Don Undeen

don undeen, saxomaphone player

Born april 19, 1975 in Urbana, Illinois. Came out screamin' and poopin', and hasn't stopped since. Gainesville resident since the age of five. hid under his bed to avoid piano lessons at age 5, would improvise to pretend he was practicing. Started saxophone in the sixth grade; wore green jackets with white pants. Learned about tuning in the 10th grade. Formed first band in 1991 with drummer/bassist/trombonist Koven Smith -- Montague and the Firemen, an avant-dork band based on the fact that neither of us listened to music. M+F also included two brothers on guitar and bass (later to form Pung), and a real smelly keyboard player. Their compilation album, "Lemon Pepper in a Dead Man's World," is available through Montague Productions. M+F evolved into Minton's Playhouse, a band that actually wrote songs. On bass was John Austin and on guitar was first Anthony Dupree (later to form Bee Sugar), and then Ian Zasueta. Around this time Undeen graduated from Eastside High School with the official title of Class Clown. The Chasing Poppy Musical Collective was the next project of this musical visionary. This loosely organized group of over thirty musicians was founded in 1992 on the principle of "anything goes," and over the years has created music based on the principle of "sucking." Actually, there are some real gems in some of the large group performances, and most of the small group shows were pretty neat. In any case, they still play a few times a year, and the shows are always THE event of the season. Two years in Jacksonville as a Jazz Major at UNF taught Undeen the delicate art of skronking. Undeen then returned to Gainesville in '94 and has participated as guest skronker in local bands such as Meringue, Big Swifty, Dream Date, Orifice, Rosa Rugosa, Visitor, and others. He was also the head skronker of the noise band Nambla, and was in the horn section of Planet Ten before joining PopCanon. Don is also Gainesville's busiest baritone saxophone player. He holds down the bass end as Bari Shmoove with local rockers GritKisser, and his latest project involves playing bari with Robby Copeland and classical lap-guitar blues diva Crystal in The Chairs. He sometimes wears a teddy.