Page 8197 – 105.7 WDNY

Nicole Kidman reflects on her marriage to Tom Cruise: “I was young”

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Once upon a time, Nicole Kidman was married to Tom Cruise. Now she’s reflecting on that time in her life, specifically about how she was treated by the media.

When asked by Harper’s Bazaar if she was annoyed with the media’s obsession over the high profile relationship, the Australian actress replied, “I was young. I think I offered it up?”

“Maybe I’ve gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I’m always trying to be as open as possible. I just prefer to live in the world that way,” she continued, before a moment of silence. She then continued, “I’m wary at times, and I’ve been hurt, but at the same time I much prefer a warm approach rather than a prickly shutdown approach.”

Referencing her current husband, country singer Keith Urban, the Nine Perfect Strangers star added, “My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, ‘How’s your heart?’ And I apparently responded, ‘Open.'”

Kidman, 54, and Cruise were married for 11 years before divorcing in 2001. They share two children: Isabella Jane, 28, and Connor, 26.

The Big Little Lies star and Urban wed in 2006 and they also have two children together — daughters Sunday Rose, 13, and Faith Margaret, 10.

Mudvayne’s Chad Gray tests positive for COVID-19; band cancels Louder than Life set

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Mudvayne will no longer perform at this weekend’s Louder than Life festival due to frontman Chad Gray testing positive for COVID-19.

“After taking every precaution to follow CDC Covid protocols during rehearsals and recent performance Chad Gray and a few staff members have unfortunately tested positive for Covid-19,” the band writes in an Instagram post.

“The safety of our organization, fans and festival partners must come first,” the statement continues. “We are left no choice but to cancel our performance at Louder than Life this weekend.”

The decision to cancel must’ve been especially painful for Mudvayne, who reunited this year after being on hiatus for over a decade. The band just played their first show since 2009 at the Inkcarceration festival earlier in September.

Mudvayne still plans to play the Aftershock festival in October and Welcome to Rockville in November. They’re also on the lineup for the 2022 Voragos destination festival.

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Unseen footage of Chris Cornell featured in video celebrating daughter Toni’s birthday

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Previously unseen footage of the late Chris Cornell is featured in a new video released to celebrate his daughter Toni‘s 17th birthday.

The video, which was posted to Cornell’s Instagram, shows the father-daughter pair playing music together over the years, including a particularly moving clip of Chris strumming “You Are My Sunshine” on an acoustic guitar while an infant Toni hangs on its neck.

Vicky Cornell, Chris’ widow and Toni’s mother, also posted a video of her own, set to her daughter’s version of the Prince-written, Sinead O’Conner-performed classic “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Last year, the Cornell family released No One Sings Like You Anymore, a compilation of covers Chris had recorded before his death in 2017. It marks his final, fully completed studio album.

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Billie Eilish to make ‘Beat Saber’ debut today

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

If you love Billie Eilish and light sabers, listen up. The “bad guy” singer is making her Beat Saber debut today.

Beat Saber is a VR rhythm game that tasks players to wield blades that resemble lightsabers to cut through different blocks that are perfectly timed with the music’s beats. The game is available on Oculus Quest 2 and Rift Platforms.

The Billie Eilish music pack includes 10 songs, from the albums Happier Than Ever and WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

Here is the complete track list, which can be purchased as a set for $12.99. Songs may be purchased individually for $1.99 each.

“all the good girls go to hell”
“bad guy”
“bellyache”
“bury a friend”
“Happier Than Ever”
“I Didn’t Change My Number”
“NDA”
“Oxytocin “
“Therefore I Am”
“you should see me in a crown”

Beat Saber also includes music from Imagine Dragons, Linkin Park, Green Day and Panic! at the Disco.

Mickey Guyton calls ‘Remember Her Name’ a form of “therapy”

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Mickey Guyton says creating her upcoming debut album, Remember Her Name, was therapeutic.

The project features songs like the affirming “Love My Hair” and empowering “Black Like Me” and “What Are You Gonna Tell Her?” that detail the racism and misogyny she’s experienced.

“A lot of these songs were just kind of therapy for me. I never wrote these thinking that they were ever going to be heard,” she explains to The New York Times.

Mickey balances the heavy subject matters with an ode to “Rosé” and a new rendition of her 2015 debut single, “Better Than You Left Me,” continuing her mission of creating inclusive music.

“There’s so much on this record that is so positive, that is so inclusive. It took them hearing ‘Black Like Me’ and ‘What Are You Gonna Tell Her?’ to be like, ‘Oh.’ I’ve been here all along.’ I’m still writing positive, inclusive songs. You guys just never heard them,” she continues. “There is only one me. I’ve never happened before.”

Remember Her Name will be released on Friday. Mickey will make the TV rounds with performances on the TODAY show’s Summer Concert Series on Friday, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, and ABC’s The View on Tuesday.

Write by Night: Rush’s Geddy Lee to publish memoir in 2022

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Geddy Lee made good use of his time in quarantine: He wrote a memoir that’ll be out next year.

The Rush bassist/vocalist writes on Instagram that during the year and a half he spent in lockdown due to COVID-19 — “the longest time I’d spent in Toronto since I was nineteen,” he notes — he passed the time by teaching his grandson how to play baseball, taking care of his dogs, and watching TV mysteries with his wife. “Oh, and another thing,” he adds. “I began to write. Words, that is.”

Lee explains that writing was his way of dealing with the death of his band mate Neil Peart, who passed away January 7, 2020. According to Lee, Daniel Richler, with whom he collaborated on his Big Beautiful Book of Bass, “saw how I was struggling in the aftermath of Neil’s passing, and tried coaxing me out of my blues with some funny tales from his youth, daring me to share my own in return.”

“So I did — reluctantly at first, but then remembering, oh yeah, I like wrestling with words…and soon my baby-step stories were becoming grownup chapters,” Lee continues. He found himself, he says, “scouring my memory banks,” his “diaries and piles of photo albums,” and “piecing together a mystery of a different kind.”

Lee sent his work to Richler, who, he says, “cleaned up some of the grammar and removed a lot of the swearing.” The result, Lee says, is a “presentable, epic-length account of my life on and off the stage…my childhood, my family, the story of my parents’ survival, my travels and all sorts of nonsense I’ve spent too much time obsessing over.”

Lee’s now putting the finishing touches on the book, which will be published by HarperCollins in the fall of 2022.

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‘We grieve together,’ Pelosi says at COVID-19 flags memorial

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers paid tribute Tuesday to the more than 676,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19, visiting a memorial on the National Mall that displays hundreds of thousands of small, white flags, one for each life lost.

“As we look at this work of art and see it fluttering in the breeze,” Pelosi said, “it really is an interpretation of the lives of these people waving to us to remember.”

The installation, called “In America: Remember,” is the second iteration of the art project. In fall 2020, Pelosi visited the first exhibit, which at that time consisted of more than 200,000 lives lost to the pandemic.

Since then, the death toll has more than tripled, and so has the number of flags. The death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed the estimated number of Americans who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, topping 675,000 deaths on Monday.

The lawmakers walked silently among the rows of flags, trails that stretch more than 3.8 miles.

At times, Pelosi bent down to read the messages families and friends had written on the white rectangles.

“We look at these flags and we think of the family someone missing from the table at dinner, missing from the conversation,” she said, recalling one flag that stuck her which was dedicated to a grandfather that said, “We miss you.”

Pelosi, who is Catholic, said that she hopes faith and prayer can help not only grief, but also to bring an end to the pandemic.

“I know that many of these people are people of faith and they believe that their message is being received and that by receiving that message — that not only our prayers but the prayers of the departed — will also bring solution to all of this,” she said.

She said the flags installation reminded her of the AIDS Quilt, which was displayed on the National Mall in 1987, and how such tributes can be so important.

“Nothing could be as eloquent as a manifestation of sadness that art,” Pelosi said. “We all see it as we do, but all of us grieve together, are inspired together and renew our pledge to remember … and in remembering to make sure that the number doesn’t grow.”

Democrats introduce post-Trump ethics bill to enforce subpoenas, limit conflicts

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — House Democrats on Tuesday released a new package of measures to limit presidential power, a rebuke of former President Donald Trump and designed with the Biden White House to prevent future presidents from breaking traditional ethics and governing norms.

“Donald Trump made this legislation a necessity, but this is bigger than any one president,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a news conference. “It’s about our values, our ideals and our future.”

The Protecting Our Democracy Act would speed up the enforcement of congressional subpoenas — which were routinely ignored by the Trump administration — and require administration officials to pay any court fines and legal fees.

After Trump refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s election victory and disrupted the transition, the bill proposes starting the transition process within five days of the election and would allow both campaigns to receive government briefings and make other preparations.

It would also require presidents and candidates to submit years of income tax returns to the Federal Election Commission for public release — after Trump refused to release his returns as a candidate and as commander-in-chief, arguing that an ongoing Internal Revenue Service audit prevented him from doing so.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the proposal would prevent presidents from using their office as a “get-out-of-jail-free card,” by suspending the statute of limitations for crimes committed by a president or vice president while they are in office.

Schiff said the House could vote on the package later this fall. But it’s unclear if it has the support of at least 10 Republicans in the Senate to clear the filibuster and 60-vote threshold for legislation.

“I realize many of the Republican members live in fear of angry statements from the former president,” Schiff said.

Many of the underlying bills in the package, including proposals to beef up protections for whistleblowers and independent inspectors general at government agencies, have bipartisan support — suggesting that Democrats could have more success in the Senate if they take it up piecemeal.

The Biden administration has worked “very constructively” with Democrats for months on the package, Schiff said.

The White House asked lawmakers to exempt administration officials from court fines if they are instructed to ignore subpoenas by the president. The version of the bill unveiled Tuesday also did not include earlier language requiring the White House to turn over presidential communications to Congress.

Harry Styles wins prestigious UK songwriting award for “Adore You”

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Harry Styles has picked up one of the U.K.’s most prestigious songwriting awards.

The singer won his first ever Ivor Novello Award Tuesday for the song “Adore You,” from his 2019 album Fine Line. The song was awarded the “PRS for Music Most Performed Work of 2020” prize. PRS for Music is a British music copyright collective.

Harry shares the award with his co-writers Amy Allen, Tyler Johnson and Kid Harpoon.

Bon Jovi‘s Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were also honored at the London ceremony, taking home the Special International Award. The songwriting honor came in recognition of the global anthems the two musicians crafted, including “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

“Everybody needs a great song”: Jon Bon Jovi & Richie Sambora win prestigious UK songwriting award

September 24, 2021September 21, 2021 by WDNY Radio

Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora may no longer be band mates, but the songs they wrote together will live forever. That’s why the U.K.’s prestigious Ivor Novello Awards have honored both of them this year.

Jon and Richie were jointly honored with the Special International Award at the ceremony, held Tuesday in London, though only Sambora showed up to accept. The songwriting honor came in recognition of the global anthems the two musicians crafted, including “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

At the ceremony, Sambora spoke with Sky News.about the importance of songwriting. “Everybody needs a great song so they can go out and play live to the people and entertain and do that; you need a great song, something that touches somebody in the heart,” he said. “You know, ‘Livin’ on a Prayer,’ part of that song is something that happened to me — my Uncle Sal got laid off at the docks, my dad was laid off — so there’s a time period of authenticity of a story.”

“And I think that’s what we’re here to celebrate, all the girls and guys and men and women that try real hard with a lot of courage,” Sambora added. “Because songwriting is harder than it looks.”

Other winners at the ceremony included Tears for Fears duo Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. They were honored with the Outstanding Song Collection award for their catalog of hits, including “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Sowing the Seeds of Love,” and “Shout.”

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