“Early this morning, we lost Donna Summer Sudano, a woman of many gifts, the greatest being her faith,” reads a statement from the singer’s family. “While we grieve her passing, we are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy. Words truly can’t express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this sensitive time,” Rolling Stone reported.

Summer was a five-time Grammy winner best known for smash hits including “I Feel Love,” “Love to Love You Baby” and “She Works Hard for the Money.” Her collaborations with producer Giorgio Moroder in the the ’70s broke ground for dance music and have been hugely influential on electronic music in the decades since.

Born and raised in Boston, Summer grew up singing in church before joining a short-lived psychedelic rock band. After winning a role in a touring production of Hair, she moved to Germany, where she would meet Moroder. Their collaboration on the suggestive “Love to Love You Baby,” which Summer sang with Marilyn Monroe’s breathy singing style in mind, became a huge dancefloor hit after Casablanca Records’ Neil Bogart requested a long version of the song – 17 minutes. She also appeared in the movie, Thank God It’s Friday.

Summer went on to major success during the disco era, scoring Number One pop singles with “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls” and an unlikely version of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.” In 2004 Summer was elected to the Dance Music Hall of Fame, and in 2009 she performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in honor of President Obama.

“She was the face of the disco movement,” says Jeff Foxx, afternoon host on WBLS, reported the nydailynews.com. “But she bridged dance music and R&B. It may have been called disco, but there was some funky stuff going on.

“You’ll still never find a better song than ‘Last Dance’ to end any concert. The chord progression, her singing – wow.”

“Even after that disco ‘backlash,’ Donna Summer’s music was huge,” says Joel Salkowitz, who programmed the original dance radio station Hot-103 and others. “We did a show at Roseland Ballroom with Paul Shaffer’s orchestra backing her and she absolutely killed. They may have put a lot of production behind her music, but she could sing.

“This is a tremendous loss.”

+ + + + +

THE BEACH BOYS
Texas 2012 [no label, 2CD]
Live at Verizon Theater, Grand Prairie, TX; April 26, 2012. Very good audience recording.

Fifty years of Beach Boys… Beach Boys fans from South-east Asia might want to make a beeline for Hong Kong for the band’s concert on August 25. And for many others, they will have to rely on fan recordings like this, so a big thank you to whotapes, who shared the show at The Traders’ Den.

And thanks to epresley for the artwork.

Disc 1 (1st Set)
Track 101. Do It Again
Track 102. Catch A Wave
Track 103. Don’t Back Down
Track 104. Surfin’ Safari
Track 105. Surfer Girl
Track 106. The Little Girl I Once Knew
Track 107. Wendy
Track 108. Then I Kissed Her
Track 109. Your So Good To Me
Track 110. Why Do Fools Fall in Love
Track 111. When I Grow Up
Track 112. Cottonfields
Track 113. Be True to Your School
Track 114. Disney Girls
Track 115. Please Let Me Wonder
Track 116. Don’t Worry Baby
Track 117. Little Honda
Track 118. Little Deuce Coupe
Track 119. 409
Track 120. Shut Down
Track 121. I Get Around

Disc 2 (2nd Set)
Track 201. Sloop John B
Track 202. Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Track 203. California Dreamin’
Track 204. Forever
Track 205. Sail on, Sailor
Track 206. Heroes and Villains
Track 207. In My Room
Track 208. All This Is That
Track 209. God Only Knows
Track 210. That’s Why God Made the Radio
Track 211. California Girls
Track 212. Dance, Dance, Dance
Track 213. All Summer Long
Track 214. Help Me, Rhonda
Track 215. Rock and Roll Music
Track 216. Do You Wanna Dance?
Track 217. Barbara Ann
Track 218. Surfin’ USA
Track 219. Kokomo
Track 220. Good Vibrations
Track 221. Fun, Fun, Fun

Beach Boys:
Brian Wilson
Al Jardine
Bruce Johnston
David Marks
Mike Love

Backing band:
John Cowsill
Scott Totten
Scott Bennett
Nelson Bragg
Mike D’Amico
Jeffrey Foskett
Probyn Gregory
Paul Mertens
Darian Sahanaja
Nick Walusko

Click here for the tracks.

Although Pirate Bay downtime happens a handful of times each month, it rarely persists for more than a few hours. When it goes beyond that the steady flow of reader emails to TorrentFreak quickly transforms itself into a torrent.

At the time of writing The Pirate Bay has been inaccessible to most of the world for nearly 24 hours and our ‘inbox’ is suffering. But it appears to be the timing of the downtime that has caused more people than usual to panic.

The root lies in the recent court-ordered censorship of The Pirate Bay in the UK. The country’s leading ISPs are required to block the site so millions of people were already expecting to have trouble accessing the domain. What they didn’t anticipate was the failure of the many published workarounds to resupply access to the site.

For those to work the site itself has to be working properly and currently it is not.

While TPB is used to being censored by courts and ISPs, it is a little less used to being blacked-out by other means. TorrentFreak is informed by a Pirate Bay insider that the site is currently being subjected to a DDoS attack rendering it unavailable in many parts of the world.

Now, while we’re informed that the problem might be mitigated during the next few hours, the timing of this attack against the site is either ironic, ‘interesting’ or at the very least coincidental, depending on your viewpoint.

Just last week, The Pirate Bay openly criticized elements of the ‘Anonymous’ collective for carrying out a DDoS attack on Virgin Media, the first UK ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay.

“We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us,” said TPB in response to the DDoS attack against Virgin. “So don’t fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.”

Right now, whoever is attacking The Pirate Bay has achieved what no copyright or governmental authority anywhere in the world has – an almost complete disruption of the site’s operations on a global basis with no court order required.

But despite the DDoS there are still ways for people to access the site. A handful of the proxies set up to circumvent the ISP blockades still appear to work and, when all else fails, the crazy methods still work too.

Note: Click here for more updates.

LINDA RONSTADT with COUNTRY GAZETTE
‘Tis A Gift [Bucky Beaver, 1CD]
Live at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, 1972. Ex- SBD? very narrow stereo.

Some fans have listed this show as from 1974 but considering the songs played, the likely year is 1972 before Linda Ronstadt turned to country pop and soft rock. In between the giggles and the chatter, Ronstadt mentions a previous tour with Neil Young inside larger hockey rinks and also makes a sound to simulate the hard rock of Led Zeppelin, at the time growing in strength. Country stars must have felt nervous with the second British invasion already blowing into the US.

This show is a wonderful display of the richness of traditional country music, drawing from gospel to folk and the tunes of Bill Monroe and Hank Williams. Ronstadt graces them with her full bodied voice and energy. Country Gazette were purveyors of fine bluegrass and coined the term “new grass” when they amplified the music. The picking is still mighty fine.

Track 01. Rocky Top (Boudleax and Felice Bryant)
Track 02. Crazy Arms (Ralph Mooney and Chuck Seals)
Track 03. Once More (Dusty Owens)
Track 04. Wicked Path Of Sin (Bill Monroe)
Track 05. I Can’t Help It (Hank Williams)
Track 06. Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms (Bill Monroe)
Track 07. The Poor Old Slave (traditional)
Track 08. Angel Band (Traditional, The Stanley Brothers)
Track 09. Orange Blossom Special (Ervin Rouse) – instrumental

Tracks 1-5 Linda Ronstadt on lead vocals
Tracks 6-9 Linda duets with Country Gazette

Country Gazette likely lineup:
Byron Berline – fiddle
Roger Bush – bass
Alan Munde – banjo, guitar
plus guests
Skip Conover (dobro)
Bob Kimmel (Stone Poneys), background vocals on Tracks 8 and 9

Click here for the tracks.

If we are going to avoid a world where elites rule, then the Occupy movement must be nurtured and sustained. It’s going to be a long haul says Noam Chomsky.

The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead – because victory won’t come quickly – it could prove a significant moment in American history.

The fact that the Occupy movement is unprecedented is quite appropriate. After all, it’s an unprecedented era and has been so since the 1970s, which marked a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society, and not always in very pretty ways. That’s another story, but the general progress was toward wealth, industrialization, development, and hope. There was a pretty constant expectation that it was going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.

Click here for the article.

BOB DYLAN AND THE BAND
The Complete Basement Tapes: From The Reels [no label, CD 7 and 8 of 11]
Recorded at “Big Pink”, West Saugerties, New York, 1967. This 11-CD set was released in 2001.

Philip Cohen notes:

This is the most complete Basement Tapes collection in circulation. This is not for audiophiles. It is for completists who want everything; warts and all.

Note: A longtime music fan, Philip Cohen was a contributor to the now-defunct ICE Magazine and compiled the boxsets for The Yardbirds, The Small Faces, Humble Pie and Nice.

Disc 7 – Reel 7
Track 0701. Million Dollar Bash
Track 0702. Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread
Track 0703. Please Mrs. Henry
Track 0704. Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)
Track 0705. Lo And Behold!
Track 0706. Tiny Montgomery
Track 0707. This Wheel’s On Fire
Track 0708. You Ain’t Going Nowhere
Track 0709. I Shall Be Released
Track 0710. Too Much Of Nothing
Track 0711. Tears Of Rage
Track 0712. The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)
Track 0713. Open The Door, Homer
Track 0714. Nothing Was Delivered

Disc 8 – Reel 8
Track 0801. This Wheel’s On Fire
Track 0802. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Track 0803. I Shall Be Released
Track 0804. Too Much Of Nothing
Track 0805. Open The Door Homer
Track 0806. Open The Door Homer
Track 0807. Open The Door Homer
Track 0808. Nothing Was Delivered
Track 0809. Nothing Was Delivered
Track 0810. Tears Of Rage
Track 0811. Tears Of Rage
Track 0812. Tears Of Rage
Track 0813. Quinn The Eskimo
Track 0814. Quinn The Eskimo
Track 0815. Million Dollar Bash
Track 0816. Yeah Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread
Track 0817. Please Ms. Henry
Track 0818. Crash On The Levee
Track 0819. Lo And Behold
Track 0820. Tiny Montgomery

Click here for the tracks.

Imagine a sex addict as a pilgrim on a personal Calvary, an impossible quest that can only lead to disaster, one pelvic thrust at a time. That’s Steve McQueen’s Shame for you, says Critic After Dark Noel Vera, about a film that ran afoul of the $ingapore censors.

Steve McQueen’s Shame, about Brandon, an ad executive and closet sex addict, is a fascinating passion play – ‘passion’ in the older sense, of a dramatic re-enactment of Christ’s trial, suffering, death, with Brandon as the Christ figure.

Difficult to avoid the religious overtones – McQueen practically mashes your face in it. Brandon (Michael Fassbender, McQueen’s collaborator here and in his first feature Hunger (2008)) is like a flagellant purifying his flesh for God, only it’s not a whip but his phallus he’s both wielding and mortifying at the same time (convenient, when you think about it), on and against any available woman.

Click here for the article.

BOOKER T & THE MGs
San Francisco 1991 [no label, 1CD]
Live at Slims, San Francisco, CA; April 20, 1991. Very good to excellent soundboard.

Bass guitarist Donald “Duck” Dunn, of Booker T and the MGs, died in Tokyo on May 13, 2012. He was 70. A BBC report said that was Dunn was in Japan for a series of concerts, and had played two shows on Saturday night. His friend and fellow musician Steve Cropper, who was on the same tour, said Dunn had died in his sleep. “Today I lost my best friend,” Cropper wrote on his Facebook page. “The world has lost the best guy and bass player to ever live”. The MGs were the house band for Stax Records, and Dunn can be heard on songs such as Otis Redding’s Respect and Sam and Dave’s Hold On, I’m Comin’.

Thanks to markp who transferred the tracks and to bluebomber for sharing the show on Dime.

Front cover from bootlegtunzworld.blogspot.com – thanks!

01 Intro
02 Green Onions
03 Melting Pot
04 Band Introductions
05 Untitled
06 Soul Limbo
07 Summertime
08 Hip-Hug-Her
09 Groovin’
10 The New Song
11 Born Under A Bad Sign
12 Hang Em High
13 Time Is Tight
14 crowd – encore break
15 Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay
16 Double Or Nothin’
17 crowd

Lineup:
Booker T Jones – organ
Steve Cropper – guitar
Donald “Duck” Dunn – bass
Anton Figg – drums

Click here for the tracks.

DAVE GRUSIN
Grusin Does Bernstein [no label, 2CD]
Live at Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey, CA, Sept 19, 1997. Ex FM stereo.

The decade before the world saw the economy tumble and the Naughties brought on storm clouds were happier times. The Monterey Jazz Festival sprung back to life in 1997 to celebrate its 40th anniversary. One of the most delightful moments at the festival was Dave Grusin’s premiere of the release of his album “Dave Grusin Presents West Side Story”.

Thanks to the person who shared this show on Dime.

Picture of Dave Grusin by Elliot Marks, posted at jazztimes.com – thanks!

Disc 1
Track 101. Introduction
Track 102. Prologue
Track 103. Grusin’s announcements and Something’s Coming
Track 104. Grusin’s announcements
Track 105. The Jet Song [solos by Ronnie Cuber and George Young]
Track 106. Grusin introduces Jonathan Butler and Maria
Track 107. Grusin introduces the band and Cool
Track 108. Grusin introduces Patti Austin
Track 109. Tonight

Disc 2
Track 201. Grusin’s announcements and I Feel Pretty Pt 1
Track 202. I Feel Pretty [continued]
Track 203. Grusin’s announcements
Track 204. One Hand, One Heart
Track 205. Radio announcer and Grusin’s announcements
Track 206. Somewhere
Track 207. Grusin’s announcements and America
Track 208. Grusin’s announcements

Lineup:
Dave Grusin – conductor, piano
Greg Gisbert, Wayne Bergeron, Byron Stripling, Charlie Davis, Arturo Sandoval – trumpets
Dave Taylor – bass, trombone
Jim Pugh, Keith O’Quinn – trombones
John Clark, Bob Carlisle – french horn
Patti Austin, Jonathan Butler – vocals
Bill Evans – tenor and soprano sax
Eric Marienthal – alto sax, flute
Ernie Watts – tenor sax
George Young – piccolo, flute
Jeff Clayton – oboe
Jack Nimitz – clarinet, bass sax
Tom Scott – alto sax
Ronnie Cuber – baritone sax
Lee Ritenour – guitar
Dave Carpenter – bass
Larry Williams – keyboards
Dave Weckl – drums
Alex Acuna – perc

Click here for the tracks.

JANIS JOPLIN
San Francisco 1963 [no label, 1CD]
Live at the California Coffee Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 1963. “Excellent SBD recording for the era.”

These tracks just surfaced and it’s thanks to kneesfudd for sharing them on Dime.

“Center Of The Universe”, Mr JohnK himself, has issued the ultimatum. Share before everyone who gives a damn is dead or can’t hear anymore.

kneesfudd also noted the following:

Warts: ALMOST NONE. I missed some dropouts and there are some non-removable ones. Occasional very tiny clicks in left channel.
Lower generation, better quality, clearer and less distorted than what circulates on “Blow All My Blues Away” and as “1962-08-10″.
Circulates as late 1962, early 1963 and 1962-08-10, but this version is simply labeled “1963″.
For a finer listening experience turn up the bass!

Track 01. Leaving’ This Morning (KC Blues)
Track 02. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy
Track 03. Careless Love
Track 04. Bourgeois Blues
Track 05. Black Mountain Blues
Track 06. Gospel Ship
Track 07. Stealin’
Total Time: 18:46

Line-up (unconfirmed – my tape had musician information added later from another source):
Janis Joplin – vocals
Larry Hanks – acoustic guitar, vocals
Billy Roberts – acoustic guitar, banjo, vocals, harmonica
OR possibly: Roger Perkins – acoustic guitar and vocals instead of Roberts

Click here for the tracks.