Patti Smith has announced plans for a special livestream event that will take place February 2 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, that will feature her performing songs, telling stories, and reciting some of her poetry and prose.
Patti will be joined by her longtime band mates Lenny Kaye and Tony Shanahan during the presentation, which will be available exclusively to paid subscribers to her Substack page.
Substack subscribers also can submit questions and requests that Smith may respond to or fulfill during the show. After the livestream, which begins at 8 p.m. ET, the presentation will be available on demand for 24 hours.
You can check out a video message from Patti sharing details about the livestream and her Substack page.
Substack is an online platform that’s geared toward writers interested in connecting directly with their audiences. Smith joined the platform last year, and has been using it to debut weekly installments of her first serialized long-form work, The Melting.
The Melting began as a series of writings from Patti’s private pandemic journal, and has expanded into covering other topics, incorporating elements of science fiction and including reflections on the climate crisis. The ongoing work, which so far is made up of almost 40 installments and is nearing completion, also features audio recordings and photos.
Meanwhile, the 75-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and her band are scheduled for their first concert of 2022 on February 22 in Brooklyn, New York. You can check out her full itinerary at PattiSmith.net.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for God’s Love we Deliver
The first all-female edition of Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, which originally was scheduled to take place in Los Angeles from January 27 to January 30, has been postponed because of ongoing COVID-19 concerns, and now will be held over Mother’s Day weekend, May 6-9.
Topping the list of artists taking part in this installment of Rock Camp are Heart‘s Nancy Wilson, Melissa Etheridge and Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine.
Other talented musicians who will serve as musical mentors to the campers include Australian guitar whiz Orianthi, ex-Hole and Mötley Crüe drummer Samantha Maloney, former Michael Jackson touring guitarist Jennifer Batten, Jeff Beck touring bassist Rhonda Smith and many more.
Besides the accomplished musicians taking part in the camp, the crew and staff for the event also will be solely comprised of women.
The four-day event will feature masterclasses, Q&A sessions and themed jams, and will culminate with the campers performing in front of a live audience at the famed Whisky a Go Go club in West Hollywood, California. The campers also will be treated to a pre-Grammy party on Saturday night.
Wilson says of the decision to reschedule the event, “The thrill of attending Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp is the up close and personal attention each camper receives from our RockStar counselors. With the current restrictions, this completely changes the whole experience. Looking forward to rocking out safely Mother’s Day Weekend.”
Apple TV+ has announced that it’s launching a live-action TV series based on Godzilla and his other giant monster friends and frenemies, the Titans.
The untitled series will be backed by Star Trek: Enterprise‘s Chris Black and Matt Fraction, whose Marvel Comics’ Hawkeye run is a fan favorite — and was a major inspiration for the just-wrapped Disney+ series of the same name.
The recent so-called Monsterverse movies began with the stand-alone 2014 film Godzilla. That movie was followed up by 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, which hinted at an expanded universe of other Titans.
2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters was next, followed by 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong. The films earned more than $2 billion bucks worldwide.
Incidentally, those movies were co-produced by Warner Bros. with Legendary Pictures, so it’s curious that the Monsterverse series will stream on Apple TV+ instead of WB’s corporate sibling HBO Max, where the movies can currently be seen.
(MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.) — Opening statements in the joint federal trial of three former police officers accused of civil rights violations in the death of George Floyd are expected to begin next week after a jury was seated on Thursday.
Fired Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, 28, Thomas Lane, 38, and Tou Thao, 35, are set to fight charges stemming from their alleged roles in the 2020 death of the 46-year-old Black man who their one-time senior officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murdering.
All three are charged with using the “color of the law,” or their positions as police officers, to deprive Floyd of his civil rights on May 25, 2020, by allegedly showing deliberate indifference to his medical needs as Chauvin dug his knee in the back of a handcuffed man’s neck for more than 9 minutes, ultimately killing him.
Kueng and Thao both face an additional charge alleging they knew Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd’s neck but did nothing to intervene to stop him. Lane, who was heard on police body camera footage asking if they should roll Floyd on his side to help ease his breathing, does not face that charge.
The three defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The 18-member jury, including six alternates, was impaneled in just one day, chosen from a pool of 256 potential jurors. The jury is comprised of 11 women and seven men, none of whom are Black.
The trial, expected to last at least two weeks, is being held at the Warren E. Burger Federal Building in St. Paul. Opening statements are expected to begin Monday.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson, who is presiding over the case, has instructed attorneys that he wants the trial to move quickly to lessen the possibility of people involved in the proceedings coming down with COVID-19 as the omicron variant continues to spread across the country.
The trial will commence a little over a month after Chauvin, 45, a former Minneapolis police officer, pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s death and the abuse of a 14-year-old boy he bashed in the head with a flashlight in 2017. He admitted in the signed plea agreement with federal prosecutors that he knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck even as Floyd complained he could not breathe, fell unconscious and lost a pulse.
The guilty plea came after Chauvin was convicted in Minnesota state court in April of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison in the state case and is facing an even stiffer sentence in the federal case.
Kueng and Lane were rookies being trained by Chauvin at the time of Floyd’s fatal arrest.
The May 25, 2020, police encounter with Floyd was recorded on video from start to finish and included multiple angles taken by bystanders with cellphones, police body cameras and surveillance cameras.
The footage showed Chauvin grinding his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while Kueng helped keep Floyd down even after he stopped resisting by placing his knee on the man’s back and holding and lifting one of his handcuffed hands. Lane, according to the videos, held down Floyd’s feet.
Thao, according to footage, stood a few feet away, ordering a crowd to stand back despite several witnesses, including an off-duty firefighter, expressing concern for Floyd’s well-being.
Following the federal trial, Lane, Keung and Thao are facing a state trial on charges arising from Floyd’s death of aiding and abetting second-degree murder, and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
The state trial, which had been scheduled to get underway in March, was postponed until June 13 due to uncertainty over how long the federal trial will last.
The three defendants have pleaded not guilty to the state charges.
ABC News’ Whitney Lloyd contributed to this report.
Jeannie Mai revealed the name of her first baby with husband Jeezy on Thursday
In a video posted on her Hello Hunnay YouTube channel, The Real co-host announced that the baby’s name is Monaco.
“I thought Baby J’s name should be a J name because obviously Jeannie and Jeezy, makes sense, but that wasn’t the name that came to us,” Jeannie explained. “What really came to us was how baby J came to fruition for us when we were dating.”
She recalled a trip to the European city-state of Monaco that she and Jeezy took where they talked about their goals for the future.
Then Mai pointed to a wall where Monaco’s name was printed and said that the nursery is themed after the moniker.
“That’s really the theme of the nursery: what Monaco is about. Family, moments, traveling, discussions, important key points in my life and Jeezy’s life that brought Monaco here,” she added.
On Thursday’s episode of The Real, the co-hosts also revealed the name, clarifying that the sex of the baby will be announced at a later date.
“Today is an extra exciting day because, guess what…we have a Baby J update,” Adrienne Bailon said. Then she pulled out an envelope and announced the name, reading, “Three years ago, Jeezy and Jeannie were talking on a bridge in France, talking about what it meant to do life together. Here they decided to grow and raise a family together. Hence, they named their child after the city that changed their lives forever: Monaco Mai Jenkins.
A$AP Rocky, Kid Cudi and Playboi Carti will headline The Smoker’s Club Fest on April 30 in San Bernadino, California.
Fans are encouraged to blaze up at the event featuring 70 acts performing at the Glen Helen Amphitheater which holds 65,000 people. The festival is described as “celebrating hip hop as one of the leading forces in paving the way for cannabis culture becoming mainstream.”
The lineup also includes Schoolboy Q, Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz, Ferg, Joey Bada$$, Lupe Fiasco, Curren$y, Rico Nasty, Earl Sweatshirt, Jay Rock, Wale, The Alchemist, and many more.
There will be a special pre-sale beginning Monday, January 24 at 10 a.m. PT for fans who sign up for early access to passes online at smokersclubfest.com. Remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public on January 24 at 2 p.m. PT.
Justin Bieber is set to kick off his Justice World Tour on February 18, but he’ll warm up for that with a February 11 performance ahead of the Super Bowl.
Justin is headlining The h.wood Group’s Homecoming Weekend pop-up party in Los Angeles, reports Billboard. The bill also includes Marshmello, and will take place in an event space outside the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.
The event, presented by REVOLVE and the MALÏBU crypto service, will be Justin’s first live appearance of 2022. The bad news is that it’s an invitation-only bash, so unless you’re an A-list music, fashion, sports or entertainment star, you’re not getting in.
The run time for The Batman, director Matt Reeves‘ forthcoming take on the Caped Crusader, has been revealed.
The movie will run two hours and 47 minutes without credits, according to The Hollywood Reporter, making it one of the longest superhero movies ever released. The film, starring Robert Pattinson, Paul Dano, Zoe Kravitz, Colin Farrell and Jeffrey Wright, will be five minutes short of three hours with credits — and presumably will include a customary comic book movie end-credits scene.
That will make The Batman the third-longest superhero movie ever, behind only Zack Snyder‘s Justice League opus, which ran 242 minutes, and the 181-minutes-long Avengers: Endgame.
In fact, the new film, which debuts March 4 in theaters and on HBO Max, is longer than what many Bat-fans see as a franchise high-water mark, Christopher Nolan‘s 165-minute The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale and for which Heath Ledger won a posthumous Best Actor Oscar for playing The Joker.
(WASHINGTON) — With voting rights reform now firmly in the rear view mirror, negotiations to reform the Electoral Count Act have ramped up, but it remains far from certain that the talks will bear fruit despite the growing bipartisan interest.
The obscure 19th century law that governs the counting of each state’s electoral votes for president, a process then-President Donald Trump and his allies sought to exploit to secure a victory not won at the ballot box, has long been the subject of bipartisan ire.
The law allows one congressman paired with one senator to object to the results submitted by each state, something both parties have done previously, although Trump allies in 2020 attempted to block the decision of far more states than ever before.
The vice president’s role in what usually is a perfunctory proceeding — counting and announcing the votes — is also extremely unclear, and Trump and his team attempted, in an effort to overturn the election, to exert pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to declare some states’ slates of electoral votes in question, pressure that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I’ve always thought we should just repeal it,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a former secretary of state, said Thursday. “If you can’t replace it, I’d be just for repealing it. I think it creates more problems than it creates solutions. And so I think there’s a lot of interest in doing something about that. And my guess is that the majority of Republican senators would agree with that.”
But therein lies the problem for Democrats, unsure if GOP interest in electoral law changes is real after the party’s unified, high-profile opposition to federal voting law changes. Republicans are, likewise, suspicious of Democrats whose leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, recently lambasted attempts to reform the ECA as “offensive.”
“If you’re going to rig the game and say, ‘Oh, we’ll count the rigged game accurately,’ what good is that?” Schumer recently scoffed when asked about budding ECA reform efforts. Branding those efforts “the McConnell plan,” since the GOP leader – Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — has expressed an openness to reforming the law, Schumer added, “It’s unacceptably insufficient and even offensive.”
Despite the lack of trust among the parties, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has led bipartisan talks behind closed doors for the past three weeks to try to reform the law, with interest in those negotiations growing “big time” in the wake of the Democrats’ failed effort at broader electoral reforms, according to a Senate aide with knowledge of the matter.
“We’re going to be working hard over the recess,” Collins told reporters. “I’m very encouraged at the amount of interest that there is from both sides of the aisle.”
For his part, McConnell reiterated his support for possible ECA reform and the Collins talks Thursday, but went a bit further, telling ABC News, “I think it needs fixing, and I wish them well, and I’d be happy to talk a look at whatever they can come up with.” Asked for any red lines in those negotiations, the leader said, “I just encourage the discussion, because I think (the ECA) is clearly is flawed. This is directly related to what happened on January 6th, and I think we ought to be able to figure out a bipartisan way to fix it.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, an early member of the group, told ABC News, “There are about 10 Republicans and maybe four or five Democrats that are working on it. We exchanged a list of things that we thought ought to be included in an election reform package — some items related to making sure that election officials were not harassed, others related to how elections are certified, others related to what the role of the Vice President is in the electoral accounting process, how you would deal with an objection to a slate of electors.”
The details around how to implement each of these items would be complex, and the negotiation is “just now beginning to talk about which of these we’ll find sufficient support for in a bill,” said Romney.
Both conservative Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — who refused to support changing the Senate rules to pass their party’s sweeping voting rights legislation — are working with Collins on ECA changes, along with GOP Senators Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, and Roger Wicker, among others. Some senators, like Blunt, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., have shown interest, according to aides involved in the talks, but have yet to commit to being a part of the group.
Manchin, speaking with reporters about the talks, said he was particularly focused on violence and threats against poll workers which have ramped up in recent years in particular in the wake of Trump’s so-called “big lie” that he won the 2020 election but it was stolen from him by fraud.
“They’re scared now, because of the highly charged political atmosphere. We do want to make sure that we can raise this to the level of a federal crime if you accost, if you threaten anyone who works at the polls, you’ll be dealt with with the harshest penalties,” said Manchin, who is leading the talks for Democrats. “You’re not going to fool with the count and our voting people.”
The Collins-Manchin group plans to meet by Zoom in the next few days, with an eye toward potentially producing a legislative proposal at the end of next week’s recess, according to Romney, though Collins offered a more sober estimate. “I think we don’t know how long it’s going to take. We’ve done a lot of research. We’ve talked to election experts, professors, the election assistance commissioners, all sorts of people to make sure we get this right.”
Collins said the scope of her group’s work will go beyond just the 150-year old Electoral Count Act, like additional grant funding for states to improve the quality of their voting systems, and that she was encouraged by President Joe Biden’s comments expressing a willingness to work with Republicans to get this done.
A parallel effort is happening among a group of senior Democrats, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Angus King – – led by Schumer’s number two, Dick Durbin of Illinois. Durbin said he planned to talk to Sen. Collins about her efforts to see what might be done together.
“We wouldn’t necessarily merge our efforts, no. We just want to see what they are doing and talk it through,” Durbin told reporters this week.
In the House, a staff report from the Administration Committee, outlined in a 31-page report potential changes to the law which the group says is “badly in need of reform.” Their proposal could provide a foundation for the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks from which to recommend legislative changes, the panel’s chair, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told NPR.
Listen up, jazz fans, the lineup for New Orleans’ annual Jazz & Heritage Festival has been unveiled and this year is offering a pretty impressive roster.
The talent who will be taking the stage during the week-long event, which runs April 29 to May 8 at the city’s Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, include big names such as Lionel Richie, Stevie Nicks, Melissa Etheridge, Jimmy Buffett and Kool & The Gang.
Also heading to New Orleans this spring will be Boz Scaggs, Norah Jones, Rickie Lee Jones, Lauren Daigle, Randy Newman and Chris Isaak.
The full lineup was unveiled on the festival’s official website, where you can also scoop up your tickets for the spring concert series. Three day passes that are good for April 29, April 30 and May 1 will run you between $210 to $225 bucks while the four-day weekend pass, for the dates between May 5 and 8, is priced between $260 and $275.
At this time, single-day ticket sales are not being offered but will be announced in the future.
