Phil Donnison

Phil “Philthy Dunnyseat” Donnison

Vocals, National guitar, National Steel guitar, National ukulele, kazoo, nose flute.

"Philthy Dunneyseat", "Phil Harmonic", "Phileas McBlurt",
"Blind Lemon Peel"!
- just a few of Phil's aka's!

Phil comes from a musical family and his early vocal years were spent singing with the family while doing the washing-up or on long drives, and when people dropped in for a visit he and his 4 sisters performed anything from a madrigal chorus to magic or short plays (usually made up on the spot). His father was a ukulele and washboard player and Phil started tinkering with a uke at about 4 years old. By the mid 50's he rivalled the Kingston Trio with his own interpretation of "Hang down Your Head Tom Dooley"!

He started listening and playing along to blues performers and Django Reinhardt in the early 60's and searched junk shops for 78 rpm records to get more inspiration. He discovered George Formby at this time and this was a great boost to his uke playing ambitions.

He first saw a jug band on "The Beverly Hillbillies" TV show back in the early 60's and then when " The Jim Kweskin Jug Band's" first record became available in Australia in the mid 60's, he was inspired to start his own jug band - "Phileas McBlurt and The Emancipated Rampart Footwarmers Jug Band".

From there he went on to perform with the popular "Stovepipe Spasm Band" in 1969. It was then that he first met Mic and Jim Conway who had the "Jellybean Jug Band" happening (this later became the "Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band") and they had driven to Sydney from Melbourne to catch the Stovepipe at the Port Jackson Folk Festival.

Six years of servitude teaching high school in Papua New Guinea allowed him to delve into the jazz genre. A keen collector of 78's, he had learnt a basic jazz repertoir he could play on guitar, sing and zizz on the kazoo! And so "The Phil Harmonic Footwarmers" was born. This was quite a popular band in the highlands of New Guinea and he got to play in some very unusual places!

After returning to Australia in 1976 Phil formed another jazz outfit called "The Gladesville Shieks" - a hot ensemble which played lots of jug band type songs with a large pinch of Fats Waller thrown in for good measure, even though there was no piano! 90% of the numbers they performed had vocals and the kazoo was omnipresent as usual!

But Phil tired of jazz bands - he could never understand (and still doesn't) why most jazz bands play the same old shit! "You can listen to a group playing in one pub and then listen to a different mob playing somewhere else, and they play exactly the same crap as the other mob! How many times do you have to listen to "When The Saints" with the same bad Louis imitation vocal!"

So it was back into jug band music when he teamed up with "The Original Sweaty Palms Orchestra" in the early 80's. They were fun, entertaining and went through a few lineup changes which inevitably meant changes in direction and eventually they evolved into a more electric style jug band without the jug!

TOSPO dissolved in the mid 80's and over the next few years Phil formed a couple of groups playing string band jazz and juggy type numbers - "The Old Blokes" and "The Semitones".

He moved to Fiji in the early 90's and when he returned in 1996 he had decided to set up a new jug band. His passion for National instuments commenced with his first purchase - "...they are bloody loud - I'm not a big amp fan - have a unique sound, an incredible tonal range, stand apart from all other stringed instruments and are pure art deco design with an amazing functionality. Perfect for jug band music!" He already owned a 1934 Style O National Guitar which he had acquired in the 60's, a National-style Beltona uke and had just been to the U.S.A. to pick up a new National Style3 tricone, set up hawaiian style.

He had been an R Crumb fan for years and was inspired by the slide playing of Bob Brozman. So he contacted Mic Conway the day after his return and put the idea to him. "We'll have all National instruments (Mic had his Style 97 National tenor) and we'll call ourselves "The National Jug Band". Let's write some new material instead of playing the same old rubbish! This genre needs to be expanded!"

Mic of course loved the idea, had heaps of his own - added the junk percussion, found a sousaphone player who was also willing to blow jug, suggested a Strohviol player, had already written a heap of satirical songs and lampoons, and said "why don't we call ourselves "The National Jug and Junk Band". The "Jug" part of the name was dropped after a short time as it became a bit cumbersome - and the rest is history!

He says the highlight of his career was playing lagerphone with Tiny Tim for a TV special in Australia in 1970.

When Phil's not performing with the National Junk Band, his "real job" is freelancing as a cameraman/director making industrial and corporate documentaries, from which he has won many local and international awards.