My Chemical Romance‘s reunion tour just got a bit bigger.
The “Helena” rockers have added 14 more North American shows to the much-anticipated outing, which marks their first tour since 2012. The dates include stops in 10 new cities, as well as additional performances in New York City, Toronto, Boston and Los Angeles.
Among the new cities is an August 20 show in Oklahoma City, which will now mark the opening night of the North American leg.
Tickets to the added shows go on sale this Friday, March 11, at noon local time. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit MyChemicalRomance.com.
Along with the new dates, My Chem has announced the openers for the tour, which include Badflower, Meg Myers, Taking Back Sunday and Turnstile, among many others.
MCR first announced their reunion on Halloween 2019, six years after they initially broke up in 2013. Following a triumphant comeback show in Los Angeles at the end 2019, they announced a full tour for 2020, which, of course, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After several delays, the international run is finally set to launch this May in the U.K.
Billie Eilish and her brother and collaborator FINNEAS are nominated for their first Oscar for “No Time to Die,” the theme song from the James Bond movie of the same name. At the Oscar nominees luncheon on Monday, they told ABC’s Good Morning America they thought it’d never happen.
“We were certain we’d never be nominated for an Oscar,” FINNEAS told GMA. “Our dreams were so small.”
Billie added, “It’s true, it’s really true.”
The nomination is special to the siblings, because, as they note, they always tuned in to the Academy Awards as kids.
“The Oscars was like a family event at our house,” Billie said. “We would have friends over every year, and you get dressed and eat food. And it’s so weird to think that that’s what this is.”
Of course, it won’t be the first time the two have attended the Oscars: In 2020, they sang the Beatles’ “Yesterday” during the “In Memoriam” segment of the show. Billie noted that it was quite the memorable experience.
“When I did the ‘In Memoriam’ piece, I was looking out into, like, Leonardo DiCaprio. I mean, that’s all I have to say,” she said. “Just seeing faces that I have seen my entire life looking at me — yeah, it was very scary and cool and unbelievable.”
In what may be yet another sign that Billie and FINNEAS and “No Time to Die” are the favorites to win the gold, on Tuesday in Los Angeles, they picked up the award for Outstanding Original Song for a Dramatic or Documentary Visual Media Production at the Society of Composers and Lyricists Awards. It’s also won a Grammy and a Golden Globe.
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson‘s new band Envy of None has debuted a music video for “Look Inside,” the recently released second advance track from the group’s forthcoming self-titled debut album.
The slow-tempo, melodic tune, which is available via streaming services now, showcases Envy of None singer Maiah Wynne‘s ethereal, dreamy vocals, and is accompanied by ominous, atmospheric instrumentation.
You can watch the “Look Inside” video now at the Kscope label’s official YouTube channel. Much of the clip shows Wynne singing into the camera while sitting on a couch and a large leather chair, while other scenes capture her peering into a mirror, dropping medicinal capsules onto the ground, and swallowing one of the pills.
Discussing the meaning of “Look Inside,” Maiah explains, “Sometimes you have to shine a light on all the ugliest pieces of yourself in order to truly change, and you have to keep slaying that dragon over and over again. It is a continuous, slow and painful process.”
She adds about the music, “The guitars and bass really drive the grittiness and heaviness I felt when I wrote those lyrics. It feels like an all-encompassing sludge, and that is what I absolutely love about this song.”
As previously reported, the Envy of None album is an 11-track collection that will be released on April 8, though it can be pre-ordered now. In addition to Lifeson and Wynne, the band features bassist Andy Curran of the veteran Canadian rock group Coney Hatch, and guitarist/keyboardist Alfio Annibalini.
The first track Envy of None debuted from the album is titled “Liar.” You can watch a lyric video for that song on YouTube.
Entertainment Weekly‘s traditional print magazine is going out with a bang, with its final April edition offering a sneak peek at the anticipated, upcoming Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The cover features Ewan McGregor‘s exiled Jedi Master, lightsaber in hand and looking a bit worse for wear since we last saw him at the end of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. His beard is longer, and graying in spots, and his Jedi tunic is worn from the unforgiving desert suns of Tatooine, where he vowed to watch over a very young Luke Skywalker.
The feature shows a series of photos from the show, as well. Kenobi is also pictured in an until-now unseen portion of his sparse cave dwelling, glimpsed in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. At least one shot shows him off-planet, however. Writer Joby Harold tells EW that the picture of a hooded Obi-Wan is set on a planet called Daiyu, which “sort of has a Hong Kong feel to it. It’s got a graffiti-ridden nightlife, and is kind of edgy.”
The feature also reveals Reva, one of the Jedi hunting Inquisitors dispatched by Emperor Palpatine. The “ruthlessly ambitious” character is played by The Queen’s Gambit veteran Moses Ingraham.
Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts May 25 — known by fans as Star Wars Day — on Disney+.
The seminal proto-punk outfit, led by original guitarist Wayne Kramer, has announced a U.S. tour for this spring. Not only that, but the band plans to release a new album this fall, marking the first MC5 record in over 50 years.
The tour begins May 5 with a hometown show in Detroit, and will wrap up May 15 in San Diego. Joining Kramer onstage for the run will be vocalist Brad Brooks, guitarist Stevie Salas, bassist Vicki Randle and Jane’s Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, March 11. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit Kramer’s Facebook page.
Before the tour launches, Kramer plans to release two new MC5 songs ahead of the album’s arrival in October. One, titled “Heavy Lifting,” features Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello, while the other, a reworking of Kramer’s 1995 solo track “Edge of the Switchblade,” features William DuVall of Alice in Chains.
You can check out a preview of “Heavy Lifting” streaming now on YouTube.
MC5 is once again nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year. The band has been on the ballot five times previously, but has yet to be inducted.
(WASHINGTON) — When Ketanji Brown Jackson last month to the U.S. Supreme Court, some of the loudest cheers came from a trio of women who have been by Jackson’s side for the last 30 years.
“It was a lot of screaming and jumping and so excited,” Nina Simmons told ABC News of the reaction she and her friends had to the nomination of Jackson, their college roommate.
Lisa Fairfax, another roommate of Simmons and Jackson, said of the exact moment Biden introduced Jackson as the nominee, “That moment was emotional, watching her actually stand behind the president when she was introduced and then watching her step forward.”
If the Senate approves her nomination, Jackson, currently an appellate court judge, will make history as the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s high court.
By her side through her history-making judicial career have been Fairfax, Simmons and Antoinette Coakley, all of whom roomed with Jackson as undergraduate students at Harvard University, and then as law students, also at Harvard.
The three women are accomplished in their own right — Simmons is senior counsel at Washton & Gitto LLC; Fairfax is the Presidential Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School; and Coakley is a professor of law at Northeastern School of Law — but they said they saw early on that Jackson would reach the top of her profession.
“I remember years ago when we were in our college room, our college dorm, saying to Ketanji, ‘You are going to be the first Black woman on the US Supreme Court. You are going to be it,'” said Coakley. “It was that clear back then.”
Jackson, now a 51-year-old mother of two, stood out for her ability to bring people together, according to her friends.
“Ketanji can organize something, bring people together and she recognizes the strength of everyone and makes sure that you recognize your strengths as well,” said Simmons, who recalled Jackson’s support when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014.
“One day I woke up and Ketanji and Lisa are at my door,” said Simmons. “That was a time where I wasn’t telling people. I wasn’t really sharing it, and she showed up, didn’t ask any questions, she just showed up.”
The friends, who nicknamed themselves “the ladies,” also recall a lighter side of Jackson, whom Biden described as “an exceptionally qualified and historic nominee.”
“I think people don’t know that she’s funny, and that she’s an amazing storyteller,” Coakley said.
Added Simmons, “She loves to dance. [When] we were in college and law school, we’d be the first ones out there. She’d be dancing, having a good time.”
And even as their careers took them to different places following law school, Coakley, Simmons and Fairfax said Jackson rooted them onto success.
“I’m now a law professor and Ketanji was actually instrumental in helping me make that transition,” Fairfax said. “She really made me feel like I could do it, supported me through the process.”
“For Ketanji, it was not sufficient just for her to be successful,” added Coakley. “She wanted for all of us to be successful as well, and so we all benefited, I think, from that relationship and that has sustained us all these years.”
(WASHINGTON) — Scammers are impersonating law enforcement and government officials, in an effort to extort money and personal information, the FBI warns.
Often times, the scammers will “spoof” authentic numbers and credentials “of well-known government and law enforcement agencies,” the agency said in an announcement Monday.
The FBI says scammers will say a person’s identity was used in crime, such as a drug deal or money laundering scam, and they will ask for personal information to verify their identity such as their Social Security number and date of birth.
“The victim is threatened with arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment if they do not pay to remove charges or assist in the investigation against the “real” criminals,” the FBI said.
“Payment is demanded in various forms, with the most prevalent being prepaid cards, wire transfers, and cash, sent by mail or inserted into cryptocurrency ATMs. Victims are asked to read prepaid card numbers over the phone or text a picture of the card. Mailed cash will be hidden or packaged to avoid detection by normal mail scanning devices. Wire transfers are often sent overseas so funds almost immediately vanish,” the announcement said.
Scams also come in the form of text messages requiring government IDs to fix a passport renewal.
The FBI urges consumers to protect themselves saying that “officials will never contact members of the public or medical practitioners by telephone to demand any form of payment, or to request personal or sensitive information.”
Netflix has dropped the first full trailer for the second season of its hit series Bridgerton, which as previously reported centers on Jonathan Bailey‘s Anthony Bridgerton and his duty to find a bride.
In its opening moments, and to Jonathan’s embarrassment, his mother, Lady Violet Bridgerton, played by Ruth Gemmell, proudly declares of her son, “This is the season the viscount intends to find a wife!”
This sets off a Bachelor-like scene, where seemingly every single woman in the county pushes hard to the hoop for Anthony’s attention, with Charithra Chandran‘s Edwina Sharma emerging as the “proper” choice.
However, things aren’t so easy: There’s clearly heat between Bridgerton and Edwina’s headstrong sister, Kate, played by Simone Ashley.
“The greatest love of my family that I am to choose a bride with my head, and not with my…heart,” Anthony confesses.
“He seeks a wife only to fulfil his duty,” Kate tells Edwina, “and does not believe in the true love you deserve.”
Julie Andrews again can be heard in the trailer voicing the series’ resident gossip writer, Lady Whistledown, who was revealed last season to be Nicola Coughlan‘s Penelope Featherington.
“What happens when duty is in conflict with the heart’s true desire?” Whistledown asks. “Why then, there is the potential for true scandal indeed!”
As we see Jonathan’s heart is truly desiring Kate, and vice-versa — “My honor is hanging by a thread,” he confesses to her — Golda Rosheuvel‘s Queen Charlotte ups the ante on exposing the gossiper. “Whistledown’s words carry far too much import. We must entrap the scribbler!” she commands.
Bridgerton‘s second season debuts on March 25 on Netflix.
According to posts on the Facebook pages of Todd Rundgren and ex-Wings member Denny Laine, two of the artists taking part in the trek, the new dates are June 16 in Derry, New Hampshire; June 17 in Medford, Massachusetts; June 18 in Westbury, New York; June 20 in Red Bank, New Jersey; and June 21 in Annapolis, Maryland.
As previously reported, the trek features Rundgren, Laine, Christopher Cross, Badfinger‘s Joey Molland and former Chicago singer/bassist Jason Scheff performing songs from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Revolver albums, as well as select well-known tunes from their own careers.
The message on Laine’s Facebook page notes that tickets purchased for the shows original dates will be honored for the rescheduled concerts. Those seeking a refund should contact their original point of purchase.
The message also reported, “Everyone is well and looking forward to heading back on the road.” The next stop on the current tour will be St. George’s Theater in Staten Island, New York, this Friday, March 11.
Meanwhile, Cross, who survived a serious case of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, has posted his own note regarding the situation on his Facebook page.
“This is a good time to remind ourselves that we are not out of the woods with COVID, especially omicron,” writes Christopher. “Please get vaccinated and boosted, and wear your mask in public gatherings. We need to protect not only ourselves but those around us.”
He adds, “We are all fine. Everyone is vaccinated which has protected us from severe illness.”
In honor of late rapper Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls, OneOf, the Green Web3 company built for music, sports and lifestyle will release limited-edition Notorious B.I.G. NFTs.
According to the press release, a portion of the proceeds from the NFTs, inspired by iconic rapper Biggie Smalls’ legendary hip hop career, will go to the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation Inc., to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his passing.
“We are excited about our partnership with OneOf and their expertise to memorialize my son Christopher with this first official NFT drop to give his fans an opportunity to participate in and honor their love of him and his music,” said the Notorious B.I.G.’s mother, Voletta Wallace.
OneOf has recently announced major partnerships with The Recording Academy to celebrate the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards, as well as with Warner Music Group. OneOf’s recent Whitney Houston Collection made headlines when a never-before-heard Whitney Houston song made when she was 17 was sold at auction on OneOf for $1 million.
“We’re honored to work with The Christopher Wallace Estate to celebrate the incredible legacy of Biggie Smalls,” said OneOf COO & Co-Founder Josh James. “Using NFT technology, Biggie’s legacy and his outsized impact on music and culture will be forever cemented on blockchain, to be honored and shared with fans around the world and for generations to come.”
