[JUL 31] The update is a day
early because I have some stuff to do tomorrow night that might keep me off
the site. Besides, I have a little news for you and it's time to change the
Summer Fever pick. This month we're gonna have a magical mystical month of
the original Live & More. (And let me take this
opportunity to give a shout out to my kitten, Squeaky, who is happily taking
every opportunity to step on the keyboard as I write this update. My
spellchecker may explode. LOL)
[JUL 31] Where should I start?
Let's start with the recent talk about a duet with Spanish singer, Soraya
Arnelas. (If you haven't been on the forums, this
is the article that started it all. It's in Spanish, so use your
favorite language tool if necessary.) Before you get excited, I got the
official word that Donna has not recorded a duet with any Spanish
singer. Now THIS is where you can get excited - the same email told me
that Donna will have a club single released in Ibiza sometime in August, so
all you clubbers and DJs out there - keep your ears open. :-)
[JUL 31] Now if that didn't
excite you.... we have a new
interview out there promoting the upcoming show in Florida. In the
interview Donna talks about the Hollywood Bowl Hall Of Fame, traveling,
people she's worked with... and oh yeah, there was a mention 2 new albums in
the works. Go read it, I'll wait here for you. :-)
[JUL 31] As some of you know,
Donna was in a group called Family Tree back in Germany before she became
famous. Well, I heard from the founder of that group this week and he's
got digitally remastered tapes of their albums, TV appearances and
even some unreleased stuff. Look for at least some of that stuff to turn up
for sale next year.
[JUL 31] In the Donna is
everywhere category, a 61 year old comedian did a strip tease to Hot
Stuff on America's Got Talent. (Think The Full Monty
- although since it was broadcast television he obviously didn't do the FULL
monty. LOL)
[JUL 31] Also in the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in an article
on celebrity weddings (inspired by Chelsea Clinton's wedding.) The
author mentions seeing Donna at Liza Minelli's bridal shower.
[JUL 31] Over on YouTube this
week, look for an audio only clip of Nights
in White Satin, and several clips from SlickRickDog
including the awesome CBS
Early Show interview from 2008. (You have to scroll past a bunch of
football clips to get to the new Donna stuff.)
[JUL 31] GoldLegion
customers - if you are interested in the autographed CDs I mentioned
last week, but you already purchased the CD previously (and don't want a
duplicate), Gold Legion will let you order just the booklet with the
autograph for 9.99. And you can use the code MunichToday to get a 10%
discount. See the Gold Legion site for more details.
[JUL 26] Let's start with Oprah
fans. (Yes this is still a Donna Summer site. LOL) As most of my US
readers know (probably even those of you who don't watch the show), Oprah is
going off the air after next season. So her website is asking viewers
of the show to suggest guests for the final season. I think you all know
where I'm going with this, right? ;-) I can think of at least
one guest I'd like to see on the show and I'm sure many of you can too. If
you would like to make a suggestion, just head to Oprah's
site and use the email form. (The email form lets you write
whatever you want so it's probably a good idea to say why you think
Donna should be on the show. You can also list several names in case you
have a few people you'd like to see on the show.)
[JUL 26] In the Donna is
everywhere category, Pat Benetar recounts a Donna story in her new
autobiography, Between a Heart and a Rock Place [Amazon,
Amazon
UK]. Apparently Pat encountered Donna in a ladies' room on Grammy Night
1981. In part, the story goes: "I came out of the stall to find the previous year's female rock winner, Donna Summer, washing her hands. Donna cast a hard look in my direction.
'Ugh! You're just the person I wanted to see!' she said to me in an exasperated tone. Oh crap. I didn't know Donna, had never even met her. What had I done?
'Why?' I asked.
'My kid plays that record of yours every minute of the day! I know every word of it, and to tell you the truth, I'm sick of
it!' She said it with a smile."
Why is it that so many Donna stories involve ladies'
rooms? LOL
[JUL 26] In web news, Shawn has
been busily reconstructing his picture sleeve archive at SuperBulletNumberOnes.com.
He's added some of the 70s covers back to the site with plenty more stuff
yet to come. On YouTube look for the official State
Of Independence video, a mix of Donna vs. the Crusaders Street
Life, the pre-release versions of Crayons
without Ziggy Marley, and a Cher vs. Donna mix of Bad
Love,
Bad Girls and Hot Stuff.
[JUL 26] In classic dance news,
Gold Legion has
received the Munich Machine Whiter Shade Of Pale CDs and is shipping
them out now. If you placed an order, start haunting your mailman. ;-)
Roberta Kelly's Troublemaker is en route to Gold Legion and should
start shipping to buyers on Wednesday. And Giorgio and Chris Bennett's Love's
In You, Love's In Me CD is expected the first week of August. All will
have amazing liner notes. For those who haven't ordered yet, there is
a 10% off promo code you can use until July 31. It is DSTribute. And
finally - for a limited time you can get autographed copies of Roberta
Kelly's Troublemaker and Zodiac Lady, Munich Machine's Whiter
Shade of Pale, and Giorgio & Chris' CD. (The first 2 would be signed
by Roberta Kelly obviously and the latter 2 would be signed only by Chris
Bennett.) The autographed copies will only be available until August 1
and you can specify in the special instructions on the order page if you
want the autograph personalized, if you want it on the front cover, or the
back of the booklet, or whatever. This is an excellent opportunity for
diehard Roberta Kelly and Chris Bennett fans. :-)
[JUL 18] It's a pretty quiet
week this week. I guess we're in the lull before the fun of the second half
part of the tour. :-)
[JUL 18] In the Donna is
everywhere category - apparently Sheryl Crow is a fan. She mentions a video
clip of Love To Love You in a recent Vanity
Fair interview to promote her new CD. (She mentions the German clip
with the freaky dancers in the white leotards - who else but a fan would
know that clip? LOL)
[JUL 18] Speaking of celebrity
fans, Taylor Hawkins (no relation LOL) of Foo Fighters mentions
in a recent
interview that he is a fan of Donna (and ABBA, and the Bee Gees... he's
a classic dance fan. :-) )
[JUL 18] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Shawn is reconstructing his record sleeve
archive at SuperBulletNumberOnes.com.
So far he's got some of the 80s stuff reposted, but give him time and he'll
add the rest too. :-) On YouTube, look for a video of Nocturne
by Epik High that samples part of Once Upon A Time, a TV clip of MacArthur
Park and On The Radio (that I don't think I've ever seen
before) from one of the Latin American countries, and Jandry's Got A Dime
mix of Bad
Girls.
[JUL 11] Let's start off with
an extra ticket to the Binghamton show August 31. I have a fan out
there who has a second row ticket that he can no longer use. He's selling it
for the face value (68.50). I would take it myself.... but I have to work.
If anyone is interested in the ticket - send me an email and I'll hook you
up with the fan. Or if anyone has the winning lottery numbers, email me so I
can retire! LOL
[JUL 11] AllVoices.com
has a nice article promoting Donna's upcoming show in Hollywood, Fl. It was obviously
written by a fan - there are too many obscure details to be written by an
outsider. ;-)
[JUL 11] Classic photo hounds
will like this
link. It has a couple of alternate shots of Donna and Barbra from the Enough
Is Enough photo session. (The photos came from an ebay listing so they
are marked with the seller's name.)
[JUL 11] In web news, Fernando
has uploaded video mixes of I Feel Love and You're So Beautiful
to Youtube.
[JUL 7] Attention anyone who
was planning to see the show at the Taj Mahal in
Atlantic City on August 28. The concert date
has been changed to September 4. Any tickets already purchased for
August 28 will be honored for the September 4 show.
[JUL 4] Happy Independence Day
to my American friends, a belated Happy Canada day to my Canadian friends
and Happy Sunday to everyone else! :-) Let's start off with the new
(if a little late) Summer Fever pick. I thought it was time to bring back Crayons
again. :-) (And I mean the album, Crayons and not the
wax stick kids color with. LOL)
[JUL 4] Let's start with the
ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Awards. Donna picked up an honor for R&B/Hip Hop
song for her part in the writing of She's Got Her Own by Ne-Yo. (They
sampled part of My Baby Understands so I think that's where Donna's
writing credit came from.)
[JUL 4] There is a new
article out there on Yahoo by John Myers that is nice retrospective on
Donna's career.
[JUL 4] In the Donna is
everywhere category - she gets a mention in an
article about Bruce Springsteen. They talk about his song Cover Me
and how he almost gave it to Donna. (His manager talked him into keeping it
for himself and Donna got Protection instead.)
[JUL 4] Over on YouTube, Fernando
has posted a few video remixes for I Feel Love,No More Tears
and Last Dance.
[JUN 27] Let's start off today
with DonnaSummer.com.
:-) Donna's site has been updated with news about the Hollywood Bowl
Hall of Fame. It looks like there may some surprises in store for the August
shows so if you didn't get a ticket yet - what are you waiting
for? ;-)
[JUN 27] Speaking of the
Hollywood Bowl - there is a short article in Variety
about the show. Also, a video of Nature
Boy has turned up on YouTube courtesy of lstdnce..
[JUN 27] And before we leave
the west coast, there is a review of the Palm Springs show courtesy of the Desert
Sun and I have a few more fan reports from the California
shows, along with a couple of photos.
[JUN 27] In the Donna is
everywhere category, if you had really sharp eyes you probably spotted an
old clip from American Bandstand during tonight's Daytime Emmy tribute to
Dick Clark. Or if you have been following all the articles about the one
year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death (Has it really been a whole
year?) you may have spotted this
article that includes a quote about Michael from Donna.
[JUN 27] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube look for a Love To Love You
video medley posted by Fernando,
and a couple of Shout It Out tracks courtesy of Jurecad.
Sadly those clips don't have any of the freaky covers that some of the Shout
It Out releases have had. (Aren't we due for some really horrible
remixes of those by now? LOL)
[JUN 27] In classic dance news,
Gold Legion will
have Munich Machine's Whiter Shade Of Pale on July 2, Roberta
Kelly's Troublemaker should be available July 12, and Paul
Jabara's Keeping Time album should be out July 30. Those
will be followed with several France Joli and Vicki Sue Robinson albums in
August. You can pre-order any or all of those from the Gold Legion website
now.
[JUN 20] Happy Father's Day!
[JUN 20] One last time for the
whole Wendy's CD fiasco..... Donna has posted her official statement
on the matter on her website.
And thanks to a few busy little beavers, the word is getting out to the news
agencies. :-) Long story short - there is only one version of Last
Dance and it does NOT include the word horny. (Trust me - if there was a
horny version, it would have been put on YouTube AGES ago! LOL) If you
want to see a funny take on the controversy, check out this Hate By The
Numbers video on YouTube.
[JUN 20] On to something way
more fun - CALIFORNIA! :-) I have a couple of fan reports
for you here. (I'll post more as I get
them.) You can read about the Hollywood Bowl event on Los
Angeles Broadway Worldand on theLA
Timessite. YouTube also has a few clips already. Check out the
fireworks at the end of Last
Dance, Donna's performance of Superstar
with Richard Carpenter (gorgeous!) and a Superstar
clip from Palm Springs. San Diego shouldn't feel left out - a number of
clips from that
show have turned up as well. :-)
[JUN 20] There is a new
interview online to promote the Palm Springs show courtesy of the Desert
Sun. Apparently album release schedules are more flaky in Palm
Springs then they are on iTunes Canada - the article states that Donna's
last album was 2008's Mistaken Identity. (Palm Springs fans
may want to shop outside the city for Crayons - unless you
want to wait until 2025. ;-) )
[JUN 20] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, in addition to all the cool
California concert clips, we have the DJ Tony mix of Black Lady, a Last
Dance Medley (not available in Wendy's Kids Meals LOL), New
York Minute, and a couple of other mixes courtesy of Fernando.
[JUN 20] Finally in classic
dance news, Gold Legion
has a bunch of stuff coming up on the horizon. Look for 4 releases by Vicki
Sue Robinson, 2 France Joli albums, and 1 by Cory Daye. Paul Jabara's
Keeping Time album is available for pre-order so start shopping. :-)
[JUN 13] I guess we should
start with something silly. (Well I think the whole thing is silly
anyway. LOL) Last week I mentioned that the fast food chain, Wendy's,
was giving away a karaoke CD of 70s music with the kids' meals. The CD had Last
Dance on it (apparently Donna's version of it too - not a cheesy cover)
and some people thought that in it Donna sang "when I'm bad, I'm so
horny", which is not the case. Well, apparently Wendy's has decided to
pull the CD because of the "racy" lyrics. Better yet, there are
news reports claiming that there are 2 versions of Last Dance - one
with the word "horny" and one without the word. I'm looking at my
iPod right now. Between the single edits, 12' versions, remixes, fan
mixes, live versions, oh and Paul Jabara's version - I have about 20 copies
of Last Dance. There's not a "horny" in the bunch. But then
again, I've only been an avid collector for 30 years so what do I
know? LOL
[JUN 13] As many of you know -
Donna will be inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall Of Fame this coming
Friday. Angela Bassett will be doing the honors (she introduced Donna
at Divas 2000 too) and it's my understanding that Donna will get to sing 4
or 5 songs. You can read more about the ceremony here,
and if you are in the LA area, you can check the Hollywood
Bowl website to see if there are any tickets left to the show.
[JUN 13] In the land of covers,
2 interesting ones have turned up this week. The first is an "oriental
version" of I Feel Love. You can read the story behind it here,
and you can hear it on YouTube.
It's really different and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I couldn't even
recognize the song until the lyrics started - that's how different it is.
Then there is a Rima S cover of Love To Love You that is a lot of fun
musically. (And the swimmers in the video
aren't hard to look at either! ;-) )
[JUN 13] Over on YouTube look
for a couple of remix videos courtesy of Fernando
- including his video for the fabulous Klyk mix of Be Myself Again.
[JUN 6] Hello ATLANTA! You will see Donna on August 22 at the
Chastain Park Amphitheatre and your tickets go on sale Saturday June
19 at 10 AM through Ticketmaster.
Get those credit cards ready! :-)
[JUN 6] Speaking of concerts,
fans driving east on 10 Freeway in California just might spot a familiar
face on a billboard for the Palm Springs show. ;-) For those of
us who can't see it in person, here's a photo courtesy of Jim:
[JUN 6] Apparently Palm Springs
advertisements are everywhere - there is an ad in AXN magazine in Sydney
Australia from Out
Travel that is offering a package deal to go see Donna's show. (You get
airfare, 5 nights in an area hotel, a shopping outlet tour and VIP
tickets to the concert all for one price.)
[JUN 6] From the world of
misunderstood lyrics - here's one that's making the rounds. Apparently
the fast food chain, Wendy's, has a karaoke CD that they give out as a
prize with some of the kids' meals. One of the songs included on the
CD is Last Dance. Now you guys are going to want to either stop and
play the song, or just run it through in your head to understand the part
I'm talking about. Think about the last chorus where Donna sings
"I need you by me, beside me to guide me/ to hold me and to scold me/
Cause when I'm bad I'm so so-oooh bad...." (It's right before the
"come on baby dance that dance" lines.) Okay, the lyrics on
the karaoke CD say that Donna is singing "Cause when I'm bad I'm so
horny." Naturally some parents are up in arms about this. A few
have (through the power of suggestion apparently) even heard the word
"horny" in the song now - after years of never ever having noticed
it before. LOL The words are very definitely "when I'm bad I'm
so-oooh bad." It's the way Donna holds the word "so"
that's throwing people off. (I should go submit that to the guys at kissthisguy.com
- they maintain an archive of misheard lyrics that is sometimes pretty
hilarious.) You know, I sort of feel like I want to go to Wendy's and buy a
kids' meal now just for the stupid CD. LOL
[JUN 6] In the Donna's songs
are everywhere category - check out the slogan in the upper left corner of Slovenia.info.
[JUN 6] Moving on to the web
news for the week, over on YouTube, Fernando
has been reposting some of his video collection. Look for Sally Go Round
The Roses, Smile and a live clip of Hot Stuff. Also look
for a good copy of the Work
That Magic video.
[JUN 6] Finally in the land of
classic dance - the Big
Break Records reissue of the Brooklyn Dreams album is finally shipping!
If you don't have yours yet, it will be in your hands soon. (And if my
mailman is reading this - expect to be mugged every day until you bring me
mine!)
[MAY 31] DonnaSummer.com
has updated the news section to mention that Donna introduced a new song at
the end of her concert for Louis Vuitton. :-)
[MAY 31] It will be June 1 in a
few hours so you all know what that means - time for a new Summer Fever
Pick. This time I'm putting Another Place And Time in the
spotlight.
[MAY 30] Happy Memorial Day
everyone!
[MAY 30] The bid news this week
is Louis Vuitton. Donna was in the UK for the opening of the Louis Vuitton
London store. Vogue
has a photo from the event, as does StyleAndFashion.Blogosfere.it
and Life,
Getty
Images has a few more, as does WireImage,
while WWD.com
has a quote from Donna. If you want to see what the store looks like, check HintMag.com
- and check out the last couple of lines in the article.
[MAY 30] If you want to check
out video from the event, a Belgian
station ran a report that included a little concert footage. (The report
itself is in Dutch - Donna's clip appears near the end.) And YouTube
has a clip of On The Radio from the show.
[MAY 30] Speaking of YouTube,
that brings me to the web news for the week. Over on YouTube, Fernando had
to start a new account. You can catch some of his videos here
(and I have to say that backwards version of I Feel Love is just
plain freaky. LOL)
[MAY 30] And in classic dance
news, I have in my hands the Gold
Legion reissue of Paul Jabara's Third Album. So for those
of you who ordered it - it IS coming! :-) It comes with a 12
page booklet with extensive liner notes written by Christian Wikane that
includes quotes from a number of people who worked with Paul. (From
what I read, it sounds like the album was a lot of fun to work on.) There
are about a half a dozen photos I had never seen before - and I have to say
Paul looked amazing in a wedding dress. I had to look twice to make
sure that really was him under the wig and makeup! LOL And of course
the music is all digitally remastered and sounds wonderful. I liked the
album when it liked on my iPod as a vinyl rip - but I love it now that the
sound has been cleaned up.
[MAY 23] Happy birthday Phil!
[MAY 23] Let's start off with a
VH1 interview from 1999. We all saw at least a few clips from this interview
when Live & More Encore came out, but this is the whole
unedited thing. Catch it on YouTube in two parts: here
and here.
[MAY 23] Photo hounds - check
out Picapp.com.
It has a couple of photos of Donna in NY recently and a ton of photos from
the Nobel Peace concert.
[MAY 23] In web news, SlickRickDog has posted a very short
clip of On
The Radio. (Warning - there are issues with the sound on that one.)
There is also a radio edit of When
Love Cries and surprisingly, a Paul Jabara clip of Take
Good Care Of My Baby.
[MAY 18] Just a quick update to
let you guys know that you can catch Johnnyswim on The Flying Perfect Parlor
on Radio Free Brooklyn tonight at 8 PM. It streams online here.
[MAY 16] Happy Sunday
everybody. Hello to the Johnnyswim fans I saw the other night at their show.
For those of you who couldn't make it - you missed a great show! If you get
a chance to catch them live somewhere, do it - they are the real deal. And
speaking of Friday's show - I ran into Ken Allan there and he has a new
column for us this week in which is is surprisingly nice. (I believe he
is saving all his usual venom for his coworkers Monday. They were supposed
to come to the show the other night and they bailed out - so they deserve
whatever Ken throws at them! LOL)
[MAY 16] Here is a time
sensitive item for XM
radio and Sirius
radio listeners. Starting Memorial Day (May 31) at 5 PM to June 2 at 3
AM (Eastern time), 70s on 7 will be doing a Hot Songs and Hot Stuff Memorial
Day Weekend event where they will play all things 70s relating to
"hot" or "summer" and that includes plenty of Donna
Summer tunes.
[MAY 16] A Youtube user managed
to track down some rehearsal footage from the Live & More Encore
show. He posted 2 clips - one of I
Don't Wanna Work That Hard (my personal theme song every day at
work LOL) and No
More Tears.
[MAY 16] In the Donna is
everywhere category, check out the May issue of Daeida
Magazine. They have an extensive interview with Chris Bennett and Donna
gets mentioned a lot. The full issue is available on the magazine's website
- you want to head to page 22 to find Chris.
[MAY 16] Also in the Donna is
everywhere category, Darrell Russ gave an interview to Urban
Latin Radio recently and in it he mentioned Donna.
[MAY 16] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, Fernando
has posted a 35 Years Medley of Donna Songs - part 1. ExcuseMeAgain
has posted a couple of classic clips,
[MAY 13] Johnnyswim fans -
catch them at the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponak, NY tomorrow night
from 5 to 8 PM. (If you are wondering where Sagaponak is - just say to
yourself, "the Hamptons" LOL) Details at 27East.com.
[MAY 9] Happy Mother's Day! Let
me start off by saying that I'm sorry I haven't been online as much as usual
lately. I've hired a couple of very young staffers to handle all the
typos for the site.... little kittens, and while they are cute as anything,
they require a lot of training and supervision. (Particularly since
circumstances took them from their mother way earlier than I would have
liked. Who knew I'd grow up to be a mama cat?) So I'm trying to sneak
in the update while they sleep off dinner. LOL
[MAY 9] Allheadlinenews.com
has a very short article publicizing some of the upcoming tour dates. And
the Binghamton
University website also has a short article to publicize her upcoming
show there.
[MAY 9] Photo lovers - check
out Last.fm.
They have a couple hundred photos culled from all over the web including
some rare shots as well as plenty of old favorites.
[MAY 9] In web news, over on
YouTube look for an interview from The
Hit List promoting Crayons, a 2010 Mlle Lucy
rework mix of Down
Deep Inside, and a Black
Lady remix video by Fernando. And for those of you who always wondered
about the guy who uses the name DJ Donna Summer (aka Jason Forest) you can
see a clip of his work here.
[MAY 9] And that brings
me to the world of classic dance. Gold
Legion customers: just sit tight. Your orders are on the way (or will be
soon depending on which items you bought.) They had some unforeseen delays
and I hope to have more details tomorrow. On the other side of the
world, Big
Break Records has announced its next four releases. They will be
expanded reissues of Tavares' New Directions, Deniece
Williams' Song Bird, Heatwave's Current, and
Three Degrees' New Dimensions.
[MAY 5] Happy Cinco de Mayo! If
you are buying tickets for Florida tomorrow, the code you will want to know
is "DANCE". :-)
[MAY 3] HOLLYWOOD FLORIDA - you
will see Donna at the hard Rock on August 18.
Tickets go up for presale via Ticketmaster on May 6. (Ticketmaster doesn't
say who the presale is for yet, but I suspect it's for the gamblers.)
[MAY 3] I've updated page 1 of
Wolfgang's discography. I haven't fully tested it yet, so please excuse any
formatting weirdness for the moment. I'll check that out after work.
[MAY 2] Before I get to the
Donna news, Bruce fans will want to check out the Family
Matters section below. And I want to remind those of you going to the
show in Binghamton, those tickets go on sale tomorrow and Atlantic City
tickets go on sale May 6.
[MAY 2] Let's start with
Giorgio Moroder. He celebrated his 70th birthday last week with a bunch of
friends and a few photos have turned up on the WireImage.com.
Of particular note - there is a photo there of Giorgio with Donna and Pete
Bellotte. It's nice to see the team together again. :-) (Note to
Giorgio: Taureans ROCK! ;-) )
[MAY 2] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in an
article about Giorgio Moroder. The article is in German, but one of my
harem of Franks ;-) provided a translation of the relevant part: "In the mid-seventies Giorgio was staff-producer at Phonogram. But they
declined the really big one he produced so far. One day I stopped by in his studio and he didn't appear very busy, reading a newspaper. 'Aren't you
working on something?", I asked. He answered: "I produced a song, but they turned it down.
Now I'll wait a couple of months until my contract expires and after that it will be a hit around the world.' 'Let me listen', I
begged. He played Love to Love you Baby by Donna Summer - and my jaw dropped - I had never heard anything like it before. Donna Summer came to
Germany with the cast of Hair... "
[MAY 2] Facebook users, check
out another Frank's new
group dedicated to convincing the producers of Glee to do an
episode of Donna Summer music. (I've never watched the show, but I would
tune in for that!)
[MAY 2] In cover news, Jennifer
Lopez has covered On The Radio. You can read about it (and more
importantly hear it) on Idolator.com.
[MAY 2] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, Javibal
posted the clip from the recent German TV show Generation Pop. The
interview is in German (of course) but it's fun to watch. (They have
some weird fashion visuals to go with Bad Girls. LOL) Fernando
has posted his videos for a Stamp Your Feet mix and for Driving
Down Brazil. (That one features Fred Astaire - who knew Fred Astaire
would be starring in music videos now? LOL) Stevescissors
has posted some Divas 2000 behind the scenes clips, and someone else has
posted a clip from the Dolce
& Gabana party from a couple of years ago.
[MAY 2] In classic dance news,
look for Paul Jabara's Third Album to start shipping Tuesday
from Gold Legion.
[MAY 2] And on a personal note
- thanks to those of you who contributed to the MS Walk. My boss was able to
collect a bunch of cash for the charity and more importantly she didn't fire
me.... Oh wait, that's all wrong. I wanted to be fired. Darn - I
could have spent the summer on unemployment! ;-) I'll be back
tomorrow with an update to Wolfgang's German discography. (I was going to
post it tonight but I ran out of time.)
[MAY 1] It's a new month so
that means it's time to change the Summer Fever pick. This month I put
She Works Hard For The Money in the spotlight.... hmmmm....
I wonder if I subconsciously picked that because of my work schedule this
month? LOL I'll be back tomorrow with the regular update. :-)
[APR 25] Let's start off with CONNECTICUT.
You will see Donna at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods on Friday September 3.
Tickets go on sale April 30 at 9 AM via Ticketmaster.
Anybody who missed the midweek updates should check the tour
schedule below. And to all of you who follow me on Facebook - I'm not
actually attending all the concerts (don't I wish I could! LOL)
but I like setting putting the word out there by setting up events so
consider me as attending most of the shows in spirit and just a few in
person. ;-)
[APR 25] Last night German TV station
WDR ran a documentary called Generation Pop: Disco & Dauerlutscher.
Of course they had clips of some of the hits and they even ran clips of an
old interview. One of my European spies, Frank, caught it and gave me
this recap: The interview was in German (no problem for Donna) and started with Donna laying in a hammock! She told a little story about how the record LTLYB saved the honor of some older men who became interested in their wife again after hearing the song (LOL). She also told how she hated the fact that at one point she had become a product of the industry and that she hated it so much she wished she was dead. She was looking beautiful as ever, let's hope these images will pop up on YouTube one day.
There is way to sign up to record the show online, you can check that
out here.
(And yes, that page is in German so find a cute German to help you out of
that's not your language. ;-) )
[APR 25] I guess you could call
this one old news. LOL You can read 1978 Village Voice
article reviewing Donna's shows at the Felt Forum. You can read it on the Google
archives. Note to my visually impaired readers: the article is presented
as a scan of the original paper so it probably will not cooperate with a
screen reader.
[APR 25] In the Donna will be
everywhere category, ummm... you might have seen videos on YouTube of flash
mobs. Basically it's just a huge group of people that descend upon a public
place do a choreographed dance routine for a few minutes and hopefully get
the bystanders involved too. For an example you can check out this T-mobile
one. Well, there is a group putting together a flash
mob in Lyon that will happen in June. They have the music and
choreography posted on the web, and you might notice a familiar remix of La
Vie En Rose in the music track. :-) If any of you decide to get
involved with that (or if you happen to witness it) let me know how it
goes.
[APR 25] I think that brings us
to the web news. On Youtube look for Fernando's remix video for Looking
Up and the video for State
Of Independence.
[APR 23] PALM SPRINGS - Donna
is playing the Fantasy
Springs Resort on June 19. Tickets are on
ale now and they have special deals available if you want to book a room as
well.
[APR 23] BILOXI - you will see
Donna on August 20 at the Imperial Palace
Casino Resort and Spa. Tickets are on sale now through Ticketmaster.
[APR 21] LOS ANGELES - Donna is
being inducted to the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame on June
18. She (along with the other inductees) will be performing that
night at the Bowl. For details check out this
link but I'm guessing that tickets will be scarce and pricey.
[APR 18] UPSTATE NEW YORK -
this hasn't made the venue website yet, but Donna will be at the Anderson
Center in Binghamton on August 31. Look for those tickets on May 3
through the Anderson Center box office.
[APR 18] Boston fans - I have a
gentleman named Nick with one extra ticket for the upcoming concert. It's
row M seat 18 which is on the right side of the pavilion. It's actually the
11th row because on the side, the rows start with C. If you want it,
it's $94. Send me an email and I'll hook you up with Nick. Also, they have
been tossing around some interesting promotion ideas for the Boston area, so
stay tuned for more details as they are hammered out.
[APR 18] There is a new mix
Lovely Reprises mix of La Vie En Rose available on iTunes.
(It's track 18 on the album Lovely Reprises by K'lid.) It does NOT feature
the sped up vocals that previous La Vie mixes have used.
[APR 18] Some of you may have
run into an advertisement for a DVD of the Crayons tour. You
were not hallucinating, someone really was trying to sell one earlier this
week. The only problem was that it was an illegal bootleg made from a
fan shot video. (I can't even imagine the quality being consistently good
all the way through on something like that so selling it was doubly
ballsy. LOL) The DVD has since been removed from the website in
question.
[APR 18] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube check out Knights
In White Satin (audio only), stampyourfeet's video for the Lovely
Reprises remix of La
Vie En Rose, a classic clip of This
Time I Know It's For Real from SlickRickDog, and one of Fernando's
videos for a white label mix of Sunset
People.
[APR 18] Classic dance fans, if
you are looking for any of the goodies offered by Big
Break Records, they have a deal posted on their website where you can
get 3 CDs for £25 or 5 for £35. Currently they have Gloria Gaynor,
Odyssey, Three Debrees and Gladys Knight with Evelyn King and Brooklyn
Dreams coming soon.)
[APR 12] NEW JERSEY - see Donna
on August 25 at the Mayo
Center for the Arts in Morristown. Tickets go on sale to subscribers on
April 14 and to the rest of us April 20.
[APR 11] If you missed the
update the other day, Donna was on NPR radio on a show discussing disco
music. (It's part of the promotion for the Alice Echols book Hot Stuff
[Amazon
US, Amazon
UK]) You can catch the whole radio show here,
or if you are only interested in Donna's part, it is posted here
with an article about the show. I don't know how long they will keep the
audio clips up, so check them out soon.
[APR 11] Donna's Facebook
page has been updated with the concert schedule so far. After reading
some of the comments over there I just wanted to say that the list they gave
is direct from Pollstar which is not a complete tour list yet. There
are any number of summer venues that have not releases their lineups yet
(and probably won't for a few weeks) - and Pollstar is not always quick
about finding new dates. They don't even have the Atlantic City date on
their list yet. So don't freak out and think the tour is only 4 dates
- just be patient a little longer. :-) On a side note, I got a couple
of emails about a concert in Venezuela. I haven't heard anything official
about that ... or even anything unofficial about that yet... or even
anything about DJ Donna Summer (aka Jason Forrest) LOL in Venezuela
yet, so we'll just have to wait and see what turns up.
[APR 11] In release news, the
Dutch site Bol.com
has a 2 CD set for Love To Love You boxed with I
Remember Yesterday available for pre-order. They give a
release days of May 7 and no other info. It would make sense for the albums
to be digitally remastered, but I guess we won't know for sure if they are
until May 7. It is also listed for sale on Amazon
and Amazon
UK with release dates of May 18 and May 10. (The US Amazon lists
it as an import so expect longer shipping times and higher prices.)
[APR 11] For those of you who
enjoy François' calendar wallpapers, he sent me June, July and August to
share with you. Click the thumbnails for a larger version, then right click
to save. If you like what you see, head over to the
forum and let him know. :-)
[APR 11] In web news Pepperamico
has posted his 3 part megamix from Love To Love You to Crayons
on YouTube. Also on YouTube, look for SteveScissor'sStarting Over Again clip from the Eddie Rabbit special.
[APR 11] Finally in classic
dance news, the upcoming Gold
Legion releases have been delayed a little bit. But don't be sad about
that - they are delayed for a very good reason. The little 2 page CD
booklets that each one was going to have have been expanded thanks to the
writing of Christian Wikane and the involvement of the various artists being
released. So the new release dates ate April 22 for Paul Jabara's Third
Album (and that will have a 12 page booklet filled with never seen
before photos and interviews with some of Paul's collaborators) and April 29
for Munich Machine, Giorgio & Chris, and Roberta Kelly. (Those will
feature interviews with the artists.) If you ordered one of the bundle
packages that include the previously released Zodiac Lady and Munich
Machine, those 2 albums will be shipped to you this week and then
you will get the rest at the end of the month when they come out. And if you
haven't ordered any of the albums yet - you better do it now while they
still have the bundle deals. :-) There are still plenty more
things in the works, so stay tuned.
[APR 9] Donna turned up on NPR
radio in Boston this morning as part of a discussion of the disco era. The
show is online now at OnPointRadio.org
and Donna phones in at about the 22 minute mark.
[APR 4] Happy Easter
everyone! For those of you who missed the mid-week updates, you need
to check out the tour schedule below. As always, I
will add more dates as soon as I get them. Please excuse today's typos - I
think this is the earliest in the morning I've ever attempted a site
update. LOL
[APR 4] There is a short
article on BostonMusicSpotlight.com
promoting this summer's concert in Boston. And there is one
online announcing the show in Memphis.
[APR 4] For those of you who
like the concert photos, there are a bunch from last year's show at Chumash
posted on DwightMcCann.com.
[APR 4] Speaking of photos,
those of you who visit the forum are undoubtedly acquainted with François'
wonderful singles covers and calendars Well, since he can't post files on
the forum anymore, he sent me his calendar wallpapers for April and May to
share with you all. Clicking either thumbnail will show you the full-sized
version and then you can right click that to save it to your computer.
[APR 4] Out in San Francisco,
Eli is trying to get together a Donna Summer chat group. This is what he
gave me to post: Fans of Donna Summer meet once a month at Church Street Cafe, 262 Church Street, San Francisco, CA to discuss all things DONNA SUMMER!! Meetings are on 2nd Wednesdays of every month, and start between 7:30-8 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. Send an email to Eli for more information to:
thewanderer1980 AT rocketmail.com Come join the discussion and meet new friends and fans of DONNA SUMMER!!!
So if you are in the area and are interested, just get in touch with
Eli. :-)
[APR 4] In the Donna is
everywhere category, Kelly Rowland mentioned in a recent
article that she is looking to Donna and Diana Ross for inspiration for
the look and sound of her upcoming third album.
[APR 4] I think that brings us
to the web news for the week. On YouTube, SlickRickDog
has dug up a couple more classic clips and Fernando
has posted a couple more of his video creations. I will be back next week
(or sooner if anything pops up before then.) Hopefully I will get to see
some of you tomorrow night at Taihisha's concert Feinstein's. :-)
[APR 2] Okay, the REAL Summer
Fever pick is posted. It's Donna's collaborations with Paul Jabara.
(That's in honor of the upcoming re-release of Paul's Third Album.)
[APR 1] Memphis - your on sale
date for tickets has changed to April 19.
[MAR 31] MEMPHIS - catch Donna
on August 21 Live At The Garden. Tickets go on
sale TOMORROW at 10 AM via Ticketmaster.
[MAR 31] SAN
DIEGO - catch Donna at the San Diego county Fair on June
17. Tickets go on sale Saturday April 3 via Ticketmaster.
As always, as soon as I hear of any more dates I'll let you know.
[MAR 31] And while I'm here,
it's time for the new Summer Fever pick.
This time we take a little peek into the vault. Shhh.... don't tell
Donna. ;-)
[MAR 28] If you missed
yesterday's update - the Boston tickets are on sale now via Ticketmaster.
Fans of Taihisha Grant, Brooklyn Sudano and Johnnyswim will want to head to
the Family Matters section below.
[MAR 28] In the Donna is
everywhere category, a tiny clip of her performance for the Herbalife
convention popped up on YouTube.
(It's just the video - they replaced the audio.) It's a pretty long clip of
highlights from the whole event and you don't see Donna until about 6:58 or
6:59. There is a more interesting clip
of Patti Labelle also on YouTube. In it she was asked to describe
various other divas and she had nothing but nice things to say about Donna.
The whole interview is interesting, but if you just want to jump to the
Donna part that starts at about 3:53 (right after Madonna). I think Patti
might be one of us. ;-) (Patti also talks about Aretha, Cher, Diana,
Barbra, and others as well and I know we have some fans of all of those
women around here.)
[MAR 28] If words are more your
thing, Donna gets a mention in another
article about the new Alice Echols book, Hot Stuff: Disco And The
Remaking Of American Culture. [Amazon
US, Amazon
UK]
[MAR 28] Just a reminder that
Paul Jabara's Third Album is available through Gold
Legion on April 6. (Or you can pre-order it now.) That's the one with
the full-length duet with Donna of Never Lose Your Sense of Humor.
It's got some really good liner notes too with several quotes about Paul
from Donna (and others.) If you are interested in the other Gold Legion
offerings (Roberta Kelly, Munich Machine, as well as Paul Jabara) you can
get a bundle of the first 6 Gold Legion CDs at a discount.
[MAR 28] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, SlickRickDog
has dusted off his archives again and posted a number of classic clips -
including one of Lady Of The Night. And Fernando has posted his video
for What
Is It You Want.
[MAR 28] And finally, I have a
personal request for you. My boss was just recently diagnosed with MS which
came as a shock to everyone at my job. (The rule is bad things never are
supposed to happen to people you know! LOL If only, right?)
Anyway, she's now involved in fundraising for MS and will be doing our local
MS Walk later this spring. (If I get the day off I'll be joining her.) If
you would like to donate money to help the cause, just use this
link. Or click the link if you just want to help me keep my boss from
firing me..... ;-) (I'm just kidding about the firing
thing. She would never fire me.... unless it was out of a cannon.)
[MAR 27] The weekly update is coming tomorrow - but I
have an important message for Boston. Your tickets sneaked onto Ticketmaster
when I wasn't looking and are available for sale NOW.
[MAR 21] Fans of Johnnyswim and
Taihisha Grant will want to head down to the Family Matters section below.
Donna fans - the summer dates are starting to pop up. :-)
[MAR 21] BOSTON - mark your calendar
for Friday August 27. Donna will be at the Bank
of America Pavilion. There are expensive broker tickets up for sale now at Vividseats.com
but I'm sure you will see regular priced tickets at Ticketmaster in the not
too distant future.
[MAR 21] ATLANTIC CITY - you
guys get Saturday August 28 at Trump's Taj
Mahal. Those tickets will go on sale through Ticketmaster on May
8. Serious Taj gamblers may be able to buy sooner through the box office.
Keep an eye on your comp newsletters. Everybody else -
I'll post more dates as I get them but I would say that East Coast fans
should keep late August, early September free. West Coast fans just sit
tight and we'll see what pops up.
[MAR 21] Moving on to release
news - as I mentioned last week Gold
Legion now has Paul Jabara's Third Album available for
pre-order. What I didn't know last week is that Christian John Wikane is
involved in the liner notes on that one and he interviewed a couple of
people in the process - Greg Mathieson, Jay Asher and someone named Donna
Summer. ;-) So now you have another reason to buy it!
[MAR 21] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a very brief mention in an article
about Disco music - about why it doesn't get the respect it deserves.
Also check out the video for Darrell Russ' Riding
Home From Baltimore... there is a very familiar album cover in it.
[MAR 21] I think that brings us
to the web news for the week. On YouTube, Fernando has posted part 2 of the
Groovy mix of No
More Tears. Over on Multiply. Steve
has posted some of the best of YouTube, and Carl
has posted a Donna vs Dannii Minogue Power Of Love Perfection re EQ
2010.
[MAR 14] Greetings from windy
and rainy Long Island where I'm building an ark and loading it up with my
Donna Summer CDs....2 by 2. ;-) Fans of Brooklyn Sudano and
Johnnyswim will want to check the Family Matters
section below. Brooklyn Dreams fans will want to read the regular Donna
news. :-)
[MAR 14] For everyone who has
been asking about concerts - I'm starting to hear rumors of things in the
works, but I don't expect any official announcements until next month or
maybe even early May. That's because many of the summer venues won't release
their lineups until close to Memorial Day.
[MAR 14] In release news, Gold
Legion now has Paul Jabara's Third Album available for
pre-order. (That's the one that includes the full length version of Never
Lose Your Sense of Humor with Donna.) The album will be out on April 6,
but you can reserve your copy now. They also have Roberta Kelly's Trouble
Maker and a couple of Munich Machine albums up for pre-order too.
See the Gold Legion site for details. (By the way - Donna did backing vocals
on one of the Roberta Kelly tracks. :-) ) Also - watch for Paul's Keeping
Time album to come out at the end of May.
[MAR 14] And while you are in a
pre-ordering sort of mood - Big Break Records has the Brooklyn Dreams album
available for pre-order on Amazon
UK. (Donna does backing vocals on one of those tracks too.) You
can get it on the US
Amazon too, but if you do that you will have to wait until mid-May and
the base price will be higher. (Right now £8 converts to about $12
and I don't think the shipping will eat up too much of that discount.)
[MAR 14] In the Donna is
everywhere category, YouTube user Chimier came up with the 100
greatest singers who influenced music of the 20th century. He's
got Donna in at #51 but I'm not really sure how you can sort the list by
number when there is such an eclectic list of artists from all genres and
all eras of popular music. I mean how can you compare the influence of
Maria Callas to the influence of Mariah Carey? But like all lists it's fun
to look at and fun to argue about.
[MAR 14] In other YouTube news,
we have several remixes posted by DJDiscoCat,
there is a No More Tears mix posted by Fernando,
and you guys are gonna love this - there is a live
clip from The Midnight Special of Donna and the Brooklyn Dreams
doing a medley of Motown songs. You can tell the 4 of them were having
fun with it and each one gets a turn at lead.
[MAR 7] Happy Oscar night!
Before I get to Donna, Johnnyswim fans (particularly the ones in New York)
will want to check the Family Matters section below.
[MAR 7] Since it's Oscar night,
the media has been packed with articles about the festivities. One from the Oakland
Tribune is a list of the author's favorite Oscar-winning
tunes. He's got Last Dance in there and he describes Donna's
performance of it as the best reason to watch Thank God It's Friday.
:-) (Just ignore his playlist on the side though - it links to a completely
different song called Last Dance by the Raveonettes. Oops. )
[MAR 7] In release news, Time
Life is putting out a 9 DVD set of The Best Of Soul Train. Donna is
represented with her performance of Love To Love You. You can pre-order the
set now on the Time-Life
website and the disks will ship at the end of the month. The website has
a complete list of the performances you will find on the collection.
[MAR 7] The LA Times is looking
to expand its biography page on Donna (they have bios for various Walk Of
Fame stars) and they are looking for input from readers. If you have
any input for them - check the LA
Times website.
[MAR 7] Tulsaworld.com
has an interview with Curt Gooch about the Casablanca book, And
Party Every Day. The article is accompanied by a classic live
shot of Donna from back in the day.
[MAR 7] In the Donna is
everywhere category, a Toronto
wedding DJ lists Last Dance as a good end of the night wedding
song. And an article
about Tony Blair's new biography (titled The Journey)
mentioned that Donna had a greatest hits compilation called The
Journey.
[MAR 7] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on Youtube, look for Glen Rivera's Restructured
mix of Love's
Unkind, WEN!NG's Dance Mix of Love
To Love You, a live clip of Hot
Stuff from Coney Island courtesy of Fernando, and an old
interview in German courtesy of SteveScissors.
[MAR 1] The new Summer Fever
pick is posted. This month it's the Donna Summer album.
[FEB 28] Greetings to all my
friends in Chile - hang in there guys! I hope you are all okay.
[FEB 28] If you missed the
Nobel Peace Prize concert yesterday - it was the same edit Canada got. They
only showed one song out of Donna's set - She Works Hard For The Money.
They could have fit the rest in if they had dropped all the stuff with
Barack Obama. It's not like he is important or
anything.... ;-) Anyway - it may not have aired nationwide, so
if it wasn't on in your area just keep watching your local listings. I also
understand that Pay Per View in Spain ran the whole show this weekend - so
the rest of you guys in Europe should also keep an eye on your local
listings. With any luck you will get it too.
[FEB 28] Last night the Castro
Country Club held a fundraiser that they billed as a Donna Summer
tribute. In other words - they know how to party right in San Francisco!
[FEB 28] Fans in the Pensacola
area have a new Donna-friendly radio station to tune in to. It's 107.3
The Groove. Internet fans can listen in live online as well.
[FEB 28] The Casablanca book, And
Party Every Day, was recently reviewed by the Windy City Times. You
can read it on their
website, and if you haven't checked out the
book yet you need to. It's an interesting and fun read.
[FEB 28] And that brings us to
the web news for the week. Over on YouTube look for Fernando's video for There
Will Always Be A You. (He used some movie clips that aren't
too friendly for work - so beware if you are surfing around behind the boss'
back. ;-) ) He's also got one for Why
(a song that was done before Donna was famous). And look for the WEN!NG
mixes posted by Ruepelsenf.
[FEB 28] I'll be back tomorrow
night with the new Summer Fever pick.
[FEB 21] It's a very quiet week
this week, but Brooklyn fans will want to jump down to the Family
Matters section below.
[FEB 21] Ok USA fans (and maybe
some Canadian fans too - - the Nobel Peace Prize concert will air on ABC
this coming Saturday (February 27) at 3 PM. This is an edited version
running for only an hour so assuming it's the same edit Canada got, we will
only have one of Donna's songs. If you didn't catch it online, catch it now.
(And then head over to YouTube to catch the songs that are being cut.)
[FEB 21] Yes, this brings us to
the web news already. (I told you it was a quiet week. LOL) Over
at Donna Summertime, Sebastiano has
updated the Donna Summer Top 40 and there are a bunch of surprises. (Fascination
just popped up at number 3 out of the blue. Someday came out of
nowhere too. There are a few other surprises on the list too.) Over on
YouTube, look for a VH1 mini-profile courtesy of stevescissors,
Fernando has
the DJ Plump mix of I Feel Love, the CasablancaBookTV
guys have posted a VH1 promo of their book And Party Every Day.
[FEB 14] Happy Valentine's Day
everyone! Brooklyn Dreams fans will want to head down to the Family
Matters section below. And classic dance fans will want to see the
new crop of releases listed right after the web news. In the mean time -
Washington DC, if you missed the midweek update, you need to look at the concert
schedule below. Everybody else - just sit tight. Most of the
summer venues don't announce their schedules quite so early, so we probably
won't hear much more until Spring.
[FEB 14] In release news..... Gold
Legion has something very interesting coming out April 6. It's Paul
Jabara's Third Album which features a duet with a certain diva
we all know and love. The song is called Never Lose Your Sense of Humor
and this version is longer than the edit that you find on iTunes on Paul's Greatest
Hits & Misses. (Over 2 minutes longer!) I will have more Gold
Legion info for you below when I cover the classic dance stuff. They have
more great stuff coming. :-)
[FEB 14] In the Donna is
everywhere category, Billboard
posted a list of the 50 sexiest songs (1958 to early January 2010). Donna
came in at #43 with Dim All The Lights, 33 with Love To Love You,
13 with Bad Girls and 6 with Hot Stuff. Now you may find the
list printed in several places, but if you hit the Billboard site, they
actually have videos and the sexiest lyrics from each of the 50 songs. (I
think Donna has the most songs on there of any of the artists represented.)
[FEB 14] Also in the Donna is
everywhere category, PBS in Connecticut recently aired a special on the
Blizzard of 1978. (Gee, I wonder what could have inspired that? LOL)
Near the end of the show they played a little music under the speakers and
one of the songs was Last Dance. It's a pledge drive show so it will
probably air again on various PBS stations so check it out if you
can.... unless you are so sick of snow this year that you just can't
bear to watch. LOL
[FEB 14] In web news this week,
look for a mix of Love
Is The Healer posted by LastPhoenix1. The really cool thing about
the video is how LastPhoenix photoshopped pictures of Donna into art
galleries, street signs, etc like they were actually real billboards that
you might encounter somewhere. And Fernando has posted the American
Bandstand clip of Last
Dance.
[FEB 14] And that brings us to
the classic dance news. We'll start with Gold
Legion. As I mentioned before, hey have Paul Jabara's Third Album
coming out on April 6. In their coming soon list, they also have
Paul's Keeping Time album, Roberta Kelly's Troublemaker
album, Munich Machine's A Whiter Shade Of Pale, and Chris
& Giorgio's Love's In You, Love's In Me. Those
probably won't turn up until at least late April so just be patient.
:-) Now, for those of you who didn't get the current releases yet (Roberta
Kelly's Zodiac Lady and Munich Machine's self-titles album), the great
news is that Gold Legion is offering 10% off until February 21. You just
have to use the code: GL10. Definitely
check out these albums - they are really very well done.
[FEB 14] In even more classic
dance news, Big Break Records has a few more upcoming releases that have
been announced. First up is the Brooklyn Dreams self-titled album. (I talk
more about that in the Family Matters section below.)
Then they have Evelyn "Champagne" King's Get Loose - those 2 will
be coming at the end of April. I believe I already mentioned that they
have Odyessy's self-titled album and Gladys Knight's About Love
album coming in March. And of course they already have the Three
Degrees debut album, and Gloria Gaynor's Experience and Never
Can Say Goodbye albums available for sale. The Big
Break Records website is now set up for online purchases but note that
the prices shown are British Pounds Sterling. You can also buy from
Amazon UK - but I notice that they won't ship until next month. If you
become a fan of Big Break Records on Facebook,
they will keep you alerted to all the new releases.
[FEB 8] Washington
DC - you guys will see Donna at Wolftrap
on Sunday August 29. Tickets are on sale now for members. Non-members can
get tickets starting on March 13. Let the summer tour begin! :-)
[FEB 7] Fans of both Taihisha,
the Brooklyn Dreams, and Brooklyn Sudano will want to see the Family
Matters section below. And I have some classic dance news coming up
after all the Donna news for the week. :-)
[FEB 7] Okay - let's start with
the Nobel Peace Prize concert. It just aired tonight in Toronto (sorry I
didn't have advance notice on that for you.) They ran an edited
version of the show that was only an hour long. And unfortunately they cut
Donna down to just She Works Hard For The Money. (And I would have
bet money that they would have left Last Dance.) Now I don't
know if the edited version of the show is the same in the US and Canada -
most likely it is. And I guess we are all going to have to keep a close eye
on our local listings if we want to catch the show on TV. If anybody runs
into a TV listing just let me know when and where so I can get it out there
for you guys.
[FEB 7] Covers collectors -
Hypnogaja has put out an acoustic alt/rock version of On The Radio.
It's on their just releases digital 45 called Welcome To The Future and you
can grab it on iTunes.
It's an interesting take on the song so check it out.
[FEB 7] From the land of the
just plain silly.... an article
on Pentagon spending inspired a comment from someone saying he was redesigning
all the money and replacing the Presidents with dance icons. He's going to
put Donna on the $20. LOL That would be way cooler than those
celebrity $1 bills that used to be on eBay. (The comment was about half way
down the page when I looked just now. Look for February 3 at 10:24 AM
if you are having trouble spotting it.)
[FEB 7] In web news, on YouTube
Fernando has posted the DJ Meme mix of I
Feel Love, and Steve has posted Tearing
Down The Walls. Over on Multiply, Jeffrey
is the one who has gone completely insane with a bunch of live clips and
some remixes too. Also look at Carl's
page for some mixes and Steve's
page for Tearing Down The Walls and some live clips. Speaking of
Steve - he's revised his Collection
Corner site, so if you are interested in tons of photos that's a good
place to look.
[FEB 7] And that brings us to
the classic dance news. (If Gold
Legion and Big Break Records are going to keep all this going - I may
have to add a separate news section just for classic dance. :-) ) Big
Break Records now has a website. It's still a work in progress - but
bookmark it for future reference. Now I already told you they have a Three
Degrees album and 2 Gloria Gaynor albums coming out next week. (That's in
the UK - North America will have to wait a little longer or order from
overseas.) Coming up next month they will have Odyssey's self-titles album
and Gladys Knight & The Pips About Love album. Now if you
happen to go to the website they have 2 more album covers showing with no
release date yet (Evelyn Champagne King and Brooklyn Dreams). Now over
at Gold Legion, I know they are working on something for either this month
or more likely next month that will definitely be of interest to you guys. I
don't like to offer titles before there is an official release date, but
I'll just say that "heaven is a disco" and let you draw your own
conclusions.
[FEB 1] The Summer Fever pick
is posted. This month it's Cats Without Claws.
[JAN 31] This will probably be
a quick update tonight, and the tentative plan is to get the Summer Fever
pick up tomorrow night. But I'm having some issues with my cat, so depending
on how that plays out and how I feel - it might get delayed. Ironically - I
was updating the Cats Without Claws page when all this
started.
[JAN 31] Photo hounds will want
to check out the galleries at Zimbio.com.
They have a bunch from the Nobel Peace Prize concert and the rehearsals for
the show. If you keep going they have a bunch from past events too like the Today
Show concert, the Elton John gala, one of the VH1 appearances, etc.
When you get to the Zimbio page just keep hitting "next" until
your fingers fall off to see everything. ;-)
[JAN 31] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in an interview
with Gabriela Cilmi. Apparently Four Seasons Of Love
expanded her musical horizons. Hot Stuff gets a mention in an interview
with KCat. Apparently it's one of the songs she wishes she had
written.
[JAN 31] In the world of
covers, recording artist Anane has done a cover of Love To Love You.
It will be on the forthcoming album Ananesworld
due out February 16.
[JAN 31] In some silly news,
the guys at the Zap2it
blog are throwing a Cake Boss party, and they described the music they
would play for such a party. MacArthur Park (by Donna of course) was
on the list.
[JAN 31] In web news, check out
the 600
Greatest and Most Important Songs Of Rock courtesy of MrMusiclists.
(They are listed alphabetically by first name so Donna falls in at # 177 and
178.) My link takes you to the video with Donna, but if you want to see the
rest of the list look at the related videos. It takes several parts to
cover the whole 600. Other YouTube highlights this week include the extended
version of Love
Is In Control, WEN!NG's Gramophone edition of I
Remember Yesterday, and several video mixes from Fernando.
[JAN 31] I've been telling you
about the recent classic dance reissues from Gold Legion here in the US, and
now I have a UK company putting out stuff too. Big Break Records is putting
out expanded versions of Gloria Gaynor's Never
Can Say Goodbye and Experience,
and The
Three Degrees self-titled album album in just a couple of weeks with
more classic stuff coming out in the next few months. You can buy the Big
Break Records stuff on Amazon UK starting February 15 - anyone buying from
Amazon US will have to wait until March. These new releases will all
include bonus tracks - either b-sides or alternate versions or whatever else
is available for the particular album. And the first 1000 copies they make
will be in a special deluxe jewel box.
Now I have an idea what's coming next for both Gold
Legion and Big Break - but I don't like to say anything until II have
firm release dates. But I will tell you that both have interesting things on
the schedule and that there is no overlap between them. So if you are
looking to fill in your classic dance collections - plan on shopping from
both labels. :-) (Big Break Records will have their own site up
soon - I'll provide that link as soon as it's up and running. In the mean
time if you use Facebook you can find them over there. Just do a search for
Big Break Records.)
[JAN 24] Bruce Sudano fans will
want to jump down to the Family Matters section below. And those of you who
are interested in the Gold Legion Casablanca reissues will want to stay
tuned for the update (immediately following the web news). :-)
[JAN 24] On to the diva! OK -
if you happen to work for Herbalife, you can get to see Donna at their
30th Anniversary Summit. She doing a show for them in March in Florida
to close out the festivities. For those of us who don't work for
Herbalife - we can look at the flyer
for the event while we wait for the public dates to start shaping
up. :-)
[JAN 24] Photo hounds, you will
want to check out BackstageGallery.com
for some mid-70s photos of Donna.
[JAN 24] If anyone is looking
for Black Power (a track Donna recorded in Germany about the time she
was appearing in Hair), you can find it on iTunes
it's just not credited to Donna. The album it's from is called Moonflowers
And Mini Skirts and it's credited to Peter Thomas (the composer).
[JAN 24] That brings us to the
web news. First up is YouTube. You are going to want to see
Stampyurfeet's new video. He's taken Donna's version of How
I Feel (from the musical The Me Nobody Knows) and
matched it with footage from Haiti. (If the video inspires you to make a
donation, Google
has a list of organizations, or you can head to iTunes
and buy songs from the benefit concert from the other night.) Also look for Xavier's
mashup of Dirty Diana with I Will Go With You, WEN!NG's
Glitter To Gold mix of Fairy
Tale High, and a couple of new ones from Fernando.
[JAN 24] And now for some non-Donna news. Last week I told
you that Gold Legion teamed up with Universal to release some of the
old Casablanca gems starting with albums by Munich Machine and Roberta
Kelly. I got my CDs this week and am very happy with them. They
look good - the original art is there, along with the original credits, etc
and they've added a page to tell you a little about the artist. In Roberta
Kelly's case it even has a line or 2 about what she's doing now - including
a mention of her appearance on stage at Donna's Berlin concert last year.
(Which reminds me guys - Gold Legion is watching the thread on the
board. If you have idea, throw them out there. They will be
seen. :-) ) Now as far as sound goes - 2 thumbs up. The albums
are remastered and they sound great even when I drag out my headphones and
play the actual CD itself (as opposed to the rips I made for my iPod.
) I think you guys will be very happy. :-) (Don't be
fooled by the clips on the site - those are rips that were only done at 128
kbps and I know a lot of you won't touch anything below 196 in your personal
collections.) Now if you missed out on the 10% off promo code I mentioned
last week.... you're in luck because that's been extended. GL10
will keep working right up until January 31. And while I'm
here I wanted to clarify one thing for the casual fans out there. If you
check the Munich Machine track list, you will see a few familiar tracks.
They are the same songs Donna recorded (or in one case that Roberta Kelly
recorded) but these are not the same versions. These are alternate
versions recorded by the Munich Machine team and do not feature any vocals
by Donna or Roberta. But it's still pure Giorgio Moroder magic and worth
having for that alone. And stay tuned - more stuff is coming, but I
won't be announcing any titles until there are firm release dates.
[JAN 18] Just a quick clarification on the promo code I
posted last night for Gold Legion - it's only good until January 24, so if
you are planning to make a purchase do it this week to save. :-)
[JAN 17] Let's start with
something completely non-Donna but very serious - Haiti. I just can't
believe what I'm seeing in the photos coming out of there. It looks like
some Hollywood disaster film... only unfortunately it's real. If you want to
help the relief effort, Google
has complied a list of agencies that are collecting money. They've also got
a person finder widget, and a new file you can download for Google Earth
that will show you before and after pictures of the region.
[JAN 17] And now back to the
escape from the tragedies of real life. :-) Fans of the younger
Sudano girls will want to check out the Family Matters
section below, and fans of classic disco (Giorgio Moroder anyone? ;-)
) will want to stay tuned - I will post some interesting info after the web
news. :-)
[JAN 17] On to Donna. Let me
start off with time sensitive item. There is a charity auction on eBay to benefit
the UN World Food Programme. (Specifically, the money will help feed hungry
kids in Haiti.) The item is a piece of artwork signed by many of the
performers that were at the Nobel Peace Prize concert - including Donna.
(Although they didn't use her signature in any of the photos - darn
it!) The auction runs for a couple more days, but the current bid is
$2000 and the reserve hasn't been met yet. So you will need deep pockets to
walk away with this item. You can check it out on eBay.
[JAN 17] Ok, there is a ballad
collection CD I keep running into (and keep getting asked about). It looks
like a compilation out together by a fan. If you want to see what it looks
like, It's posted here
- but watch out for the big popup window that will greet you. (pop up
windows are annoying - huge ones even more so, and ones that escape my popup
blocker are infuriating! LOL) If you look at the track list -
it's something any one of us could put together ourselves out of the stuff
we already bought. And if you are missing anything, the vast majority
of the tracks can be purchased individually at iTunes, Amazon or anywhere
else you like to buy downloads. :-)
[JAN 17] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in this podcast
about Darrell Russ' Riding Home From Baltimore. She also gets a very
brief mention in an article about the movie Looking
For Mr. Goodbar. They just mention that some of Donna's songs were
used in the film. (Warning to those of you reading this at work - if you
look at the article, there is a small photo of Richard Gere doing pushups
without any pants on. That's probably not so good if your job is strict
about what you can look at on the job. ) Oh and I just heard a strange
mention now on my TV. I have some ghost show on the Biography channel
on and the woman talking just mentioned that they were playing Donna's music
at her mother's funeral.
[JAN 17] Moving on to the web
news for the week, on Multiply look for a live clip of Work That Magic
courtesy of Steve.
On Youtube, Fernando
has been busy and posted a number of new videos, and DJDiscocat has posted
the audio for the long version of Walk
Away.Over on Vimeo, you can find the original promo video from the Berlin
concert and the Omega
Red mix of Crayons.
[JAN 17] And that brings me to
my interesting non-Donna news. There is a company out there called Gold
Legion and it has teamed up with Universal to release some of the classic
Casablanca stuff - all remastered and all with the original artwork, liner
notes and logo. (And I know how you guys feel about the Casablanca
logo! LOL) So far they only have Roberta Kelly's Zodiac Lady
and Munich Machine's self-titled album. (That should appeal to Giorgio
Moroder fans!) More things are coming down the road and I will keep
you posted as I hear more. If you are interested in buying these CDs
(and I know some of you are :-) ) head over to GoldLegion.com
where you can find sound clips, and more importantly, where you can grab the
albums for 11.99 each. (And yes they ship world wide.) Even better,
use this code: GL10 to
get 10% off your order. (You can probably find both CDs on Amazon too - but
when I checked it was more money and they were not immediately in stock over
there - you are better off at Gold Legion's site.) And keep a close eye on
that site because there is definitely more coming. :-) I love
that the more obscure classics are finally finding their way out of the
archives!
[JAN 10] Sorry for all the
ranting on my Twitterfeed earlier this week. As you may have gathered,
I was just a teeny bit annoyed about having my internet turned off
randomly. LOL Before I get to the Donna news, Bruce fans will
want to look at the Family Matters section below.
[JAN 10] On to Donna, and have
I got a clip for you today! Those little sneaks at CasablancaBookTV
have added a few new clips to YouTube. :-) One is a promo for the I
Remember Yesterday album. At about the 49 second mark, you will see
a little clip from a video for Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)
- wearing the dress from the album cover. As far as I know this is the ONLY
time that clip has been seen. (So if the forum seems a little quiet, it's
because everyone over there fainted when they saw it. LOL) Now run out
and grab a copy of the book to say "thank you". ;-)
[JAN 10] Speaking of which,
Larry Harris was interviewed by LA
Weekly - and yes, he does talk about Donna a little. :-)
[JAN 10] And while we are
visiting the 70s, you will also want to take a look at the new Vanity
Fair - or their website. There is an oral history of
disco that features quotes from many of the players from back in the day.
They include a few from Donna and some from Giorgio Moroder as well. It's
definitely worth a look (and I think you will like one of the photos they
used to illustrate the article.)
[JAN 10] Moving back to the
present day, Perfectbeat
put out its top 100 charts for 2009. You will find Stamp Your Feet at
#62 in the top CD singles chart, and Fame The Game at #11 and #6.
(That was a 2 disk release , that's how it snagged 2 chart positions.)
[JAN 10] In Rock & Roll
Hall Of Fame news, there is talk that the Hall OF Fame will change the
eligibility criteria. Currently an artist is eligible 25 years after the
release of their first record. This may be changed to 20 years. Personally -
I think it's an unnecessary change as there are already many worthy artists
who fit the current criteria. (And I' don't just mean Donna - FutureRockLegends.com
has a list of all eligible artists, listed by the year they became eligible.
There are plenty of people on that list who deserve to be in the Hall Of
Fame.
[JAN 10] And that brings us to
the web news. On YouTube, Fernando
has posted a couple of new video mixes, there is the Bad
Girls/Hot Stuff Medley from 2007's Night Of The Proms, and a clip of
Last Dance courtesy of CasablancaBookTV. On Multiply, Steve
has posted a whole bunch of mixes and videos (a lot of awards show stuff) on
his page, Jeff
has posted his mix of With Your Love, and Jean
Michel has posted mixes of Je T'Aime.
[JAN 3] Okay who is the wise
guy who ordered all the snow? We've had more snow here on Long Island
in the past couple of weeks than we've had in the last couple years put
together. LOL It's pretty for awhile, but as the song says...
Enough Is Enough! LOL
[JAN 3] First up - the Nobel
Peace Prize concert. The first US listing I've heard for it is KONG TV
(cable channel 6, or channel 16 if you get it over the air) in Seattle on
January 30 at 7 PM. It looks like they are only running an hour of the
show, so expect lots of cuts. Donna was mentioned in the listing so at least
one of her songs will make it on the air. (Actually, for US TV I
suspect they will boot the artists who aren't well known here - never mind
that some of them are worth getting to know.) It looks like it is running as
a syndicated program which means we'll all have to keep an eye on our local
listings.
[JAN 3] In the Donna is
everywhere category - I got 4312 Google alerts this week.... all of
them celebrity birthday listings. I have to say that the amusing thing
about those lists is who each publication decides to list. The vast majority
have the same list of celebrities, but I ran into one that listed Donna,
Joey McIntyre and only one other living person - and then a very eclectic
list of dead people from Popes to Nazi hunters to gymnasts. It was a rather
odd mix. LOL She also got a very brief mention in an Aussie
article that took a quick look at the highlights (or in some cases,
lowlights) of 1979.
[JAN 3] The Bay
Area Reporter has posted its winter reading list. They've included And
Party Every Day: The Casablanca Records Story by Larry Harris. (I
guess that means that those of us who have read it already should read it
again this winter? ;-) )
[JAN 3] That brings us to the
web news. Over on YouTube, Fernando
has gone mix happy this week. He's posted a few Donna mixes and even a
couple of Giorgio mixes. Also look for a couple of old clips from Holland
from snelleneddy0,
and a mainly audio presentation of the Eric Kupper I Feel Healed mix of Love
Is The Healer. On Multiply, Patrice
has posted more of his art, Andy
has posted several Donna- themed 2010 calendars, and Steve
has posted Peperamico's 35 Years of Wonderful Music mix. (Love To Love
you to Crayons in one big megamix!)
[JAN 1] Happy New Year
everyone! :-) I'll have the regular update later this weekend,
but for now I'm changing the Summer Fever pick to Once Upon A Time.
2009
[DEC 27] I hope Santa was good
to everyone last week. :-) This will be a short update since not
much is going on with the holidays. Before I get to the news, some of you
pointed out that the link to the forum on the main page is broken. I fixed
that tonight so it should be working now. But just in case, the direct link
to the forum is: http://forums.delphiforums.com/endless_summer/.
[DEC 27] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a brief mention in an
article about designer Nik Ramli. Some of you already know Nik - he runs
the Donna
fan group on Facebook. She gets another very brief mention in an
article about the remixes for Darrell Russ' single, Riding Home From
Baltimore. She's also mentioned in an
article about Chicago's Star Plaza Theater. Over in the UK, a TV
commercial for tomorrow night's ITV airing of An Englishman In New
York uses Last Dance as background music. (I'm told the ad
runs a lot.)
[DEC 27] In web news, on
Multiply Patrice
has posted some of his new photo creations, Jean
Michel has posted a number of Christmas mixes, and Steve is his usual
insane self and has posted a half a dozen or so videos and mixes. :-) On
YouTube look for what looks like a news
clip of the Cala di Volpe show. (The audio is in Italian.) Virgin
Mary (the audio) has also found its way to YouTube, and DonnaSummerVEVO
has posted a couple of official videos. The only thing about those is that
some of them are restricted by country. It seems sort of random too because
some videos play here in the US and some don't. Those of you in other
countries will just have to try your luck and see which ones work for you.
[DEC 27] I'll be back next
weekend, so let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and
healthy New Year filled with lots of Donna tunes. If you are gonna be out
drinking for the holiday, make sure you don't drive - I want to see you all
back here in one piece! :-) Happy Birthday Donna!
[DEC 23 barely] The eGreetings
page is up and running! A little later than I hoped... but it's
there. :-) Thanks to all who contributed - without all you guys
who come to visit, or who write in the whole thing would be a lot less fun.
Merry Christmas everyone!
[DEC 20] Greetings from snowy
Long Island. I know many of us like a white Christmas - but 2 feet is
overkill. ;-) I might have to go move in with Donna in Florida so I
can raid the vault.... I mean escape the snow. Yeah, that's it. LOL
The official deadline for egreetings has passed, but lucky for you slackers
out there (PHIL! LOL) I am far enough behind in my Christmas
preparations that I will be finishing up the page over the next day or
2. So if you get your greeting to me by tomorrow, it will still make
the final page. Now if my family is reading this - I expect to have your
Christmas gifts wrapped and ready for you no later than January. LOL
[DEC 20] The news for the week
is still the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I know many of you are
angry that they didn't induct Donna this time. Personally, I'm more
disgusted than angry. It just seems to me that if Donna isn't
"rock & roll" enough for the Hall Of Fame, then a number of
past inductees need to be explained to me because they seem even less
"rock & roll" to me. And other notable omissions need to be
explained as well. My editorial comments aside, there are a number of
articles out there about the 2010 inductees that might be of interest to
you:
Vindy.com
(this article has been published in a number of papers) Boston
Herald Hitfix.com EW.com
And for an interesting look at a previous voting controversy, take a look at
FOX
News.
[DEC 20] In better news, USA
Today posted a bunch of the Oslo photos in a slideshow on their website.
Strangely they list Donna as a British singer in one of the captions. Listen
UK - don't think you are gonna steal her from us. Don't make me go over
there and play Shout It Out to you over and over again!
LOL
[DEC 20] Speaking of Oslo, Endless
Summer was number 1 on the Norwegian iTunes soul top 10 last
weekend. I suspect the Nobel concert was the reason. ;-) In
Sweden, The Journey was #3 on the same chart - probably for
the same reason.
[DEC 20] The Brazilian DVD Musas
Do Pop is out now and some of the guys have had a chance to see
it. Donna is represented by the official music videos for She Works Hard
For The Money and Melody Of Love (although the intro is edited
out of that one), Nathan's video for Fame, the I Feel Love
clip with the robot dance, the Midnight Special version of Love
To Love You, the Discomania clip of Hot Stuff/Bad Girls
and Last Dance from American Bandstand.
[DEC 20] About.com
has posted its list of the top 10 divas in pop music. Donna is on the list
along with Mariah Carey, Cher, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Whitney
Houston, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand. (Note that
they list the 10 divas in alphabetical order, so the fact that Donna is
listed last doesn't necessarily mean she's #10 in the eyes of the About.com
editors.)
[DEC 20] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, SlickRickDog
has posted a few classic clips - including some holiday themed ones,
EndlessDonna has made a video for Driving
Down Brazil, and stampyurfeet
has an excellent video for I'll Be Home For Christmas. On Multiply, Andy
has posted clips from the Nobel concert, and his extended alternate version
of On The Radio.
[DEC 20] I will be back either
tomorrow or Tuesday with the final egreetings page and an update to
Wolfgang's discography. :-)
[DEC 15] Well, the official Rock
Hall Of Fame list is out. Santa will be bringing those voters a big lump
of coal this year. The class of 2010 is ABBA, Genesis,
Jimmy Cliff, The Hollies and The Stooges. That list is just
astonishing to me. I thought they might overlook Donna because of the whole
disco thing - but then they took ABBA? The rock guys are gonna be MAD!
LOL And they left out KISS and The Red Hot Chili Peppers? I think
there is going to be some screaming on the music blogs. Well, I guess I
won't need to take March 15th off now. (Unless I decide to go to
Cleveland that day and throw rotten tomatoes at the Hall? LOL)
[DEC 13] Anybody sick of the
Nobel concert yet? I didn't think so. ;-) So let's let the
party roll on with some HD YouTube clips courtesy of otziben.
(Big kisses to you!) He's got all 4 songs posted so be sure to check
them out. If anyone is interested in seeing the whole concert....
well, make that all that NRK put in the webcast (it cuts out in the middle
of Hot Stuff), head over to the NRK
website. That link takes you to the second half of the show, but there
is a menu on the left hand side of the page that lets you move to the first
half (den 1) or to individual songs. I will warn you now that the
playback doesn't always seem to work. I haven't been able to get any of the
concert clips to play - and there hasn't been an error message to tell me
why. At least one other person found that his internet connection was too
slow. So try that at your own risk. I suspect that maybe those clips
are being hit too hard by the fans of all the artists involved. If you
want to see the actual Peace Prize ceremony, that is still archived on the NRK
site (along with the press
conference) and you can see it on the Nobel
Peace Prize site. (That version is slightly edited, so you don't see as
many shots of Donna in the crowd as in the NRK webcast. However all
the speeches and musical performances are intact.) The Peace Prize site also
has text versions of the presentation speech and Obama's speech for those
who are interested. (Rumor has it that a few people actually watched all the
Nobel stuff for more than just Donna. Who'd have thought? ;-) )
[DEC 13] In the land of photos,
there are a couple from the press conference the other day posted on the NPR
website. WireImage
also has photos from the press conference, the concert and rehearsals.
[DEC 13] There have been a ton
of articles about all of the Nobel events. So far, most of them haven't said
much about Donna other than to list her as one of the performers. But Philstar.com
does mention that Donna had the crowd on their feet. (That's sort of like
saying the Pyramids are big. It's right, but it doesn't really convey
the scale adequately. :-) )
[DEC 13] In chart news, the
Nobel committee.... wait ... sorry, I have the Nobel concert on the brain
lately. LOL In chart news, Billboard has published its
year end charts. Fame came in at #36 on the Dance Club Play
chart for 2009. And Donna herself came in at #21 on the Dance Club Play
Artists of the Decade chart. So this is definitely Donna's week. :-)
(Rock Hall - I HOPE you are paying attention - and I hope you were watching
the concert.)
[DEC 13] Donna did a benefit in
California recently. The Orange
County Register has a brief article about the show.
[DEC 13] I think that brings us
to the web news. Over on YouTube, the Nobel clips are taking over. Any
number of users have posted something from the show. In non-Nobel clips,
look for Fernando's
videos for Can't We Just Sit Down and Maybe It's Over. Glen
Rivera has added his Restructured mix for Down Deep Inside, and
who is the wise guy who posted Na
Na Hey Hey? LOL On Multiply, Steve
has grabbed the best of YouTube, and posted them on his page (along with
some cool remixes too.)
[DEC 13] And finally - the
deadline for egreetings is Friday. I have a whole bunch more to post but
there is always room for more. If you haven't sent in your message for Donna
yet, time is ticking away! (Although if someone could find away to add
a few extra weeks to get ready for Christmas, that would be really helpful.
I still have way more stuff to do to get ready and my boss hates it if I
just call out "sick" for days and days in a row. LOL)
[DEC 12] I'm still not up to
the weekly update yet, but I have a little more on yesterday's concert for
you. First of all, Man In The Mirror (as predicted) has made
its way to YouTube.
I have to say, 24 hours later and I am still completely psyched about the
concert. It has to be one of Donna's best TV appearances ever.
:-) I feel like I got my Christmas present early. Santa can skip my
house now. LOL Anyway, for those of you who like a little
streaming audio, I think that can be arranged.
;-) Obviously I don't own the clips, so I will pull the file at the request
of the copyright owners. And in keeping with the spirit of the event
and the season, if you like what you hear then think about how much the
songs would cost you at iTunes (or wherever) and take that amount of money
and give it to an appropriate charity.
[DEC 12] I guess I'll see you
guys tomorrow night with the weekly update. And in all the concert
excitement, I forgot to say Happy Chanukah to all my Jewish friends out
there! Have a safe and joyful celebration. :-)
[DEC 11] This could be an
interesting update from a technical standpoint. I'm updating a backup copy
of the site on a usb drive. That might do strange things when I publish the
update. I have my fingers crossed that it goes well.
[DEC 11] Okay - the reason I'm
here is the Nobel Peace Prize. As most of you know, Donna performed at the
concert in Norway today. She was also present at the ceremony last night,
and she was part of a press conference earlier today. Let's run down
things in order. First up is the ceremony. Donna and Bruce were there
in the audience and they got a couple of nice close ups here and there. You
can watch the ceremony on NRK
here. It's the whole thing from beginning to end. You can
see Donna and Bruce at about the 5 minute mark as the camera picks up all
the performers in the audience. Then you can see Donna (and sometimes Bruce)
a couple of times during Obama's speech. Then this morning the concert
performers all turned up for a press conference that is also currently
available on NRK.
Donna is on camera a lot of the time since she was sitting right next to
Will Smith (who was cracking a lot of jokes throughout). She gets to answer
a question at about the 21 minute mark.
[DEC 11] Moving on to the
concert itself. Donna was the closing act and she got to sing She Works
Hard For The Money, Bad Girls/Hot Stuff, Last Dance and
then she joined the entire cast for Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror.
Donna sounded great, she looked great and it really seemed like she was
having fun at the show. Which made it all the more frustrating if you
were watching the concert online. Let me explain. If you
were watching the CNN feed, things were going great.... until shortly after
Amadou & Mariam's set. Right there in the middle of a pre-recorded
interview with Obama, CNN lost the feed. UGH! Apparently if you
stuck with it or kept retrying it, they got it back many songs later - just
in time for the end of Hot Stuff. If you were like me and switched to
the NRK feed, it was great.... until it died in the middle of Hot Stuff.
(They probably heard me yelling all the way in Oslo. LOL) Now, CNN did
repeat the concert a couple of hours later and I guess they lost the footage
from where they originally dropped the feed. So the show cut from the
pre-recorded interview with Obama to the end of Hot Stuff. So I was able to
see the whole thing finally - just in odd pieces. LOL And (fingers
crossed) I did grab some audio that I hope to share with you since the
concert is no longer available on NRK and I don't think it's fully available
on the CNN website. Someone has uploaded Donna's part of the concert on YouTube.
It was obviously videotaped off a computer (or TV screen) so the video is a
little fuzzy and the audio a little tinny. But it's definitely worth
watching. (And I suspect there will be higher quality copies posted over the
weekend. I'll let you know on the weekly update.) Donna's part of the show
was posted in 3 parts so make sure you watch all 3. (As of this writing, Man
In The Mirror is not posted yet - but that could change at any time.)
[DEC 11] In the land of photos
- you have to know that there will be a bunch with an event like the Nobel
Peace Prize. :-) Head over to Getty
Images for pictures from the concert rehearsal, the press conference,
and the actual performance. You can see larger versions of the performance
photos at Daylife.com.
[DEC 11] Finally - there is a
chance we may get to see the concert on US television next year. If I hear
any more on that I'll let you know. If you get the chance to watch the whole
show, I recommend it. Before I had to curse the lost feeds LOL,
I did discover a few interesting artists that I may explore further. Okay.
I'm going to press upload now. Hopefully the whole internet won't explode.
[DEC 6] There is still plenty
of time to send in your egreetings. I have a bunch more to add to the
page, but there is always room for more. (Actually depending on when you see
this update, I either have a bunch to add or I just added a bunch. I plan to
work on those after I publish the update.)
[DEC 6] So, I know you are all
wondering about the Nobel
Peace Prize concert. That happens at 8 PM (local time) in Oslo
this Friday. The good news is that Norwegian fans will be able to watch the
show live on NRK1 at 7:55 PM. The better news is that the rest of us won't
be totally shut out. CNN
will be airing it live on the web. (Do I see a big international watching
party shaping up?) Now if you need to find out what time 8 PM in Oslo
is for you, check out this World
Clock. (If you can't find a city in your time zone on that list, then
you need to move. LOL) Last I heard, Donna is sharing the bill with
Natasha Bedingfield, Wyclef Jean, Toby Keith, Lang Lang, Esperanza Spading,
Westlife, Luis Fonsi, Alexander Rybak, and Amadou & Mariam. So it's
going to be a big eclectic show, which means there will only be a few Donna
songs in there.
[DEC 6] Thank God It's
Friday fans, you can catch the movie on Turner Classic Movies
(regular and HD) on Saturday December 19 at 3:45 AM. (Personally - I think
I'll stick with the DVD. 3:45 is not good if I have to be at work in the
morning. LOL)
[DEC 6] In web news, over on
YouTube look for Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over) from Fernando,
a couple of Christmas clips from stampyurfeet
(including his own take on Christmas Spirit), and Donna's Oscar night
performance of Last
Dance. Also look for circuitmusicusa's
video that combines Klyk's great mix of Be Myself Again with the
original.
[DEC 1] It's officially
December, so that means that it's time for the new Summer Fever pick. I bet
you will never guess what I picked? LOL On a more serious note, today
is World AIDS Day. If you are looking for something you can do to raise
awareness, or fight the good fight - Google has compiled a list of relevant
links.
[NOV 29] Ahhh - the update that
almost wasn't..... I had a few computer problems tonight. A
flamethrower and a sledgehammer seemed to fix it though. ;-) I'm
posting the next batch of egreetings on the not public but not particularly
hidden page in progress. There is still plenty of room for those of you who
haven't written in yet. :-)
[NOV 29] On to the news.
We're going to start in Brazil where a company is putting out a compilation
DVD called Musas
do Pop that has 7 of Donna's videos followed by 6 Diana Ross
videos. I find it amusing that one of the Diana videos is for a song that
casual fans often mistake for a Donna song. (I wonder if the DVD will help
that situation, or make it worse? LOL ) For the most part,
Donna's selection of videos are the hits... with the interesting addition of
Fame (The Game). It will be interesting to see what clips are
used because regular music videos don't exist for some of Donna's
tracks. The DVD comes out December 1 and it looks like there will be
no region code on it. It will be in NTSC format though, so those of
you with PAL systems may have to stick to playing it on your computer. I'm
sure our Brazilian friends will have more info when the DVD comes out, since
they will get to watch it first. :-)
[NOV 29] In Rock Hall Of Fame
news, DigitalDreamDoor
has an article discussing the merits of all of this year's nominees. They
consider Donna one of the stronger contenders this year - if the disco label
doesn't blow the whole thing. (I say if they don't induct Donna, we
drop a giant disco ball on the Hall Of Fame. The hardcore rock fans would
have a fit! LOL)
[NOV 29] Casablanca fans (the
label that is, not the movie ;-) ) Larry Harris, author of And
Party Every Day: The Inside Story Of Casablanca Records [Amazon,
Amazon
UK], is making the rounds. He was interviewed by the Chicago
Tribune recently (and the print article was accompanied by a nice
big picture of Donna). If you haven't checked out the book yet,
you need to. It's quite an interesting read - just some of the stuff they
got away with back then! LOL (I think it would be nearly
impossible for a label like Casablanca to survive these days - I think the
music industry and radio have become way too corporate to accommodate
mavericks and risk-takers.)
[NOV 29] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets quoted in a Pop
Matters article about Tina Turner. (The author is none other than our
friend Christian Wikane.) You can read Donna's quote on page 5 of the
article, or check it out below where I made it the quote of the week. :-)
(On a non-Donna note, I dare you to read that whole article and then not
immediately pull out Private Dancer to give it another
listen.)
[NOV 29] Moving on to the web
news for the week - over at YouTube, SlickRickDog
has posted a bunch of classic clips including an unplugged version of On
The Radio with Bruce on guitar. Fernando
has posted a couple of new videos including his take on Fred Astaire
- that actually has Fred dancing to Donna. :-) And Glen
Rivera has posted 2 new Restructured mixes from the Once Upon A
Time album. If you are hanging around Multiply, Steve
has grabbed a number of the latest YouTube clips and posted them over there.
[NOV 22] We're up to about 17
egreetings now - including one video greeting. :-) I've started
putting them on the site, but the page won't be made public until I'm ready
to email the link to the powers that be. Having said that, I know that some
of you are nosy and will snoop around the incomplete page. LOL (It's
not hard to find if you are so inclined.) Just keep in mind if you are
snooping that it is VERY MUCH under construction so there are placeholders
everywhere. LOL
[NOV 22] On to the news.
Donna is doing a fundraiser in Costa Mesa on December 4 at the Orange County
Performing Arts Center. You can read the press release in PDF format here.
It gives the number to call to inquire about tickets - but it also says that
seating is limited. That probably means "expensive."
:-) (Hey, it is a fundraiser after all.)
[NOV 22] Earlier this week we
had the Elton John AIDS Foundation benefit. It's been getting a lot of
mentions on the web, but unfortunately most of the Donna part of the
coverage is just a mention that she performed. ET
and Fox
both have video coverage of the event - but neither features any footage of
Donna. There are photos from Donna's performance posted at WireImage.com.
(Looks like she had Smile in the line up.) Some of those migrated to Life's
website where you can see them larger. (They also have some Coney Island
pictures as well.)
[NOV 22] In other concert news,
The Nobel Peace Prize Concert is coming up soon - December 11. It looks like
they've added a couple more artists to the lineup - it's shaping up to be
quite an eclectic mix of styles. The Nobel
site has a video up now with highlights from past concerts, so you can
get an idea what the shows are usually like. The concert will air live on
NRK1 in Norway, and I'm sure it will be picked up in at least a few other
countries as well. I think we'll all have to keep an eye on our local TV
listings for awhile. :-)
[NOV 22] In The Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in an
interview with Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. (Apparently without I Feel
Love, Jim Kerr would still be in a punk band. Rock Hall are you paying
attention???) Another fan of I Feel Love is Vaugh Harris of
Nitzer Ebb. He mentions the song in an recent
interview too. If you are looking for something more visual, a recent
music auction by the Phillips de Pury auction house included a rhinestone
portrait of Donna done by Mickalene Thomas. There is a photo of it on the NY
Times The Moment
blog. (Thank god they showed that instead of the self-portrait in
blood by Pete Doherty that was also up for sale. Creepy!)
[NOV 22] That brings us to the
web news. Fans of Klykthemixer
will be happy to know that he's posted a number of new things recently,
including a dance version of Be Myself Again. To be totally honest, I
thought I would hate it. (I'm a ballad freak, remember. LOL And Be
Myself Again is amazing just the way it is.) But I played the mix
tonight and to my amazement - I liked it. He did a really nice job on
it. You can catch it on Multiply too courtesy of Steve,
who has also posted about a billion photos from various times in Donna's
career (don't miss the Bad Girls billboard!) and a few video
clips, including the music clips from Family Matters. On
YouTube, look for a clip of If
You're Walking Alone by Kraftwerk2012. (It's meant to be just the
music, but you get a good look at the single sleeve and I found the
comments going across the screen amusing.) Also look for Driving
Down Brazil live, and I'm
A Fire live. (Hey - I just realized Bruce was back on stage for
Brazil.) Slickrickdog
has added a number of videos to his collection this week, and Fernando
has posted a Last Dance remix.
[NOV 22] I think that's it for
the week. Before I go I just want to wish all my American friends a Happy
Thanksgiving (and a safe Black Friday if you are crazy enough to go
out shopping.) For everybody outside the USA - take Thursday
off. You deserve an extra day off from work. ;-)
[NOV 14] I'm updating a day
early because I have plans tomorrow night that will keep me off the computer
most of the evening. (Alert the media - I have a life! LOL! )
The Egreetings are starting to roll in - I have about 7 or 8 now (and I will
email you guys soon to confirm I have them). There is still plenty of time
for the rest of you to jump in with your messages. :-) And
before I get to the news, I have a new Ken's
Korner posted for you this week. I should warn you Madonna and
Whitney fans out there, that Ken has started to sharpen his claws again.
(Although this one is still pretty tame for him. LOL) He's compiled
some nice comments about Donna from YouTube though.
[NOV 14] So the big news this
week is Brazil. :-) As most of you know - Donna performed in Rio
and São Paulo this week. I have a couple of fan reports and photos on the Brazil
page. On the professional side - there is a review on Globo.com
(with a slideshow on the bottom of the page.) It's in Portuguese of
course so if that's not your language, head over to Google for a
translation. (Or find a cute translator to help you out. ;-) )
[NOV 14] The Brazilians weren't
shy about sharing a few highlights on YouTube. :-) Dvb1980mlvc1958
has a whole bunch of clips posted. (The one labeled Enough
Is Enough is actually Driving Down Brazil.)
[NOV 14] We also have a new
interview out of Brazil on Globo.com.
That's also in Portuguese so keep your cute translator nearby. ;-) And
there is a video interview posted on YouTube.
Now that interview was done in English, but then the Portuguese translation
was overdubbed on to it. If you speak Portuguese, just listed to the
overdub, if you speak English just try to listen to the original audio under
the translation (it takes some concentration but it can be done), and if you
don't speak either language.... well, then I'm really impressed that
you are here trying to make heads or tails out of what I'm typing. :-)
[NOV 14] Moving across the
ocean there is an article out there from last year on Abendzeitung.de
that features quotes about Donna from Helmuth Sommer. That one is on German,
so you'll have to trade in your cute Portuguese translator for a cute German
one.
[NOV 14] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention on a blog from Metro
News Edmonton in which the author counts down his favorite disco
acts. (He also invites people to chime in with their own choices in the
comments.) Donna comes in at number 3 on his list.
[NOV 14] Here on Long Island
NPR station WLIU (88.3)
is in the midst of a much needed fundraising drive. Today they played
Donna's version of A Whole New World, and then had this to say: "We are huge supporters of Donna Summer, and what better role model is there to
have." If you are in the Eastern Long Island or Southeastern
Connecticut area, check them out on the radio - everyone else can catch the
stream on the website.
[NOV 14] Casablanca fans, Larry
Harris was on ABC TV in Chicago recently plugging And Party Every Day.
He talked a little about Donna, among other things. You can catch the video
on the ABC
website. Larry has been making the rounds, so keep an eye on your local
news, etc.
[NOV 14] I think that brings us
to the web news. Over on YouTube, the guys at CasbahbookTV
have updated their classic clip list with Donna's I Feel Love, a Thank
God It's Friday promo reel, and a rare Brooklyn Dreams promo. The I
Feel Love clip is the same one VH1 uses a lot, but I believe VH1 usually
edits it. The one posted by CasbahbookTV is full length. SlickRickDog
has posted a ton of classic clips including the video portion of the video
for When Love Takes Over You. (He couldn't post it with the original
audio for copyright reasons, but if you mute the volume on YouTube and crank
up the album track in iTunes or whatever, you'll get a good idea of how the
video is supposed to be.) Also look for several new videos from Fernando
including one for Let There Be Peace - which he dedicates to everyone
who has sacrificed their lives in world or regional conflicts. (Humans have
been on this Earth for how many thousand years and we still haven't figured
how to get along with each other?) On Multiply, Patrice
has posted a few of his photo creations for Once Upon A Time
and Crayons, and Jeffrey
has posted a video for I Got Your Love.
[NOV 8] Let's start off with
the official commencement of EGreetings for Donna 2009. Most of you guys
know the drill. Send your holiday/birthday message for Donna and family to
me at webmaster@donna-tribute.com
(or any other email you happen to have for me) and put "egreetings"
or something like that in the subject to make things easier to sort out. If
you want to include a picture, that's cool. If you want to make a video -
post it on YouTube and I'll embed it on the egreetings page. If you have
your own site and want to build a page of your own as a holiday greeting,
send me the link and I'll make sure the powers that be get it. I
thought it would be fun if this year in addition to whatever message you
want to send, you could list your 2 or 3 favorite live tracks from any show
you've been to (or seen on video), and 2 or 3 songs you would love to see
live. Let's make the deadline December 18 so I have time to get the
page up and the links emailed in time for Christmas. Get writing! :-)
(By the way - I will take messages in any language Google can translate -
but if you are writing in anything other than English you will have to do
your own spell checking.)
[NOV 8] I finally got my copy
of And
Party Every Day: The Inside Story Of Casablanca Records [Amazon,
Amazon
UK]. I'm nowhere near done reading it yet (I've barely started the Donna
part so far! LOL) but I have to say it's an interesting read. So far
I've had a nice look at how Casablanca got started, and how Neil Bogart
liked to operate. There are excerpts posted online, so check it out if you
haven't already.
[NOV 8] Brazil - don't forget
(as if you could! LOL) that you will be seeing Donna in concert this
week. I hope to hear about the show from some of you later in the
week. :-)
[NOV 8] This isn't specifically
Donna-related, but if any of you have tried to access the Burgundy website
lately then you have noticed that it redirects you to the site for Sony's
Legacy imprint. It looks like Burgundy is gone. It was a fun ride
while it lasted. Legacy does have a page on its site for Donna
that includes info for both Crayons and Live & More
Encore.
[NOV 8] There are a couple of
new articles out there about the Rock Hall Of Fame nominations:
The
LA Times blog (The author isn't too happy about this year's nominees -
he's in the "not enough rock" camp") The
Gloucester Times (That's more about Laura Nyro than anything else)
[NOV 8] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a very brief mention in an
article about the new Bee Gees compilation.
[NOV 8] Moving on to the web
news, if you haven't been over to Donna
Summertime lately then it's time to go back. Sebastiano has given
the site a facelift with an all new color scheme. (I think he's got his own
box of Crayons happening over there - I like it!) On YouTube, Fernando has
posted a video for the Gentlemen Thieves Madonna vs Donna I
Feel A Beautiful Stranger.
(For more Gentlemen Thieves Donna/Madonna mashups, check out this blog.)
On Multiply, look for Patrice'sNo More Tears mix, and a couple of music clips from Steve.
[NOV 1] Ok, for the life of me
I don't know how it got to be November already. Did we skip some months
somewhere? Before we get to the regular news, Bruce (and Brooklyn
Dreams) fans will want to check the Family Matters
section below. Also, since it's a new month that means it's time for a new Summer
Fever pick. This month we go back to revisit Love To Love You
- now updated with streaming MP3 clips.
[NOV 1] Remember that treat I
announced yesterday - I guess it was a trick after all. Ahhh...
Halloween! LOL Actually I think some wires just got crossed
somewhere. Donna didn't actually call in to Dave Marsh this morning, but I
understand that he did talk about her Hall Of Fame nomination a little bit.
(Thanks to my job I was going to have to wait for the repeat broadcast
Wednesday anyway.)
[NOV 1] Donna will be
performing in New York at Elton John's annual AIDS Foundation benefit on
November 16. It will be at Cipriani's on Wall Street - but
before you run off to get your credit cards so you can get tickets, you
should know that tickets start at $2500 and go up from there. (I'm gonna
have to ask my boss for a BIG raise! LOL) If that fits in your price
range, well then adopt me already. LOL No seriously, if that
fits in your price range, I have the info for buying tickets here
in a PDF file. I also have the announcement
in PDF format for those who just want to see it. By the way, Sir Elton had
this to say about Donna: "Donna Summer's energy, voice and spirit are going to electrify our guests and I can't wait to share the stage with her. Donna has been a tremendous supporter of the Elton John AIDS Foundation for many years, and I am so excited that she has agreed to perform for our 'An Enduring Vision' event."
You can read more about the event at LiveDaily.com.
[NOV 1] Donna is featured in
the October 23 Ask
Billboard column. Aside from the nice big picture that greets you
when you open the page - there is a little info on Live & More a little
further down the page.
[NOV 1] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a brief mention in Perez
Hilton in a discussion of a possible sequel for Mama Mia. (He proposes
possibly using Donna's music in the sequel since ABBA won't let their music
be in the sequel.)
[NOV 1] In cover news, Dolly
Parton has a box set out called Dolly [Amazon,
Amazon
UK] that includes the Summer/Sudano composition, Starting
Over Again.
[NOV 1] I think that brings us
to the web news. On YouTube, the guys at CasablancaBookTV
have unearthed a live clip of Heaven Knows and the studio footage of Live
& More. (And I know this isn't Donna-related, but I know some of
you will be interested in the rare Paul Jabara clip and the Patti Brooks
clip that was also posted this week.) Fernando
has posted about a half a dozen new clips, including his video for Ordinary
Miracle. SlickRickDog
has posted a classic interview from the All Systems Go era,
and look for a very nice live clip of Heaven's
Just A Whisper Away. On Multiply, look for a couple of new mixes
from Andy, and a
classic photo from Steve.
(Steve, were you sick or something this week? My Multiply inbox wasn't
packed with your uploads this time. LOL)
[OCT 31] Happy Halloween everyone! No tricks tonight -
only a real treat. :-) Tomorrow (November 1) morning Donna will
be interviewed on the Sirius/XM channel, The Loft. (Channel 29 on Sirius,
channel 50 on XM) The show is called Kick Out The Jams and Donna will be on
starting some time between 10:20 and 10:30 AM. The interview runs about 20
minutes and is being done by Dave Marsh - so it should be good. Now if
you miss out for any reason, the interview will be repeated Wednesday
November 4 at midnight. I'll be back either later tonight or tomorrow
with the rest of the update - I just wanted this out there now.
:-) By the way, if you don't subscribe to either Sirius
or XM, you can get a
free 7 day trial online subscription for either at their websites.
[OCT 24] I added one more short
report from the LA concert last month. You can find that in the Los
Angeles page.
[OCT 24] There is an article at
MixBrazil
promoting the upcoming concerts down there. The article is in Portuguese, so
you'll have to use Google or a bilingual buddy if that's not your language.
[OCT 24] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a very brief mention in a short interview with
Pete Waterman on the Guardian's
website.
[OCT 24] In web news, of you
don't usually hang out at Klyk the mixer's website
- you need to go there. He's posted a ton of his mixes - the latest being a
mashup of Donna, Lady GaGa and Beyonce. Over on YouTube, CasablancaBookTV
has added a 1978 Donna commercial (geared more towards the TGIF release),
and an animated version of the Casablanca record logo. They will have more
clips later in the week. Stevescissors
has posted a clip of Donna and the Brooklyn Dreams covering I Heard It
Through The Grapevine, and SlickRickDog
has posted a new batch of classics. Look for the ET interview from Nashville
that features a little bit of Worth The Wait and So This Is Lonely
near the end. Also, hiwayrunner
has the whole Hollywood Walk Of Fame ceremony up on his channel (posted in 4
parts), and Fernando
has posted one of his video creations for Autumn Changes. Over on
Multiply, Steve
has posted pretty much anything you may have missed on YouTube, along with a
few mixes and live track, and Carl
has posted a few of Klyk's mixes.
[OCT 18] Let's start off with
some Casablanca news. As most of you know there is a new book out
there called And
Party Every Day: The Inside Story Of Casablanca Records [Amazon,
Amazon
UK]. The author, Larry Harris, has joined us on the
forum and is happily answering questions from the inmates at the
asylum. ;-) You may run into co-author Curt Gooch there too. The
post inder the names TalkHarris and Casbahbook respectively. (Just a note
about the forum - all are welcome to come and read, but if you want to post
you will have to sign up for a free account at Delphi. Also, most of the
regulars there are adults who have been known to display an adult sense of
humor, so kids should only explore under the supervision of mom or dad.)
[OCT 18] The German magazine, BLU,
posted an article about the Berlin concert on their website. The article is
in German (which should surprise absolutely no one LOL) so if that's
not your language, just remember that Google is your friend. (Or find
someone cute who can translate for you. ;-) )
[OCT 18] In the world of
auctions, NBC is auctioning a Gibson
Flying V guitar that has been autographed by a number of
celebrities including Donna. The auction ends on October 23 and all proceeds
will go to support the United Way.
[OCT 18] Moving on to the web
news, on YouTube look for a behind the scenes clip of Thank God It's
Friday (and the TV commercial) courtesy of CasablancaBookTV.
(Look for new clips there during the week too - not just Donna but other
classic Casablanca artists as well.) Fernando
has posted one of his video slideshows for the Gene Simmons song Burning
Up With Fever (you might recognize a certain female vocalist who appears
on that track ;-) ) , and another video for Andy's Dim All The
Lights remix. SlickRickDog
has posted a whole bunch of classic clips - including a Tonight Show clip
promoting All Systems Go..... or promoting her dress. It's
hard to tell from the beginning of the conversation. LOL On
Multiply, Steve
has gone nuts again and posted 8 or 9 clips. :-) And Patrice
has posted a clip of I Will Go With You. I forgot to mention last
week that Stampyourfeet has reposted his excellent Obama Power Of One
video on Vimeo.
Whatever you may think of Obama now (the rule is that once someone becomes
President, at least half the people have to hate him regardless of who they
voted for LOL), election night was truly an amazing event to watch and
Stampyourfeet really captured the moment.
[OCT 13] NPR is putting
together a year long celebration of the greatest voices in recorded history.
They are asking listeners to submit their nominations - the only catch is
that the deadline is October 16. Check the NPR
website for more details. (I'm off to YouTube to find a clip to support
my nomination - can you guess who that might be? ;-) )
[OCT 11] If you missed my
tweet, the meet and greet photos from Windsor,
ON are up on Pbase now. Nevada - I know there should be more photos for
your show - just hang in there. :-)
[OCT 11] Well, the big news is
that now that President Obama is getting a Nobel Peace Prize, the
festivities should get more attention here in the US. So hopefully
that will translate into more opportunities to see footage and or photos
from the concert. (Forget what any of you may think of Obama's win pro or
con - anything that means more Donna coverage is a good thing! ;-) )
[OCT 11] Speaking of
awards - there is a petition online to encourage the Rock & Roll Hall Of
Fame voters to pick Donna this year. You can check it out (and sign
it) here.
[OCT 11] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in the Jack
& Jill politics blog of al places. (Apparently one of the posters
ran into her out shopping somewhere.) She also gets a very brief mention in
a Guardian
article on the Moog machine. She also gets a mention in the new memoir
by Robert Hilburn. [Amazon,
Amazon
UK] He recounts a
story about John Lennon's reaction to The Wanderer single.
[OCT 11] A fan by the name of
Nik Ramli is working on a book about Donna. You can keep track of his
progress at his Donna Summer group on Facebook.
[OCT 11] That brings us to the
web news. On YouTube look for a longer mix of Fame
posted by xavirocat, probably a dozen more classic clips from Slickrickdog,
and a couple of new ones from Fernando
including a video of I Feel Love made from clips from several
different performances. And keep an eye on CasablancaBookTV's
channel - they add stuff every week. On Multiply, check out Steve's
profile for I don't even know how many more classic clips. (I
tried to count, but I ran out of fingers. LOL) Jeffrey
has posted the Showbiz Chicago interview, and Carl
has posted the Mlle Lucy 2009 mix of So This Is Lonely.
[OCT 6] How many times can I
upload the news before work? LOL The Donna interview I mentioned
below is available online at ShowbizChicago.com.
(It's their .net domain that died suddenly.) Donna is right there on the
main page - just click her picture to play the interview.
[OCT 6] Ok - if any of you were
at the meet and greets for the shows in Hammond, or Foxwoods - your photos
are up on the Pbase
site. Windsor and LA - just be patient. :-) Wait I'm wrong - LA is up
too. They sneaked it up as I was updating. :-)
[OCT 6] We had a new interview
with Donna out there courtesy of Showbiz
Chicago. Apparently the site went down shortly after they posted
it. If it doesn't come back up soon, I'll make the interview
available.
[OCT 6] I have a fan report and
photos from Los Angeles courtesy of Jonathan. You can find that on the LA
page.
[OCT 4] Nevada - if you were at
a meet and greet, a few of the pictures have made it to Pbase.com.
Windsor, Hammond, Foxwoods, LA, and the rest of the Nevada guys .... just be
patient. :-)
[OCT 4] The Rock & Roll
Hall of Fame is still in the news. Here is the latest crop of articles:
PopMatters.com
(explains the case for a number of the nominees through words and video) Cleveland
Plain Dealer (tries to predict which nominees will make the final cut) Brazil
Times Blog (mainly a rant about Chicago not being on the list)
[OCT 4] Here's a blast from the
past for you, WolfgangsVault.com
has a classic interview with Donna from 1982. It was done to promote the Donna
Summer album, and it runs almost 40 minutes. You will have to
register to listen (it's free) and registration will give you access to
plenty of other concerts and interviews by other artists (some of which can
be downloaded legally for a small fee.)
[OCT 4] For those of you who
like photos - Wireimage.com
has posted a whole bunch from Coney Island.
[OCT 4] The DailyBulletin.com
site has a quick wrap up of the LA County Fair. Donna gets a brief mention.
[OCT 4] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, the CasablancaBookTV
guys have posted some more rare Casablanca clips including MacArthur Park.
(That's the same footage VH1 uses sometimes - only this clip is longer.) Fernando
has posted a couple of clips including his Hot Stuff video medley
(clips of various performances combined into one video), a slideshow video
for Science Of Love, and another slideshow for the Donna vs.
Freemasons mix With Your Love (On My Mind). On Multiply, Steve
has gone insane again and posted probably a dozen clips. :-)
[OCT 4] I'll be officially
starting up the E-Greetings for Donna in a couple of weeks. But this year I
wanted to give you a heads-up because I'm going make you work just a little
bit. (In the words of RuPaul - You better work! ;-) ) I
was thinking about this years concerts and how the shows varied a bit from
venue to venue, and I thought it might be fun to ask you guys to do 2
things. Along with whatever holiday/birthday message you want to send - I
thought it would be fun if you would list 3 (and no more than 3) songs that
you would love to see Donna perform in a show someday, and then your 3
favorite songs that you have already seen in a show. (The songs that you
want to see performed can be anything at all - back catalog stuff, covers,
the phonebook.... anything that you would enjoy. Your favorite songs that
have already been performed can be from a show from any point in Donna's
career - and they could be songs you saw in person, or on TV or
on YouTube, or whenever.) I figured that since I'm limiting you to only 3
songs for each category, you'll want some time to think about it. (I know I
do - usually my answer for what I want to see Donna sing is "the entire
back catalog". LOL) I haven't decided on a deadline for the
E-Greetings yet but it will be in mid-December, so you have about 2 months
to think and then write. :-) Oh - one more thing. This year if you
want to make a video greeting for Donna, and upload it to YouTube, I'll
embed it in the E-Greetings page. (You'll have to upload it to YouTube
or one of those services though - I don't host video on my site.) I know we
have a few creative people out there who might like that option. :-)
[SEP 30] Well, since it's going
to be October 1 in a few minutes here, I might as well post the new Summer
Fever pick. This month it's The Wanderer and I've updated
the page with streaming MP3 clips.
[SEP 30] While I'm here - some
of the performers for the Nobel
Peace Prize concert have been announced. Donna is one of them.
:-) The concert will be held December 11 in Oslo Norway and usually it
gets picked up by television in several countries.
[SEP 27] Ok, Miami - I did a
little digging and I found your concert info. It turns out the date is a
fundraising gala at Trump's Mar-A-Lago. So I'd say this event will be for
those with deep pockets. It's part of the Yacht
Rendezvous event and the proceeds will benefit the Boys & Girls
Clubs. (That explains a concert in November. Donna usually seems to play
Florida in February - like a true snowbird! LOL)
[SEP 27] Speaking of tour
stuff... For anyone who was at a meet and greet in either 2008 or 2009, your
photos with Donna are posted at pbase.com/donnasummertour.
Now, PBase has had some sort of power failure that knocked out the
database. So the site has been down for several days now. They are
working on the problem over there and hopefully they will have everything up
and running in a day or two. (Then allow some time after that for Donna's
team to upload photos from the recent shows.)
[SEP 27] The big news for the
week is still the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Articles are popping up all
over the place, and I have a few of them here for you:
There are probably about 40 billion more articles out there
that all say the same thing. And many of the websites will let you
post comments about your favorite nominee - but if you decide to
participate, expect an argument. There has never been a nominee (or
inductee for that matter) that hasn't had his or her fair share of "why
are THEY on the list instead of.... (insert name of some other artist).
[SEP 27] Moving on to
Casablanca Records - there is a book coming out in just a couple of weeks
called And Party Every Day: The Inside Story Of Casablanca Records.
[Amazon,
Amazon
UK] You can read excerpts of the book on Casablancabook.com
and make sure you check out their YouTube
channel. They have a number of rare clips of Casablanca artists -
including a TV commercial for Love To Love You that I have never seen
before. They plan to keep adding stuff, so check in from time to time to see
what's new. If you want a signed copy if the book from the authors, you can
buy one from the CasablancaBook
site.
[SEP 27] I think that will
bring us to the web news. Over on YouTube, ErykKarl
has a couple of great clips from the recent concert in Los Angeles. There is
also a clip of Last
Dance from Nevada, and SlickRickDog
has added a ton of classic clips to his channel. On Multiply, look for the
extended single mix of Heaven Knows courtesy of Jeffrey
and a new photo gallery from Patrice.
[SEP 23] The list of Rock
& Roll Fame nominees came out today. There are 12 artists on the
list - 5 of whom will actually be inducted next year. The 12 on the ballot
are: ABBA, Darlene Love, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, Kiss, Laura Nyro, LL
Cool J (he's been around long enough? Damn, I'm getting old. LOL),
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Chantels, The Hollies, The Stooges, and someone
named Donna Summer. :-) Here's hoping the second time is the
charm!
[SEP 20] Brazil, did you catch
the midweek update? :-) If not, you need to look at the tour
schedule below. Florida - I don't have details yet, but Miami
fans need to keep November 14 open. I'll get you venue info when I
have it.
[SEP 20] Believe it or not,
that brings us to the web news already. (Other than the concerts it's been a
very slow week.) On Multiply, I think Steve
has reposted all of YouTube on his page. ;-) Seriously - he's
got a ton of stuff there, you could spend all week there just checking out
Donna videos. Over on YouTube itself, look for a bunch of classic
interviews posted by SlickRickDog.
And even more interesting is the commercial he posted for the original Live
& More album from 1978. (It has short clips from the
concert. How do we get THAT footage released??) Fernando has posted
one of his video mixes for Power
Of Love, and finally there is a remixed video cover of I
Feel Love posted by ChrLoveFeel that is.... very dark and very
disturbing. (Send the kids out of the room before you watch.) Check it
out if that's your thing - or save it for Halloween. (The cover itself isn't
bad, it's just the video imagery that is ... unusual.)
[SEP 20] That's it for now
other than one tiny site announcement. I decided to keep my Twitter Feed on
the site even though it's pretty boring usually (and not necessarily
Donna-related). It lives with the editorials below. (And as soon as I finish
writing it, I'll have my own editorial for a change.) Also, I made a little
wallpaper thing for my phone and I thought I'd post here in case anyone else
likes it. (Just right click it to save it to your computer - then you are on
your own when it comes to getting it to your phone. LOL) The photos
were taken by Ruud in Holland and me:
[SEP 17] Hello BRAZIL! I have confirmation that you will be seeing Donna in
Rio
de Janeiro on November 9, and in São Paulo
on November 10 and 12. Tickets will go on sale through Ticketmaster
Brazil starting September 19. (Right now only one São Paulo date
is listed - the other will turn up eventually. :-) ) The
September 19 date looks like a presale date for Citibank customers. If it
works like it did in the US last time I ran into a Citibank presale, you
didn't actually need to use a Citibank card to buy the tickets. You only
needed to provide the first 4 digits of a Citibank card as the password to
get into the presale.
[SEP 13] Important stuff first:
Rio - I know there has been a report online that Donna will be playing there
this fall.... hang in there, I'm waiting for confirmation one way or the
other.
[SEP 13] Italy's La
Repubblica has posted a blog entry that lists 25 songs about
work. She Works Hard For The Money comes in at #16. (And the article
is mostly in English, mainly because I think they got it from Yahoo.)
[SEP 13] Moving on to the Rock
And Roll Hall Of Fame. No, the nominees haven't been announced just yet, but
that should be happening soon. So far I've already run into one
article proposing Weird Al Yankovic as a potential inductee. So I figure
that means any day now we'll start seeing more articles and blogs debating
who should be in the class of 2010. Get ready to start posting your
opinions. ;-)
[SEP 13] In cover news, I
Feel Love is the hot track lately. X
Factor's Niki Evans has her version coming out later this month, and
I've been running into last year's R.O.N.Y
cover a lot lately.
[SEP 13] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on Multiply, look for Carlybabes Studio 54 remix
of Love
On And On. On YouTube,GrabTheCrap
(love that screenname LOL) has posted more from Berlin, Fernando
has posted a couple more of his video creations including one that combines Who
Do You Think You're Fooling with Fame.
[SEP 7] And finally the my Foxwoods
report is posted. I also added 2 pictures to the Coney
Island page.
[SEP 7] While I'm here, I got
an email from a Japanese speaking fan who was able to enlighten me on the
mystery titles from the Best Selection compilation. (See
below) The mystery tracks were: Narrative Passion, Temptation Of Love, The Wizard Of Love and
Ankondishonaru Love. I was right about
Ankondishonaru Love being Unconditional Love. Temptation Of Love is Love
To Love You, Wizard Of Love is Love Is In Control, and you are
gonna love this one. "Narrative Passion" is She Works Hard For
The Money. Yes, really. LOL I'll share a bit of the email I got just to
explain where that title came from: "In Japan, until 20 years ago or so some English songs which had a bit too long title were normally translated into Japanese
and some of them had very different titles, so that you had to think the meaning
'behind'. So let me start off with 'Narrative Passion'. <snip> It's more like
'A Story of Passion' (Jounetsu Monogatari) actually and ...Why? Because this is
'a story' of Onetta who works 'passionately' for her life. (Though she was actually half asleep at the toilet entrance ...Sorry Onetta!
LOL)"
He then went on to share some other alternate titles with me
just for fun. I think you guys might get a kick out of them too. They
are: "Love is Magic" (Koi ha Majikku) - "Could It Be Magic"
"Flirtation of Love" (Ai no Tawamure) - "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It"
"On Your Laps" (Anata no Hiza de) - "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)"
"A Prayer in Tears" (Namida no Inori) - "Who Do You Think You're Fooling"
"Life in Tokio" - "Tokyo"
Thank you Tomo!
[SEP 6] Before I get to
the regular Donna news, I have a new Ken's Korner posted
for you (about Coney Island - and strangely he's being nice again LOL)
and some Bruce news for you in the Family Matters
section below.
[SEP 6] In concert news, I have
posted a fan report (with photos) from Atlantic
City, and my fan report from Coney
Island. Foxwoods is still to some, as is an editorial I've been
working on about Crayons. Los Angeles - watch your local
papers. I keep getting tons of news alerts about the upcoming show. So far
it's nothing more than Donna is playing the county fair, but I suspect there
will be phone interviews, etc coming up.
[SEP 6] There is a new greatest
hits coming out of Japan later this month. It's called Best Selection
and it will be available at Amazon. [US
and UK]
There will be 19 tracks and obviously it isn't cheap - Japanese imports
rarely are. :-) And it's supposed to be pressed on some cool new
kind of plastic that is supposed to enhance the sound quality. I have
no first hand experience with it, so I'll take their word for it now.
I sneaked over to Amazon
Japan to check the track list (and found that switching to English over
there doesn't translate the track titles), and then I went over to Google
and got a really butchered translation. LOL So this is the best
I can do for now: Hot Stuff, Bad Girls, No More Tears, Last Dance,
On The Radio, MacArthur Park, The Wanderer, I Feel Love, Heaven Knows, Dim
All The Lights, Could It Be Magic, There Goes My Baby, State Of
Independence, This Time I Know It's For Real, Anyway At All and 4 more
titles that Google really made a mess of. LOL What Google gave
me was "Narrative Passion, Temptation Of Love, The Wizard Of Love and
Ankondishonaru Love." Now your guesses are as good as mine, but
I'd say one of those should be Love To Love You, probably another is I
Love You, and I'm sure Love Is In Control is probably one of them
too. Oh wait - that last one has to be Unconditional Love. If anyone
out there reads Japanese, let me know where Google went wrong.
[SEP 6] Moving on to the web,
over on YouTube, look for Fernando's new video for the Granite &
Sugarman mix of Stamp
Your Feet, a Jay Style mix of La
Vie En Rose, Smile
from Coney Island, and a whole bunch of other clips from Coney Island
courtesy of nyrainbow5,
more Coney Island from TheRealJustJeff,
and a 1981 clip of Hot
Stuff from the AMAs. On Multiply, look for Love On And On
courtesy of Carl
and Steve,
and a bunch of the recent concert videos also courtesy of Steve.
[AUG 31] I have Berlin
photos and a new fan report posted. Other venues are coming soon. :-)
[AUG 30] I still have a bunch
of fan reports and photos to post for you (including 2 more of my own), but
let me just concentrate on the regular update tonight. (I found out after
all this Donna stalking over the last 2 weeks that I'm not 19 anymore. Who
knew? LOL) For Sudano fans, I have stuff for you in the Family
Matters section below on Bruce, Brooklyn and Amanda. (I think that's the
first time I can cover everybody on one update - heck, one of those items
will even include a picture of Mimi.)
[AUG 30] Let's start off with
some of the recent articles. We have an interview at Projo.com,
another in the Hartford
Courant, one in the Norwich
Bulletin, a tiny one from the Boston
Globe, a Coney Island review on the Joe
My God
blog and a Foxwoods review from Projo.com.
Then there are 2 articles about all the politicians who showed up at the
Coney Island show from the NY
Times and the NY
Press. (There was enough hot air before the show to melt the entire
polar ice cap! LOL)
[AUG 30] In the Donna is
everywhere category, roller coaster fans will hear her on the new Hollywood
Rip Ride Rockit coaster at Universal Orlando. You can check out the
song list here.
(Personally, I think I'll just listen to my Donna tunes on the ground....
roller coasters are not my friends! LOL)
[AUG 30] Let's move on to web
news. On YouTube, look for more Berlin clips courtesy of GrabTheCrap,
a Niagara Falls clip of Last
Dance from stevenvp (who is probably at this very minute being
hunted by ushers with little flashlights! LOL), a number of Coney
Island clips from djdavis254,
and a new 2 part interview from Germany (but in English) posted by TorgenAmMorgen.
(Hi Torgen!) O will be back during the week to change the Summer
Fever pick and to add the fan reports that are starting to pile up on
me. :-)
[AUG 26] For those of you who would like
a little warm up for tomorrow's show, check out this
clip from Indiana. :-) I might tweet once or twice from the
shows tomorrow and Friday, so you can keep track on Twitter, or here (for
now). I'll probably take down the Twitter feed after the shows. [Update - I
actually moved it instead of deleting it]
[AUG 25] My Niagara
Falls report is up. I'll have something from Windsor later on when I
have a few moments to post it. And I still have Berlin pictures to post for
you too.
[AUG 23] Okay, so let's see how
much of the weekly update I can get done tonight. :-) I'm going to
pretty much ignore the concerts for the moment so we can get caught up with
everything else. (I will have more stuff from Berlin for you soon as well as
anything I get out of Canada or Indiana, and of course my own fan report
from the road. Don't worry - I won't include my 200 pictures of the
falls. LOL) And I should warn you guys - I really didn't get much
sleep all week, so beware of typos and possibly other strangeness.
[AUG 23] First up, you really
need to read PopMatters'
5 part article on Casablanca if you haven't done so already. I'm still
playing catch up with it, but what I've been able to read so far is
excellent. All 5 parts are posted now and I know some people have actually
printed out all 5 to keep or at least to take with them to read offline. For
those of you in need of more reading material, there is a short interview at
nwi.com,
there is a new interview in the Windsor
Star, and another new one in the Chicago
Sun Times. If video is more your speed, there is a short
interview from the Belgian concert online. The audio is in English, but
there are subtitles in what looks like maybe Dutch? The caption beneath the
video is German though. And speaking of German, there is a print interview
in that language on fr-online.de.
[AUG 23] Did I post this
before? I don't think so, so I'm posting it now. There are a number of
photos from Berlin on intro.de.
And here are a few more on Picasa.
[AUG 23] I think that brings us
to the web news. On Multiply look for a BBC Radio2 interview on Andy's
page, and Jeff's
collection of "Hidden Treasures" - one off tracks and album
tracks. And on YouTube look for new mixes courtesy of djrydel
and djaykay1.
[AUG 23] Hopefully (barring any
disasters at work) I should be able to start posting concert reports
tomorrow night. Later this week, I will be at Coney Island and Foxwoods. I'm
told Coney Island gets pretty packed for the free concerts, so get there
early to stake out a good spot. And be prepared to make some noise! I want
them to hear us all the way in Europe. :-)
[AUG 22] I literally just got
back from Niagara Falls and I promise to have all the details and the weekly
update for you soon. (It might come in pieces though as I sort out
everything I missed.) But I did want to specifically mention that my
webmaster email is now fixed. If you sent anything there that got bounced
back, if you resend it now it should be fine. For similar situations, you
can also get me at chawk26519 AT aol.com - but please mention Donna (or
something equally interesting) in the subject because I get a lot of spam
there.
[AUG 22] To you guys I met up
with at Niagara Falls - I know I promised photos to some of you. Give me a
day or so to get them out of the camera and I'll start emailing. :-)
And speaking of photos - for any of you who were at any meet and greet for
any show on this tour (or on last summer's tour), you can find your photos here.
Just click on the date and venue for your show.
[AUG 22] And finally (and most
importantly), a BIG shout out to Team Summer. You guys really made this
vacation extra fun and I can't thank you enough. (And no, I never get tired
of the show..... if you had any idea how hard it was for me to cross
that bridge back into the US this morning... LOL I think I
would have followed you to Windsor if I could have!)
[AUG 22] I'll be back tomorrow
night with at least part of the weekly update. :-)
[AUG 17] This is just a quick
update before I leave to post the belated Ken's Korner
on Michael Jackson. (Cyber gremlins ate it, so I didn't get it until now.)
Also PopMatters has posted the first part of Casablanca
Records: Play It Again. (Just bookmark that link - each day they
will add the link to the next part to that page.) The series goes chronologically,
so today's part is about the start of Casablanca and KISS.
[AUG 17] There is also a new
interview with Donna that I forgot to post the other night. It's courtesy
of the Windy
City Times.
[AUG 15] Calling Nevada
- this just sneaked in under my radar. You guys will see Donna at the
Star Of The Desert Arena in Primm on September 26. Tickets are on sale
NOW through Ticketmaster.
[AUG 15] Before I get to the
rest of the weekly update, I just want to let you all know that I will be
off line from Tuesday until Saturday while I go explore Niagara Falls.
I'm not bringing a computer so I will have no internet or email access while
I'm away (so of you see me shaking at the concerts it's just withdrawal
symptoms. LOL) Barring any cell phone weirdness, I do plan to post the
occasional tweet on my Twitter
page, so you benevolent stalkers out there can keep track of me that
way. :-)
[AUG 15] Casablanca fans, you
will want to keep an eye on the Pop
Matters site this week. Our friend Christian Wikane has written a
5 part piece called Casablanca: Play It Again that should debut on
Monday with a new part posted each day. (And yes they will be accessible on
the site for a long time to come for those of us who can't be online every
day.) It promises to be a very interesting article because Christian
has interviewed the entire universe in preparation. (Or pretty close to the
entire universe! LOL)
[AUG 15] Speaking of writing, DJHistory.com
has put out a book called The Disco Files 1973-78, which
is a comprehensive collection of articles written by Vince Aletti back in
the day. It's got record reviews, reports in the club scene, club
charts (for all you chart hounds out there), you name it. You can read
an interview with Aletti at Time
Out New York.
[AUG 15] Moving on to the land
of the strange.... a UK woman had her speakers
confiscated for playing her Donna tunes a bit too loud. (They say people
4 streets away could hear the music - I don't know how the woman didn't
deafen herself! LOL) So from now on when I say "crank up
the Donna tunes", what I mean is only to crank them up loud enough to
have fun - but no so loud that the police come take your gear away.
;-)
[AUG 15] I think that brings us
to the web news for the week. Over on Multiply, Jeff
has posted an "album" of tracks Donna released in the 17
year space between Mistaken Identity and Crayons,
and Otto has
posted his Donna vs. Klaus Nomi mix of I Feel Love. On YouTube look
for the video
for I Feel Love (one of the MAW mixes). Donna's not in the
video, but there are plenty of half naked men to take her place (if that's
your thing.) ;-) And look for Be
Myself Again accompanying a slideshow of paintings by Gustav Klimt.
I think that's it for this week. I'll see some of you in person in Canada
and I'll see the rest of you here next week. :-)
[AUG 9] Well I think I covered
a lot with the update the other night. :-) So let's start off with
some politics. (And everybody just started looking at the site title to see
if they logged into the right place, right? LOL) Apparently back in
the late 70s to the early 80s Argentina's military junta attempted to
silence "subversive" elements in part by banning
songs that they felt would corrupt the population. Donna has the
dubious honor of having 3 of her songs blacklisted - Love To Love You,
Prelude To Love and Could It Be Magic. On a related side note,
someone sent me an Argentinean copy of Bad Girls a number of
years ago. They modified the cover art to totally downplay the
"bad girls" theme. The lamp post from the front cover is gone, all
the inside artwork was removed (and replaced with 2 other portraits), and
the back cover was airbrushed to remove the car and the driver holding the
$50 bill.
[AUG 9] Moving on to decidedly
strange things.... the Gregory Hancock Dance Theater is putting on a
production of Romeo
and Juliet Go To The Disco with the Capulets on roller skates and
the Montagues in platform shoes. Naturally they will be using disco music in
the production and Donna's music will be included. (But the article doesn't
state which songs they picked.) Sounds like it would be a rather
interesting night at the theater.
[AUG 9] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she made MSN's "Where
Are They Now" photo gallery. (Clicking their link to see what she's
been up to brings you to a Bing search page for "Donna Summer
Crayons". :-) )
[AUG 9] That brings us to the
web news. Over on YouTube, look for stampyourfeet's new music video for La
Vie En Rose, a German
interview from Endless Donna (and yes, Donna does speak German on
it), and the Electronic
Beats post concert video reposted on YouTube by Steve. Speaking of Steve,
if you are on Multiply he's added a bunch of the recent European videos to
his page. In Twitter news, I guess now is as good a time as any to
mention that I have a Twitter
page. It's a personal page that's not specifically devoted to Donna (or
any other particular topic). And I have to admit it's pretty boring because
I rarely tweet and when I do it's usually a reply to someone else. LOL
But I mention it now so that you guys have a chance to find it before I head
up to Niagara Falls in a couple weeks. I'm going to try to send a tweet or 2
about the shows if I can.
[AUG 6] I finally got to put
together the rest of the European fan contributions. :-) So look for
more reports and photos from Paris, Berlin
and Belgium. Also, Electronic
Beats has posted its review of the Berlin show along with some photos
and an interview with Donna. (I think a couple of you guys might even
spot yourselves on the page.)
[AUG 2] First things first.
It's time for a new Summer Fever pick. And in honor of Donna's recent
concert in Germany - the place where she got her start, I thought it was
appropriate to go back to the first album, Lady Of The Night.
[AUG 2] So I guess most of you
have figured out that the big news this week comes from Berlin and Belgium.
(Yes, I think I did hear you guys screaming all the way over here! LOL)
Berlin was first so let's start there. Here is the set list: The
Queen Is Back, MacArthur Park, Could It Be Magic (sung partly in
German), a Once Upon A Time/ I Love You medley, I'm A Fire, Smile,
On The Radio, Wasserman (Aquarius) sung in German and English and
with the added surprise of several original Haare cast
members, Crayons, No More Tears, Be Myself Again, Stamp Your Feet, She
Works Hard For The Money, Love To Love You (sung partly in German), I
Feel Love, Bad Girls, Hot Stuff,Fame and Last Dance.
Some clips have turned up on YouTube, and I'll give you that list a little
further down. By the way, if you want to see the video ad for the Berlin
show (or hear the special mini-mix ElectronicBeats put together to promote
the show, check out this
site.)
[AUG 2] With the Berlin concert
there was some media coverage. (This will all be in German so if that's not
your language, have the Google translator ready.) Here is the list: Blu.fm
(an interview), Zeit
Online (an article that was reprinted on several sites), De-Bug,
bz-berlin.de,
and Berliner-Zeitung.
If photos are more your speed, Getty
Images has a bunch (with some larger versions here),
WireImage
has some, and Virtual
Nights has a bunch.
[AUG 2] Moving on to
Belgium.... The set list over there was: The Queen Is Back, MacArthur
Park, Could It Be Magic, Once Upon A Time/ I Love You, I'm A Fire, Smile, On
The Radio, Mr. Music, Crayons, No More Tears, Be Myself Again, Stamp, I Feel
Love, Love To Love You, Hard For The Money, Bad Girls, Hot Stuff, Fame
and Last Dance. She even mentioned The Hostage.
[AUG 2] Now is a good time to
run down the YouTube list. For Berlin clips check out Gioveolympus
for bits of Crayons, Smile, Wasserman, MacArthur Park, Could It Be Magic
and The Queen Is Back.Maximus23MS
has On The Radio, and Look at TheElectrobear
for Last Dance and On The Radio. For clips from Belgium, look
at: JoeDanski
for Bad Girls/Hot Stuff,I Feel Love, and MacArthur Park,
while LUTLAUREYS
has Fame, Bad Girls, No More Tears, I Feel Love and Smile,JimFanSite
has I Feel Love and Smile, and Original Beast has the
beginning of The
Queen Is Back..
[AUG 2] Moving on to some
non-concert news, Christian Wikane (the guy who writes all that cool stuff
for Pop Matters) will be debuting his series on Casablanca very soon. (Soon
as in within the next couple of weeks.) To promote the piece, Christian did
a little interview that is posted on YouTube.
(Yes NY fans, you have probably seen him at the local concerts.)
[AUG 2] For those of you who
want a little Donna buddy for your desk top, Stor Dubine has created a
little something for you. It's a little Cubee
that you print out and put together.
[AUG 2] That brings us to the
web news for the week. I think I covered YouTube with the Berlin and Belgium
clips above, so let's go right to Multiply. Over there Steve
has reposted a bunch of the recent concert clips, Dirk
has posted pictures from Belgium, and Ruud
has posted larger versions of his Paris pictures.
[AUG 2] I have more stuff to
post from all the European shows - but I'm running out of time tonight, so
those will have to wait for another day. And I'll be watching YouTube
- more things show up there all the time.
[JUL 26] Let's start off with
Cala di Volpe in Italy. That was a fairly exclusive (and somewhat expensive)
show this week and as it happens one of the UK guys was there. He wrote me a
fan report that seems to have been eaten by internet gremlins or something.
I'm sure I'll have it soon though. In the mean time, Keith sent photos which
you can see here.
(That's some venue!) There are also a couple of articles about the show (L'Union
Sardia and Ansa.it)
- in Italian of course. (So if that's not your language, make use of Google
or an Italian buddy to help you out. :-) )
[JUL 26] People Magazine
has a special issue out celebrating the 70s. Donna's photo is on the back
cover, and of course she's featured in the section about disco. There is
nothing new in the magazine - it's just a retrospective on the decade. It's
a special edition so it will be on newsstands for quite awhile. (Unless it
sells out - both Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett are on the front cover
which might make it more appealing to collectors than usual.)
[JUL 26] Over in Germany, they
are still plastering advertisements all over Berlin, and now they've added
print ads as well. So you guys in Berlin can't possibly escape Donna - not
that I think any of you want to. ;-)
[JUL 26] And we're still not
done with Paris. :-) I have yet another short (but sweet) fan
report on the Paris page for you.
(Berlin - Paris is setting the bar pretty high. I can't wait to hear from
you guys. And then Belgium - you guys will have A LOT to live up to.
;-) )
[JUL 26] I think that brings us
to the web news. On YouTube, Fernando
has posted the recent Chicago radio interview as sort of a video slideshow
accompanying Donna's words. He's also posted a backwards version of I
Feel Love. (I think the boy watched the alien video too many times
and it warped him! LOL)
[JUL 19] Let's start with
Chicago radio. WLS sneaked in an interview by phone with Donna this week,
and the best part about it is that you can download it from the station's
website.
[JUL 19] If you think we've
heard the last from Paris - you are wrong. :-) I added a
new fan report, and we have a page of
photos courtesy of Ingresso
Libero. (He's also the guy behind that YouTube video of La Vie En
Rose that we're all addicted to, not to mention a bunch of other great
clips.)
[JUL 19] Examiner.com
has posted an article on the top 5 female vocal performances in the last 25
years or so of dance music. Donna is on the list with Bad Girls.
[JUL 19] I think that brings us
to the web news. On YouTube, Fernando has posted his video for the MAW 86th
Street mix of I
Feel Love. Over on Multiply, Steve
has posted a few new clips including a Klyk mix of Maybe It's Over and Donna
performing Last Dance at the Oscars. And Andy
is working on his Tribal Drum Megamix for 2009.
[JUL 16] DonnaSummer.com
is updated. There is a message from Donna (read that first), the tour page
is updated, and there are new videos. One is La Vie En Rose from
Paris, and the other..... well, this is why I said to read Donna's
message first. LOL (Paris, is there something strange in your
drinking water? LOL) Note to a certain space alien: keep posting
- you made me laugh.
[JUL 11] Bon jour Paris. I
think tonight's update is pretty much all about you. It took a day or two
for the guys to settle down enough to write, but they did write. And they
took photos. And they made videos. I think one night in Paris was YouTubed
as much as the whole North American tour last year! :-) (You know, I
can't be sure, but I think I even heard some sexy male French voices yelling
"we love you Donna" from all the way over here last week.
;-) ) Let's start off with the fan
reports. I have a few of those (all in English) and they are accompanied
by a number of photos - some of them I swear must have been taken from the
stage itself. (Or the guys had AMAZING cameras!)
[JUL 11] Before I go any
further, I want to give you the Paris set list because I want to say
something about a couple of the songs:
The Queen Is Back
I Feel Love
Could It Be Magic
Dim All The Lights
Smile (This was a tribute to Michael Jackson - apparently it was
his favorite song and I'd say it was probably a replacement for Sand
On My Feet judging by the dress and the position in the show. For those
who don't know, Michael's funeral was held the same day as this concert.) On The Radio
I'm A Fire
Mr. Music
Crayons
Enough Is Enough
MacArthur Park
Stamp Your Feet
She Works Hard For The Money
Bad Girls
Hot Stuff
Love To Love You Baby (Probably the longest version of that song ever
sung in recent years. When she's done it here in the US, it's part of a
medley of older songs.) La Vie En Rose (As far as I know this was the first time that the
full song has ever been done in concert.) Be Myself Again
Last Dance
So Paris, you got a few very nice surprises. Rumor has it,
she just might be working on a surprise for Berlin too.
[JUL 11] I usually save
the web news for last.... but I think Paris needs a whole YouTube section to
itself. So here we go. We have 5 videos from Damien
that include Love To Love You, La Vie En Rose, Smile, I'm
A Fire, and Be Myself Again. There is DiscoMichel
who has short clips of I think all the songs. That includes the
introductions to both La Vie En Rose and She Works Hard For The
Money. (You will read about those in the fan reports when you get
there.) Then Ingressolibero
has about 10 songs posted from the show: I Feel Love, I'm A Fire,
Last Dance, MacArthur Park, No More Tears, Could It Be Magic, Love To Love
You, La Vie En Rose, and Smile.
[JUL 11] Italy, I see a report
that Donna is playing at the Hotel
Cala di Volpe on July 25. Judging by the comments by the Italian
fans on the forum and by the fact that the only ad I see says "limited
availability" with no ticket prices listed, I'd say this one is a more
or less private (and expensive) date. I leave it to those of you with
flexible budgets to decide for yourselves.
[JUL 11] And that brings us to
the web news... well, the web news that I haven't covered yet. Over on
Multiply, Jeffrey
has posted the A&E Biography in several parts, Denis
has a Stamp remix, and Steve
has posted every Paris clip he could his hands on. :-)
[JUL 7] I just thought I'd
throw in a quick update from Paris. During the show, Donna to sing Smile
as a tribute to Michael Jackson. You can catch it on YouTube.
[JUL 5] Okay, if you missed the
excellent BBC
Radio 2 profile of Donna, run to the BBC website and check it out now.
You will hear new interview clips with the lady herself, plus comments
from people like Gloria Gaynor, Barry Manilow, Pete Waterman, Brenda
Russell.... and the usually elusive Pete Bellotte. You will hear vintage
music clips that nobody else usually plays..... Tune in, you will love it!
(Great job Grant!) A word of warning though - the show will only be
available online for 6 days, then it's gone forever. (I have this
picture in my head now of hundreds of workplaces with employees listening to
this radio show instead of working on Monday morning. LOL)
[JUL 5] Speaking of radio -
don't forget that Donna is scheduled to be on Radio
Nostalgie in France tomorrow (Monday) between 6 and 9 AM. Radio
Nostalgie broadcasts online and they do make some of their shows available
for on-demand listening.
[JUL 5] On this side of the
ocean, the Santa
Barbara Independent has published its review of the concert at Chumash.
[JUL 5] New York's WBAI
99.5 FM radio will be playing Does He Love You and Enough Is
Enough on its Everything Old Is New Again show on July 12. You'll
be able to catch that online either live or archived on the WBAI site.
[JUL 5] I mentioned last week
that Donna was on CNN again talking about Michael Jackson. The transcript is
on the CNN
website. Scroll down about half way to find Donna's remarks.
[JUL 5] I think that brings us
to the web news for the week. On YouTube you can check out Donna on CNN's
Newsroom (she was there by phone only though) and a clip of Amazing Grace
courtesy of Stampyourfeet,
a couple of remixes courtesy of DJSheitan,
and some live stuff from Frankfire.
On Multiply, Andy
has posted a couple of mixes and the BBC Radio 2 profile of Donna, while Steve
has posted a couple of You're So Beautiful mixes and the CNN Newsroom
comments. Hopefully I will be back early with some news from
Paris. (Fan reports in French are fine - you will just have to do your own
proofreading, because I'll never catch spelling errors! LOL) I
want to hear you guys make some noise over there - you should be able to
wake me up all the way over here! ;-)
[JUL 3] Paris - Donna will be
on Radio Nostalgie's
Happy Days show on July 6 between 6 and 9 local time. It looks like they
some times post interviews on the web, so hopefully we'll all get to hear
it.
[JUL 1 again] I goofed on the
BBC radio thing this morning - it's 10 PM local time on Saturday. So don't
tune in late! The other reason I'm back is that it's time for a new
Summer Fever pick. I'm bringing back Crayons in honor of the
upcoming tour dates. I'll be back on the weekend with the regular update.
[JUL 1] I have a radio alert
for the UK. BBC 2 will be airing a 60 minute documentary on Donna on July 4
at 10 PM (local time) called Feelin'
Love: The Donna Summer Story. International fans can listen in
online. I'll be back after work with the Summer Fever pick.
[JUN 28 again] Donna was
on CNN again (via phone) again tonight on CNN Newsroom. She got to talk a
little more about Michael - it's a totally different interview than what was
on Larry King. She was on about 10:30 tonight (Eastern) - the show
airs again at 5 AM, but I don't know if it's the same one or a new show for
a new day. If my DVR cooperates, I'll know tomorrow.
[JUN 28] Let's start off with a
time sensitive item. I have a fan with 2 tickets to the Paris concert and
now he finds himself unable to go. So if anyone is still looking to
buy a pair of tickets, let me know and I'll hook you up with Gareth.
[JUN 28] For those of you who
missed Donna calling in to Larry King the other night, you can catch it on Youtube.
Or, thanks to one of the guys out there, I have a transcript for you.
(Note, while Donna was on the phone, CNN showed video footage of Michael's
body being taken away.)
<< Now joining us on the phone, the disco icon, the one and only Donna Summer.
Donna, you knew Michael, did you not?
DONNA SUMMER, SINGER: Yes, I did, yes.
KING: We're seeing the vehicle transporting the body now over to the coroner, who will, I gather, begin the autopsy I would guess tomorrow, not tonight. What are your thoughts, Donna?
SUMMER: Well, I have just -- I have to go on stage and sing tonight. It is extremely difficult. It is such an incredible shock to me. I -- you know, I've known Michael for many years. We've worked together. We've had -- we've done different things together over the years.
And I know his family. And it's just -- it's a total shock. And I don't even have words to say. I mean, I'll miss Michael. The world will miss Michael. And I'm sure that the world is in a state of grief right now.
KING: Where are you performing tonight?
SUMMER: I'm up north of Los Angeles at a casino, Chumash.
KING: Will you talk about him?
SUMMER: I certainly will. We're going to try to dedicate a song to him tonight.
KING: All right. Donna, what was his greatness?
SUMMER: His greatness was perfection. And when you meet people like that, who are so given to doing things at the utmost and the highest level, then it makes you up your game. And Michael was one of those people who wouldn't stop until he was perfect. And he kept going even after that.
So I will personally miss him. I will miss his light. I will miss his star. I will miss who he has caused other people to become because of his greatness. He upped -- he upped the standard.
KING: Did you let the stories about his personal life affect your feelings about him?
SUMMER: Not at all. Not at all. Because I don't, personally, know that those stories are true. I tend to want to not believe them because I know Michael, and I can't even imagine that he would ever try to hurt a child. I think it -- I felt more like it was exploitation, personally, from other people. I don't know if it's true or not. I just -- you know, I just think he was a sitting duck at times.
>>
Pieces of this interview have been quoted in articles all
over the web, as journalists recap people's memories of Michael, and CNN
repeats it periodically during the weekend broadcasts of Larry King
Live.
[JUN 28] Before you guys ask -
Donna didn't dedicate a specific song to Michael at the show, but she did
talk about him and she asked everyone to say a prayer for him. If you would
like to read a little about the show, Jonathan sent me in a fan
report and some photos to go with it.
[JUN 28] Berlin - TV
commercials promoting the upcoming concert have been spotted on German
television. The commercial starts with music from I'm A Fire and then
goes into clips from Live & More Encore.
[JUN 28] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Let's start off with a brand new forum out there for
French speaking fans. It's called Donna
Summer, The Diva and if French is one of your languages - go join
the party over there. (And if it's not your language, Google can help you
with some translations.) Over on Multiply, Steve
has gone insane again and posted a bazillion Glen Rivera mixes, and Jeff
has posted the promotional Crayons videos, among other
things. On YouTube, we have the Larry King clip I mentioned above
posted by Stampyourfeet, plus Fernando's
tribute to Michael (he used A Whole New World accompanied
by a photo of Donna and Michael). For those of you who need a little break
from all things Michael, we have Glen Rivera's mix of Wasted,
and the rare b-side Something
In The Wind. You Rick-Rollers out there will get a laugh out of this
clip. Someone has slowed down This Time I Know It's For Real and
paired it with the video portion of one of Rick Astley's songs. (Slowed
down, Donna sounds amazingly like Rick. LOL)
[JUN 25] What a bad week to be
a celebrity icon. First we lost Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett, and now
Michael Jackson. I guess you know you're getting older when the big stars of
your youth start moving on to the next realm. :-( I would like
to take this opportunity to express my deepest condolences to the family,
friends and fans of all three of those icons. Today Earth is a sadder
place, but in heaven there 3 bright new stars.
Mandatory Donna connection: She called in to Larry King Live
tonight to express her grief and admiration. If you missed it, it airs again
at midnight here on the East Coast and again at 3 AM on CNN. Other time
zones can do the math. CORRECTION: The midnight Larry King may be another
new live hour. 3 AM could be a repeat of either. UPDATE: I found
this quote online:
-- Disco star Donna Summer, in an interview with CNN, said Jackson's
death came as a "total shock."
Of Jackson's talents as a performer, Summer said: "His greatness
was perfection. Michael was one of those people who wouldn't stop until he
was perfect and he would keep going after that."
Also - forum users, you may find that you have trouble
accessing Delphi. I believe that's due to extra web traffic caused by
today's news.
[JUN 21] Happy Father's Day to
all the Dads out there! Let's start off with a really good new
interview courtesy of the Santa
Barbara News Press. If you are a subscriber to that newspaper. you
can read the article online on their website. Everyone else can see it here.
[JUN 21] Photo hounds - there
are pictures of Donna at WireImage.com
from the concert last month and from an event in Los Angeles. (Bruce and
Brooklyn are in the LA photos too.)
[JUN 21] That brings us to the
web news. Over on Multiply, look for new mixes posted by Steve
and Andy.
And on YouTube, look for new videos from Fernando,
an excellent quality clip of Lady
Of The Night, Hot
Stuff from a UK appearance a few years ago, and No
More Tears with Westlife.
[JUN 17] BERLIN - there is a
slight change to your concert. They can't have it at the Admiralspalast.
Apparently they need a bigger venue. :-) So the show is moving
to the Tempodrom. Any tickets you already bought are still valid. Also, I
believe there are interviews and such planned for Europe while Donna is over
there - so keep an eye on your local radio stations, etc.
[JUN 14] Bruce fans - you will
want to see the Family Matters section below.
(Actually - Johnnyswim fans will like the news too.)
[JUN 14] I guess the best
place to start off is with release news. iTunes has finally listed the
Stamp
Your Feet mixes as of a day or 2 ago. So if you didn't grab
them before, grab them now. (And they are still only 99 cents each - a lot
of the new iTunes stuff is up to 1.29.)
[JUN 14] In the land of books,
we have one coming out this fall about Casablanca Records called And
Party Every Day by Larry Harris. I suspect that it might be a
little heavier on the KISS side of the label because the author seems to be
into KISS, but I think they will have plenty of stuff to interest the rest
of us too. :-)
[JUN 14] In cover news, the
band Dengue
Fever (with guest vocals by Inara George) is putting out a digital
only EP that includes a cover of I Feel Love. Look for that
next month.
[JUN 14] Of you are looking for
videos, the German site Truveo
has a bunch of official clips culled from MSN, VH1, etc.
[JUN 14] That brings us to the
web news for the week. On Multiply, look for new mixes posted by Jeffrey
and Andy.
ANd on YouTube, Fernando has posted his Grand
Illusion video. (It's amazing how well the Whenever There
Is Love video footage works with other songs.)
[JUN 7] Usually I save all the
YouTube stuff for the end of the update, but this week a rare gem turned up
that I know everyone wants to see. It's a little interview
footage combined with some studio footage of Donna (and company) from
1978. I don't know where the FootageWorld.com guys found that clip -
but I hope they dig up some more. :-)
[JUN 7] The press release for
the Berlin concert has started showing up in various German media
outlets. :-) Hopefully there will be as much publicity when
Donna arrives there. :-)
[JUN 7] There is a very good
quality (I'm told) video of All Systems Go posted on O2
Music Stream. The catch is that it won't play in every country.
They also have the Love Is In Control video posted as well.
[JUN 7] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention at the end of a Kristine W article.
The article list the artists with the most #1s on the Billboard Hot
Dance Club Play charts. Donna came in at #3 behind Madonna and Janet
Jackson. (Kristine W came in at #5.)
[JUN 7] If you happen to be in
India (or are planning to visit India), the Hard Rock Cafe in Delhi has one
of Donna's paintings on display.
[JUN 7] That brings us to the
web news. Over n Multiply, Steve's
been a busy boy posting mixes and video clips. AJ
has posted a few mixes as well, and Andy
has added his There Goes My Baby mix to the week's offerings.
On YouTube, we have that great classic clip I mentioned earlier and not too
much else that is new. But beware of a clip called On The Radio:
Uncut video footage. It's not Donna. It's not even On The Radio.
It's a 3 second plug for some Bible video. Apparently the poster has dozens
of copies of that video posted under all sorts of different titles.
Everybody start singing the Monty
Python Spam song now. LOL
[JUN 3] BERLIN - your tickets
will go on sale Friday. They had a slight delay in getting everything
set. Prices will be 39 Euros for advanced sales and 45 at the box
office. You will be able to grab them on line at eventim.de
and getgo.de.
[MAY 31] I think I covered the
big news in the mid-week updates. :-) But in case you missed them,
California, Germany and Belgium need to look at the tour
list below. Also, in case you haven't noticed - tomorrow is June 1, so
that means it's time for a new Summer Fever pick. This time I'm celebrating
30 years of Bad Girls. :-) (That would be the
album and not the ... um... working girls. I'm pretty sure they've been
around WAY more than 30 years. LOL)
[MAY 31] Let's start off with
something in the Donna is everywhere category. SeeMagazine.com
posted some quotes from Yuval Taylor to promote his book, Faking It:
The Quest For Authenticity in Popular Music [Amazon,
Amazon
UK]. The first quote that greets you is "I think Donna Summer ... is one of the great musical innovators and
performers... and she is definitely not seen that way." (Hello,
Rock Hall Of Fame? Are you listening?)
[MAY 31] Moving on to the land
of covers, there is a new cover of On The Radio out in Europe by Rockwell.
[MAY 31] That brings us to the
web news. Over on YouTube, look for new clips from Fernando
including remixes of Love To Love You and On The Radio.
Also check out the Donna Summer vs. Klaus Nomi mix of I
Feel Love.On Multiply, Patrice
has posted his mix of I'm Free, along with some of his photo creations, and
ANdy has posted his mix of Carry
On.
[MAY 30] BELGIUM - your concert
is confirmed! Donna will be playing the Lokerse
Feesten on August 1. Tickets are on sale now - see the Festival website
for details. (My link will send you to the English version of the website.
There are links on top of the Lokerse Feesten page for French and
Dutch if one of those languages is easier for you.
[MAY 29] BERLIN!
(I mean the city in Germany and not the band. LOL) I have good news
for you guys. Donna will be playing at the Admiralspalast
on July 30. Tickets will be on sale very soon through eventim.de
and getgo.de. I even have
a copy of the press release for you to
read if you would like. (It's in English.) Please note that the press
release is dated June 2, so when it says tickets are on sale "now"
that's not the case today.
[MAY 29] While I'm here - I got
3 emails this morning from European fans about a show in Belgium. After the
fiasco with the other dates that were announced prematurely, I'm checking
that one out with Donna's people before I add it to the list here. So
when I hear something definite (either way), I'll post it. :-)
[MAY 28] CALIFORNIA! The
Chumash Casino in Santa Barbara is reporting that Donna will be there June
25. Tickets are on sale now through the casino's
website.
[MAY 24] Well, I thought I was
going to come back sooner - but real life got in the way. But I do
have a couple of fan reports from
Florida for you, along with a couple of photos. And in the web news section,
I'll have some YouTube links for you too. :-) For those of you who
have been wondering - it is the same show as last summer, only in Florida it
was a little shorter because a couple of songs were dropped. (That may or
may not be due to the venue - some places are very strict about how long a
show can last, and they will beat the artist with a big stick if the show
runs long. ;-) )
[MAY 24] Okay picture hounds,
there are professional pictures from Florida posted here,
some 2008 pictures posted here,
and plenty of new and old pictures here.
We've also got a very positive concert review put there courtesy of the South
Florida Times.
[MAY 24] Paris - I'm told your
concert is sold out. :-) That means it will be a nice big party over
there later this summer!
[MAY 24] That brings us to the
web news. First up is a new blog called The
Best Singer: Donna Summer. It's written in Portuguese, so if that's not
your language, run over to Google to get a translation. :-) Over on Multiply
look for new mixes from Patrice,
Jeffrey and Andy.
On YouTube, look for new videos from Fernando
(including a very interesting video he made for Be Myself Again) and
a very cool video for The
Hostage. There are also new videos from Florida: 2 clips of Hot
Stuff from thanynathy
and Phil,
and 2 versions of Last Dance from Italman
and Phil.
(Don't be confused - the ordinarydiva account is mine, but I'm hosting
Phil's videos for now.)
[MAY 17] As I write this,
Florida should be for their diva right now - so we'll just have our own
little update party here without them. ;-) News
alert from Florida (thank god for text messages LOL) - it's pretty
much the same show as last summer with at least one subtle change that I
know of so far. (More on that when the Floridians report. :-) ) Okay,
before I get to the regular news, I have a couple of new articles linked in
the media section below. I also have a brand new Ken's
Korner - and I think he must have a high fever or something because he's
being (mostly) nice this time.
[MAY 17] Lets start off with
more concert updates. The tickets for the LA County Fair show won't go
up for sale until sometime in July I'm told now. However, if you go over to LACountyFair.com,
there is a link that will allow you to buy a membership to the End Of Summer
Concert Series Club. Membership gives you a snazzy (non-Donna) t-shirt AND
the chance to snap up your tickets a little earlier than the general public
can.
[MAY 17] In the everyone likes
to play with Crayons category - one of the couples on Dancing
With The Stars last week actually did their routine to Crayons.
It wasn't Donna's vocals, since they never use the original recordings on
the show - but it was her song. You have to love it when the new stuff gets
picked up! :-)
[MAY 17] In the Donna is
everywhere category, one of the Eurovision
contestants, Jade Ewen, is described as having (among other things) "the
eternal cool of Donna Summer." :-) Also the Gucci
fragrance commercial has been spotted in Australia.
[MAY 17] In the Mistaken
Identity category - DJ Donna Summer, aka Jason Forrest is hanging out in
Oslo these days. So if you Norwegians run into any Donna Summer articles
over there, look closely to see who they mean. (Lately the press has been
pretty careful to specify the DJ part though, so that's good.)
[MAY 17] Someone sent me a cool
little link called TagGalaxy.
When you go there you type in a tag like say.... "Donna Summer"
... and it will pull up all the Flickr hosted images that have that tag. You
can find a bunch of fan concert photos that way. :-)
[MAY 17] I think that brings us
to the web news. Over on Multiply look for several new mixes by Andy,
and some new audio and video from Patrice.
I know there is a bunch of new stuff at YouTube
too, but at the moment they are doing maintenance so I can't get to my subscriptions
list. So I'll post that stuff when I come back with the Florida
reports.
[MAY 13] Chicago - Ticketmaster
put your tickets up for sale while I wasn't looking. Run, do not walk, to
the Ticketmaster site now to get your tickets.
[MAY 10] Happy Mother's Day to
all you moms out there! Bruce fans will want to look at the Family
Matters section below.
[MAY 10] Okay, let's just jump
right into concert info. Canada - the
tickets for the show in Windsor
will go on sale May 20 via Ticketmaster.
(Speaking of Canada - be very afraid guys! I'm crossing the border for
the Niagara Falls shows!) Chicago -
I thought your tickets for the Horseshoe Casino would be on sale already,
but they are coming soon through Ticketmaster.
I have seen a preview copy of the print ad for that show and I can tell you
that they are still using the Crayons cover, and they are
still calling it the Stamp Your Feet Tour. :-) For those of you
interested in going to the Horseshoe Casino show, I believe you can
sign up for special offers at that venue by texting the word
"venue" to 427724. Or you can go to the venue's
website and sign up for their email alerts to get $20 off a pair of
tickets to a show. And just a note to everyone planning to go to a casino
show - don't forget that many of those venues have age restrictions for the
shows, so make sure you check that out if you were thinking of bringing your
kids.
[MAY 10] In the Donna is
everywhere category, the new Gucci fragrance ad with I Feel Love has
been spotted on CP24 in Toronto. And in Columbia, LuLuDisco
has a fashion show. You can check out the videos on line.... and you might
hear a couple of familiar tunes in them. ;-)
[MAY 10] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on Multiply, look for Patrice'sI Remember Yesterday mix and on YouTube, we have The
Wanderer video, a classic clip of I
Feel Love, and some high school kids stamping
their feet to... well, you know. ;-)
[MAY 5] Happy Cinco de
Mayo! Calling the great state of New Jersey.....
(sorry, I saw Springsteen last night. LOL) You guys will be
seeing Donna at the Taj Mahal on August 29. Those tickets go on sale June 6
at noon via Ticketmaster.
[MAY 3] If you missed Thursday's
update, the Foxwoods tickets went on sale yesterday through Ticketmaster.
It looks like the front section is mostly sold right now, but there are
still plenty of seats in the other sections if you are planning to go. And
Bruce fans will want to see the Family Matters section
below.
[MAY 3] Classic photo hounds - getback.com
has a few classic photos of Donna, plus a couple of old videos, including Love
Is In Control.
[MAY 3] In release
news... almost a year since we got Crayons, we have a
brand new Shout It Out coming! (It had to happen, right?
LOL) It's the same old track list, but they've come up with new cover
art - and this one's not bad. (But nothing will ever be as good as the one
with the freaky eyeball cover. LOL) You can check it out at Play.com.
This one is due out on May 11 and it is being sold under the title of Fun
Street.
[MAY 3] There is a new book
coming out this month by Giorgio Moroder and Alessandro Benedetti called Extraordinary
Records [Amazon,
Amazon
UK]. It's a showcase of some 400 unusual vinyl records (shaped, colored,
etc). I don't know yet if any of Donna's picture disks will make the book,
but I guess we'll see what it hits stores.
[MAY 3] Sandisk has come out
with a new MP3 player called slotRadio that requires no computer to use. You
just stick a preloaded card in the player, and you have 1000 songs to listen
to. They've just announced 4
new cards to go with the player, and they will have some Donna tunes on
the oldies card. I just want to know when "oldies" became MY
music instead of my mother's music? LOL
[MAY 3] In the Donna is
everywhere category, State Of Independence got a mention on E's Chelsea
Lately (the one with Tracey Ullman as a guest). Apparently the song
is a favorite of Chelsea's boyfriend.
[MAY 3] In remix news, Jay Style
has remixed Donna's version of La Vie En Rose. He's got 2 of the
mixes posted on his site
- just look for the player widget on the left side of the homepage.
[MAY 3] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, check out Fernando's
channel for some live footage and for his video for Be Myself Again.
Also look for live footage of On
The Radio from last year's concert in Chicago, and Patrice's Power
Of Love video. On Multiply, check out AJ's
mixes of I Don't Want To Get Hurt, Patrice's
Maxi Dance mix, and a couple of videos from Steve.
[APR 30] Calling Connecticut -
the Foxwoods tickets go on sale this Saturday (May 2) at 9 AM via Ticketmaster.
If you are planning to stay over, Foxwoods is offering a special
room rate for the night.
[APR 30] While I'm here... it's
time for a new Summer Fever pick.
This month All Systems Go takes the spotlight. :-)
[APR 24] I thought I'd do the
update early since I have I have ticket info for some of the North American
shows now, and it's so close to the usual update anyway. Niagara Falls and
Horseshoe Casino tickets go on sale May 8, and the L.A. County Fair tickets
go on sale May 15. I believe all those venues use Ticketmaster
in addition to their usual box office. Coney Island will be free (yes
you read that right!) but you can rent seats for $10. (It's a standing room
general admission venue.) I'll let you know about the others as soon as I
hear.
[APR 24] In the Donna is
everywhere category - it was disco week on American Idol. So you know
that means they were singing Donna songs. :-) You can hear the
contestants' versions of Hot
Stuff, Dim
All The Lights and She
Works Hard For The Money on YouTube. And you can read about
them in any of the 8 million news
alerts I got this week. LOL As a side bonus, Dim All The Lights
is selling like crazy on iTunes thanks to the exposure.
[APR 24] Moving on to VH1, they
are FINALLY bringing back their Divas concert series this fall. They are
asking visitors to the VH1 site to vote
for the divas they would like to see. I can think of plenty of
divas who belong on that show - one in particular who stole the show in
2000. ;-) (I just hope they don't make it a tribute to anybody -
the show is always more fun when the divas are on equal footing.)
[APR 24] On to European tour
dates - or the lack thereof.... I know Donna is still listed on the
Montreux Jazz Festival site, but I just want to remind people that
particular date is NOT on Donna's official schedule at this time.
Someone also sent me a link this week indicating that Donna might play
Barcelona. Like Montreux, that is NOT on Donna's official schedule. If
that changes, I will be DELIGHTED to tell you - but for now, don't get your
hopes up. Sorry guys. :-(
[APR 24] Moving on to the web
news.... over on YouTube, look for a classic clip of A
Man Like You, several new clips from Fernando,
and a Donna vs. Green Velvet I
Feel Love In La La Land clip. On Multiply, Steve
has posted Klyk's 2009 Speedo mix of Breakaway, and Andy
has posted an updated version of his She Works Hard For The Money
mix.
[APR 19] So if you missed the
mid-week update, Paris and North America will want to look at the tour list
below. (Watch out Canada - I think I'll be crossing the border this
year!) :-) I've added links to the venues so we can all watch out for
the on sale dates. Please note that for casino dates, the "high
rollers" will probably get first crack at tickets, so if you have any
friends or family who is a regular at one of those casinos, it's time to
call in some favors. ;-) Also, Bruce fans will want to see the Family
Matters section below.
[APR 19] Gucci has a fragrance
out called Flora and of course it has a TV commercial to advertise it.
The interesting thing about the ad (well, for us Donna fans) is the music
they used in the ad. It's an all new take on I Feel Love and
yes, Donna recorded new vocals for it. You can see the commercial on YouTube
and you can read about it here.
[APR 19] A writer by the name
of Jerry Perry has sent me a screenplay he wrote that was inspired by one of
Donna's tracks. He gave it to me to post here on the site for your reading
pleasure. It's called State
Of Independence, and it's in PDF format so you will need the
free Acrobat reader
to view it. (I think most people have that on their computer these days
anyway.) Just keep in mind that it's a full length screenplay so watch out
how much time you spend reading it at work. (I know you guys goof off over
here on Mondays when you are supposed to be working. LOL)
[APR 19] That brings us to the
web news. Over on YouTube, when you are done watching that Susan Boyle clip
from the UK (talk about mind blowing!) you can get back into Donna mode with
a number of new mixes from Fernando,
Glen Rivera's mix of Dance
Into My Life, and Donna's Oscar night performance of Papa
Can Your Hear Me. On Multiply look for several new mixes from Andy,
and a new mix from Patrice.
On the Donna Summer group at Bebo,
they've gone completely poll happy. :-) So if you are in the mood to
rate a few tracks, head over there and make your voice heard.
[APR 16] GREAT news for Paris
- I was just told to add that date back to the concert calendar!
:-) July 7 is the date - buy
your tickets now if you haven't already. Some of you guys I
emailed directly - sorry to anyone I missed so far. :-)
[APR 16] I have a few North
American dates too. We start off with Canada on August 20 and
21 at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, ON and then the Coliseum
at Caesar's in Windsor, ON on August 22. Then it's back to the US for August
23 at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, IN, August 27 at Coney Island in NY
(yes, Coney Island - not the usual venues!), August 28 at Foxwoods in CT,
and September 25 at the LA County Fair in Pamona. These are hot off the
presses so I haven't looked to see if any of these have made the venue
websites yet. I'll add links to the venues soon - I just wanted to post this
(especially the Paris news) quickly. :-)
[APR 12] I guess I should just
get the bad news over with first. I got an email from the company that
promotes Donna's tours. The European dates announced so far should not have
been announced yet. Apparently the promoter never fully confirmed
things with Donna's people, so none of them are on her schedule. I'm
sorry - you have no idea how much it pains me to post this. (And yes,
I know the tickets are still posted for Paris and Switzerland. I'm not sure
how they can do that without confirmation, but apparently they can.)
[APR 12] Now that all of Europe
hates me..... there will be some US tour dates this summer. (And now Europe
hates me more, I'm sure.) I don't have a list yet, but we will
probably be looking for street teams when the dates are announced.
[APR 12] Let's move on to Stamp.
Ever since that song came out, there have been devoted groups of fans
clamoring for the song to become a sports anthem for football, baseball,
basketball, golf, or whatever. (Okay, maybe not golf - those guys don't like
making a big sound. LOL) Well, over on YouTube somebody saw a
potential that most of us blinded ourselves to. Instead of stamping
your feet to win the game, how about stamping your feet for civil
rights? All I want to know is why none of us thought of this before?
[APR 12] That brings us to the
web news for the week. For those of you who like quizzes, 2 turned up in my
email box this week. They are both hosted on Funtrivia.com.
One is about song lyrics and one is about Donna's autobiography. If
mixes are more your speed, check out Klyk's
blog. He's added a number of Donna mixes over the last few weeks (plus
lots of other mixes as well.) On Multiply, Andy
and Steve
have both gone insane with mixes and rare tracks. Not to be outdone, Patrice
has cornered the market on 12" singles this week. (All this music is
good for dancing off the Easter candy and Passover goodies! LOL)
Over on YouTube, look for a nice clip of The
Hostage, and a couple of clips from Stampyourfeet
including that really nice CBS morning show interview from last summer.
[APR 6] Update on my charity
auction - I now have T-Box offering to match the winning bid up to $150
with a donation of his own. So his match plus my match plus the winning bid
could be big bucks for CMN. :-)
[APR 5] Switzerland - did you
catch the mid week update? If not, head to the concert section below.
:-) Okay, before I get to the news... Some of you will
remember that a couple of years ago I did a charity auction to benefit Children's
Miracle Network as part of the fundraising drive we do at my job each
year. I sold what was in effect a blank CD called Pitstops: The Greatest
Spaces Of Donna Summerssss. (Surprisingly Universal hasn't stolen that
idea yet. LOL) Well, this year I'm doing it again. Only instead
of selling a blank CD, I'm selling a perfectly ordinary magazine. It's the
March 21 edition of Billboard (the very same one that was mailed to
my house) which just so happens to be the week that Crayons
returned to the Top 200 album chart. (Thank you Circuit City - at least a
tiny ray of sunshine came from your closing.) The auction is live now on
ebay (only I can't state there that it's a charity auction because I learned
about that the hard way last time.) I will match the winning bid (up
to $100) with cash from my own pocket and I might even throw in a copy of Pitstops
for the lucky winner. ;-) Whatever I get from the auction will be 100%
donated to the fundraiser at my job. I'm paying for (cheap LOL)
shipping for the winner - and even though I think my listing says that I
will only ship to the US - for you guys, I'll ship internationally
too. The auction is here
- sorry it's not as funny as the Pitstops one. ;-)
[APR 5] An Italian magazine
recently featured a nice article about Donna. (Okay, I'm assuming it's
nice since I don't read much Italian and since the person who sent it to me
wasn't outraged by it. LOL) I'm actually just going to post the
scans I got of the article partly so that my spellchecker doesn't go insane
while I try to transcribe anything other than American English, and partly
because there are some really cool photos that go with the article. There
are 3 pages and each should open in a new window or tab for you. (Or use the
right click and save option to just download the scans - which might be
easier since they are huge..) Page
1Page
2Page 3.
[Note to my visually impaired readers - screen reading software will not be
able to make heads or tails of the article since it is posted in jpg format.
Sorry.]
[APR 5] Believe it or not -
that brings us to the web news for the week. Over on YouTube, Fernando
has posted an I Feel Love mix and a Crayons video that I guess
you could say was 30 years in the making. LOL (You will
understand when you see the video.) Stampyourfeet
(the artist formerly known as limoncello23) has posted his videos for Power
Of Love, I'm A Fire and Melody Of Love. Also look out for a UK
promo for the Divas 2000 concert with rare rehearsal footage. On
Multiply look for Andy's
instrumental mix of Love To Love You, Patrice's
collection of mixes, and Steve's
collection of stuff. (Was there some worldwide uploading event that I
missed? Steve and Patrice both went nuts this week. LOL)
[APR 2] So I thought I'd just
log in tonight and change the Summer Fever page to the real one. (It's the
collaborations of Mr. And Mrs. Sudano if you haven't seen it yet.) And I
thought that was all I was going to do tonight. Then I got an interesting
email from Pollstar. So I'm happy to announce - SWITZERLAND:
you guys will see Donna at the Montreux
Jazz Festival on July 18. Tickets are on sale now on the Montreux Jazz
website (which is accessible in French, German and English.) Please keep in
mind that they do have a disclaimer that the event lineup is subject
to change.
[MAR 31] Well, since somewhere
in the world it's already April 1, I'm posting the Summer
Fever pick for the month.
[MAR 29] Florida and Italy - if
you missed my midweek updates, then you need to look at the concert
schedule below. :-) Now for everybody else - I don't
have any more dates yet. As soon as I hear about any more dates anywhere,
I'll post them. But all you guys in Europe should be looking for TV,
radio and/or print interviews in July. If Donna is going to be in
France early in the month and Italy in the middle of the month, that's the
perfect time to sneak in some promo stuff for just about any European
country. :-)
[MAR 29] Casablanca fans,
Backbeat Books will be putting out a book about the rise and fall of
Casablanca Records as told by someone who was on the inside of it all.
That is expected out this fall, and I'll give you more details as they
become available.
[MAR 29] In the Donna is
everywhere category, check out DiscoMusic.com's
interview with Patti Brooks. Patti talks several times about working with
Donna back in the day.
[MAR 29] Moving to the web
news, over at YouTube, check out an interesting
combination of Grand Illusion with stills from the movie Metropolis.
While you are there, check out the fan made video for Try
Me that uses footage from Live & More Encore, Last
Dance live in Mexico, behind the scenes at Divas
2000, a nice cover of Our
Love, and the entire 70s Celebration TV special posted
by FilmsReel
in 10 parts. (Last Dance is split over parts 5 and 6, Hot
Stuff is in part 2, and sharp eyes will spot her in the ensemble as the
credits roll in part 10.) On Multiply, look for Patrice's
mix of Dinner With Gershwin, andcheck Steve's
profile to watch Thank God It's Friday as a rather short movie that
only covers Donna's storyline. (And you can see a few other new additions
over there as well.) I'll be back in a couple of days with a new
Summer Fever pick. :-)
[MAR 26] Okay FLORIDA! You guys
will get to see Donna at the Hard
Rock Live in Hollywood on May 17. Tickets go on sale April 3 at noon.
[MAR 25] Calling
ITALY! I just got this
link from one of the Italian fans and it looks like you guys will see
Donna on July 19 as part of the Umbria
Jazz festival in Perugia.
[MAR 22] So let's get the bad
news out of the way - as expected, this week Crayons falls off
both Billboard album charts. (The same thing happened to Janet Jackson,
whose album also experienced a return to the charts due to Circuit City's
closing.)
[MAR 22] Paris - Nostalgie
radio is giving away 2 tickets to Donna's show this summer. To win,
you have to send in a photo of yourself in your disco clothes. The photo
with the most votes wins the tickets. Details are posted on the Nostalgie
website (in French, of course.)
[MAR 22] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she played at at private birthday
party for a billionaire's wife. (Hey, now I know how to get Donna to
play at a party for me - I just have to marry a billionaire! ;-) ) She
also gets a mention in an
interview with Sparks where the guys talk about I Feel Love.
[MAR 22] Moving on to the web,
ob Multiply Steve
has been posting interviews and classic clips like a madman :-)
and Andy has a
new I'm A Fire mix. Over on YouTube, look for Starting
Over Again from the 1980 TV special, and a re-edit of the
official video of Fame
to make it fit with the Dan Chase full vocal mix. (Nice job. :-) ) And
for those who like paintings, Herman
Van Ankeren has added his First Lady Of Love portrait to his site.
(Gee, I wonder who it might be a painting of? LOL)
[MAR 19] This is just a quick
update for Uruguay. There have been reports online that Donna will be
performing there in April as part of the Concert for Peace and Tolerance
event - that is NOT the case. Sorry guys. :-(
[MAR 15] Let's go right to Billboard.
:-) The good news is that Crayons has re-entered the Top
200 at #160, and it has climbed up the R&B/Hip Hop Album chart to #18
where it is listed as a pace setter. Now the bad news is that Billboard
attributes this (and some other recent chart activity by other artists) to
the closing of the Circuit City chain. Those stores had everything at huge
discounts, so people were grabbing up the bargains. Now that they have
closed their doors - look for Crayons (and other things) to
drop again.
[MAR 15] Every so often someone
emails me looking for sheet music. Well, I heard from a guy this week
who has some sheet music available. I didn't ask for his list yet, but
if someone is interested, I'll hook you up with the guy.
[MAR 15] In the world of
fashion, Chanel had a show this week for the 2009 Fall line. One of the
songs they used in the show was Love To Love You - a long version!
:-) (If fashion is your thing, you can catch clips of the show on YouTube.)
[MAR 15] That brings us to the
web. Let's start with YouTube. If you are a fan of limoncello23, then you
need to know that his channel is gone. But you will find his new channel
under the name stampyourfeet,
where he's been happily uploading everything that he legally can. On
Multiply, look for some classic clips posted by Steve,
and Bentboy's
remix jukebox.
[MAR 8] Believe it or not - I'm
starting with chart news. I missed this last week, but Crayons
re-entered the Billboard R&B chart (March 7th edition) at #74 and
this week it climbs to #41. :-) Over in Brazil, Fame slips
to #18 on the Top
30 Dance chart.
[MAR 8] The February 26 issue
of the UK's QX Magazine has a short review of Fame. (The song also
debuted at #19 in their club chart that same week.) You can read it on the QX
website in PDF format on page 56 of the PDF file. However, those
of you reading at work might want to save QX for your home
computer. Some of the advertisements might get you into a little
trouble with your employer - unless your employer encourages nudity.
LOL
[MAR 8] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in an Australian crime novel of all
places. The book is called Lady Killer and it's about a true
case that happened out there. Here is the relevant quote: "Court stenographer Michael Campbell delicately punched the keys of the note-taking machine clasped between his knees as the Crown talked Bray through the tape. By day, Campbell sat silently covering major trials, but in the evening he was known to occasionally swathe himself in sparkling lame, blacken his face and don a wig, dressed as the the American disco singer Donna Summer. Campbell was planning a forthcoming trip to Las Vegas to see the real Ms Summer. He left theatrics in the courtroom to the barristers."
By the way, if anyone catches Michael in court dressed up as Donna -
send me the pictures and I'll post them. LOL
[MAR 8] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over at Donna
Summertime, Sebastiano has posted an interview with Andrew Johnson -
the guy who sings I'm In Love With Donna Summer. (Look
for the original single and remixes at Amazon
and Amazon UK.
) Over on YouTube, Fernando has posted another of his remix
videos (this time for I Feel Love mixed with Giorgio's Chase),
and limoncello23
has added a couple of familiar clips in high quality format. On Multiply
look for Patrice's
new mixes of I Will Live For Love.
[MAR 1] It's a brand new month
so that means it's time for a new Summer
Fever pick. This month A Love Trilogy hits the spotlight -
now updated with streaming MP3 clips.
[MAR 1] In the Donna is
everywhere category, there is a show on Wednesday called Date or Fake
on the German TV channel VIVA. During the intro to the show, they played a
little clip of Crayons. (You gotta love it when the new stuff sneaks
out there!) On the same day the Phoenix channel ran a show called The
Power Of Music which had a segment about disco. They had some vintage
interview clips of Donna - speaking in German about her image. I don't know
if the show will be repeated or not, but if it is, try to catch it.
[MAR 1] There is a new U2 album
coming out on Tuesday called No
Line On The Horizon. I mention that because on it is a track
called Magnificent in which Bono's vocals (according to one
reviewer) sound like Donna. I haven't heard the track yet myself,
but I guess I'll be checking out the clips on Tuesday.
[MAR 1] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on Multiply, Steve
is a posting fiend. He's added one mix and I didn't even count how many
videos to his page this week. If that doesn't keep you occupied at work,
then go check out Andy's
page where he has posted a few new mixes. On YouTube, Fernando
has also gone insane with 2 new video mixes and a classic live clip for you,
and look for a live clip of the Bad
Girls/Hot Stuff Medley from Westbury a couple of years ago. (Some of
you locals might even spot yourselves in the audience. :-) )
[FEB 22] I guess the place to
start is with the charts. Unfortunately as of March 7, Fame has
fallen off the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. In Brazil,
it slips a couple of notches to # 5 on the Top 30 Dance chart for February
28.
[FEB 22] As most of you
probably know, tonight is Oscar night when Hollywood recognizes the best of
the past year. Naturally that's pretty much dominated entertainment media. TVGuide
has chimed in with an article about Oscar winning songs and in it they list Last
Dance as one of the most deserving wins. They even have a link to a
classic performance of the song.
[FEB 22] Photo hounds, go check
out BackstageGallery.com
for some classic concert pictures from 1976. You can even order prints if
you want.
[FEB 22] In the land of
"these guys have great taste" - a number of new things
have cropped up recently that have either been inspired by Donna's music, or
that have been compared to Donna's music. There is It's
Blitz
by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs which was inspired by the Donna/Giorgio Moroder
collaborations, there is the new
Peaches album coming this spring with a title that may have been inspired
by a Donna track (at least that is the speculation of one writer), an upcoming
Duke Pandemonium CD that is being hailed as being "as much Donna
Summer as it is King Crimson...", and the new Lily
Allen CD that has one reviewer saying that it "coalesces the dance floor malaise of Donna Summer and New Order, the whack-pop chirp of early Kate Bush and the grand fromage of ABBA...."
I guess these younger artists know where to go for inspiration.
:-)
[FEB 22] In the Donna is
everywhere - see if you can spot the sample in this Ne
Yo video. I'll give you a hint: it's not one of the more commonly
sampled tracks - even among Donna fan mixers. Or if you are in a movie frame
of mind, go see Frost/Nixon. Believe it or not, they
play I Feel Love in the film. (And I have to say it's not a song that I
would ever think of in connection with Richard Nixon. LOL)
[FEB 22] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on Multiply, look for Fame mixes by Andy
and Patrice,
and an old Dutch interview posted by Steve.
Mix fans will want to check out fanmixer, Klyk's new blog.
On it you can hear a bunch of his Donna mixes, along with some of his other
stuff too.
[FEB 15] Happy day after
Valentine's Day! Before I get to Donna, Bruce fans will want to see
the Family Matters section below. :-)
[FEB 15] Let's start with the
charts. On the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for February 28, Fame
drops to #34. I guess that run is over. :-( In much better news,
Fame holds at #2 on the Brazilian
Top 30 Dance chart.
[FEB 15] In release news, the Rona
Barrett DVD is officially out now. I got my copy and here is the scoop.
The DVD contains 10 interviews with celebrities that were hot in the late
70s or early 80s. Each interview is accompanied by a brand new commentary
before and after the clip - and in Donna's case, it even includes a mention
of Crayons. Donna's interview runs for about 8 minutes and she
talks about Love To Love You, prejudice, the music industry and her
first time singing in church. I'd say it was probably filmed in late 1979 or
early 1980 - it's hard to say because the clip doesn't promote any
particular album. If you are looking for more reasons than just Donna to pop
for the CD, there are also vintage interviews with Cher, Priscilla Presley,
Robin Williams, Carol Burnett and John Travolta, among others. And one
dollar of each sale goes to the Rona Barrett Foundation for the Elderly
Poor.
[FEB 15] In new old releases,
the UK has a new Master's collection called Classic. It's 18 tracks
of a few hits rounded out by album tracks from the Casablanca/Polygram
albums. EIL.com
has a photo of the cover (and the track list), and I believe the album is
also available at Amazon
UK. (The one I linked to has the right track list - but unfortunately
there isn't any other info that makes it 100% certain it's the same
one.
[FEB 15] In the Donna is
everywhere category - well, it was Valentine's Day. So you know her songs
were being mentioned in articles all over the place. LOL
Obviously, Love To Love You got a mention in one
article, but the really cool thing is that Science Of Love got a
mention in a widely published AP
article about the chemicals that are released in a kiss. It's nice to
know the new songs are being listened to by someone besides the regulars
here. :-) In another unexpected
mention, the group Yeah Yeah Yeahs has a new album called It's Blitz
that is at least partly inspired by Giorgio Moroder's work with Donna.
[FEB 15] I think that brings us
to the web news for the week and have I got a clip for you. Go over to
YouTube where you might remember that bonesraymond
posted a fabulous clip of Donna singing Amazing Grace with the Nashville
Symphony. Well, he's added a couple of other clips from that show - namely
Smile, and a clip of I
Will Live For Love that is completely different from any version of
that song you've heard before. It's a ballad with full orchestration.
:-) The clip is less than 2 minutes long unfortunately, but in my
opinion it blows away every other version of the song I've heard. (That's it
- next time Donna plays with a symphony, I have to find a way to get there!)
While you are snooping around YouTube (and if you are like me - once you
play one clip you have to look and see what else is new LOL), check
out this clip of Don't
Cry For Me Argentina from Spain. Over on Multiply, Steve
has posted a video of Donna singing A
Man Like You, and a couple of other goodies, while Andy
has posted a couple of new mixes, and Denis
has posted his slow to fast megamix.
[FEB 8] If you missed Donna on
Larry Flick's show the other morning, you missed a lot of fooling
around :-) and you missed the announcement that there won't be
any tour dates until the summer because right now she's helping Amanda get
ready for her wedding. (Congrats to Amanda and Abner!)
[FEB 8] Let's head over to the
charts. For the week of February 21, Fame is hanging in on the Billboard
Hot Dance Club Play chart at #13. Over in Brazil for the week of
February 14, Fame climbs to #2 on the Top
30 Dance chart.
[FEB 8] In remix news,
check out the Edson Pride Circuit mix of Fame on Edson Pride's MySpace
page.
[FEB 8] Speaking of MySpace....
if you are a member (and have befriended Donna over there, you probably got
a bulletin inviting you to Donna's official Facebook page. If you
aren't on MySpace (or missed the bulletin, well here is Donna's
Facebook page. If Imeem is more your speed, she has a
page there too, and just to round out the list - this is her YouTube
channel. Maybe with all the official sites and all the fan sites
we can finally have Donna take over the WHOLE internet! ;-)
[FEB 8] Let's go to Paris for a
minute. As you know, there is a concert coming up in July. When we get
a little bit closer to the date, I'll set up a concert connection page for
those of you who would like to meet up for the show, share a ride, find a
French-speaking buddy to help you get around, or whatever. :-)
But right now, one of the guys on the forum has an extra set of tickets that
he's looking to sell. The post is here
(you don't have to join Delphi to read - if you are a member, you can reply
to the post. If you are not, contact me and I'll send your message to Wolfje
for you.) Also, I found out that Radio Nostalgie is running a commercial
advertising for the show. :-)
[FEB 8] Continuing with Paris,
there is an article on Vivolta.com
about the show. It ends with this interesting line: "Donna Summer sera en tournée à l'été 2009 dans toute l'Europe et en concert exceptionnel le 7 Juillet au Palais des Congrès de Paris."
Now I admit that French is not my strong suit.... but I'd say that
we will definitely be hearing more about Europe in the coming months.
:-)
[FEB 8] A couple of weeks ago I
mentioned a song called I'm In Love With Donna Summer by Andrew
Johnson (Amazon,
Amazon
UK, iTunes).
There are going to be remixes available for that song in the not too distant
future, and Andy is working on a video. He's looking for a few Donna fans to
help him out. The idea is he wants to use footage of fans dancing to
the song. You can read about it here
on the forum and if you are interested in participating, respond to Andy
in the thread.
[FEB 8] In DVD news, Amazon
shipped my Rona Barrett DVD so I should be able to tell you about Donna's
interview next weekend. :-)
[FEB 8] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on YouTube, limoncello23 has gone upload crazy
with some old clips and his new video for Crayons. Also looks for
clips from last year's Ottawa Bluesfest from Backpackdave1.
[FEB 2] I have to radio alerts
for you. The first one is very time sensitive. (Sorry for the short notice!)
Donna will be on Larry
Flick's show on OutQ (Sirius 109, XM 98) TOMORROW
February 3. The show runs from 7 AM to 11 AM ET and Donna should be
on in the last hour. It was a really fun interview last time she was on, so
this time should be good too. :-) Now on Sunday February 8, tune into
Melbourne's Joy.org.au
for a replay of an interview they did with Donna to promote Crayons.
(If you guys remember, Alan at Joy.org.au was the guy who let us preview the
Crayons tracks a little early last Spring. :-) ) That
runs at 3 PM Melbourne time which converts to 11 PM Saturday here in New
York and 4 AM Sunday in London. (Everybody else can probably make their own
time conversions from one of those 2 times.)
[FEB 1] It's a new month so you
know what that means.... it's time for the new Summer Fever Pick. This month
it's the movie Thank God It's Friday.
[FEB 1] Let's start off with
the charts. On the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for February
14, Fame slips to #11. But over in Brazil, it climbs to #9 on the Top
30 Dance Chart.
[FEB 1] Germany.... I don't
want you to freak out yet, but there is a promoter
out there who is looking for venues interested in booking Donna. So
something is cooking.... I expect we'll hear more about Europe when we get
closer to the summer. :-) (Listen - don't go hounding those guys
unless you happen to run a theater that wants to book Donna. Even if
they have some stuff lined up already - they usually can't make the
information public until a certain time.)
[FEB 1] Speaking of Europe -
Paris, I hear that good tickets for the July 7 show have turned up again. If
you don't have tickets yet, check out Rodrigue.fr
and see what they have.
[FEB 1] BorderlineMusic.com
is listing a video compilation for DJs that includes Fame (The Game).
[FEB 1] The Grammy Awards are
just a week away, and Entertainment
Tonight Online is already in the festive spirit with a photo gallery of
past Grammy highlights. Included is a picture of Donna in her waitress
costume.
[FEB 1] Valentine's Day is
coming up soon, so Adelaide
Now has posted their list of the 10 Most Romantic (And Sexiest Songs) Of
All Time. Love To Love You makes the list with a YouTube link
to a classic performance.
[FEB 1] That brings us to the
web news for the week. The first thing you need to do is check out this
version of Amazing Donna.... I mean Amazing
Grace. (It IS amazing!) Fernando
has posted his videos for The Queen Is Back and It's Only Love.
Over on Multiply, look for Patrice's
mix of Now I Need You in video and audio formats.
[JAN 25] So let's start with
the charts again. The bad news is that Fame slips to #10 on the Billboard
Hot Dance Club Play chart for February 7. The good news is that Billboard's
website still shows the January 31 chart so you can still stare at Fame in
the #1 position for a while longer. And if you read the January
22 Chartbeat column, you will find these paragraphs: "SUMMER'S
PLACE: A 3-1 leap on Hot Dance Club Play for "Fame (The Game)"
(Burgundy) gives Donna Summer her 13th No. 1 hit on this chart.
"Fame" is the third consecutive chart-topper from Summer's
"Crayons" album, following "I'm a Fire" in April 2008
and "Stamp Your Feet" in July 2008.
This hat trick of No. 1 dance hits is Summer's longest streak of
chart-topping titles since she had four consecutive No. 1s in 1977-78,
ending with the pairing of "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls"
from May to July 1979."
[JAN 25] Looking at the (much
warmer than New York - yes I'm jealous LOL) country of Brazil, Fame
is up to #11 on the Top
30 Dance Chart.
[JAN 25] Speaking of Fame,
the remixes got a positive review in a recent edition of Echo
Magazine. They were especially pleased with the Dan Chase mixes. And
the magazine Inside
Out just started a blog. The first entry is about Fame
hitting number one.
[JAN 25] In the Donna is
everywhere category, there is a song out there by Andrew Johnson called
I'm In Love With Donna Summer. You can check out clips on Amazon,
Amazon
UK and of course iTunes.
[JAN 25] If anyone out there is
interested in getting the Rona
Barrett DVD I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the release date has been
changed to February 10. I have it on order myself, so when it comes I'll let
you know how it is.
[JAN 25] Music fans will be
interested in a new service called Spotify that allows users in certain
European countries to listen to the whole EMI, Universal, Sony, and Warner
catalogs for free. Right now it's an invitation-only beta release, but you
can sign up
to get an email when it opens up to the general public. You can read more
about it on Wikipedia.
[JAN 25] Moving on to the web,
over on YouTube, check out a very young Donna Summer performing with the Family
Tree. You have to wait until you are about halfway through the clip
before you see her since she's acting as a backup vocalist. (Some of the
Family Tree stuff will eventually come out on DVD - I'll let you know what I
hear more.) While you are over on Youtube, check out juliavicentin's
channel for several 1990 clips of Donna in Spain. And don't miss the
rare Brazilian clip from 1979 of Last
Dance. :-)
[JAN 18] As you all know, I'm
A Fire was the first club single from Crayons, and it went
to #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. When Stamp
Your Feet came out, it also went to #1. Well, the only thing better that
two #1 dance hits is THREE. :-) For the week of January 31, Fame
(The Game) hits the top spot on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play
chart. (I think we'll just rename it the Donna Summer Chart, and leave
it at that. ;-) ) Now go celebrate by watching the video on Donna's
site 100 times in a row! ;-)
[JAN 18] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a brief mention in the UK magazine, Boyz.
DJs, The Readers' Wives, have listed her and one of their dream guests - as
well they should. ;-) You can see that on page 10 of the January
8 issue - available in PDF format online at the Boyz
site. (That's page 10 of the magazine which works out to page 12 of the
file.) She also gets a brief mention in an article about this year's Rock
Hall Of Fame inductees.
[JAN 18] Believe it or not -
that brings us to the web news already. At YouTube, Fernando has been having
a few technical difficulties, so he's posted his latest video mixes on MySpace.
(You probably have to log in to see them.) Also at YouTube, if you are
feeling over-caffeinated, check out the sped up version of She
Works Hard For The Money. (I just report them, I don't try to
explain them! LOL) And that's actually it for the
week....... Talk about your slow weeks! LOL
[JAN 11] Let's head right to
the charts this week. It's all good on the Billboard Hot Dance Club
Play chart. For the week of January 17, Fame rises from #8 to #4 and
then for the week of January 24 it rises again to #3 (with a bullet.)
:-) On the R&B Album chart, the news isn't so good. After last
week's phenomenal jump to #52, this week it drops out of the top 100.
What we saw was the impact of the Christmas sales - so apparently quite a
few good little boys and girls got Crayons from Santa this
year. :-)
[JAN 11] Over at Perfectbeat.com,
the guys have compiled their top 100 CD singles for 2008. Guess who owns the
top 5 spots? (I really don't need to give you a hint or
anything, do I? LOL) And as long as I am talking about charts, Fame
just entered the Brazilian
Top 30 Dance Chart at #27.
[JAN 11]In DVD news...
no, NOT the one you have been asking about! Calm down! In DVD news, former gossip
maven Rona Barrett has a disk out called Nothing
But The Truth which features some of her interviews with various
celebrities including Donna. (These would have been taped in the 70s or 80s,
so we're talking vintage stuff.) So far it's available in Region 1 only.
[JAN 11] In the Donna is
everywhere... or was everywhere? category, there are reports on the net that
she is selling the house in Nashville. Personally, I think she just planted
the story to keep me from finding the vault.... ;-)
[JAN 11] I guess that brings us
to the web news. Over at Donna
Summertime, Sebastiano has updated his Top 40 with the latest fan votes.
(He's also updated the look of his site. :-) ) Fame is sitting
at #1 over there, and I see Power Of One has made a strong debut. I
wonder if that was inspired by that awesome limoncello23 video on Youtube?
Over at Forever
Donna, Sandro has updated with some new audio and video - including his
own Forever Donna TV channel. :-) On Multiply, Patrice
has posted 2 new megamixes for your listening pleasure. And at YouTube, look
for Fernando's
latest video creations for On The Radio and The Queen Is Back
as well as a classic clip of Lady
Of The Night.
[JAN 2] Happy New Year!
Did you all survive the festivities (and subsequent hangovers)?
;-) Since it's the beginning of a new month, you know what that means
- it's time for a new Summer Fever pick. This month (since all the
magazines and newspapers seem to be in retrospective mode) I thought it was
time for I Remember Yesterday. And just to give you a
taste of what is coming later this year - Bad Girls will be a
pick at some point in honor of its 30th Anniversary, and Crayons
will be back in time for the show in Paris. (I would never let you guys
party without your Crayons! ;-) )
[JAN 2] Let's go right to the
charts. On the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart
for January 10 - Fame stays at #8. (Before you freak out that it
didn't move - none of the top 26 on that chart gained or lost any ground. It
was a really strange sight to see.) And for more interesting news, you
will remember that Crayons re-entered the Billboard
R&B Albums chart at #90 last week. Well, this week (January 10) is
has JUMPED to #52 and Billboard has labeled it a "pace
setter." The party is not over yet guys!!! :-) While
you are celebrating that, head over to Masterbeat.com
where Fame is #2 on their list of the top releases for 2008. (Stamp
Your Feet is #39 on that same list.)
[JAN 2] After #52, everything
seems so anti-climatic. LOL But there is more news for you. In
upstate New York, the Times
Herald Record listed their top 10 area concerts. Donna's show at the
Bethel Woods Center came in at #5.
[JAN 2] The celebrity birthday
press continues - with Donna's name being mentioned in who knows how many
lists of celebrity birthdays. Of special note are D-Listed's
"Birthday Sluts" that has a classic photo (and no,
"slut" is not meant as an insult - that site calls everyone on the
list a "birthday slut"), and an article that you can read in English,
Spanish,
or German.
There is also another German
article, and another short one in Spanish.
If pictures are more your speed, n-tv.de
posted a slideshow of old and new pictures - some that aren't seen very
often.
[JAN 2] As many of you may
remember, Dutch TV was airing a special on the top 2000 songs of all time. State
Of Independence (and some new interview footage) was part of that
special. Fortunately for those of us who couldn't see it on TV, there is YouTube.
:-) The interview plays in English with Dutch subtitles.
[JAN 2] In the I can't believe
it was almost 30 years ago category (yes, I feel old now LOL) People
Magazine has posted archives of some of its past issues. Included are
the 1980 interview
with Donna and a 1980 article about Neil
and Joyce Bogart. It gets better than that though. Not only can
you read the text of the articles online, but you can download the WHOLE
magazine in PDF format if you want to. Now THAT is something I wish all
magazines and newspapers would do! (Just click the date on either of the
pages I just linked to to bring you to the main page for that issue.
There will be links to other articles and a download link to get the whole
magazine. If you are interested in other issues - they have stuff going all
the way back to 1974.)
[JAN 2] I think that brings us
to the web news. Over at DailyMotion.com,
they have Donna's performance of This Time I Know It's For Real from
Arsenio Hall. (By the way - I don't think I ever thanked Donna for not
making the Crayons song titles as long and hard to type as the Another
Place And Time titles. LOL) On YouTube, you can't stop
limoncello23. Now he's made a video for A
Song For You/ How Great Thou Art.
[JAN 2] And one last
thing...... this isn't specifically related to Donna, but the New
York Times posted an article on the state of the music industry today,
and it makes for an interesting read. You will have to register to read the
article - but registration is free.
2008:
[DEC 28] Paris - if you didn't
get your concert
tickets yet, you better act fast. The higher priced ones are
selling out quickly! :-) (I expect to hear from you guys after
the show with your concert reports - I know it's been a long time for
you! :-) )
[DEC 28] Okay - let's move on
to the charts. In the first official chart of 2009, Fame climbs to
number 8 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for January 3.
It's still got that bullet too. :-)
[DEC 28] If anybody is having
trouble getting the Live From New York CD (the new issue of Live
& More Encore with the DVD songs included), you can contact Get
Booked in Las Vegas. They have some copies available for sale and
if you call 702-737-7780, Wes will ship one out to you. Or if you are in the
Vegas area, just stop in the store. [Note: while Get Booked does carry some
good music - that's not ALL it carries. So it's probably not the best
site to explore if you are at your job - save it for your home
computer. ;-) ]
[DEC 28] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a quick mention in an article about Moby.
(He wishes he had written I Feel Love.) And she gets another quick mention
in an article about Darrell
Russ. Of course that is on top of the 1 million (and still
counting LOL) articles listing this week's celebrity birthdays.
[DEC 28] In the world of
internet radio, UU-BRU
has posted its year end chart and Donna is there at #3 with Stamp
Your Feet.
[DEC 28] That brings us to the
web news for the week. Over on Youtube, limoncello23 is at it again
with a video for The
Queen Is Back. (He's got a nice mix of the official video and other
footage going there - Donna-rollers will want to take note.) You can also
find classic clips of I
Feel Love, Dinner
With Gershwin, and MacArthur
Park. I probably won't be back again until 2009 - so everybody
have a safe and happy New Year's celebration! (And don't forget - if you are
drinking, don't drive and if you are driving then don't drink. And
watch out for those few who do both!)
[DEC 26] The weekly update is
coming later this weekend, but for now I have something for PARIS,
France. :-) How does a
show on July 7 at La Palais des Congrès de Paris sound? You can buy
tickets online at Rodrigue.fr.
Hopefully there will be a lot of European press to go with the show.
:-)
[DEC 20] Happy Holidays
everybody! This is probably the last update before Christmas unless
some breaking news happens. Before I move on to the regular news, I
want to direct your attention to the TV section below. I
have a couple of new listings there - including one for The
Netherlands. And Wolfgang has updated his discography
and bio just a bit. I also want to say that the E-Greetings For Donna page is
officially complete and I will be emailing the link to the powers that
be right after I finish this update. :-) You guys can see it here.
Thanks to all who contributed - all you regulars who have been writing since
we started this, and all you new people who just wrote in this year.
:-)
[DEC 20] Let's go to the chart
news. On the December 27 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, Fame
climbs to #15 - still with that bullet! I suspect that's one that most of us
will be dancing to on New Year's Eve.
[DEC 20] As the year is
wrapping up, some sites are posting their year end review of the 2008
releases. Jeremy Gloff has posted an excellent review on his blog.
Here is a taste: "I never would expect that Donna Summer would eclipse the big three…Janet, Madonna, and Mariah. But quietly she did. CRAYONS is a later-career masterpiece that shows its rewards with repeated listens."
[DEC 20] Photo hounds, you
might want to check out this familiar face in Brenda
Russell's photo album. (Don't bother with the full screen option - it
doesn't make the photo any bigger.)
[DEC 20] In Radio news, Sirius/XM
is bringing back The Strobe on January 15. So classic disco/dance is back on
satellite radio. I guess the listeners have spoken!
[DEC 20] In the Donna is
everywhere category..... I was just watching a show on WE called Hollywood
Does Christmas. And they showed some professional shoppers buying
gifts for the rich and famous on behalf of the rich and famous.
Donna's name was on one of the lists - unfortunately (or maybe fortunately
after seeing the show LOL) they never talked about what they got for
her. (On a side note, if I am ever rich and famous enough for those shoppers
to be picking out stuff for me - all I can say is this: If you see a $1500
pocketbook shaped like a dog that you think would be perfect, STOP taking
whatever drugs you are on and take that $1500 and throw it into a soup
kitchen, animal rescue place, or other worthy charity. Some of the
stuff I saw on that show...... sheesh!)
[DEC 20] Over on GayRomeo, the
guys took a vote and came up with a surprising list of their favorite songs.
Here's the list: 1. No More Tears, 2. Could It Be Magic, 3. MacArthur
Park, 4. I Feel Love, 5. Sand On My Feet, 6. Hot Stuff, 7. I'm A Fire, 8. I
LOve You tied with Summer Fever, 10. I Will Go With You, 11. She Works Hard
For The Money, 12. Stamp Your Feet, 13. The Queen Is Back, 14. Dinner With
Gershwin, 15. Bad Girls tied with If There Is Music There and Whispering
Waves, 18. Heaven Knows tied with Melody Of Love and Rumour Has It.
[DEC 20] I think that brings us to the web. Over on
Multiply, Jeff
has been uploading videos like a mad man. :-) ANd on YouTube, Fernando
has uploaded a couple of his video remixes and TBoneTvChannel
has posted a couple of classic Donna clips.
[DEC 14] As you can see the
Christmas decorations are finally up. :-) Before I get to
the news, I just want to remind you all that the deadline for the
E-Greetings for Donna is the 19th - Friday. (Don't even ask me where
the month went, because I have no clue. LOL) Send your messages for
Donna to webmaster@donna-tribute.com
or any other email you might have for me. (I check everything!)
I would also like to thank all of you who sent in things for Donna's
birthday surprise. You guys came up with some really good stuff and it's
been all packed up and shipped off to Mary. :-)
[DEC 14] On to the news. Let's
go to the charts. I don't have the weekly Dance chart number yet, but the
year end Billboard charts for 2008 are out. Donna comes in at
#11 on the Hot Dance Club Play Artists list and Stamp Your Feet comes
in at #33 on the Hot Dance Club Play Tracks list. If you want to look at the
complete year end chart list, head over to the Billboard
website.
[DEC 14] The awesome new Fame
video has found its way on to YouTube
now (not to mention my video gadget on the Crayons page.) So if you
have had trouble embedding the Vimeo link from Donna's page on your blogs or
whatever - try the YouTube link. :-)
[DEC 14] HardCandyMusic.com
has a post up about She Works Hard For The Money that includes video
from the Chasen's documentary, Off The Menu, where both Donna and
Onetta talk about the song. The video also mixes together concert footage of
Hard For The Money and the official video. (And I think most of you
long time fans will recognize where the concert footage came from.) and up
until today they had a photo up that was taken this summer when a certain
Diva performed to a sell out crowd.
[DEC 14] In the Donna is
everywhere category, a local
news website has an article about restored theaters on Long Island's
East End. The Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center is one of them. She
also gets a mention in an
interview with singer Darrell Russ.
[DEC 14] That brings us to the
web news. Over on Multiply there is Fame mania. :-)
We have new fan mixes posted by Andy
and Patrice.
And the video has found its way onto a few profiles. :-) (Is it bad
that every time I run into it, I feel compelled to watch? It's a good
thing I can't play it at work! LOL) And at Donna
Summertime, Sebastiano has something to say about the Grammys. Beyond
that, it's been pretty quiet on the web. (I think the impending holidays are
eating up everyone's time!)
[DEC 8] So I have 2 things for
you tonight. First of all, Fame is now the power pick in the December
20 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart. It's sitting there at
#22 - still with that bullet. Now, if you would like to celebrate
that, you can with the other piece of news tonight. Head over to DonnaSummer.com
where Nathan Digesare has just uploaded the video he made for Fame.
Look for that on the video page. (You probably already figured that part
out. LOL) That clip is embeddable (is that even a word?) so you
Donna-rollers out there might want to put it to good use. ;-)
[DEC 6] Before I get started
with the news, I just want to remind everyone sending in things for the
book, I need to have everything in my hands on December 10 so I can get it
in the mail to Mary and she can meet her deadline. (Don't forget -
submissions will NOT be returned so send only copies or things you can part
with!) Also if you are sending in E-Greetings for Donna and the family this
year - the deadline is December 19. There is still plenty of room for
greetings, so get writing! :-)
[DEC 6] Okay, let's start with
the Grammys. The nominations have been announced and you can see the
complete list at Grammy.com.
I can tell you right now though that you won't find Donna's name on
it. :-( The awards will be handed out on "Grammy
Sunday" February 8 at 8PM (ET/PT). I plan to spend that evening
playing Crayons non-stop. :-)
[DEC 6] Moving on to better
things, DonnaSummer.com
has been updated with 2 more items in the store. The first is a tank top
(which I am tempted to buy now. I figure, since I bought the hoodie when it
was too hot out to wear it, it's only right that I get a tank top when it's
too cold to wear it. LOL) The other is the yellow shirt with the big I'm
A Fire eye on the front.
[DEC 6] In release news, the Fame
mixes have turned up on iTunes
(at least in the US - I haven't checked the other stores yet) and at Amazon's
MP3 store. There is one small catch though - the iTunes listings
won' tell you which mix is which. I guess they forgot to include those
details when they uploaded the tracks. Oops. LOL So
for those of you who are shopping at iTunes, here are the list of mixes
available with the running times. You should be able to figure out
which is which on iTunes by the track length. Ralph Rosario Club
(9:56), Ralph Rosario Dub (9:55), Dave Aude Club (7:34), Dave Aude Dub
(7:18), Dave Aude Dub Instrumental (7:17), Dan Chase Full Vocal (6:08), Dan
Chase Dub (5:23), Dan Chase Instrumental (5:29), Extended Ultimix (5:10),
Ralph Rosario Radio (3:55), Dan Chase Radio (4:00), Dave Aude Radio
(3:47), and the original album version (4:03).
[DEC 6] In the Donna is
everywhere category - she got a mention in a World AIDS Day post on the Knucklecrack
blog. Now I'm going to warn you that the blog post might be a bit
explicit for younger readers, but adults out there should check it
out. Donna reference aside - it's a very touching post, and very relevant
(unfortunately).
[DEC 6] Also in the Donna is
everywhere category, she got a quick mention in a Telegraph
blog post that took issue with the Rolling Stone list of the
100 Greatest Singers.
[DEC 6] I think that brings us
to the web news for the week. At NathanDiGesare.com,
Nathan has added a gallery of 2008 tour photos. Over on YouTube, look for a
classic clip of Could
It Be Magic from back in the day, a Donna vs. David Bowie Fame
mix by Fernando, and a retrospective
piece on Donna with lots of classic clips and interview footage with
Giorgio Moroder (among others). And on Multiply look for Patrice's
megamix of Jason Nevins mixes.
[DEC 1 again] I wasn't going to
put this on the site because I didn't want to spoil any surprises for a
certain Diva, but I got the green light, so I'm posting. The family is
putting together a special surprise book in honor of a significant birthday
and if there are any fans out there with interesting photos or
newspaper clippings or ticket stubs (or whatever else you think might be of
interest to Donna), you are invited to send them in to be added to the
book. Now here are the rules - whatever you send has to be something
that can go into a book. And (this is IMPORTANT) it has to be
something that you can give up - that means COPIES of photos or whatever.
Don't send your prized originals because you'll never get them back.
And I have to have a tight deadline because the family has a tight
deadline. I want to have everything ready to mail on December 10 to
make sure they get it in time. I will email my mailing address to
anybody who wishes to contribute. (Webmaster@donna-tribute.com
or any other addy you have for me is fine - I check them all.) And if there
are any spies out there (I know who you are! LOL) who decide to spill
the beans to Donna - well.... I'll tell Mary on you. So there!
;-p As a side note - this is a whole separate thing from the
E-Greetings for Donna which is still going on as scheduled. :-)
[DEC 1] The new Summer Fever
pick is posted. To the surprise of absolutely no one, it's Christmas
Spirit. :-) For this year, I've added a few extras to the
page. Also, if you haven't sent an E-Greeting for Donna yet,
there is still plenty of time. The deadline is December 19 and the email
address is webmaster@donna-tribute.com.
(Just put E-Greeting somewhere in the subject line. :-) ) The
E-Greeting page will go live shortly after the 19th and the link will be
sent to the powers that be at the same time.
[NOV 29] In anticipation of a
killer day at work tomorrow, I'm doing the weekly update tonight. (Plus I
was revamping the next Summer Fever page anyway - that will go live on
Monday.) Let's start off with some chart news. :-) On the
December 13 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, Fame is the
Hot Shot Debut at #33. :-) And yes, it has a bullet.
[NOV 29] I Feel Love has
gotten a couple of mentions in recent news articles lately. The first
was in an article about the
top 40 synth sounds of all time. I Feel Love came in at
#2. The second article was a Daily
Record story called "on My Nano" in which a Scottish actress
lists a couple of the songs on her iPod. I Feel Love is the first
song she listed.
[NOV 29] Believe it or not -
that brings us to the web news. Over on YouTube, Fernando
is a posting fiend this week. He's put up a number of Fame
video mixes to keep us all busy. And on GayRomeo, some of the guys are ....
well, I guess I better back up and explain before I say what they are
doing. There is a meme on the web called "Rickrolling"
where people dupe others into watching the Rick Astley video, Never Gonna
Give You Up. So the guys on GayRomeo want to try something similar that
they call Donnarolling. Now they are not actually trying to trick anybody
into watching Donna videos - they are just sending links to anybody
who might be remotely interested. One guy in particular suggests
linking people to Stor Dubine's Stamp Your Feet animation, but I can say
that I have been Donnarolled a few times and I've been sent different clips
each time. :-) I do have one tiny piece of
advice to anyone who wants to join the Donnarolling party - if you are
linking to a video, make sure the hosting site is one that doesn't restrict
viewers to a particular geographic location or whatever. One of the links I
got simply doesn't play for anyone outside Germany. If you pick a clip
hosted by a site like YouTube, nobody should have any troubles watching the
clips. ;-) I'll be back again in a day or 2 with the new Summer
Fever Pick. (You all know what it will be - but I've added extra stuff
to the page that was never there before.)
[NOV 28] It's been a heck of
week with the terrorist attack in India and the psychos trampling people ...
I mean holiday shopping here in the US. (So much for peace on Earth
and goodwill towards men!) Anyway, this isn't the weekly update yet. I was
here working on the E-Greetings page (there is still plenty of time to
contribute!) and I decided to add a shopping page for
the holidays. It should cover most of the current "must have"
items for any Donna Summer fan. :-) I'll be back later this weekend
with the weekly update. :-)
[NOV 23] Since there probably
won't be another update until next weekend (unless something really cool
happens), I'll take this opportunity to wish all my American friends a happy
Thanksgiving. :-) As for the rest of you - take Thursday off.
You can be honorary Americans for the day. :-) Now before we get to
Donna, there is some Sudano family news in the Family
Matters section below.
[NOV 23] In Donna news, both
her official site
and her MySpace
have links to buy the Fame remixes at Masterbeat.com. It's come to my
attention that international fans have found themselves locked out of those
downloads due to licensing issues. (You'd think in this age of instant
global communication, the record labels, movie studios, etc would find a way
to make things available to everyone at the same time. ) If you are one of
those who couldn't use Masterbeat,
or if you just prefer to have the mixes on CD, head over to PerfectBeat.com.
They will ship to you. :-)
[NOV 23] And speaking of Fame
mixes..... on the December 6 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play charts,
Fame is the top breakout track. In other words, it will probably chart on
the 13th. :-)
[NOV 23] In the Donna is
everywhere category, She Works Hard For The Money comes in at #10 in
The Frisky.com's Recession
Playlist: 15 Songs About Cash. (Hmmm - it's a recession. Maybe she
works hard for NO money? ;-) ) Also, there is a book out called Couples
Who Pray [Amazon,
Amazon
UK] that includes a few quotes from Donna and Bruce about their
relationship. Amazon (US only) will let you take a peek inside the book to
check out the table of contents and a few sample pages. (You can see some
Sudano quotes on pages 6 and 7.)
[NOV 23] Here's one that will
have most of you scratching your heads. LOL Maureen McCormick
(best knows as Marcia Brady from the Brady Bunch TV series) has an
autobiography called Here's The Story: Surviving Marcia Brady
[Amazon,
Amazon
UK]. In it she talks about the Brady Bunch's (probably best forgotten)
variety show from the mid 70s. Apparently they did a 4 minute intro
where the kids sang a rather eclectic medley of songs that included Love
To Love You Baby. Now just stop and think about that for a minute.
The Brady kids doing Love To Love You Baby...... it boggles the
mind. LOL For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Brady
Bunch Variety Hour (you lucky devils! LOL) there are some clips on YouTube.
I haven't seen the one with Love To Love You, but you can kind of get
an idea of what the show was like from the clips that are there.
[NOV 23] I think after the
Brady YouTube clip it's time to get that out of all your brains. LOL
SO let's look at the Donna stuff on the web this week. First up is the
original Love
To Love You Baby from The Midnight Special, a SWS remix of The
Queen Is Back complete with some rare photos, and a Moby
vs. Donna Porcelain (I Love You Remix You Baby) mix. All of those are
from YouTube and the first 2 should be watched in high quality (if
you are able to.) Over on Multiply, Patrice
has made his own edits of a couple of the Fame mixes, and Andy has
posted his Christmas
Medley Ornamental mix.
[NOV 23] And finally, as many
of you know XM Radio and Sirius have merged. That is leading to some new
channel lineups and unfortunately a number of dance stations have been axed.
Strobe is gone, The Beat is gone, Chrome is gone.... and those were stations
that played a lot of Donna. If you are a fan of classic dance, make your
voice heard and let Sirius/XM know that you miss these channels. You can
even sign the online
petition that was started recently. For the last few years I have toyed
with the idea of signing up for satellite radio since regular radio is
really not fitting the bill for me most of the time. It looks like I'll
stick to net radio and my iPod until the dust settles.
[NOV 19] For those of you who
can't download at Masterbeat, or who prefer CDs to downloads - head over to Perfectbeat.com
now. They have the Fame mixes available on 2 CDs that go for
9.99 each.
[NOV 18] Did you see the new
banner above? Then you know the news. :-) The Fame
remixes are all available for download now at Masterbeat.com.
You can buy individual mixes for 1.99 each, or you can get the whole set for
9.99. :-) (Clicking the banner will take you right to the Fame
page.)
[NOV 16] Somebody tell me how
it got to be November 16 already! Wasn't it just last week we were
eagerly awaiting Crayons? LOL Anyway, now is probably a
good time to announce E-Greetings for Donna 2008. If you want to wish Donna
and the family a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, or even just say hi - send
an email to me (webmaster@donna-tribute.com)
with the words "E-Greetings for Donna" (or something similar) in
the subject line and I'll post them here on the site shortly before
Christmas, and then I will make sure that the powers that be get the
link. If you are a webmaster and you want to build a page of your own,
send me that link and I'll make sure they get it. If you want to do a
YouTube video - send me that link and I'll make sure they get that too. If
you have a photo you want me to post, send it along and if necessary I'll
crop it down to a good size for the web. If you want to write in
another language, all I ask is that you don't send anything in a
language I have to download a font for (Asian languages are tricky like
that) and that you do your own spell checking. I'll do my best to post a
translation via the translator at Google. Let's make the deadline December
19, so I have the weekend to finish up the page before I send it out. Most
of you guys have been around for ages, so you know the drill. :-)
[NOV 16] Moving on to some
remix news. Perfectbeat
will have a 2 CD set of Fame remixes hopefully this week. The
tentative track list is: the album version, Ralph Rosario Radio, Extended
Ultimix album version, Ralph Rosario Club, Ralph Rosario Dub, Dave Aude
Radio, Dan Chase Radio, Dave Aude Club, Dave Aude Dub, Dave Aude Dub
Instrumental, Dan Chase Full Vocal, Dan Chase Dub, and Dan Chase
Instrumental. If you really can't wait - there are a couple of 9 track Fame
cds on eBay......
but they might get a little pricey.
[NOV 16] In the Donna is
everywhere category, Donna got a brief mention recently on the Dutch talk
show, De Wereld Draait Door. They were talking about the Sjef
Van Oekel DVD release and they showed a clip of Donna doing the Hostage,
plus they talked about a time when Donna mentioned that appearing on Sjef
Van Oekel gave her career a boost back in the day. :-) If any of you
is looking to buy the Van Oekel DVD set, check out VPRO.nl.
It's a Dutch site, so if that's not your language you'll need the help of
the Google translator, or a cute Dutch boy. ;-)
[NOV 16] There is a book out
called The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide To The Greatest Songs From Punk To
Present. [Amazon
, Amazon UK
] I Feel Love is right there in chapter 1, and you can read what they had to
say on the Pitchfork
Media website.
[NOV 16] In re-release news, Christmas
Spirit will be back again this year as part of the 20th
Century Masters Series - The Christmas Collection line. It's
available online at Amazon
, Amazon UK
and a billion other online places all the time, but you should also be able
to find it in stores that carry the 20th Century Masters Series now
that it's the season. (Darn it - I forgot to see if Target and Walmart
had the Christmas music out when I was running errands the other day.)
[NOV 16] Blogcritics
has started what they call iBurns - list of songs that should help you get a
good work out. The first one up was a disco list and it opens with No
More Tears as the warm up track. That is followed by a number of classic
disco era tracks including Hot Stuff and Heaven Knows (as an option track
for a longer workout.) It's not a bad list of songs, but I can't help
thinking that a song that repeats the words "Enough is enough"
that often, should be the last song of the workout. I think if it was
me exercising (stop laughing, it might happen someday LOL) I'd hear
those words and say, "Donna and Barbra are right. Enough is enough. I'm
going out for pizza instead." ;-)
[NOV 16] Moving on to rare
collectibles.... I have a fan in the UK who needs to sell a couple of rare
singles. (You know the economy is bad when fans have to sell their
treasures!) He's got the 7" singles for Wasserman on the
German Polydor label, and the 7" single of If You're Walking Alone
on the Phillips label. He's only willing to sell them as a pair, and he's
asking for at least 1000 (UK Pounds). If you are interested, get in touch
with Grant at gingerman AT topmail.co.uk. (He can provide scans of the items
to interested potential buyers. :-) )
[NOV 16] That brings us to the
web news for the week. On Multiply, look for several new mixes from Patrice,
and Jeff's
extended single mix of Sand On My Feet. On YouTube look for a Donna
vs. Rod Stewart mashup, and a high quality version of limoncello23's excellent
Power
Of One/Barack
Obama video.
[NOV 9] Thank god the elections
are over! That sound you DON'T hear is the sound of my phone ringing
with polls and begging for votes from the local politicians. LOL
(Funny how every time they come up with any legislation about telephone
soliciting, it always excludes political phone calls. :-p ) And if our
new President-elect is reading this (because, he has nothing more important
to do right now LOL) - if you are looking for entertainment for
your inauguration, I know of a certain singer in Nashville who is pretty
good. ;-)
[NOV 9] Let's start with
release news from Holland. (And let's watch my spellchecker explode!
LOL) The Sjef Van Oekel Discohoek shows are now available on DVD.
It's a 3 disk set that is supposed to include Donna's appearances on the
show. These are clips from very early in Donna's career where she performs The
Hostage, Lady Of The Night and Love To Love You Baby. (They
are from at least 2 different episodes - possibly even 3.) Clips from the
show were used on VH1's Behind The Music back in 99, so some of you
guys outside of Holland may have seen a taste there. Or you can head over to
YouTube to see The
Hostage and Love
To Love You.
[NOV 9] Also in release news,
the Jason Nevins mix of Stamp Your Feet can be found on the new Les
Mills Bodystep Program. So I guess now we cal all Stamp ourselves
into shape.
[NOV 9] I guess I should say
something about South America. Pollstar is still showing the dates for Chile
and Brazil.... however, none of the venues are showing anything - and let's
face it, they would have had tickets up by now. So I think it's pretty safe
to say that Pollstar announced the dates before they were set in
stone. I think it's a pretty safe bet that they are not happening at
this time. So let's hope 2009 is the year for international events.
[NOV 9] Superseventies.com
has a short article about MacArthur Park posted. Believe it or not,
that record hit number 1 almost exactly 30 years ago. (It was November
11, 1978 for those of you who want specifics.) So who else feels old
now? LOL
[NOV 9] In the Donna is
everywhere category, she gets a mention in an
article about Broadway. In it, the author mentions that Paul Schaeffer
(of the David Letterman Show, among other things) co-wrote It's Raining
Men with Paul Jabara as a comeback song for Donna. Of course when Donna
passed on that one, it became a hit for The Weather Girls.
[NOV 9] That brings us to the web news for the week. Over on
YouTube, look for the Behind The Music special (uploaded in parts by Mondo75),
and a fan made video for Grand
Illusion. There is also a video
celebrating Obama's election win that uses a familiar song. (I'd rather see
it there than in a Pokemon movie any day. ;-) ) On Multiply, Jeff
is in Christmas party mode with some Rosie Christmas mixes, or if you
can't deal with holiday stuff yet, then check out his collection of Stamp
mixes. And Patrice
has posted his edit of Bad Girls.
[NOV 2] Before I get started
with the news, I'd just like to remind all my American friends that Tuesday
is election day. And you know what that means - starting on Wednesday
there will be no more political advertisements for awhile! (Now THAT is a
cause for celebration! LOL) So go out there and make your voice heard
by voting for the candidates who best represent your ideals. (Or by voting
against the ones who seem most likely to mess everything up. ;-) ) And
in the excitement of the Presidential election - don't forget about your
state and local races as well.
[NOV 2] In remix news, the
upcoming Fame mixes have gotten a mention on the Sweet
MuZik blog. There isn't any new information, but they give the song an
A-. I imagine it won't be much longer before we hear something from
PerfectBeat as well.
[NOV 2] In sales news, this
week's Ask
Billboard column has the current sales figures for Crayons.
To date it has sold 69,000 copies.
[NOV 2] Photo hounds - there
are some nice pictures from the Crayons tour posted on Flickr.com.
[NOV 2] The W Hotel chain
has put out a compilation called The Sound Of Wonderlust that
includes I'm A Fire. These CDs are available for sale to the general public
on the W
Hotel store website, and of course they are available at the hotels
themselves.
[NOV 2] Overseas, Donna's music
was featured on the UK show X-Factor. Contestants sang On The
Radio, No More Tears, and the disco version of Could It Be
Magic.
[NOV 2] Also overseas, there is
a French magazine called Rock And Folk that gave Crayons
a good review recently (which is amazing because they apparently have a
history of writing less than favorable reviews of Donna's music. (She was
never rock enough for their taste, I'm told.) The review is
accompanied by an interview.
[NOV 2] That brings us to the
web news. Over on Donna
Summertime, Sebastiano has replied to the letter on Donna's site with a
letter of his own in the What's New section of his site. On Multiply, look
for Andy's Fire
Reload mix of I'm A Fire. On YouTube, Fernando has a new video
mix with Donna dancing to Bonita
e Gostosa by Freneticas.
[NOV 2] In fan news, Darrell
Russ' Everybody's Looking For Something has been added to Clearchannel's
New - where he has a chance to be picked up by mainstream radio. And on
this site - look for an update to the biography section of Wolfagang's
German discography.
[NOV 1] The weekly update will
be coming tomorrow, but for tonight I have the new Summer Fever pick. In
honor of the gorgeous autumn leaves photos I was sent last night, I've
decided it is time to put Four Seasons Of Love back in the
spotlight. (And like the Crayons page, this one has streaming
MP3s instead of Real Audio. :-) )
[OCT 24] The update is a little
early because I have some news or you. Let's start off with DonnaSummer.com.
If you check out the news page, there is a brand new letter from
Donna. :-) And if that's not enough of the Empress for you..... FlairTV
has posted a short (and new) interview with Donna on YouTube.
[OCT 24] In Grammy news, the
voting process has started. Grammy voters have received the lists of songs,
artists, albums, etc that have been submitted by the labels for
consideration. As it happens, I was emailed by one of the lucky people who
gets to vote and he gave me the list of Donna's pre-nominations. For Record
Of The Year: I'm A Fire and Stamp Your Feet; for Song Of The
Year: I'm A Fire and Stamp Your Feet; for Album Of The Year: Crayons;
for Female Pop Vocal: Stamp Your Feet; for Pop Collaboration with
Vocal: Crayons; for Pop Vocal Album, Crayons; For Dance
Recording: I'm A Fire and It's Only Love; For Female R&B
Vocal: The Queen Is Back; For R&B Song: The Queen Is Back;
For Engineer (Non-Classical): all the Crayons engineers. Now
keep in mind these are by no means anything close to the final nominations.
These are just potential nominees for those categories (and believe me,
there are PAGES of potential nominees for each category!) The LA Times has a
blog
with lists of all the potential nominees in selected categories for those
who would like to see the whole field. The final nominees will be announced
December 4. Kep your fingers crossed!
[OCT 24] In remix news, look
for PerfectBeat to
have Fame (The Game) remixes soon. Apparently there are already 3
mixes and they are waiting for one more. There is supposed to be a Ralph
Rosario mix, a Dave Aude mix, and we'll just have to wait and see what the
others are. :-)
[OCT 24] I mentioned previously
that Donna was slated to do the Carousel Of Hope Gale tomorrow night in
Beverly Hills. Well, the Gala information has been updated and Donna is no
longer on the list. (Whew! I am so glad I didn't buy that $100,000 table
now. LOL)
[OCT 24] Collectors will want
to check this out. We have a Donna fan out there who is being forced by
circumstances to part with one of his treasures. It is an official
certificate declaring March 18, 1992 Donna Summer Day in Los Angeles. You
can check it out on Craig's
List. The seller is Scott in Phoenix, AZ and he would prefer to sell
locally - but he might be willing to make an exception for a diehard fan.
[OCT 24] Awhile ago I mentioned
that Crayons is available at Target as a MusicPass
card. (It's a credit card sized item with the Crayons album art, that
when purchased allows you to download the songs and some bonus content like
the EPK, and a couple of mixes.) Well, not Sony has teamed up with Winn
Dixie, so fans in the Southeastern part of the US will be able to buy the
cards there now.
[OCT 24] In the Donna is
everywhere category (sort of), there is a short interview with Moby in the Independent.
In it, he was asked about what song he would have written if he could have,
and he said: "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer. It's so simple and remarkable, somehow managing to be platonic and dirty at the same time.
[OCT 24] That brings us to the
web news for the week. On Multiply look for Patrice's
Donnaremix. And over at Donna
Summertime, Sebastiano has posted an interview with Zelma Davis about
her version of No More Tears (not to mention other things - some
Donna-related and some not.) Look for that in his Question Time section.
[OCT 24] And once again, I'd
like to remind my American friends to take some time to educate yourselves
on the issues and then go out and vote on November 4. (Or even sooner if you
live in a state with early voting.) Personally, I'm very disappointed that
neither candidate has proposed a huge Donna concert to celebrate his
inauguration..... so now I'm being forced to base my vote on minor
issues like foreign policy, the economy, healthcare and human rights.
;-)
[OCT 19] The store at DonnaSummer.com
has been updated. In addition to the hoodie, tote and Hard For The Money
shirt, there and also men's and women's Crayons shirts,
a couple of hats, the Crayons photo and of course the CD
itself. If I recall, that accounts for all of the tour merchandise except
the I'm A Fire shirt and the tank top.
[OCT 19] Donna will be
performing October 27 at a gala
at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center to celebrate the Pere's Center For
Peace's 10th anniversary. Also performing are Slash (from Guns N Roses),
Andrea Bocelli and Mercedes Sosa. (Well, you can't accuse the organizers of
not going for diversity! LOL) Pssst... Donna..... how about a
fan report of Bocelli's performance? We know you will be watching
him. ;-)
[OCT 19] In the Donna is
everywhere category - look for Hot Stuff in the movie How To Lose
Friends And Alienate People. And look for a mention of MacArthur Park
in an
article about "silly" song lyrics. (Actually, keep reading
past MacArthur Park and look at the rest of the lyrics mentioned in
the article and the comments - there are some strange songs out there!
LOL)
[OCT 19] In the land of covers,
there is an Elize cover of Hot Stuff that is currently sitting at #7
on the Dutch Top 40.
[OCT 19] In fan news, we have
an artist out there called Robert Müller who has asked me to share a couple
of his paintings with you. (I think you just might recognize the
subject. ;-) ) If you would like to contact him about the paintings,
you can get him at r.mueller AT fineartspictures.de.
[OCT 12] Let's start with a
little site news. I spent the afternoon doing a little upgrade to the
discography section. Now there are Amazon widgets sprinkled throughout the
section for albums that are available as MP3 downloads through Amazon.
Obviously not all albums are represented (and some of the missing ones
surprised me a little), but I did discover that a couple of interesting
one-offs are available over there. Sorry the purchase links won't work
for international fans, but you should still be able to play the clips and
even laugh at the Rosie Christmas widget. (For some reason that thing
links to a different non-Donna song every time I look at it. LOL)
[OCT 12] Let's talk about
remixes. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there was a remix of Fame on Hosh Gureli's MySpace
page. Well, that inspired at least one person to email PerfectBeat
about upcoming remixes. Apparently they are working with Sony again to get
some mixes out there, and as soon as they have enough to put together, they
will be releasing a CD. So save up some cash and stay tuned.
:-)
[OCT 12] Donna will be one of
the performers at the Carousel
Of Hope Gala to benefit juvenile diabetes. She'll be joining the Jonas
Brothers, Josh Groban, Kenny "Babyface" Evans and others on
October 25 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, CA. If you would like to
attend the event.... well, you still have about 2 weeks left to become rich
and famous enough. ;-) (Tables start at $10,000 and go
UP.)
[OCT 12] For those of you who
have been wondering about Sand On My Feet - it's still getting a lot
of air play on Sirius radio's Starlight station.
[OCT 12] In a case of Mistaken
Identity..... there is an
article about a new comedy musical that uses hits from the last 30
years. One song mentioned specifically was "Donna Summer's I'm So
Excited." I keep thinking that if Donna collected royalties for all
the songs people THINK she did, she'd have enough money to bail out Wall
Street all by herself. LOL
[OCT 12] In web news, there are
a couple of mixes out there on MySpace. DJ
Zebo has posted a mix of Sweet Romance, and Omega
Red has posted a mix of Crayons. Over on Multiply, look for 2 new
mixes by Evets on Denis'
page, amd 3 versions of Bad Girls on Patrice's
page. And on YouTube, look for an awesome fan video for Fame
by limoncello23 (watch it in high quality - it looks much better that way),
an Unconditional
Love clip filmed at Disney, a karaoke version of Hot
Stuff (for those of you who don't know the words ;-) ), and
Donna's performance of No
More Tears with Westlife.
[OCT 12] Stor Dubine fans -
he's in a competition for Aarting Toys. They are looking for the best
designs to use for their toy line, and Stor has 9 designs in the
competition. You can vote up until October 24 at aarting.com.
[OCT 12] And finally on a
personal note to the spammer that keeps telling me to make money off my
friends - my friends aren't for sale! (I don't need to sell them, I have
several bank scammers willing to send me millions of dollars to help them
smuggle money out of Nigeria or wherever. LOL)
[OCT 3] First things first, I
know it's a couple of days late - but the new Summer Fever pick is posted.
This month I'm A Rainbow
takes the spotlight, but you can still see the Crayons
page as well if you want to. :-) Also I have some Brooklyn news below
for you and another Crayons
review.
[OCT 3] Bad news for Europe,
the word out of Italy is that Donna has cancelled some of the promo stuff
over there so that she can support Bruce after the loss of his dad.
[OCT 3] Art fans - there is a
signed litho of Driven
By The Music up on eBay right now. Proceeds from the auction will
benefit the Make A
Noise Foundation. And speaking of fundraising, Tony Sacca has a
syndicated TV series in which he interviews celebrities. He's putting
together a PBS special called "The Best Of Entertainment Las Vegas
Style" which will air on PBS some time in November. (It it almost
certain that it will air during the pledge drives.) It is possible (but not
definite by any means) that he might throw in clips of his interview with
Donna. The special is being taped Monday and Tuesday so hopefully some time
after that we'll know what clips were chosen.
[OCT 3] In release news, last
week I mentioned a "new" CD called Live In New York.
Amazon
Germany has the track list. It is a variation of Live & More Encore.
They dropped the 2 studio tracks and added the live tracks that were on the
video but not the original CD. Then just for fun I guess, they mixed up the
play order. (But they still left Last Dance as the closing
track...... if I was going to rearrange things, I'd open with Last
Dance just to mess with people's minds. LOL) Amazon UK has a
listing for The
Very Best Of Donna Summer - a 2 disk edited version of The
Ultimate Collection.
[OCT 3] Music video fans, Universal-Music.com
has a couple of Donna's classic video clips posted. Of special interest is
the Love Is In Control video which is NOT on the Endless Summer
video compilation and the Last Dance clip that VH1 used to use from time to
time. They are excellent quality. :-)
[OCT 3] In web news, look for
an animated Power
Of One video on YouTube. And look for Stor Dubine's videos on Animacam.tv.
He's got 4 posted there - Stamp Your Feet, I Got Your Love and 2 non- Donna
clips. You can see them in high quality and more importantly - you can
VOTE for them! :-)
[OCT 3] Finally, on a personal
note to my American friends - the Presidential (and other) elections are
coming up in about a month. There is a lot of stuff going on right now with
the economy, the war, etc. Make sure you educate yourselves on the issues
and the candidates and then in November, get your butts out there to the
polls and vote for the guy you think can get us out of this mess. (Or at
least the guy who won't make it any worse. ;-) ) Seriously - you
need to vote, and it needs to be an educated vote.
[SEP 28] Condolences to the
Sudano family. Bruce lost his dad earlier this month and he's posted a nice
tribute to his dad on the news section of his
site. As always, if anyone would like to send messages to the
family, I'll be happy to take them and pass them along - or Bruce has an
email link on his site.
[SEP 28] The Rock & Roll
Hall Of Fame has announced the nominees for the class of 2009. They are War,
Metallica, Run DMC, Jeff Beck, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Bobby
Womack, Chic, Wanda Jackson and the Stooges. Yup.... they forgot
somebody. :-( Here's hoping for 2010.....
[SEP 28] Moving on to happier
things, the ever popular (and ever sold out LOL) Wii gaming system has a new
game coming out in a few days (in the USA) called We
Cheer. The game lets you dance and cheer to a number of different
songs - including Stamp Your Feet! So if you know any Wii addicts -
now you know what to get them for Christmas. ;-) Europe, you will get
the game too but not until early 2009.
[SEP 28] In release news, a
Dutch retailer (Bol.com)
is listing a "new" CD called Live In NY that will be
available on October 4. There is no track list posted but I'm 95% sure that
it has to be Live & More Encore with different art. (They are
using the Bad Girls cover portrait reversed.) I'm only 95% sure
because there is a little voice in my head saying, "What if this is a
wildly re-titled Shout It Out?" LOL
[SEP 28] And in UN-release
news, the lawyers have done their jobs and If I Could Live Our Love Again
has been pulled. Now we can go back to pining for the vault to be released
legitimately. ;-) (Psssst...... if anybody interested,
Barry Manilow has a really neat way of getting his vault out there. Once a
week or so he posts an unreleased demo or whatever on his site, )and then
tells the story behind it. So not only do you get to hear the song in
whatever rough version exists, you also get to find out what project it was
for and why it ended up in the vault.)
[SEP 28] In the land of
remixes, we have a new one of Fame posted on Hosh Gureli's MySpace
page. And while you are nosing around MySpace, check out Donna's
page. Since MySpace has gone into the download business, they have a
whole bunch of Donna's tracks posted now to keep the Crayons
stuff company. :-)
[SEP 28] I guess that brings us
to the web news for the week. Over on Multiply, look for Patrice's extended There
Goes My Baby video, and Andy's White Europe Extended mix of On
The Radio.
On YouTube, look for some new classics from mascguy4upsl,
and DJ Eko's extended version of I
Feel Love complete with edited footage of Donna performing the song.
[SEP 28] And one last thing -
in the land of Donna Summer fans, we have Darrell Russ who has a song out
now called Riding Home From Baltimore that was inspired by Donna.
He's asking fans to come over to artistpr.com
to check it out and to vote for him. And then Mark Tara (who brought us Sometimes
Like Butterflies on CD) has a new CD coming out called Lola.
You can check out some of the tracks on his
site, but I have to tell you that when it's out you are going to want to
get an actual CD and not just a download version of the album. He sent me a
copy to check out and it looks cool - like a tiny vinyl album complete with
grooves! (Yes I am apparently hopelessly retro. LOL)
[SEP 21] With the tour wrapped
up for now and the European promo stuff yet to happen - there's not a whole
lot to report this week. But I guess the place to start is with the charts.
Last week, Sand On My Feet debuted on the Billboard Adult
Contemporary chart - but unfortunately this week it fell off. But don't stop
requesting it - it can always come back. ;-)
[SEP 21] Speaking of Sand On
My Feet, it's getting airplay in Paraguay on Radio
Canal 100 FM. :-) (The station also lets you vote for your
favorite songs. :-) )
[SEP 21] In the Donna is
everywhere category, yesterday WGN ran an episode of the Best Of Soul Train
with Donna promoting Cats Without Claws. (I can't believe that album
is 24 years old already!)
[SEP 21] Here's one for the
unsubstantiated rumor category, recently a friend of a friend was shopping
in a Ruehl store and they
claimed to have heard a mix of Driving Down Brazil. Here's the thing,
the guy isn't a diehard fan so he may have just heard the album version and
just assumed it was a mix. But if any of you guys shop or work there, keep
your ears open and let me know what you hear.
[SEP 21] That brings us to the
web news. Over at SuperBulletNumberOne,
Shawn has finally posted EVERYTHING that he has. So if you head over there
and you find something missing - send it to him so he can add it. ;-)
(Hmmm - we might have to get him to start a Shout It Out
gallery now. LOL) Over on Multiply, look for Patrice's
video for Science Of Love, and Andy's
Robotic Extended Mix of I Feel Love. On YouTube, look for a cartoon
video of Romeo
posted by Renatapadua5, and annill posted my kid-less version of Take
Heart.
[SEP 14] Before I get started,
I have more articles for you below (including one
really good interview that I know you guys will like. :-) )
[SEP 14] Where should I start?
I guess the best place is the charts. I thought we were done with charts for
awhile, but I guess not. :-) Sand On My Feet debuts on Billboard's
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks at #30 for the week of September 20.
That is the third song from Crayons to chart in
Billboard. :-) So you guys know what to do - call your local stations!
[SEP 14] Speaking of charts, in
honor of Billboard's 50th anniversary, they have compiled a list of the
top 100 artists based on their chart success. Donna comes in at #24, but
check out the whole list. I was a little surprised at how some of the
rankings worked out.
[SEP 14] Here's one for the
"where did that come from?" category. By sheer accident, a friend
of mine ran into a new Donna EP on iTunes when he was upgrading to version
8. It's 4 versions of an old demo (2 vocal and 2 basically
instrumental). I asked a couple of questions to the right person, and
I have found out that this release was NOT authorized by Donna's
people. Expect to see it vanish into the mists any time now.
[SEP 14] In the "bigger
would be better" category.... (I see some heads nodding in agreement
there LOL) Pete
Waterman's website has some clips from the vault. One of them is an
unreleased 12" version of I Don't Wanna Get Hurt.... but
the clip is only about 30 seconds long. (That's why I said bigger
would be better. LOL) There are similarly short clips of other artists
as well.
[SEP 14] It's getting to be the
time of year when the Rock Hall Of Fame picks the nominees for 2009. In
anticipation of that, USA
Today has a poll to let readers vote for the artists they would like
to see inducted. Donna is one of the choices. :-)
[SEP 6] I have a radio alert
for you for tomorrow night. WBAI
will be playing Sand On My Feet sometime during their Everything
Old Is New Again show from 7 to 9 PM (NY time.) You can tune in online
if you are not in broadcast range. Also, I have a few new articles for you below,
some Brooklyn news, and if you were at a meet and
greet for any of the following shows, your pictures are here:
Jones Beach, PNC Arts, Salamanca, NY (only a couple on that one), Boston,
Atlantic City (also just a few), Oakland, Windsor, Alpine, Saratoga,
Chicago, Reno and Baltimore. I've also updated the Minnesota
page.
[SEP 6] Let's start off with
Chicago - mainly because this makes me laugh. Apparently a couple of people
at the recent concert got into a "wine-and-cheese
splattering melee" over an apparently prime spot in the lawn.
Now I have to explain that it's not the fight itself that makes me laugh -
it's the "wine-and-cheese splattering melee" description that
does. I just get this image in my head.... "Hey you! You took my
spot! Don't make me have the butler throw the Beaujolais at you!"
Yes, I'm demented. ;-)
[SEP 6] OUT magazine has
posted its list of the 100
Gayest Albums. Donna makes the list with Bad Girls
and Once Upon A Time.
[SEP 6] In the land of covers,
there is a new one of Hot Stuff by EliZeon the Dutch charts.
It's not bad - you can check out the video here.
[SEP 6] For a blast from the
past, Billboard.com
has a chronological listing of every number 1 song on the Hot 100 from 1958
to 2008. If you check out the page for the 70s there are some VERY
familiar songs on it. (Not to mention a few that I hadn't realized were
number 1 hits, and a few downright scary songs. LOL)
[SEP 6] I think that brings us
to the web news for the week. Over at Multiply, Patrice has posted a slideshow
from the tour set to There Will Always Be A You. On YouTube, look
for a classic clip of Could
It Be Magic, and a Summer2K
slideshow set to The Queen Is Back.
[SEP 1] I have new pages up for
Chicago and Minnesota[link now fixed], and I have more pictures from Oakland.
Also, since it's September 1, it's time for a new Summer
Fever pick. So to celebrate my 30 years of fandom..... (yes I was a fan
way before I was born ;-) ) I'm bringing back the album that got me
started - Live & More. (Vinyl only please..... ;-) )
For those of you still looking for the Crayons page, it's still here
too. I just thought it was time to let something else take the spotlight
again.
[AUG 30 (barely LOL)]
Well, I said I would post fan stuff from recent shows "tomorrow" -
I just thought I would sleep first. But since I'm still waiting for
chkdsk to finish doing its thing on the laptop, I thought I might as well
work on the site on the desktop. (Plus it gave me something to do while KFAI
was playing "Crap From The Past" - an aptly named show if I ever
heard one! LOL) Anyway, I have stuff posted for both Los
Angeles and Windsor now. And it
looks like RealPlayer will happily record the KFAI stream, so barring
disaster, I should have that for you this weekend too.
[AUG 29] RADIO ALERT for
tonight. Sorry for the no notice, but I just found out Donna will be on KFAI
in Minneapolis tonight at midnight local time. (That works out to 1 AM in
New York.) You can tune in online if you want to listen. :-) (I
plan to try to record it - but the lap top that I usually use for that stuff
seems to have picked tonight to self destruct and it's much more of a pain
to do with the desktop. We'll see what happens.)
[AUG 29] Photo hounds, MSNBC
has finally posted some of the summer concert photos they received. As of
this morning, there are Donna photos on pages 2 and 3 - although the page
numbers may change if they add more. (I didn't count the photos, but it
looks like there are more Donna photos than there are for any other artist
other than American Idol.) Also, I had previously posted a bunch of
my concert photos on a public Shutterfly
collection. Well, now I've added this year's photos and Shutterfly has
upgraded the way they are shared. If you want to download them, that's cool
- if you want to order prints, that's cool (I get no money for that by the
way), but if you want to post them some place, all I ask is that you credit
the site. :-) Oh and I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but 101.9
Lite FM has photos from the Baltimore concert posted.
[AUG 29] In release news, Sony
Hong Kong has put out a new compilation to celebrate the Olympics. It's
called The
Olympics Album: One World One Dream and Donna is represented by Stamp.
(This is the first compilation to include any of the Crayons
tracks I believe.) If you are ordering the album, be very careful about
which version you get. They have several and this is the only one with
Stamp.
[AUG 29] Roller coaster fans -
Universal Orlando is building a new roller coaster to open next summer and
they have an online
survey to pick the music that will play on the ride. One of the possible
selections is She Works Hard For The Money.
[AUG 29] In web news, look for
a 2006 video/interview from Vegas on Google
video. On Youtube look for a Los Angeles concert review posted by The
Hollywood Report, classic clips posted by limoncello23,
Hollywood Bowl clips posted by Bahbahluu,
Alex0Cat,
covinalover
and virg777,
and the finished Stars on 45 video mix by Discoimperium.
On Multiply, look for Jeff'sDriving Down Brazil mix, Carl
has a Donna vs. Hard Fi She Works Hard To Beat The Cash Machine, Andy
has No More Tears from Oakland, and Sergio
has pictures and things from LA.
[AUG 29] I'll be back tomorrow
with stuff from LA, Canada and whatever else turns up. I was going to do
those tonight... but it looks like I'm in the land of laptop repairs.
:-(
[AUG 23] I've updated the Santa
Rosa, Saratoga, and Oakland
pages with more fan reports for you. :-) And I have a couple more articles
below for you. Also, since I had this question in my email box, I might as
well post it here too for others who have the same question. It's about the
hoodie for sale on Donna's site. The question was, is it a zip up one
or a pullover one and the answer is that it is a zip up one. I took a
picture of the front for you so you can see what that looks like:
(You can click it for a larger version)
[AUG 23] The French-German TV
station, Arte,
ran a program recently about the 70s and disco - of course Donna got
mentioned. ;-) The second part of the show airs on August 26 so
check your local listings. Also - all the European fans should be keeping an
eye on their TV and radio listings soon. Last I heard Donna had hoped
to do some promo stuff over there this fall and fall is practically
here. :-)
[AUG 23] In the Donna is
everywhere category, the German soap opera, Alles was zählt, used Stamp
as background music for one scene.
[AUG 23] Over on YouTube, Alex0Cat
has sneaked in a little taste from the Hollywood Bowl (not for people
avoiding tour spoilers), DiscoImperium010
has posted a preview of a video mix he's working on for the Stars On Donna
mix. And I ran into this little
clip of the next generation of Donna fans. On Multiply, Andy
posted photos from the Oakland show, and at DonnaSummerBebo,
look for more videos. (Check out the video mix of Sand On My Feet.)
I'll probably be back again in a day or so with more fan reports for you.
[AUG 20] I have some
professional photos from the Santa Rosa
show for you, courtesy of the Wells
Fargo Center For The Arts. I'll have fan reports for you soon too. Jerry
has posted a couple of pictures online as a slideshow
from his Donna trip to California.
[AUG 20] Over at DonnaSummer.com,
the online store has added the hoodie. The photo they use only shows the
back. The front has Donna's name on the left side (in the same font as they
use on the Hard For The Money shirt) And then under that in smaller
letters it says "I'm A Fire" and there are the mandatory
crayons scribbles in the background. The colors match the colors used on the
back of the hoodie. It's gorgeous, it's very soft, and I can't wait for the
weather to cool off enough so I can wear mine. :-)
[AUG 20] And one final thing
tonight for internet radio fans. BlackpoolGayRadio.com
is launching Saturday night (8PM GMT) and they will be playing Crayons
tracks all weekend. Check them out if you can. I'll be back in a day or 2
with more updates. :-)
[AUG 18] First of all - I have
the photos from the cake party in Oakland.
:-) (Thanks Eduardo!) The other thing I have to add tonight is that
the Entertainment Tonight clip was an edited version of the original
appearance to promote Crayons. It's the kick off to ET's
Diva Week. (And just as I knew they would - they went with Donna talking
about her suicide attempt back in the 70s. Good old predictable ET.
LOL We'll be seeing that clip for years!)
[AUG 18] This is a relatively
quick update before work since I have a few minutes. I've just added a
little to Oakland, and I've made a Reno
page. Also check out Nathan
DiGesare's site - he's updated his tour blog to include the last couple
of shows. (And I think I may have found my quote for next week
too. LOL) And while I'm here, I have a new article for you below
- and don't forget about Entertainment Tonight this evening. One more
thing - Oakland fans, if you were backstage then your photo with Donna is here.
[AUG 17] I'm back. The
plan was to update this afternoon - but then a sick coworker caused me to
stay at work much later than I normally would have. :-(
Anyway - I don't have all the fan reports yet because some of my Oakland
guys are partying in Santa Rosa too. (Monday is going to be really bad for
those guys! LOL) But, before your imaginations run any wilder
than they have been (I just read the forum even though I didn't respond
yet LOL) - the thing I couldn't talk about until today was a surprise
that had been cooked up for Donna that was presented to her last
night. Obviously if I had said something on the site yesterday, there
was a chance (especially with the time difference) that the surprise could
have been blown. I'll go into more detail on the page I'm setting up -
but what happened last night was that one fan (Eduardo - head of street team
SF) presented Donna with a Crayons cake. I'm still
waiting for the official cake reports from the guys, but I've started a
page with a little background and a photo of the cake. (It's gorgeous!)
And of course I will be adding photos and reports from the guys after
they've had a chance to come down off their Donna-highs.
[AUG 17] Speaking of pictures -
if you were backstage at Jones Beach, PNC Arts, or Boston - your pics with
Donna are here.
And speaking of Oakland - I have the first fan
report from there for you, with a few pictures. I also added a little to
the Saratoga page. I'll be back again
soon with more fan reports and anything else that turns up. :-)
[AUG 17] I just wanted to post
a link that has apparently been mentioned at a couple of the recent
concerts. It's SaveDarfur.org.
If the situation in Darfur concerns you (or if you just want to learn a
little about what's going on over there), check it out.
[AUG 16] I'm doing the weekly
update tonight, but I strongly suspect I will be back tomorrow for Oakland.
I know there are a bunch of very excited guys heading to the show tonight,
and I know that there will be partying afterwards..... and I know something
else that I won't talk about until tomorrow. ;-) In the
mean time, I have a few new articles listed for you below.
They are split up into the safe one and the spoilery ones. (I'll catch
up on the other fan report pages then too.) Also, Donna is supposed to be on
Entertainment Tonight on Monday according to Rock On TV. I have
no idea if they filmed something new (or edited something new from footage
they already had) or if this is just a straight repeat of something they
already aired. I guess we'll all find out soon enough. Oh and for
those of you looking for the concert connection page... well I added a link
at the top of this page finally.
[AUG 16] In chart news.....
well, nothing is happening on Billboard at the moment.
:-( But if you look at AmericasMusic.com,
Sand On My Feet is at #39 with 63 plays on the radio.
[AUG 16] In web news for the
week, on Multiply Steve
has posted a number of classic video clips and the Almighty Mix of That's
The Way It Is. On YouTube, imafire
has posted a couple of clips from the Vancouver show, Summer4all
has several videos combining his manipulated images with classic tracks, and
some deranged lunatic ;-) has posted Donna's (very short) interview on
News 12
Long Island. (Yeah, the sound and video aren't synced right - that's
what happens when you use cheap software I guess. LOL) Please
note that News 12 says that Donna's CD is coming out in September. So those
of us who think we have it and who think we have played it hundreds of times
already, must be dreaming. ;-) (I send them an email about
that.)
[AUG 15] I have a quick update
on the post-concert party in Oakland at Bench
and Bar. They plan to waive the cover charge for anyone who
presents their ticket stub. And you will be given access to the VIP bar near
the entrance. They've added Donna to their playlist - look for that to
start around midnight. If you run into Hector - thank him for getting
this all set up. :-)
[AUG 14] Okay - I couldn't
resist...... I posted some fan reports from Vancouver and
Saratoga. Those
who know the show line up will want to see the change made in Saratoga. ;-)
[AUG 14] This is just a quick
update tonight. First of all, I have a couple of articles for you below.
Secondly - and this is time sensitive for Long Island fans - News 12 has
been running a segment with Donna from the Westhampton Beach show. I only
just found out about it, but it seems to run at about 10 minutes before the
hour. I'm hoping to record it next hour. (That's the only thing that's
booted the Olympics off my TV screen lately! LOL)
[AUG 14] This next one is for
those of you going to the Oakland show this weekend. As I mentioned in
a previous update, Hector is planning pre and post show parties. The plan is
to meet at 7 in the Paramount Theater lobby and party there until show time.
(They have beer, wine, etc.) And then after the show, everyone can meet at
the Bench And Bar (which is practically next door to the theater). Bring
your ticket stub because Hector is trying to arrange for a reduced cover
charge. They are going to work in as much Donna music as they can - but
unfortunately they already had a Latin themed night planned already which
means a little less Donna than they had hoped for.
[AUG 14] And now for some
non-time sensitive news.... the store at DonnaSummer.com
has added a Sand On My Feet tote bag to the inventory. International
fans - if you are having trouble setting up an account, shop as a guest. As
long as you select your country first, it will stop asking you to fill in a
state. I'll be back in a day or two with either the weekly update, or show
reviews, or even both. ;-)
[AUG 14] In radio news, the Fab
One has posted the latest list of airplay. Stamp Your Feet is getting
airplay on KNHC (Seattle), S036 (Sirius), KNRJ (Phoenix), KRCK (Palm
Springs), KNGY (San Francisco), X081 (XM Radio), WKTU (New York), WVNS
(Nashville), WDRE (Hamptons, Riverhead), and WSPK (Newburgh). Sand On My
Feet is getting airplay at WMJX (Boston), WLTJ (Pittsburgh), KISC
(Spokane), KUMU (Honolulu), WRSA (Huntsville), KKMY (Beaumont), KKBA (Corpus
Christi), WHLG (Ft. Pierce), WJXB (Knoxville), WSRS (Worcester), WJKK
(Jackson), KTSM (El Paso), and KWAV (Monterey, Salin). Keep sending in
those requests!
[AUG 10] It's weekly update
time - which means we all take a break from Olympic coverage for a little
while. ;-) By the way, if any of the athletes are reading this -
remember the important thing isn't how many medals you win, but how many
copies of Crayons you buy. (That IS part of the Olympic oath,
right? ;-) ) Before I get started, I have a little Brooklyn
news for you below, some articles, and updates to
the Ottawa and Mohegan
Sun pages.
[AUG 10] Over at DonnaSummer.com,
they have finally started working on the web store. So far there is only one
t-shirt posted there, but I'm sure the rest of the tour merchandise will
follow soon.
[AUG 10] In the land of covers,
Amber and Zelma Davis have recorded a cover of Enough Is Enough that
you can grab at Perfectbeat.
(The CD cover is very familiar too. ;-) ) There is an EPK
for the song where the girls talk about both Donna and Barbra. (Those quotes
start at about 4:40 into the video.)
[AUG 10] In the Donna is
everywhere category, Donna got a brief mention in an episode of Chelsea
Lately recently, and on the Lifetime show How To Look Good Naked,
a recent episode used Crayons as runway music. :-) You have to
love that the new songs are getting out there!
[AUG 10] Moving on to the web,
over on Multiply Denis
is back and he's a mix of one of the new songs. You will want to stay
away from it if you are avoiding tour spoilers though - he uses live clips
from the tour. (That's why I didn't give the name of the track. ;-)
) And Andy
has posted 4000000 mixes of Heaven Knows..... okay, that's a slight
exaggeration. ;-) And on YouTube, Fernando has posted his rather moody
Love
To Love You remix. :-)
[AUG 7 again] I just got this charity
auction listing for you. The prize is 2 tickets to the Chicago show at
Ravinia and a meet and greet with Donna. Proceeds will go to the Dana Farber
Cancer Institute and the Jimmy fund. The auction closes on Sunday so get
those bids in soon!
[AUG 7] Let's start off with
some concert news. First of all, I have a couple of fans with extra tickets
on their hands. Kevin has an extra ticket for Reno (center section in about
the 5th row). If you are interested, contact Kevin at shawn_oconnor AT
neutronindustries.com. Then Eli has an extra ticket for Oakland in Row O. If
you would like to take it off his hands, Eli can be reached at
onedivoboy AT aol.com. And finally, if you are heading to the Chicago show
at Ravinia, beware of traffic hassles. Apparently there are construction
projects on I94 and I294, so allow extra time to get to the venue.
[AUG 7] Looking at the Billboard
charts for a minute - Crayons re-enters the R&B Album
charts for the week of August 16 at #90. :-)
[AUG 7] In street team
news, The San Francisco team had to cancel last weekend's excursion
due to illness, so look for them out and about tomorrow night after work. If
you see them - say hi.
[AUG 7] In auction news, there
is a Driven
By The Music litho up on eBay at the moment. I also see that there
are quite a few tickets up for sale there - most for the Hollywood Bowl
shows (and some VERY expensive.)
[AUG 7] MSNBC.com
has invited readers to submit their summer concert photos for possible
publication on the site later in the month.
[AUG 7] As usual, I have
accumulated a couple of articles for your reading pleasure. They are
in the usual place. I expect to see more things turning
up as the second half of the tour starts tomorrow. :-) I'll be
back again this weekend with the weekly update and whatever else falls into
my lap. :-)
[AUG 3] Where is the summer
going? Yes it's August and yes, I still haven't changed the Summer
Fever pick. I think I'm addicted to Crayons. LOL I did add a couple of things to the page though - like the picture
of the promo Sand On My Feet that was on eBay and the cover picture
for It's Only Love that Amazon.com is using. The Crayons page
now has a few tour spoilers - but those have been hidden so that most people
won't see them if they don't want to. (You'll wee what I mean when you look
at the page.) I've also updated the Baltimore
page with one more fan report, and thrown in an interview from June's Performing
Songwriter magazine. Soon I'll have a few more photos from
Mohegan Sun as well - but I have to drag out the other computer to scan
those. (A perfectly good scanned and HP refuses to put out Vista drivers for
it! Grrrrrrrr.......)
[AUG 3] I have more articles
(and a pair of slideshows) listed for you below.
All but one are spoiler-free. :-)
[AUG 3] On to the charts. On
the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for August 16, Stamp Your
Feet drops from 29 to 49. :-( But on the international
Billboard International Dance chart - it climbs back up to #30 from
#40. And over in Poland,
Crayons debuts at #74.
[AUG 3] In release news,
It's Only Love has been on Amazon.com as part of the Crayons
downloadable album for a little while now, but now it has a separate
listing of its own - complete with a cover picture. It looks like
exactly the same track that's on the album, so I don't know why it warrants
another listing. But we may find out Tuesday - the "new" release
goes on sale that day. Over in the UK, there is a Wollworth's
exclusive collection called The
Collection which has 15 of Donna's classic tracks. The thing
that makes it more interesting is that it is said to include the longer
version of Heaven Knows - one with Donna singing solo on the first
verse instead of with the Brooklyn Dreams.
[AUG 3] Speaking of releases...
someone just told me about a new (to me anyway) site called Discogs.com.
Aside from having huge lists of records that have been released (in many
cases with a lot of additional info such as the credits), it also serves as
a marketplace for people wanting to buy and sell hard to find stuff. (It
looks like they use a rating system with the sellers, so that's a nice plus
too. )
[AUG 3] In the Donna is
everywhere category, Driving Down Brazil was played at a recent Brazilian
fashion show - and it got a nice reception. :-) And at Amsterdam's
Pride, one of the floats was playing the Granite & Sugarman Mixshow
version of Stamp. And over on RuPaul's
blog - look for a classic clip from Donna's 1980 TV special.
[AUG 3] I think that
brings us up to the web news for the week. Over at DonnaSummerBebo
- look for a number of new classic video clips. On Youtube, look for a few
new video mixes from Fernando
a manipulated photo slideshow
set to Brooklyn, and a very TGIF video for Something's
Missing. On Multiply, look for new mixes by Andy.
[JUL 29] I've finally
added text to both the Atlantic City
and Westhampton pages, and I have
another report from Rama.
[JUL 29] While I'm here, let me
cover a little news for you. :-) First up, collectors will want
to check out Scott's MySpace
page. On his pictures page, he has an album called "going going...
gone" with photos of 2 items in his collection that will be going up on
auction in the near future. They are a gold trophy presented to Donna
by NARM in 1978 for having the best selling album by a female artist, and
the official certificate declaring March 18, 1992 Donna Summer Day in
Los Angeles. They are both gorgeous items and it's a shame he has to
sell them, but I'm sure someone out there can give them a good home.
When the actual auction starts, I'll post a link for you here.
[JUL 29] I didn't have this the
other day, so I'll give it to you now. On the Billboard Hot
Dance Club Play chart for August 9, Stamp Your Feet slips to #29.
[JUL 29] WireImage.com
has a few photos from Donna's recent Atlantic City shows. (Not for people
avoiding spoilers!)
[JUL 29] Los Angeles fans - K-Earth
101 FM is having an on air contest to give away tickets to see Donna at
the Hollywood Bowl. So tune in to find out how to win, or sign up for their
listeners club. :-)
[JUL 29] And finally (for today
anyway LOL), Eduardo's San Francisco Street Team will be out a third and final time in the Castro District next Sunday, August 3rd.
They will be out promoting to the general public Donna's Saturday, August 16th Paramount Theater concert in Oakland, CA.
Please feel free to stop by and say "Hi".
[JUL 28] An update is coming -
but I'm exhausted. So for now I just posted a few pictures from Westhampton
Beach. I'll have a report on that for you soon (that was an adventure -
you have no idea! ) along with my Atlantic City report and various items of
news that have turned up. :-) (If I'm this tired after
seeing 5 shows - I can't even imagine how Donna and the crew feel after
playing 15. Yikes!)
[JUL 26] Before I crawl off to
bed to get some sleep before work tomorrow, I thought I'd throw my photos
from last night up. I LOVE being able to bring the camera with the
manual settings...... it actually does what I want it to. LOL
I'll write a report of the show too - but I need a little more time.
[JUL 24] Since my computer time
will be very limited this weekend, I'm going to do a quick weekly update now
and then I'll follow up when I can with anything else that turns up.
First up - I have started a page for the shows at Casino
Rama.
[JUL 24] Moving on to chart
news, for the week of August 2, Crayons slips off the Billboard
R&B album chart, while Stamp slips to #40 in the
International Dance chart. I don't have the August 9 Club Play chart yet,
but that will be up by the time I can update again. :-)
[JUL 24] In radio news, I'm
A Fire seems to be fading away.... sigh. But we still have these
stations playing Stamp: KRCK Palm Springs, KNGY San Francisco, S036
Sirius satellite, X081 XM radio, KNRJ Phoenix, KNHC Seattle, WKTU New York,
WVNS Nashville, WKCI New Haven, WKIE Chicago, WDRE Hamptons/Riverhead (Long
Island!), WFLY Albany, and KKUU Palm Springs. Then we have these
stations playing Sand On My Feet: WLTJ Pittsburgh, WMJX Boston, KUMU
Honolulu, WJKK Jackson, KWAV Monteray-Salinas, KTSM El Paso, WJXB Knoxville,
WSRS Worcester, and WRSA Huntsville. If any of those are your stations, give
them a call or send them an email.
[JUL 24] And now for a quick
look at the web news... On Multiply, Patrice
has posted his Crayons remix. And on YouTube, Rugged4nownyc has a
number of clips from the Jones Beach concert. (Obviously those would NOT be
for people avoiding spoilers. ;-) )
[JUL 23] Let's start with 2
extra tickets to the Santa Rosa concert. They are section B row J and if you
are interested, contact Eli for the details. (onedivoboy AT aol.com)
[JUL 23] I have a few more
articles for you down below. :-)
[JUL 23] I've started a page
for the Seneca Casino show in New York,
and I expect to hear from some happy Canadians soon. One thing that one of
the Canadian fans noticed was that after the show, the merchandise booth
SOLD OUT of Crayons. :-) What can I say? When
people hear the songs they are hooked! And if you check out my
YouTube page, I sneaked in a couple of very short clips from Jones
Beach.
[JUL 23] Oakland - one of the
guys is planning a pre-concert party at a place yet to be decided and a
post- concert party at Bench And Bar at 2111 Franklin St. Hector (the
guy behind the parties) knows the bar owner and will be speaking to him
about playing LOTS of Donna. :-) So if you are looking for
something to do after the show, check it out. (And when they come up
with a pre-show location, I'll let you know.)
[JUL 21] I started the Jones
Beach page. :-) There will eventually be tiny clips of a
couple of songs because I decided to play with the video mode in my camera
for the first time. Unfortunately, YouTube won't let me upload anything
right now because of system maintenance - but I'll get something up there when
I can. :-)
[JUL 20 again] I just added
photos to the PNC page. I'll have to
work on the Jones Beach page tomorrow. I also have some (terrible) photos of
the merchandise booth on that page. For those who want to see the tour
merchandise but not tour spoilers, this is a link to the first
photo and this is to the
second. (Clicking them will open a new window with JUST those photos and
nothing else.) By the way - I think PNC has been the most photographed show
so far, so I was a little more selective about which ones I used. There are
a number that give you a nice overview of the staging in action. And
that's all I'll say about that here. LOL
[JUL 20] I'm a little behind
this weekend..... can't think why? ;-) I think I'm going to post this
update in parts, so let me start with all the normal update stuff and then
I'll move on to show stuff later if there is time. One thing I do want to
say about the shows now though, is something that seemed to come up a couple
of times over the last two days. Just so you know - there is no
opening act. If your ticket says the show is at 8 then you need to be in
your seat at 8. Some people have shown up later thinking that they were only
missing a comedian or something and they ended up missing part of Donna's
show. So be there on time! Also, most venues still have a few seats
left, so if you haven't bought a ticket yet - what are you waiting
for? You will kick yourself forever if you miss this tour.
:-) (By the way - I fixed the links in the list above.)
[JUL 20] Let's go right to the
charts. Over at Billboard for the week of July 26, Crayons
slips 2 spots to #82 on the R&B Album chart while Stamp Your Feet
climbs 2 to #28 on the International Dance chart. For the week of
August 2, Stamp is at #9 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart. In Brazil,
Stamp holds the top slot on the Dance chart for the second week in a
row. :-)
[JUL 20] I think that brings me
to the web news, and this will sort of be a long list. Let me break this up
into the spoilery stuff and the safe stuff for you. On the safe list is DonnaSummerBebo.
They have new videos, and new polls. They are very into Science Of Love
over there so if you have an opinion on that one, head over there and let
them know. :-) On Multiply, Jeffrey
has posted his extended mix of Fame (The Game), Patrice
has posted his 12" 80s remix, and Steve has posted a vintage clip of Love
To Love You. (Note that I am linking you directly to that video.
That's because Steve has a ton of pics from PNC Arts and if you go into his
page through the "front door" you will see them. And that's
probably not a great idea for those of you who want to be surprised.)
[JUL 20] And now for the web
stuff that has show spoilers. As I said above, Steve
has 8 billion photos from PNC (some of which may be stolen for this
site LOL) on his multiply page, Andrew has pictures on his MySpace
page, and over ion YouTube - it's all about the shows! Check out a
couple from luciolefirefly,
a couple from LaBelle63
(no, we didn't have an earthquake on Long Island - it was just really
windy! LOL), a couple from Zivenki,
and one from Phil
(who is apparently a big fan of silent movies. LOL) Please note that
the vast majority of those are just short clips to give you a taste of the
songs, and I happen to know that there is more coming.
[JUL 19] I posted my report for
the PNC show. There will be photos
eventually - I have a bunch that I just have to edit for size when I get a
chance. With out getting too spoilery, there were a couple of significant
changes to the concert line up last night. ;-) Also, I took a
couple of photos (that did not come out well!) of the merchandise booth and
those will get posted somewhere so you can see what's available. (Actually,
I may shoot for better photos tonight if I can get the camera past
security.)
[JUL 18] I have another list of
articles for you below. I will be offline for
most of today because I'll be spending the day in NJ..... gee, I wonder
why? ;-)
[JUL 18] I have a fan with extra front row tickets to
Casino Rama - section F5. If you are interested, contact Marino at
marino.scarmozzino AT aig.com
[JUL 17] Let's start with a
time sensitive one. I just found out that Donna is supposed to be on
the Wendy
Williams Show tomorrow (July 18). It airs live in the NY area at 10 AM
on FOX. Other places should look at the show's website for the time and
channel.
[JUL 17] Moving on - I have a report (and pictures) from
Baltimore! For those of you who have been wondering about Bruce - he
was seen at the show. (As were the grandkids. :-) )
[JUL 17] San Diego! I have a
fan with 2 tickets (3rd row center) who is now unable to go to the
show. If you would like to take them off his hands, email Eli at onedivoboy
AT aol.com.
[JUL 15] Now I can finish the
update I started yesterday. LOL I have more articles posted
below for you - and they will be marked so that you can tell which have
spoilers. I've also started a page for Ottawa
fan reports (including pictures!) I don't know what happened with CBS
this morning. They sneaked in a late update to their schedule that
left me watching no Donna for 2 hours. LOL (On the other hand
it's not all bad - I found out they are doing the mosquito spraying by me
tonight so I can make sure my windows are closed. )
[JUL 15] In the Netherlands, SchiffersFm
has posted Be Myself Again in their "Tips Van Hans" column.
[JUL 15] Let me give you a
little chart info while I'm here. On the July 26 Billboard Hot Dance
Club Play chart, Stamp Your Feet slips 3 to number 8. And in Brazil
it hits #1 for the week of July 12. (The fans are partying in Brazil
now! :-) )
[JUL 15] I have a fan out there
named François who made his own custom CD booklet for Crayons
with the lyrics from Donna's
site combined with the photos from the real CD booklet. He has
graciously allowed me to share it with you here. Just right click this
link and select "save as". It's a PDF so you will need
the Acrobat Reader to view it.
[JUL 14] I don't have time to
update as much as I'd like to tonight, but I did add a few more photos from Mohegan
Sun for you. Tomorrow night I will have some news from Ottawa.
:-) And US fans (and maybe some Canadian fans) don't forget to tune
into CBS Early Show tomorrow morning at 7 AM. :-)
[JUL 13] I have more for you
from the concerts - all of which will go on pages for the various venues so
that nobody has any surprises ruined for them. But I will say
this..... I heard that the Boston crowd was very rowdy and enthusiastic.
That's cool - but there are a whole bunch of other cities on this tour that
I want to address now. Ottawa..... Baltimore... Salamenca.... Rama....
are you going to let BOSTON make more noise than you? Much as I like Boston,
I think you can out- scream them. (And you will notice I left NY and
NJ out of the list. That's because I will be at those shows with a
cattle prod and Ken's middle aged drag queens. There WILL be noise
made in NY and NJ or there will be severe consequences! ;-)
) And as for you August tour cities...... you better start practicing
now. I expect my house on Long Island to shake when the screaming starts in
California!
[JUL 13] So here's the
list of updated (or added pages) for today: Boston,
Bethel, and the Street
Teams in action. Also check out the articles list
below, and the Family Matters section for a Johnnyswim
update.
[JUL 13] Canada - this one is
for you. Your iTunes
(yes the Canadian iTunes that all of you love to hate LOL) now has It's
Only Love available. The song is not available on US iTunes so US fans
will have to go to Amazon.com
for that download.
[JUL 13] Target is now selling
a Digital Album Card for Crayons. For $12.99, it gives
you a code to download the songs and the EPK. They are DRM protected,
so once you download them, the track only work on the one computer.
[JUL 13] And some early web
news for you - Jeff has posted his review of the Bethel concert on his Multiply
page and Andrew has posted his photos from Boston on his MySpace
page. (Look for the little link that says "pics" under
his "last log in". MySpace will make you log in to see
them!) And I have added both the Larry Flick and Richard Simmons interviews
to my
Multiply page. Over at DonnaSummertime,
the new Top 40 is posted and there are a dozen new entries. (Gee, I wonder
why? LOL)And of course Nathan
DiGesare has added to his tour blog.
[JUL 11 part 2] And now for
something completely different.... no wait, that's Monty Python. And
now for the main update. Where so I want to start? How about with tour
stuff. First of all, I have updated the concert connection page. Also, and
this is important) I have a gentleman named Rick with an extra $100 ticket
to Jones Beach. He's like it to go to a real
fan and not to some bozo who will sit there and pretend not to have a pulse
all night, so if you need a ticket - get in touch with richitown AT aol.com.
And I also have some Family Matters news for
fans of Amanda/Johnnyswim.
[JUL 11 part
2] San Francisco fans - look for
the street team to be hard at work again tomorrow at the Castro I believe.
If you are nice to them they will probably tell you all about the show Donna
is doing in Oakland. (Actually, they might tell you about it if you aren't
nice to them. LOL)
[JUL 11 part 2 Let's look at
the Billboard charts. For the week of July 19, Crayons
is at # 80 on the R&B Album chart and Stamp Your Feet is up 2 to
# 28 on the International Dance chart. As I said last week, Stamp is at #5
on the Hot Dance Club Play chart for the week of 7/19 and as soon as I see
the 7/26 chart I'll let you know where it is.
[JUL 11 part 2] In radio news,
we are now tracking another song. :-) Sand On My Feet has been
picked up by a few AC radio stations. They are Magic 106.7 in Boston, KWAV
(1520 AM) in Monteray-Salinas, Mix 98.7 in Jackson, MS, B97.5 in Knoxville,
and K92.9 in Pittsburgh. Stamp Your Feet is still getting played at
these stations: KNGY in San Francisco, XM 081 (satellite radio), KNHC in
Seattle, WKTU in New York, Sirius 036 (satellite radio), KNRJ in Phoenix,
WNYZ in New York, WKIE in Chicago, WVNS in Nashville, and KKUU in Palm
Springs, CA. And I'm A Fire is hanging in there on Sirius 036, KNHC
in Seattle and KKUU in Palm Springs. If any of those are your stations, give
them a call.
[JUL 11 part
2] Getting back to the tour again - the Meadowbrook
US Cellular Pavilion in New Hampshire has posted photos from the concert
the other night. Click the link if you are not worried about spoilers. (If
you were backstage at that show, your picture is also posted on that page.)
[JUL 11 part
2] And speaking of tours... as you
know (or will know if you keep reading down), I was at the Mohegan Sun show
the other night. While I was there I had the chance to ask a question.
So I asked the number one question from my email - "Donna, are you
going to Europe?" She's hoping to get there maybe in September. So you
guys have not been forgotten! Before you email me again for 1000 more
details LOL - I didn't get any more specifics than that. The entire
state of Connecticut was backstage waiting for a picture with Donna, so
there wasn't time to chat. But she knows that you guys want her and you
haven't been forgotten. :-)
[JUL 11 part
2] If you saw the blog post on Donna's MySpace
about winning tickets to Atlantic City, MySpace in their infinite wisdom
disabled the link. I suspect that since the site that was linked to was
musicslut.blogger.com, the content filter picked up on the word
"sluts" and thought it was porn spam. If you would like to
enter the contest, you can cut and paste the url off of Donna's blog instead
of clicking it, or you can just use this
link. (And if my webhost is reading this - that's NOT a porn link. It's
a perfectly innocent music blog.)
[JUL 11 part
2] I'm looking at my folder of Google
alerts and it looks like I have a bunch for you again. Let me weed out the
duplicates and post the list for you below. (Actually,
make that 2 lists. I'll separate the ones that have concert spoilers from
the others for you.)
[JUL 11 part
2] In the Donna is everywhere category, Stor
Dubiné is exploring new aspects to his art. He's done some pictures
based on Munny toys and if you look at the ones he's created there is one
based on a very familiar diva. ;-)
[JUL 11 part 2] That brings us
to the web news. Let's start with Nathan
DiGesare. His tour blog continues with entries for the last couple of
shows. (He's also updated the look of his site.) On Multiply, look for
a whole bunch of classic video from Steve,
and tour photos from Andy.
(Those will have spoilers - but you probably guessed that.) On Youtube, look
for a couple of mixes from Summer4All
and a Stamp vs. Disco Lies vs. Let Me Think About It mix from MAndrews
Truth.
[JUL 11] I'm back - but I have
not come down to planet earth yet! LOL If you haven't made
arrangements to see the show yet, you need to do that RIGHT NOW! (And that's
as specific as I will get on this page. You will have to click
a link to read more. LOL) The show is fabulous and you don't want
to miss it! Most of the venues still have tickets left so it's not too late!
Now let me upload this and then get to work on the main update. Let's see
it's been 2 days so I should have 11 billion more articles by now. LOL
[JUL 9] I'll be officially
offline until late tomorrow, but when I come back it will be with my own fan
report. :-) In the mean time, I leave you this YouTube
link to keep yourselves amused. (Don't click it if you are avoiding
spoilers for the show!)
[JUL 7] Hot off the presses - I
have photos from Wolftrap! See the Vienna
page..... unless you are avoiding spoilers. :-)
[JUL 6] I said I'd be
back. ;-) The Street Team page is now updated with a few more
photos, the Amazon widgets have been updated to include It's Only Love (that
will be the last track on the list if you scroll down on either of them) and
here is a new widget on the Vienna fan report page with songs that Donna was
doing at the show. (The original album/single versions - not anything
actually live from the show.)
[JUL 6] If you missed my
holiday announcement - I still have the code to buy 1 ticket and get 1 free
at PNC Arts or Jones Beach. If you email me for the code, I will give
it to you and enter you for a chance to win one of 2 promo CD
singles.) The buy 1 get 1 free offer ends July 7 and my drawing will
be July 8.
[JUL 6] Speaking of concerts, I
know many of you have been waiting with bated breath for the reports from
opening night in Vienna, VA. (I could tell when I started getting
instant messages that said "have you heard anything yet?"
instead of "hi". LOL) The reports are starting to come
in and I have to say that I was totally surprised that Donna sang all the
tracks from the Shout It Out Collection....... ;-)
(I'm just teasing - she left out Little Marie. LOL) In
keeping with my no spoiler policy on the main news page, if you want to hear
about the show just head to the Vienna Fan
Report page. What I will say on this page is what was in the press
release - the show really is a mixture of old and new stuff. (I won't call
it a chocolate chip cookie though because then I'll just get hungry.
LOL) You will definitely hear the new songs and you will definitely hear
some of the classics - so everybody should be happy. :-) I will
also give you the merchandise report. They had the Crayons CD,
a couple of t-shirts (including one with the big I'm A Fire eye!), a
black hoodie (you will want that at Jones Beach, Boston and Baltimore - it
gets cold on the water at night LOL), and an 8x11 postcard. It
would not surprise me at all if down the road some of those things became
available on Donna's site.
[JUL 6] In release news -
American fans can now get It's
Only Love at Amazon's MP3 store. So if you didn't get it at Circuit
City, now is your chance. :-) I'll be adding that to my Crayons
widget on the splash page and above after I get all the main updates
done. I'm also going to make a widget for the fan reports page with
all the songs from the tour - that's mainly for the new people who might not
have everything yet.
[JUL 6] Let's go to the charts.
For the week of July 12, Crayons is at #71 on the R&B
Album charts. (That's up 2 from last week.) Unfortunately it fell off the
Top 200 Albums. And Stamp Your Feet debuts at #30 on the International Dance
charts. For the week of July 19, Stamp Your Feet drops to #5 on the
Hot Dance Club Play chart. Looking at some of the international charts, Stamp
Your Feet is #1 on the Brazilian
Dance charts and on the Venezuelan KysFM
chart. And at BBC
Radio1 in the UK, Crayons debuts at #24 on the R&B
album charts.
[JUL 6] I have another list of
articles for you. (And I suspect that we'll have even more now that the tour
has started.) Look below in the print/web section.
[JUL 6] Check out Torgen's
blog for a video review of Crayons from June (in German) and then an
update from July 4 with interview clips in English.
[JUL 6] If you want to catch
some classic Donna videos - check out Lite
FM in NY. They were one of several stations celebrating Donna's music
this weekend and they posted 5 videos on their website for listeners to
stream on demand.
[JUL 6] And I think that brings
us to the web news for the week. Nathan
DiGesare is back to blogging about the tour. :-) He's posted
his entry for last night's show in Vienna, VA - look for more posts as the
tour progresses. Over at Super
Bullet Number One, Shawn has added a whole bunch more 12" sleeves
and other goodies. (If your iPod is missing cover art for some songs - this
is the place to look!) At Forever
Donna, Sandro has updated with new Crayons animation for
the splash page. On Multiply look for new videos from Patrice,
new files from Steve,
and lots of foot stamping from Jeffrey.
Then when you are done there, the YouTubers have added some new things as
well. Look for some classic clips from apgrbb,
mixes from DJSummer2K,
and some new goodies from Fernando
- including Donna vs. David Bowie clip that is kind of weird, but in a way
that works.
That's it for right now. I'm going to take a break and then
be back later with photos from my Fire Island street team excursion and some
new Amazon widgets. (And anything else that I may have forgotten.)
[JUL 4] I'm going to work on
the main update tomorrow - mainly because I want to spend time watching the
illegal fireworks by my house tonight. LOL But I did want to
update tonight with a special time sensitive item. As you may know, I was
out promoting the local concerts today. I had flyers with a special buy 1
ticket get one free deal for PNC Arts in NJ and Jones Beach in NY. Those
offers expire on July 7 (Live Nation's rules - not mine! LOL) I also
had a few (VERY few!) CDs to give out to people in Donna drag.... but I
didn't see any. :-( So here's what I'm going to do. If you would
like to go to either show and you need tickets (and would like to take
advantage of the buy 1 get 1 deal), email me before July 7 and ask me for
the code. I'll give it to you and then I'll throw your name and email
address into a hat and when July 8 rolls around, I'll pick 2 lucky
victims... I mean winners ;-) at random to get a Crayons
Sampler CD. (They are a 4 track CD with the original album versions of
Stamp Your Feet and I'm A Fire, the Jason Nevins mix of Stamp,
and the Solitaire Club Mix of I'm A Fire. It comes in a cardboard
sleeve with the Crayons cover art. These are promotional CDs
only and can't be bought in stores.) When I email you back the code to
buy tickets - that's your confirmation that you are entered for the CD
Samplers. ] See ya at the shows!
*Mandatory legal mumbo jumbo: Contest not open to my
relatives (too bad - you should have sucked up to me when you had the
chance. LOL) Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary
(but, it is strongly recommended ;-) ). Decision of the webmistress is
final. Objects in the rearview mirror may be closer than they appear. Do not
remove this tag under penalty of law..... am I getting carried away?
;-)
[JUL 3] Happy July 4 everyone!
(So what if it's not a holiday in your country - take the day off
anyway! ;-) ) I have some time sensitive news for you. Sirius 37 (The
Strobe) will be having special guest DJs for the whole Fourth Of July
weekend. Donna will be one of them. I suspect that since they have a number
of guest DJs, that everyone just recorded stuff that will be played at
various times throughout the weekend. Also, NY fans will want to tune into WALK
radio and Lite
FM. Both have concert tickets to give away this weekend.
[JUL 3] And in concert news, as
you all know the tour kicks off this weekend at Wolftrap. Because of that,
there is a new
press release. If you are trying to avoid spoilers about the show
- don't worry, the most detail you get is that we'll be hearing new
songs and old songs. (And I think pretty much everyone reading the site had
figured that out already. ;-) ) I'll be back this weekend with full
update. :-) And don't forget that there is still time to grab tickets
for all the shows!
[JUL 2] Okay - my contest has
been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, but I do have something cool
for you guys. If you were thinking about going to the concert in
Gilford, NH, but you didn't get your tickets yet - I have a deal for you.
Head over the the Meadowbrook
US Cellular Pavilion's website and use this code:
6sweetshows to get $10 off the price of your ticket. The show is
coming up very soon, so grab your tickets NOW.
[JUL 1] Well, my contest has
been postponed a little - I'm just waiting for some links and things.
:-) In street team news - I didn't get to Fire Island last weekend
thanks to real life, but that means I will be there for the Invasion Of The
Pines, peddling great deals to Jones Beach and PNC Arts. (Look for the
street team t-shirt and the bright red sunburn at the Pines ferry port.) I
have a very limited supply of promo singles to give out, so if you come in
Donna-drag and are willing to pose for a picture with me for the site, I'll
give you one. (But those supplies are VERY limited so it's first come first
serve.) Also, if you happen to be on the NJ Turnpike and you notice a
picture of Donna on a certain booth not too far from PNC Arts..... well,
just say Donna's name to the toll collector. If he hasn't run out yet -
he'll hand you a flyer with the buy 1 get 1 free ticket offer to PNC
Arts. In other street team news, we've had parties in Boston and
Providence, and the guys were out working Pride in San Francisco. I have
photos from all of those events on a new photo
gallery page. I also have a bunch of professional photos from 2006
courtesy of the guys at the Wells Fargo
Center For The Arts in Santa Rosa posted on what will be the Santa
Rosa fan report page. If you are in that area, they still have some
great seats left for this year's show so go snap them up! :-)
[JUL 1] I have a fan in the UK
who happens to have one extra ticket for the Saturday show at the Hollywood
Bowl. If you are interested in talking to him about it - send me an email
and I'll forward it on. I also have another gentleman looking for a
pair of reasonably priced good tickets to the Hollywood Bowl. (In other
words - he doesn't want to pay what the brokers are charging. I can't blame
him for that! LOL)
[JUL 1] In other tour news, Nathan
DiGesare is still with the tour this year and he's got an interesting
mention of it on his news page: The new music, surprise elements
that have been added to the show is something you are not going to want to
miss. This without a doubt will give the fans everything they have dreamed
for in a DS show. Is it July 9 yet? ;-) (That's the first show I'm going
to.) While we're talking about the tour - for anyone going to any of
the shows - if you want to write a report, send it in and I'll publish it on
the site. I'll have a page for each venue as time goes by. Also I'm
going to try very hard to keep a "no spoiler" policy on the news
page. In other words, I won't tell you much about the shows on the news page
itself so that people who want to be surprised won't have their surprises
accidentally ruined when they catch up on the news. I'll try to keep
song lists, etc confined to the actual show report pages. And on the
forums, I'd like to request that you guys keep discussion of the shows
confined to specific threads so that people who want to read can, and people
who want to be surprised know what threads to avoid. :-)
[JUL 1] In my last update I
neglected the international charts. So let me cover a few now. In Venezuela,
Stamp Your Feet is number 1 at KysFM,
in Greece Crayons debuts at #30 on the sales
charts, and in Brazil Stamp Your Feet is #7 on the Top
40 Dance charts. Sadly, Crayons has yet to chart on the UK
album chart so go blackmail your neighbors into buying a few copies.
;-)
[JUL 1] UK fans - your iTunes
now has the in studio video clips for Stamp, The Queen Is Back and
Mr. Music available for sale for 1.89 each.
[JUL 1] Congrats to Michael
Campbell, winner of the DonnaSummer.usCrayons review contest. Way to go Michael!
[JUL 1] Okay, that brings us to
the list of articles - posted below in the usual place.
:-) And in TV news, you can still vote
to see Donna's concert repeated on the Today Show Friday.
[JUL 1] And I almost forgot to
mention - the new Summer Fever pick for July is..... well, Crayons.
I just didn't have the heart to pull it down yet. LOL
[JUN 29] Just a quick update on
Donna's appearance on Sirius today. Although Richard Simmon's show runs from
3 to 6, I just got a press release saying that Donna will be on at 5. So
plan your recording times accordingly. :-)
[JUN 28] Let's start off with a
satellite radio alert. Donna will be on channel 102 at 3 PM tomorrow on
Richard Simmons' show. So tune in if you can :-)
[JUN 28] I have a couple of new
articles posted below for you. (Is it me, or do new
articles come out daily lately? LOL) Also, the June 27-29 Metro NY
daily paper had the playlist for DJ J. Gauthreux who is doing the big dance
on the Pier party. Stamp Your Feet was his top pick, so if you are partying
at the Pier keep your ears open for it. ;-)
[JUN 28] I'm just going to jump
into the web news now because I will probably be updating tomorrow, and it
not, then Monday night for SURE. So over on YouTube, look for a new mix by DJSummer2K,
a bunch of classic stuff from Dutchgigilo,
and a couple of new goodies from Fernando
(fzkny). On Multiply, look for new stuff from Patrice
and Steve.
And I don't remember if I mentioned this here or not, but all 4 parts of the
free Crayons podcast live on my
Multiply page too. So if you can't use iTunes, you can check them out
over there.)
[JUN 27] I think this
will be another weekly update in parts. LOL Let's start off with
the Concert Connection page. I finally started it!
Basically, if you are going to a show and you want someone to carpool with,
or someone to hang out with - send me an email telling me which show you are
going to, what you want (a ride, to meet fans, whatever) and what contact
information I can share. Speaking of concerts, I said in one of my recent
updates that I planned to be on Fire Island this weekend promoting the NY
and NJ shows. Thanks to some car trouble, I might have to push that
back to July 4. Now if you want to go to either the PNC Arts or Jones Beach
shows and you didn't buy tickets yet - what are you waiting for? ;-)
Actually, I know what you are waiting for - you are waiting for the special
deal that I have. It's a limited time offer to buy 1 ticket and get 1 free.
If that interests you, look for me and my broken car on Long Island, or my
other street team members in NY and NJ, or shoot me an email. Also,
look for a contest VERY soon to win a pair of tickets to the show in
Gilford, NH. I should have those details on Monday night.
[JUN 27] Speaking of contests,
the Crayons Review contest at DonnaSummer.us
is winding up very soon. Votes will NOT be accepted after June 30, so if you
haven't voted yet just remember that the clock is ticking away.
[JUN 27] I think that brings us
to the latest list of articles. I have them posted below in the usual
spot. (I have a question for those of you who read the site at work -
how do you ever get any work done these days? LOL)
[JUN 27] And while I'm here -
let's check the Billboard chart action. On the Hot Dance Club Play
chart for July 12, Stamp Your Feet sits at number 1 for the second
week. :-) On the July 5 charts, Crayons is at #184 on the Top
200 albums and at # 73 on the R&B Albums chart. Now I know some of you
are interested in sales numbers. I don't have current numbers for Crayons,
but I can give you an idea of the state of the music industry right now. You
need to look in 2 places. The first place is HitsDailyDouble.com.
On their sales page they try to predict (usually with fairly decent
accuracy) where albums will chart on the Billboard Top 200. The "power
index" column is the sales. (Depending on when you go there, they might
not have final figures posted. There is a notice on the top of the page that
says if the chart is finalized or if it's still in progress.) And on
the forum, the Fabulous Albert has posted sales figures for Billboard's
Top 10 with notes about sales increases ort decreases.)
[JUN 26] Head over to DonnaSummer.com
and check out the music section. There is something new there that many of
you have been waiting for - LYRICS! Now go study them before the
concerts start. ;-)
[JUN 25] This is just a quick
update for the San Francisco area. First of all, Energy
92.7 is asking listeners to vote for their favorite song. So far Donna
is in second place with 30% of the vote. Second of all, those of you
going to San Francisco Pride on June 29 should be on the look out for
Eduardo and his crew. They will be out promoting Donna from 2 to 5 with a
few little goodies for fans. ;-) If you run into him -
tell him hi from me. :-)
[JUN 24] The Today Show
is planning to rerun one of the Summer Concert series concerts for the July
4 holiday. And they are letting viewers vote for the one they want to
see. (You can vote on the website,
or by text message to 46833 - pick 3 for Donna.) All bias aside (yeah
right! LOL) I think it's only fair they they repeat Donna's concert
since all of New York City missed out because of the crane accident.
[JUN 23] Yes, I have a few MORE
articles for you. LOL (I think they are breeding!) Also, while I'm
here, UK fans will be happy to know that Crayons is the album
of the week at BBC's
Radio 2. They will be playing tracks from the album all week long.
(And if you live outside the UK, you can stream the station online.)
[JUN 23] Part 4 of the Crayons
Podcast is available on iTunes now. And for the iTunes challenged, check out
the widget on my Crayons
page. Also, on YouTube, Toby
Gad has clips of Donna and of JohnnySwim on his video blog.
[JUN 21] Well, I THOUGHT I
posted all the articles yesterday, but I have more for you - check the media
section below. (How many of you have gone blind from all the
reading? And to my blind users - how many of you have gone deaf from all the
articles? LOL)
[JUN 21] Let's hit the charts
for a minute. The last Billboard chart I was waiting for was the July
5 Hot Dance Club Play chart. :-) Stamp is sitting there
at number 1 - still with a bullet! I hope that means it will sit there
another week or 2. So for those of you who are tracking the success of
Crayons - add in back to back number 1 dance hits. :-) One more thing,
it has come to my attention that Crayons' number 17 debut was
Donna's highest debut on the Top 200 Album chart ever. And the fact that Crayons
is still on the Top 200 chart after 3 weeks means that Donna has
already had more chart success than the other Burgundy artists. :-)
[JUN 21] Looking to
international charts, Crayons debuts at #85 on the Swiss
charts, making it her first appearance on that chart since 1989. In Italy,
it debuts at #42, in Germany it's #73 (with a bullet!) on the Top 100
albums, and in Argentina,
Crayons debuts at #11. On the Danish Radio
Diablo site, Stamp Your Feet is number 8. For all you chart
hounds out there, here are a couple of links you need to know about: Billboard.com,
Allcharts.org, and
iTunes.
[JUN 21] In radio news, here
are the current US radio stations playing Stamp Your Feet: KNGY (San
Francisco), X081 (XM Radio), WKTU (New York - more on KTU in a second), KNHC
(seattle), WKIE (Chicago), WVNS (Nashville), WRKS (New York - new add!),
WFMK (Lansing), WKRQ (Cincinnati - new add!), WTFM (Johnson City), KYKY (St.
Louis), and KKUU (Palm Springs.) If any of these are the stations you listen
to - call in those requests! Now on internet radio, we still have Diverse
Universe that will play anything you happen to request. It's back up
after some technical issues. And on Live 365, UU-BRU
has a nice little write up on Donna on their main page, but more
importantly, if you check out the playlist,
Stamp is sitting there at #1. They also play a song called Slide
Over Backwards credited to someone named Hattie Mae Blanche
Dubois. ;-) (That one hasn't made the top 50 yet, but give it time.
HEY! It just started playing as I was writing this - and I didn't even
request it yet. :-) )
[JUN 21] In concert news, WKTU
in New York has tickets to give away for PNC Arts center and Jones Beach on
the air and on their website this weekend. And I will be on Fire Island next
weekend as part of the street team efforts with special limited-time only
deals for those who didn't get their PNC or Jones Beach tickets yet. (Pray
to whatever god/spirit/force you believe in for sunshine on Sunday!
LOL)
[JUN 21] In release news, I've
been told that Sand On My Feet is being shipped to AC radio next week
with promotion starting in early July probably. So get ready to start
requesting that one. :-)
[JUN 21] In the Donna is
everywhere category - Stamp was played during a dance segment of America's
Got Talent. :-)
[JUN 21] I went this far, so I
might as well make this the official update. LOL So let's get to the
web news for the week. First up, Nathan
DiGesare has the current tour schedule posted on his site and it looks
like he'll be giving readers the behind the scenes scoop again this
year. :-) Over on Multiply, Steve
has posted a couple of videos (one recent and one older) for your viewing
pleasure, and Andy
has posted a number of new remixes of new songs. On YouTube, Fernando
has posted his video mix of The Queen Is Back, and Stor Dubine's
awesome Stamp
video has moved, so update your bookmarks. ;-)
[JUN 20] The weekly update is
yet to come, but I thought I'd post a few things that have fallen into my
lap this week. See the list in the media section.
:-) Also, we're still putting together street teams to promote
Donna. We especially need some people in Virginia and Santa Rosa - so let me
know if you are interested. :-)
[JUN 20] While I'm here I'll
give you the latest Billboard news. On the Top 200 chart for the week
of June 28, Crayons slips to #158. And on the R&B chart is
it #54. Stamp Your Feet falls off the Hot Singles Sales chart, and while I
said last week that it is #3 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart for June 28, I
haven't seen the next chart to see if it continued its climb. I'll
post that when I get it.
[JUN 17] For those who missed
it last night, the Nightline segment is now on ABC's
website and on YouTube
(if ABC doesn't work outside the US.) Wait back that up a little - the clip
on the ABC website is longer than what aired.
[JUN 17] Also on YouTube..... most of you regulars know Stor
Dubine. He's the guy who did the really cool animated videos for I Got
Your Love and Does He Love You. (If you never saw those - find
them on YouTube - they really are amazing.) Well, he has put his creative
powers into a new video for Stamp Your Feet. Watch it, enjoy it, then go
post it everywhere that will allow you to post a video. Let's take
over the whole internet! :-)
[JUN 17] In concert news, The
Daily News has some tickets available for a whole bunch of Donna's
shows. So if you didn't get your concert tickets yet, what are you waiting
for?
[JUN 16] I just (very
unexpectedly) found out Donna was on ABC's Nightline tonight. Obviously this
comes too late for East Coast fans, but if any of you are reading this in
other times zones, you should be able to catch it. She was in a piece
called "Play list".
[JUN 15] GREETINGS
SANTA ROSA! Your tickets are on sale now through the Wells
Fargo Center website. (If that link is not working, try this
one instead.) Get those credit cards out and snap up your tickets now!
Also, we are looking to form a street team for Santa Rosa (not to mention
all the other places on the tour list.) If you are interested in being on a
street team or even captaining one, let me know. And before you ask what I'm
talking about - look at the next entry. That will explain all. Oh by the way
- if you 'd like to hear the radio promo for the concert - I have it here.
I have a video one that will be on YouTube
later tonight too. ;-)
[JUN 15] Okay - as you
all know the tour starts July 5 in Wolftrap. (And if you didn't know that,
you must be new here - and if you are, you have A LOT to catch up on! Don't
worry - it's all good. ;-) ) As I was saying, the tour starts
soon and with that in mind, first I'd like to remind you that tickets for
the whole North American tour are on sale now, and many venues still have
good seats available. (Especially Gilford, NH - I think that one has slipped
under the radar of the New England fans. I know my first reaction to that
date was, "where?") Anyway what I'm trying to get to is that we
will be assembling street teams of locals to go out and plug the shows and
the album at clubs or wherever Donna fans hang out in your area. Pretty
much, as a street team member, you would have to hand out flyers and CD
samplers and just get the word out. And as a street team member you
would get the satisfaction of knowing that you helped Donna take over the
whole world ;-) and maybe some other cool thank you too. Also, if you
have any good promotion ideas that would work in your area, or places and
events that we should target - let me know! If you are interested in
helping out or if you just want to throw some ideas at me - send me an email
(webmaster AT donna-tribute.com or any other email addy you happen to
have for me) preferably with "street team" in the subject line and
make sure you tell me what area you are in so that I know what show you are
promoting. (Because it would be really stupid for me to send you
flyers to promote say Gilford if you are working in say Santa
Rosa. LOL) And I will have more details on this as things
develop. :-)
[JUN 15] Speaking of concerts,
this week I will be setting up a concert connection page for people who want
to carpool, share extra tickets, party after the show, whatever.)
[JUN 15] Let's move on to the
regular update stuff. We'll start with some articles first. I have 2 new
ones living in my article archive -the People
Magazine one that I've been meaning to type up since it came out,
and a Gay Times article
from the UK that I typed up from a scan on the forums. Then there are
a bunch more that already live on the web somewhere - those are listed below
in the media section.
[JUN 15] Calling the UK - you
have your own mini-Donna
Summer site now to promote the album. The cool thing is - if you join
the mailing list over there you have a chance to win 1 of 10 signed CDs.
(And I'm 99% sure they mean signed by Donna and not signed by some random
person in the street. ;-) )
[JUN 15] In release news, Crayons
has hit Australia. That version also includes It's Only Love - but there is
one thing that sets the Aussie release apart from all the other ones so far.
It comes in a plastic jewel case instead of eco-pak the rest of us
got. If anyone is interested in getting that version, one of the local
guys recommends jbhifi.com.au.
I looked at the site and they do ship worldwide. Crayons has also hit
Argentina, and you can get MusiMundo.com.
Also in release news, iTunes has FINALLY made an "iTunes
Essentials" collection for Donna. They have one or 2 strange choices
mixed in there, but if you are new to Donna go check it out. (And if you are
a long time fan, you probably already have most of those songs.)
[JUN 15] Let's move on to
charts. Over at Billboard, on the June 28 Hot Dance Club Play chart Stamp
moves up to number 3 - still with a bullet. The other Billboard
chart info I have is for the week of June 21. Stamp debuts on the Hot
Singles Sales chart at #38. While over on the album charts, Crayons
falls to number 38 on the R&B albums chart and to #103 on the Top 200
albums. Internationally, Stamp moves from #28 to #20 on the
Brazilian chart and it debuts at #38 on the Canadian chart. And over on
iTunes (Europe) the peak chart positions so far for Crayons
are: France #9 (pop chart), Belgium #5 (pop chart), Italy #3 (pop chart) and
#6 (overall), Spain #1 (pop chart) and #4 (overall), Sweden #4 (pop chart)
and #9 (overall), Finland #7 (pop chart), Ireland #9 (pop chart), and
Switzerland #9 (pop chart). On a side note for all the chart watchers out
there, there is a site called AllCharts.org
that will give you the chart info for quite a few countries.
[JUN 15] In radio news, Q92.5
in Montreal has picked up Stamp and Radio 2 in Belgium is playing it in
their show De Dansbar. Here in the US, the following stations are
playing Stamp: WKTU (NY), WKIE (Chicago), KNHC (Seattle), X081
(XM), WVNS (Nashville), KKUU (Palm Springs), KYKY (St. Louis), WTFM (Johnson
City), WFMK (Lansing), and WSMW (Greensboro). I'm A Fire is getting
airplay on S036 (Sirius), KNHC (Seattle) and KKUU (Palm Springs.) And
speaking of radio, San Francisco fans shold be happy because the completely
awesome Energy
92.7 has made Donna their spotlight artist for the month.
[JUN 15] And that will bring us
to the web news (finally! LOL). Damien has updated L'Unives
de Donna Summer with his new It's Only Love (IFL mix). On
Multiply, Patrice
has added a new photo creation. And at YouTube, Fernando
has added a couple more videos that combine music from Crayons
with classic performance footage and the Star
Spangled Banner performance from 1999 has turned up. I will be back -
probably soon with anything else that pops up. And since I forgot to say it
before - Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. You know who you
are..... at least I hope you do. ;-)
[JUN 11] This will be a
relatively quick update. First of all, if you have iTunes, then you
need to know that part 3 of Donna's podcast is up. And if you don't have
iTunes, then head over to my Crayons
page where all the podcasts are currently streaming. (It looks like there
will be a total of 4 - so only one more left.) Now if you live in the UK and
you have iTunes, then you have an even better reason to head over to
iTunes. The UK iTunes is selling Crayons already.
:-) (So much for waiting until June 23!) And the cool thing about the
iTunes version of Crayons is that it comes with a digital
booklet with all the liner notes and photos.
[JUN 11] Speaking of iTunes -
now that Crayons is over all (or at least most) of Europe, we
can get an idea of how it's selling over there. As of this afternoon,
on the iTunes
pop album chart it was #9 in France, #7 in Belgium, #4 in Sweden, #3 in
Italy and #1 in Spain. If you look at the Top 10 album chart over all),
Donna comes in at #9 in Sweden, #6 in Italy and #4 in Spain. :-) I'll
be back a little later this week with all the press out of Europe.
[JUN 9] RED ALERT for Germany
(and internet radio listeners): Donna will be interviewed on WDR2
TOMORROW (Tuesday June 10) between 21:05 and 23:30 local time. (That works
out to between 3:05 PM and 5:30 PM New York Time. The rest of you can
probably figure out your time based on either German or NY time.) If German
isn't your language, the link you are looking for to stream the music is the
one that says "WDR 2 hören". And if you are looking for
something to do wh
and 
) Over on YouTube, Fernando has posted another of his 
, 
] I Feel Love is right there in chapter 1, and you can read what they had to
say on the 
, 
and a billion other online places all the time, but you should also be able
to find it in stores that carry the 20th Century Masters Series now
that it's the season. (Darn it - I forgot to see if Target and Walmart
had the Christmas music out when I was running errands the other day.)
