• 10 Artists Who Paid Tribute To Their Parents In Their Music: Green Day, Pink Floyd, And More

    Today, indie folk singer Sufjan Stevens announced the release of a new album Carrie & Lowell, which is named after his mother and stepfather and features a photograph of the two on the front cover. After all that rock music has done to encourage people to disobey their parents, it's honestly refreshing to see Stevens pay tribute to his parents this way, but he's far from the only rock artist who has done this. Here are 10 artists who have paid tribute to their parents in their music, either with one song or with entire albums.
  • Dierks Bentley Announces 2015 Sounds Of The Summer Tour with Maddie & Tae, Kip Moore & Canaan Smith

    If you've ever wanted to get "Drunk on a Plane" with Dierks Bentley, well, summer 2015 may just be your chance... Well, not really, but the country music megastar will be hitting the road later this year. Today (Jan. 12), the "Say You Do" singer announced an extensive, 40 date 2015 Sounds of the Summer Tour. This summer, Bentley, Maddie & Tae, Kip Moore and Canaan Smith will be touring across the United States.
  • Yorkville Clinic Where Joan Rivers Suffered Cardiac Arrest Losing Federal Funding

    The Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic where Joan Rivers suffered complications during a procedure is dealing with another strike against it today, Jan. 12. New York State's Department of Health and Human Services originally launched an investigation against the clinic shortly after Rivers's death in September and found a number of things wrong. The clinic was originally cited for leaving patient records in clear view and for a staff member taking cellphone photos of the comedienne while she was under sedation. Now we are learning that it has lost federal funding because it has yet to clean up its act.Yorkville was also originally found non-compliant in providing proper follow-up care for patients who had been under anesthesia, and it was given time to correct its errors. As it turns out, Yorkville has not met the deadline to clean up its business practices and, because of that, it will officially lose federal funding beginning Jan. 31. As of that date, the clinic can no longer accept Medicare as a form of payment, so any of their current patients who are covered under Medicare need to start shopping for new doctors now.Last week, we learned that Yorkville's former medical director, Dr. Lawrence Cohen, once wrote a paper regarding his belief that having an anesthesiologist on staff for endoscopic procedures is not "cost effective" and basically is unnecessary. Even with the extra hands and eyes on staff, Cohen still could not get Rivers safely through what was considered a routine procedure.
  • Willow Smith Drops New EP 'Interdimensional Tesseract' On SoundCloud [LISTEN]

    Willow Smith released a three-track EP (aptly titled 3) on her 14th birthday last year, and now she's back with another three-track offering called Interdimensional Tesseract. All of the songs were produced by Chaotic, and each has its own experimental, cosmic vibe. Having previously released the song "Heart," she debuted the piano-laced "Vibration" and the synth-and-bass-driven "See You Dance." The effort is streaming free on SoundCloud.
  • Bad Habits: Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Gwen Stefani and More Performers with Nun Imagery in Music Videos

    Fifty years ago featured a very special guest appearance on NBC's Tarzan, as The Supremes stopped by. Fortunately even network executives and scriptwriters in those days weren't dumb enough to put the Motown stars in potentially offensive roles so the trio of vocalists was cast as a group of nuns. It was, in short, the most politically correct portrayal of nuns on this side of The Sound of Music. Many musicians have donned habits for music videos and very few of them took as kindly to the sisterhood as NBC did.
  • Death Cab for Cutie Talk New Album 'Kintsugi': Record Will Be First Without Guitarist Chris Walla [TRACKLIST]

    The title for the new Death Cab for Cutie album is "Kintsugi." According to an interview with "Rolling Stone," the album's name is a Japanese artform that captures where the band is currently. After 17 years, guitarist Chris Walla left the band in 2014, and now Ben Gibbard and Co. have to find a way to move forward without forgetting their humble past."It's a Japanese style of art where they take fractured, broken ceramics and put them back together with very obvious, real gold," bassist Nick Harmer said. "It's making the repair of an object a visual part of its history. That resonated with us as a philosophy, and it connected to a lot of what we were going through, both professionally and personally."Walla announced his departure from the band in September, playing his final gig with Death Cab the following month."In the West, if you break an heirloom, you either throw it away or you make the repair as invisible as possible," he added. "But there's this artistic movement in Japan where the repair of it, the damage of it, is more important as part of the history of something than repairing it to its original state."
  • Buffalo Bills Hire Rex Ryan as Head Coach, Prepare for Signature 'Enthusiasm'

    Sometimes people fall in love because they are the only ones left at closing time. That seems to be the case for the Buffalo Bills and new head coach Rex Ryan, who reportedly coveted jobs in Atlanta and San Francisco before coming to the realization that the team for him was residing in the Northeast."Following an extensive search, we are pleased today to announce that Rex Ryan is our new head coach," Bills owner Terry Pegula said in a statement this weekend, via ESPN. "Rex brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the position that we feel will be a tremendous benefit to our players and the entire Bills organization."According to the (New York) "Daily News," via syracuse.com, the former New York Jets coach had the open Atlanta Falcons job in his sights, but after failing to secure a second interview with the organization, he turned his sights to San Fran.Ryan's request for a second interview out west was also rebuffed, so he decided to move forward with a second Bills interview Saturday, Jan. 10. There, he reached an agreement on a five-year, $27.5 million contract to coach in Buffalo.
  • Secretary of State John Kerry Defends Not Traveling to France Until Later This Week

    The U.S. has found itself under heavy criticism for not sending any senior officials to Paris for its Unity March and Rally that had more than 1 million supporters Sunday, Jan. 11. The relationship between French and U.S. officials is thought to be solid, so it came as a surprise to many that while 40 world leaders were on hand to support the French people after last week's terrorist attack, no one was there to represent the States.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry happens to speak fluent French and visits the country often — in fact he will be heading there later this week to meet with leaders and pay tribute to the 17 victims of last week's attacks. When asked why the U.S. did not send a senior official as a show of support, Kerry insisted that our country has been in constant contact with the French government from the moment it became clear it was under attack. Kerry himself has also been criticized for delaying his trip to France, and he addressed the issue this morning."As everybody knows, I have been here in India for a prior planned event. I would have personally very much wanted to have been there but couldn't do so because of the commitment that I had here and it is important to keep these kinds of commitments. That is why I am going there on the way home and to make it crystal clear how passionately we feel about the events that have taken place there. I don't think the people of France have any doubt about America's understanding about what happened, about our personal sense of loss and our deep commitment to the people of France in this moment of trial. I want to emphasize that the relationship with France is not about one day or one particular moment. It is an ongoing, longtime relationship that is deeply, deeply based in the shared values, and particularly the commitment that we share to freedom of expression," explained Kerry.