Matthew Donahue--Music

Matthew A. Donahue has been involved in
the creation and performance of music related creativity since the early 1980s. Beginning with the regional Midwest punk scene in the United States, Donahue played in such groups as Moms Apple Pie, and in the late 1980s with punk funk headliners, The Great Bar B-Que Gods. Material was recorded with The Great Bar B-Que Gods that has recently resurfaced and there is a possibility the tracks may be released as a reissue project on vinyl or CD. More recently he has been working musically with the Northwest Ohio art collective Universe Crew, as a vocalist, co-producer, and instrumentalist. The group has been working in the universal music scene since the late 1980s. Donahue began working with the group in the early 1990s and a self titled album was released on the

group's own record label Universe Crew Productions. "At that point it was 1995 and we promoted the album through a series of GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGNS in the United States and Europe. Just when we thought no one was listening, we were contacted by Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound Records in London, England. Sherwood and his partner Pete Holdsworth, said they really loved the material and were creating a new record label for self produced artists called Green Tea and wanted our first album to be released on their new record label.

Quite a feather in our cap considering we were not from the usual music scene."
A twelve inch was released entitled "What's Inside Your Afro?" and later an album
by the same name which featured bonus tracks and new artwork. The group went on to
release the highly successful "Turn of The Century EP" with legendary Japanese super group
Audio Active, do a remix of the bluegrass classic "Dark Hollow," for Capitol recording artist
Jeb Loy Nichols and provide a few tracks for the art car film Wild Wheels 2, by documentary
filmmaker Harrod Blank. Donahue is still writing songs of a socially and politically charged nature. "I have been fortunate to work in a variety of mediums, punk funk, heavy metal, rap, reggae……lately I have been writing and performing more social and political songs with just the acoustic guitar and deejaying and Mcing in solo performances." (Donahue, 2003)