The all-girl teen sensation known as the Donnas is something you just couldn't have expected. Riding a wave of faddish popularity, doing music very much like popular music from before they were born, these four Palo Alto friends have managed to sneak up on the music industry and give it a wedgie.

How, you ask? By fusing influences like the Runaways and the Ramones, they crafted a high energy, edgy, guitar driven sound that is made for mosh pits and dance floors filled with bouncy teen rebels.

Even in the days of ultra polished femme divas like Mariah and Jewel, their Plain Jane looks and almost fiftyish corniness (see, every member's first name is Donna, so they named themselves the Donnas, get it?) serves to fuel the campy, kitsch appeal of this fascinating young group.

Youth is one of the best things on their side. Barely born when their idols the Ramones were banging out Rock n Roll High School, these four have somehow been playing in bands since the 8th grade. They were doing double duty as a band called the Electrocutes, doing small US gigs and internationally and doing covers as the Donnas, when they finally settled on writing their own material and sticking with that same, fun energy.

Somehow this phenomenon came to the attention of Lookout! Records, a Berkeley based independent record label with the kind of reach the girls were looking for while keeping their same, hometown and underground feel.

Under Lookout!'s guidance, the Donnas have expanded their universe, appearing on MTV News and in publications like Bam!, Rolling Stone, and Spin. Their popularity has climbed and they are currently touring the US, pushing their Lookout! debut, American Teenage Rock 'N' Roll Machine.

Coming up next from them is a split single with New York's Toilet Boys, a band of like mind that the Donnas has, according to their web site, "a history of playing together, hanging out together, getting drunk together, and so on. This single is the consummation of their artistic relationship."

Keeping with the kind of rowdy, rebellious nature of their sound, don't expect the Donnas on any big label anytime soon. They're working their way to your town as we speak, and ready to rock rock rock rock rock you all night long!