Biography:

ALL NEW PURGATORY HILL ALBUM COMING IN 2012!! New 2012 tour dates coming soon.

pat on pat' - 2008

My "official" recording career began in 1980 with the first Pat MacDonald & The Essentials album, Lowdown, released on 12" vinyl by Mountain Railroad Records, a regional indie headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. The closing song featured a cameo vocal by my girlfriend at the time, Barbara Kooyman, who also co-wrote the music. It was the album’s only co-written song, ironically titled "Makin’ It On My Own."

A couple years later, with a growing musicality and greatly reduced surname, Barbara K joined The Essentials, playing fiddle and singing backup.

In the next two years, we married, had a child, and recorded the EP, Essentialist Propaganda before splitting off to form the duo Timbuk3 and moving to Austin, Texas. Our live rhythm section consisted of homemade drum and bass tracks played on a boom box. That’s when my "official" recording career took off.

Our debut, Greetings From Timbuk3, contained a crowd-pleasing carryover from The Essentials days called "The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades." It went to Billboard’s top 20 and our little duo became an "overnight" success.

But I wasn’t trying to write hits. And I wasn’t trying to write a hit when I wrote the hit. I was just trying to write songs. Well, I knew I could write songs, but now I was trying to write albums, and enjoying my work, my "official" recording career.

After Timbuk3’s breakup I moved to Spain and was provided the means to produce several more "official" projects for the German label, Ulftone. Many European critics said they were my best, most cohesive work yet. Troubadour of Stomp, my first U.S. label release in ten years (and perhaps my last label release ever) (I’m hating labels at the moment) has been getting similar reactions. No longer judged on "hit potential," I’ve been accepted as an "album oriented" artist. My job and my passion is making albums and this raises a need for certain songs at certain times.