Demi Lovato reportedly completed another rehab program last year.
A source tells People the singer privately underwent treatment to maintain their ongoing sobriety journey, following their near-fatal overdose in 2018. Demi has since returned home.
“Demi is committed to their well-being, and throughout their life, they plan to do regular check-ins to make sure they are putting themselves first,” the insider tells the mag.
In early December, Demi gave an update on their sobriety, posting on Instagram that they were no longer “California sober” — meaning they were no longer using marijuana and alcohol. They also recorded a song of that name for their album Dancing With the Devil…The Art of Starting Over.
“I no longer support my ‘California sober’ ways,” they wrote. “Sober sober is the only way to be.”
Following her rehab treatment after her overdose, Demi initially said they were cutting out all substances except marijuana and alcohol, which they would use in moderation.
Over the weekend, Demi also debuted a brand new tattoo on their newly shaved head. They got the image of a spider inked on one side of their scalp.
Michael Lang, co-organizer of the 1969 Woodstock festival and its subsequent anniversary events Woodstock ’94 and Woodstock ’99, died on Saturday, January 8, at age 77, Variety reports.
Family spokesperson Michael Pagnotta revealed to the publication that Lang passed away at a New York City hospital from a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
In 1969, Lang teamed up with songwriter and music producer Artie Kornfeld and financial investors Joel Rosenman and John Roberts to co-create the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, held August 15-18 in Bethel, New York.
Billed as “3 Days of Peace, Love and Music,” the festival became one of the iconic events of the “Flower Power” era, featuring performances by many of the biggest rock acts of the day, including Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Janis Joplin, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker and many others.
For many years, Michael served as Joe Cocker’s manager, and he also managed several other acts.
Lang also helped organize the 25th anniversary Woodstock festival, Woodstock ’94, which was held August 12-14 on a farm near of Saugerties, New York. That event featured a mix of artists who’d played the 1969 fest and contemporary acts from various genres.
Five years later, Lang co-produced the ill-fated Woodstock ’99 festival, which was held July 22-25 on a former Air Force base in Rome, New York. The event has been portrayed as the antithesis of the 1969 Woodstock, and has become known for the many reported incidences of violence, alleged sexual assaults, fires and other vandalism by some of the attendees.
Lang also attempted to organize a 50th anniversary Woodstock festival that initially was scheduled to take place in August 2019 in Watkins Glen, New York. A huge, star-studded lineup with major artists from various genres was confirmed, but the festival, called Woodstock 50, was thrown into limbo when the company providing financial backing pulled out. Michael and his fellow organizers tried to find a new financial backer and a new site for the fest, but the event eventually was canceled.
Lang is survived by his wife, Tamara, and five children.
A message paying homage to Michael has been posted on the official Woodstock socialmediapages that notes, “He was a producer, father, environmentalist, friend, husband and most of all, one-of-a-kind dreamer whose mark on the world is undeniable.”
In life, former U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who died at age 82 on December 28, was a huge Killers fan. On Saturday, the band’s front man, Brandon Flowers, performed at a memorial service for Reid, attended by President Joe Biden, former president Barack Obama and other dignitaries.
At the service, Reid’s son Leif Reid explained that his father was such a huge Killers fan that in his final days before losing his battle with pancreatic cancer, the band’s music was the only thing he wanted to hear.
“We took his phone out, we were shuffling through his songs, asking what he wanted to hear. Bob Dylan? No response. Bruce? Nothing. Then we said, ‘Brandon? You wanna hear The Killers?’ And he smiled and gave us a huge thumbs up,” Leif recalled.
At the service, Flowers reminisced about his friendship with Reid, which was based on their mutual love of their home state of Nevada. He said in 2009, he’d met Reid and was given a tour of the U.S. Capitol.
“It was just an inspiration for me because here was the Senate majority leader and he came from basically the same dirt that I came from and we shared the same faith,” Flowers recalled. He laughed, “And it wasn’t five minutes into the meeting when he waved for Senator Chuck Schumer to come over and he had me sing the Nevada state song in the office!”
Flowers then performed that song, “Home Means Nevada,” a cappella at the service, as well as “Be Still,” from The Killers’ 2012 album Battle Born.
Last April, KISS launched a new series of official live bootlegs dubbed KISS — Off the Soundboard, and now the Rock & Roll (All Nite) Hall of Famers have announced plans for the second installment of the series.
The new album, titled Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach, is due out on March 11 and will feature a recording from a concert that took place on July 25, 2004, at the Virginia Beach Amphitheatre.
The show featured KISS’ current lineup — singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, singer/bassist Gene Simmons, drummer Eric Singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer — playing career-spanning 20-song set that included such classics as “Rock and Roll All Nite,” “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” “Detroit Rock City,” “Lick It Up,” “Christine Sixteen” and “Shout It Out Loud.”
Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach will be available on digital as a two-CD set, and as a three-LP collection pressed on standard black vinyl or limited-edition 180-gram opaque-green vinyl. You can pre-order the album now exclusively at KISS’ official online store. Special bundles also are available featuring the colored-vinyl set, along with a t-shirt, trading cards and guitar picks.
Here’s the Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach CD track list:
Disc 1
“Love Gun”
“Deuce”
“Makin’ Love”
“Lick It Up”
“Christine Sixteen”
“Tears Are Falling”
“She”
“Got to Choose”
“I Love It Loud”
“I Want You”
Disc 2
“Psycho Circus”
“King of the Night Time World”
“War Machine”
“100,000 Years”
“Unholy”
“Shout It Out Loud”
“I Was Made for Lovin’ You”
“Detroit Rock City”
“God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You II”
“Rock and Roll All Nite”
John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
Deadline reports that Damon Wayans Jr. and his Two Shakes Entertainment are producing a “reimagining” of the classic family comedy The Honeymooners — with “a bold, female-driven” twist.
CBS Studios is producing the project, which is being written by Lindsey Shockley, a veteran of ABC’s black-ish spinoff Mixed-ish.
According to Deadline, the network says the project centers “around new wife Ruth and her husband Alex who are determined to have a marriage where they are true equals in every way.”
The description goes on to tease, “But what happens when a marriage has two heads of the household?”
Of course, the original Honeymooners starred Jackie Gleason, and was spun from one of his classic sketches from The Jackie Gleason Show.
Gleason played hot-headed bus driver Ralph Kramden, and Audrey Meadows co-starred his wife, Alice — who usually outwitted her scheming “King of the Castle.” Art Carney famously portrayed Ralph’s buddy and bumbling neighbor Ed Norton.
Pictured (L-R): Jason Isaacs as Dr. Rob “Griff” Griffith and Sophia Bush as Dr. Sam Griffith. Photo: Ramona Diaconescu/CBS (C)2021 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
If the opening theme of the new CBS show Good Sam sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the work of everyone’s favorite dancing violinist, Lindsey Stirling.
Taking to TikTok, the musician posted a pretend conversation she had with the show’s star Sophia Bush about composing an original piece of work just for the medical drama.
“When my good friend Sophia Bush asked me to write the theme song for her new show,” Lindsey captioned the video, which splices together past footage from One Tree Hill and other shows Sophia once starred in as her side of the “conversation.”
“I always wanted to write a theme song,” Lindsey added in the video when pretending to ask Sophia what she wanted the song to sound like, which then jumps to Sophia humming the Batman theme. The Emmy nominee added that Sophia “liked” the final piece, which is a dramatic song filled with soaring, evocative notes.
In Good Sam, Sophia plays Dr. Samantha Griffith, a heart surgeon who becomes chief of surgery after her boss and father, played by Jason Isaacs, falls into a coma.
Catch Lindsey’s theme song — and Good Sam — when it airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.
Add John Legend to the list of stars who are cashing in by selling the rights to their catalogs of songs and recordings.
Bloomberg reports that according to a public filing, back in September, John sold both his copyrights to and his royalties from music he wrote from late 2004 through early last year. The deal includes his signature hit, “All of Me.”
BMG, who has worked with John since 2010, bought the rights, in partnership with the private equity firm KKR. How much money John is making from the sale wasn’t disclosed.
John is younger than most of the veteran rock acts who’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars lately by selling their catalogs: That list includes Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, ZZ Top and Stevie Nicks. That’s a good thing: As Bloomberg notes, the fact that he’s still a very public figure and continues to record and release music and tour should “help drive streaming revenue for the songs purchased by KKR and BMG.”
John’s most recent album, Bigger Love, was released in 2020.
Toy (Toy: Box), the new box set focusing on David Bowie‘s previously unreleased 2000 album Toy, hit stores today, one day before what would’ve been the late rock legend’s 75th birthday.
As previously reported, Toy features versions of various songs that Bowie first recorded from 1964 to 1971, redone at 2000 sessions with members of his touring band at the time.
Toy (Toy: Box) is available now as a three-CD set, a six-disc 10-inch vinyl collection, and digitally. The package will include the originally planned album — which first got its release in November 2021 as part of David’s Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001) box set — alternative mixes of the Toy tracks and tunes intended as B-sides, and stripped-down, mostly acoustic mixes of the songs.
In conjunction with the arrival of Toy (Toy: Box), a lyric video for an alternate version of “Shadow Man,” a rarity that Bowie first recorded in late 1970, has debuted at Bowie’s YouTube channel. The newly released version is referred as an “Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix,” and is one of a series of 13 Toy tracks appearing on the box set that were given that treatment.
Meanwhile, as previously announced, former Bowie touring band member Mark Plati, who produced Toy and played on the original recordings, will take part in an interview about the project at the Bowie 75 pop-up store in New York City this Saturday. Visit Bowie75.com for more details about the various events taking place to commemorate David’s milestone birthday.
Cannons have premiered a new song called “Purple Sun.”
The slinky track, which is available now to download and stream via digital outlets, follows the 2021 singles “Bad Dream” and “Ruthless.”
Cannons broke out last year with their hit “Fire for You,” which reached number one on Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay chart in 2021 despite being originally released back in 2019. They currently sit at number 15 on the ranking with “Bad Dream.”
You can catch Cannons on the road this year when they launch their headlining Fever Dream tour March 1 in Los Angeles.
The Weeknd‘s much-awaited fifth studio album, Dawn FM, dropped at midnight Friday. The “Save Your Tears” singer features a wide variety of stars on the project, including Lil Wayne, Tyler, the Creator, Quincy Jones, and actor Jim Carrey.
Along with the album’s release, The Weeknd hosted an exclusive livestream experience with Amazon Music. The three-time Grammy winner recreated the album cover as he appeared as an older version of himself, with grey hair and a beard, and serenaded the crowd with his new music from the middle of a DJ booth.
Dawn FM is the follow-up to The Weeknd’s 2020 RIAA-certified triple-Platinum After Hours album that featured the number-one song of the year, “Blinding Lights.”
Gunna has released his third studio album, DS4Ever, featuring Young Thug, Chris Brown, Kodak Black, 21 Savage and Chloe Bailey. “The Drip Too Hard” rapper also dropped the music video for the “Too Easy” remix, featuring Future and Roddy Ricch.
SZA dropped the video for her hit “I Hate You,” featuring LaKeith Stanfieid from Judas and the Black Messiah. The Oscar nominee is shown alone on a beach, and after arguing with SZA on his cell, he becomes so enraged, he throws his phone into the ocean.
In December, “I Hate You” set an Apple Music record as the most-streamed R&B Song by a female artist in its first week. “Y’all really took a song from SoundCloud and made it number one for 7 days straight. No promo no radio. no nada. Jus YALLS LOVE,” SZA commented on Instagram. “I AM SO BEYOND THANKFUL TO HAVE YOU ALL IN MY LIFE!”
Finally, Queens star Brandy collabs with the newest member of the cast, Remy Ma, on the latest song from the TV series, “Lady Z Strikes Back (Can’t Stop You).”
