmiser and later form Motorgoat and Quasi with his ex-wife, Janet Weiss.
“There was no way they were gonna leave their legit jobs to struggle & toil for peanuts in scummy punk rock clubs across the USA, as I was itching to do. So the band called it a day & we all moved on” says Coomes.
With no bad blood having ever come between them, all of their original members reformed for a one-off reunion show at Slim’s in San Francisco in 2000. Buoyed by its success, the band added a ‘Complete Recordings 1987–1989’ retrospective to their discography the same year, which comprised their first two albums, plus an unreleased third album and live tracks, in one package released on Innerstate Records.
Marking the band’s first activity in the 25 years since, in 2025 Donner Party will re-issue their debut album ‘The Donner Party’ via the Trussed Recordings label.
Reflecting on the legacy of Donner Party all these years later, their achievements, and their place in the San Francisco scene, Coomes adds:
“We three were excited to be in a band, having fun, carving out a place for ourselves in the weird underground scene that was the post punk rock world of San Francisco at that time. And though we were never more than a completely obscure band, we possessed enough of those intangibles that the music can still resonate with people who have an ear for that, despite the many years & millions of bands which have come & gone between our time & now. Nothing to sneeze at.”

Order on Bandcamp – 2XLP/CD/DL

For press enquiries contact: rob@sonicpr.co.uk

 

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