The Amsterdam Sign Project

Matthew A. Donahue's Biography:
Matthew A. Donahue is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, award winning visual artist, musician, writer and educator in the field of Popular Culture.

His 2003 debut in film was the documentary film The Hines Farm Blues Club, for which he served as co-producer, co-writer and co-director as well as music consultant examined one of America’s premier blues clubs of the 1950s and 1960s. This documentary was a collaborative effort with WBGU-PBS and aired nationally in the United States. For this documentary Matthew A. Donahue received a Telly Award and was also nominated for an Emmy from the Midwest Chapter of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From there he has worked on numerous other popular culture/popular music documentaries, serving as producer, director, writer and music consultant. The documentaries are often related to his research or creative projects in the field of popular culture and popular music.

His documentary titled Taking It to the Streets: An Art Car Experience and Car Power: Another Art Car Experience, highlighted the history, cultural influence of art car culture and the creation of his art cars such as the Record Car, the Jackson Pollocktik and Car Power.

He went on to make the fan-based documentary Motorhead Matters. This documentary highlighted the history, cultural influence and fan connection to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal group Motorhead. For this film, he was the Grand Prize Winner of the Motorhead Superfan Contest of North America.

His documentary The Amsterdam T-Shirt Project, examined the souvenir t-shirt culture of the souvenir t-shirt capitol of the world Amsterdam, Netherlands. This documentary won the Bronze Award in the documentary category from the Fashion Film Festival Chicago.

The documentary Skip “Little Axe” McDonald: One Man-One Night…One Life in Music, highlights Donahue’s music collaborator, living legend, guitarist and music producer Skip “Little Axe” McDonald who is not only one of the godfathers of hip-hop working with the groundbreaking hip-hop record label Sugar Hill Records, as well as with On-U Sound Records acclaimed producer Adrian Sherwood, Tackhead, his own Little Axe music projects and a who’s who of popular musicians in a variety of genres.

His most recent documentary highlights the life and times of drummer and music producer Keith LeBlanc. Titled, Keith LeBlanc: 12 Movements of Boom…One Life in Music, this project focuses on one of the pioneers of hip-hop drumming with Sugar Hill Records and Tommy Boy Records, as well as his influential work with Tackhead, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and many other cutting-edge musicians in a variety of genres.

In addition to Donahue’s various film and creative projects, he teaches for the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.