Mark Donato lived his first 18 years in Connellsville, Pennsylvania,
graduated to Pittsburgh, saved $1000 and moved to New York City,
where he inherited a band.
He spent the late 1980s, the '90s and the early '00s a grateful
prisoner of New York's Downtown music scene. Then he moved to
a rural Upstate community, where he can be found in his garage,
playing songs.
He was in a band called Canoeful of Strangers and also one called
Spondee, which put out a record on the fabled Hello Recording
Club label, before it went the way of all fabled labels.
He drummed, sang and played harmonica for John Linnell of They
Might Be Giants; the legendary country orchestra Flat Old World;
Rosine; the Oswalds; Amy Allison and the Maudlins and others
you might have heard of.
Lately he's been playing music in the general vicinity of Woodstock,
NY, famous for its dreadlocks and maple syrup.
He has four full-length CDs: Mark Donato Sings 'I'm Flapping'
and other Favorites, The Old Joy, I Haven't Wasted All this
Time Alone, and the brand new A History of the
Boys and Girls. They have been released on the venerated
Rag and Bone Shop label, which operates out of an abandoned
silo somewhere in Ulster County.
He seems nice, but if you push him too far he has his own ways
of making you pay.
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