Happy hump day Radicals! Let’s see what’s cooking in the music news kitchen…
The wife and daughter of late Slipknot bassist Paul Gray have won a settlement from health care providers who they blamed for the musician’s death, according to the Des Moines Register. The Gray family sued pain relief specialist Dr. Daniel Baldi and his former employers, including hospital company UnityPoint-Des Moines, alleging that Paul was not properly monitored during his treatment for drug abuse. Baldi had reportedly been treating Gray for years for pain issues and addiction. The bassist was found dead in a suburban Des Moines hotel room on May 24th, 2010 at the age of 38.
The case was scheduled to go to trial in Polk County District Court, but was settled over the weekend. Baldi’s lawyer declined to name the settlement amount, or name the parties that agreed to pay to settle the case. The Gray family filed the lawsuit on behalf of their daughter, October, who was born three months after the bassist overdosed on a variety of drugs, including Fentanyl and morphine.
Baldi denied he was at fault, and his attorney said that the doctor did not prescribe the drugs that caused Gray’s death. But in 2012, Baldi was charged with multiple counts of involuntary manslaughter related to the deaths of nine patients, including Gray. Prosecutors argued that Baldi had recklessly written prescriptions to patients who clearly struggled with drug abuse.
Gray’s widow, Brenna Gray, testified at the trial, saying Baldi continued to prescribe her husband Xanax, even though he knew the musician had a history of abusing the drug. However, a jury acquitted Baldi, and in 2016 Iowa reinstated his license to practice medicine.
Metallica is holding its annual “Met Store Garage Sale” on Thursday, starting at 1:00 p.m. PT. The band posted at its official website, “Our New Year’s resolution was to scour the back rooms of HQ for every last exclusive item previously listed as sold-out yet somehow still hiding from us in that one dark corner.”
Among the items being offered up for sale are the last copies of the deluxe box set of the 1986 album Master Of Puppets, the red vinyl edition of the recent Hardwired…To Self-Destruct LP, rare tour T-shirts, limited edition tour posters and more, including some mystery goods and clearance items at “rock bottom prices.”
Proceeds from the sale of posters for Metallica’s shows in Mexico City last year will benefit the band’s All Within My Hands Foundation.
Randomly selected orders will receive prizes including guitar strings and sticks used by the band, commemorative picks, Live Metallica download cards, and Met Store gift certificates, while two orders will receive a pair of tickets to an upcoming Metallica concert.
Kid Rock is donating $122,000 he made from the sale of merchandise for his fake Senate campaign last year to the College Republican National Committee (CRNC), according to Detroit News. Rock’s publicist explained that the CRNC worked on Rock’s 2017 summer tour, registering fans to vote at venues around the country. CRNC president Ted Dooley said that the registration drive was “pretty much like other voter registration work we do . . . except a lot more fun.”
Rock’s whole fake campaign — including concerts resembling rallies, a KidRockForSenate website and political speeches — was a publicity stunt for his latest studio album, Sweet Southern Sugar. Apparently a number of Rock’s supporters thought the campaign was more than just fake news, even speculating on a Rock run at the White House down the line. The singer is a supporter of Donald Trump. Rock also recently sent $25,000 donations each to the Second Harvest Food Banks of Western Michigan and Middle Tennessee.
Starset frontman Dustin Bates plans to launch a musical side project called Mannequin later this year. Bates described the project to Billboard, saying, “It’s sort of ’80s retro, a lot of ’80s synths and things like that, with some rap beats and also, I guess, a lot more modern melody, dark-pop aspects to it.” Bates has been working on the first Mannequin album for the past year and should be finished within a month, with hopes to get it out in 2018.
The singer added, “It started out as a prog-rock thing. At first it was a side project, a way to keep my skills honed without eternally working on Starset. But then I started adding in electronics, so then I split it off into two projects. So there’s also a lot of prog-rock songs out there I’m eventually going to release, too.”
Bates isn’t sure if he’ll try to take Mannequin on the road, saying, “It’s hard to say because of the sound . . . It’d be fun, but it would certainly be an undertaking.” As for Bates’ day job, Starset is currently out at sea this week on the ShipRocked music cruise, and after it returns will kick off a headlining tour on Sunday in Charlotte, North Carolina. The band is still touring behind last year’s sophomore album Vessels, which features the Number Two hit “Monster” and the Top 15 rock track “Satellite.”
That’s a wrap, have a great day everyone!
