Unwishing Well

The cinema of the scenes, as told from the heart and spirit of the omniscient narrator, shines through the awe-inspiring oeuvre of Glenn Donaldson’s canonical titan, The Reds, Pinks & Purples. The storied and esoteric histories of every underserved underdog become immortalized in records and poignantly penned paeans that evoke the eras and underachievers that became synonymous with their own respective corresponding localized micro-movements. Donaldson channels that psychic spirit and journeyman-earned wisdom to provide contemporary era rock operas that eulogize tales of infinitely influential rises and falls. Crystallizing the tragic self-celebrating kingdoms of fortunate failures, false heroes, music press deities of limitless deceit, hometown dive gods, and humanity in the grips of all its romanticized wonder and woe—the latest sortie of the sensational and spectacular takes aim at the threads of hope and an untethered abandon into the intimacy and dualities of idolatry and isolation with Unwishing Well.

As increasingly found in the continued adventures of The Reds, Pinks, and Purples canon—Glenn circles the drain of surrendering to unabashed sentimentality in passions worthy of being showcased as the top headlining spot that your favorite revered then later reviled pop act never even had the chance to claim or ascend. Unwishing Well uplifts and uproots the undercurrents that carry the commonalities between the spectators and the spectacles. Donaldson pays homage in heart to everything and everyone that never got their due or to the lucky ones that made the grade, but paid an ultimate price. The cycle of these pop vignettes depict successes and failures in the same sentences, existing within the same stanzas, where the stories of making it and breaking it operate as events that live on different sides of the same coin. Unwishing Well is a reflection of us, the icons we adore, the Adonises we worship, the false prophets that proselytize the edicts from these cults of personality, the fallouts, the third acts, and the artistic fabrics that spool these sub-sects of artful dodgers into the stuff of legend.