[1] The band consisted of Melanie Clarin on drums and accordion; Sam Coomes on guitar, violin, and banjo; and Reinhold Johnson on bass.
Named after a group of 19th-century American travelers who turned cannibals while stranded, the Donner Party's songs frequently took a comic view of death and its attendant dread (and also, as it happens, food).
Titles include "When You Die Your Eyes Pop Out", "John Wilkes Booth", "Try to Imagine a Terrible World", and "Boxfull of Bones".
The amusingly titled "Mom Please Don't Listen" is basically a litany of coprophagia and gory death.
Clarin also played drums in another San Francisco folk-rock band, The Cat Heads, and also in Harm Farm.