Music

As previously reported, Taylor Swift thrilled the staff of a bar and a restaurant in Belfast, Northern Ireland, when she unexpectedly dropped in last week. But it turns out she also thrilled the musician who happened to be performing in the bar that night.

Twenty-two-year-old singer Tiernán Heffron, who performs every Friday night at The Tipsy Bird, a cocktail bar in Belfast, says he but couldn’t believe it when Taylor walked in. 

“My heart was beating so fast. I just went for it and I had her up singing and dancing…she was having a blast,” Heffron tells the BBC.

And that’s not all: Heffron shares that Taylor “came up to me in the middle of it with a big smile and said, ‘You’re so good — how can I follow you?'”  When Heffron explained that he works at a school for special needs but has been working on music on the side, she asked to take a selfie with him.

“She tipped me for playing, told me she enjoyed my music and said, ‘You deserve this,'” Heffron gushed.  She also left him with some wise words.

“She said, ‘Right now, you’re putting in your 10,000 hours: This is not your first gig, you’re confident and you’re going to do great,'” Heffron revealed.

Of course, Heffron now has the best publicity of all: A photo of himself with Taylor, plus a personal recommendation from the superstar.

As previously reported, Taylor was in Belfast to support her boyfriend Joe Alwyn, who’s filming a new Hulu TV series there.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Tierna?n Heffron (@tiernanheffron)

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A new documentary about Alanis Morissette, Jagged, will air on HBO at a future date after having its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Monday. But Alanis didn’t attend the event and says she won’t be supporting the film in any way, claiming that it includes “implications and fact that are simply not true.”

So far, the documentary has already made headlines because it features Alanis discussing being sexually assaulted and/or abused by multiple men when she was below the age of consent.

In a statement provided to ABC News, Alanis says she agreed to participate in the movie, but sat for her interview “during a very vulnerable time (while in the midst of my third postpartum depression during lockdown).”

“I was lulled into a false sense of security and their salacious agenda became apparent immediately upon my seeing the first cut of the film,” she continues. “This is when I knew our visions were in fact painfully diverged. This was not the story I agreed to tell. I sit here now experiencing the full impact of having trusted someone who did not warrant being trusted.”

The Grammy-winning star goes on to say that she won’t be attending any event promoting the movie because she’s on tour, and also because the documentary “includes implications and facts that are simply not true.”

“While there is beauty and some elements of accuracy in this/my story to be sure — I ultimately won’t be supporting someone else’s reductive take on a story much too nuanced for them to ever grasp or tell,” Morissette concludes in her statement.

Alanis doesn’t specify which aspects of the film she finds to be “not true.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Travis Scott wants to travel from his Astroworld to a utopian world.

The eight-time Grammy nominee hit RIAA triple-Platinum status in 2018 with his latest album, Astroworld. He named his upcoming album Utopia as his personal remedy for a world he says is filled with hostility.

“Medicine, nursing, being a better person, talking, language, communication—you know, a utopian state. That’s what my album is about, ” La Flame tells CR Fashion Book.

“You think utopia is a society where everything is good: health, buildings, architecture—nah. It’s just about proper lines of communication. Because that’s the dystopian s*** We’re in right now,” he continues. “It’s all hate, hate, hate, and all of that is drawn from what? Miscommunication, non-communication, non-understandable communication, ignorance to communication. ‘I don’t like this person.’ Why? Because somebody told me something to not like this person? Because in history I read to not like this person? Why?”

Scott’s daughter with Kylie Jenner, Stormi, turned three years old in February, and on September 7, Kylie announced they are expecting their second child. The “Franchise” rapper says being a father has caused him to change his priorities.

“Now I became a pops, you want to be there to eat food together and turn up for little Stormi,” he comments. “She’s so fire because she goes to sleep now. We try to do a more natural vibe [with parenting], like more self-discipline. Like, OK, you know you got to go to bed at nine, are you going to stay up till eleven or are you going to go to sleep now? And it’s so cool [to hear her say], “I’m going to sleep ya’ll!”

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by flame (@travisscott)

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The audience at the Grand Ole Opry got a special surprise on Monday when Keith Urban‘s wife, actress Nicole Kidman, joined him onstage during the Loretta Lynn’s Friends: Hometown Rising event.

Keith was one of the many performers at the star-studded benefit concert, which aimed to raise money for the many people affected by the devastating flooding in Middle Tennessee in August. Loretta Lynn‘s ranch is in Humphreys County, where there were 20 reported casualties and hundreds of homes destroyed.

After performing hits “Blue Ain’t Your Color” and “Wasted Time,” Keith revealed that he was going to be donating a signed guitar to be auctioned off for the cause — but he wasn’t alone in the effort.  

“This is the Volunteer state. So I want to do my bit and sign this guitar,” he said, beckoning friend and “Out the Cage” collaborator Breland to also sign it.

“I think it needs one more signature. If I could just get my wife to put her autograph on this too,” Keith declared. The Academy Award-winning actress then made her way to the stage to sign the instrument as cheers erupted from the crowd.

“I’ve never been on the stage at the Opry. Wow!” Nicole exclaimed.

Luke Combs, Luke Bryan, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood were among Loretta’s many other famous friends who performed at the event.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

G-Eazy was arrested last week in New York City and charged with assault, ABC News has confirmed.

The rapper and his crew got into the fight with two men inside the Boom Boom Room at the Standard Hotel in New York’s trendy Meatpacking District nightclub early Friday morning.  A 29-year-old man was hit with a bottle, while a 32-year-old man was punched on the street outside the club.

The two men later reported the assault to police, and G-Eazy was issued a desk appearance ticket yesterday for assault. He will appear in court next month.  This didn’t affect the rapper’s weekend, though: He went on to appear at the MTV VMAs on Sunday night in Brooklyn.

In other G-Eazy news, the video for his collaboration with Carlos Santana and chart-topping songwriter Diane Warren, “She’s On Fire,” just dropped on Tuesday. The song appears on Diane’s debut album Diane Warren: The Cave Sessions and Santana’s upcoming album, Blessings & Miracles.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Maren Morris proves that “The Bones” are still solid, as the hit song receives new certification. 

The crossover smash has been certified four-times Platinum by the RIAA for sales of four million units. “The Bones” made history when it spent 19 consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 2020, designating Maren as the first solo female artist to have a multi-week #1 hit on country radio since 2012. It also charted inside the top 15 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. 

Featured on her critically acclaimed sophomore album, Girl, “The Bones” was named Single of the Year and Song of the Year at the 2020 CMA Awards and Song of the Year at the 2021 Academy of Country Music Awards. 

Maren’s current single, “To Hell and Back,” is currently ascending into the top 30 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Gojira has inspired the names of a trio of newly discovered fossils.

The fossils are of ophiuroids, or ‘brittle stars,’ found in France, Luxembourg and Austria during the Early Jurassic epoch. They’re called Ophiogojira labadiei, Ophiogojira andreui and Ophioduplantiera noctiluca.

In addition to incorporating Gojira into the names, each fossil also references the individual band members: bassist Jean-Michel Labadie, guitarist Christian Andreu, and frontman and drummer Joe and Mario Duplantier.

An article in the Royal Society Open Science journal explains that Gojira was chosen as inspiration for the fossil names in recognition of the French metal outfit “producing songs of an unfathomable intensity, beautifully dark and heavy, and exploring the abyss of life and death, of human strength and error, and of thriving and yet threatened oceans.”

Fittingly, Gojira’s new album, Fortitude, especially the single “Amazonia,” deals a lot with environmental issues.

By the way, Gojira isn’t the only metal band part of science history. Metallica previously inspired the name of a deep-sea crustacean, while a venomous snake species was named after frontman James Hetfield.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.