El Donk
by Brett Lemke
March 2003
This reporter was walking home from our offices at Maximum Ink, smoking a Lucky Strike and marching in tow to El Donk’s newest release “Here Comes Johnny Law.” I was approached on my left by an ominous black Dodge conversion van with headers accentuating the already domineering bass-line. The van stopped, and I was reminded of Primus’ “Frizzle Fry” as the side door cracked open. I looked back and felt a sharp stinging pain at the base of my skull. As I pulled the pin from my neck, I felt myself collapsing under the increasingly cumbersome weight of my bookbags.
My mind raced with anticipation of the neurotoxin. The effect resembled a more mellow “Morphine,” replacing the bass clarinet with a tenor sax. As my mind was on the topic of lounge, I drifted to a Las Vegas track debt to a scraggly bookie that smelled of shoe polish and twitched constantly. That was 1996, and unpaid. My hearing and vision slowly fading, I try to escape down a back alley off of East Washington Avenue. All the while, wondering why the band is obsessed with Waco, Texas.
Upon awakening, I instinctively reached for my cigarettes and lit one clumsily, trying to shake the worst chemical hangover since the last time I went head-to-head with Black ‘n Tan on pints of Guinness. I took a drag or two and sat upright, finding myself in a large parabola-shaped room with the effigy of a gigantic golden donkey stubbornly parked directly in the center. “Fuck, I must have pissed off the Democrats,” I said as I proceeded to gather my bearings. Just then, The Falcon and Woobie3k entered the room. From the conversation, I came to these conclusions.
The band currently known as El Donk, and formerly known as The Donkey Of Love, are inspired by their generous, pagan benefactor, the Golden Donky. The creative impulses are then channeled through singer/songwriter, The Falcon. “He is very heavily influenced by Frank Zappa,” Woobie3k related to me during the impromptu interview. “His songwriting provides inspiration for the band to really be strange. He writes most of the material, and we help with the other stuff.” El Donk evolved from a basement band starting 7 years ago in Madison with gigs at Ken’s, O’Cayz, and the Mango.
The interview wound to a close, and I was quickly shown to a less visible security door. “Give Globochem a call if you need anything else!” I heard the Falcon say as the vacuum-reinforced whoosh of the door refreshed my senses. Suddenly, I found myself standing, ironically, next to the spot where I was abducted - in front of a windowless, red brick building on East Washington Avenue. Stupified, I wondered if this strange occurrence had actually happened me. My empirical senses exhausted, I headed back to the office. Catch El Donk headlining BOMBLASTICA 2003 (www.bomblastica.com) at the Regent Street on Friday, March 21st. All hail the almighty Golden Donkey!
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