News

More than seven years after dozens of women accused director James Toback of sexual assault, false imprisonment, coercion and psychological abuse, a New York State jury today awarded $1.68 Billion to 40 of those women. The jury awarded a total of $280 Million in compensatory damages and $1.4 Billion for punitive damages to the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit was filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one-year window allowing survivors of sexual abuse to file civil claims regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred.

“This verdict is about justice. But more importantly, It’s about taking power back from the abusers — and their and enablers — and returning it to those he tried to control and silence,” said Brad Beckworth, lead counsel for the plaintiffs.

“Today, a jury from the greater New York Community spoke very clearly and sent a message that reverberates far beyond this courtroom: no one is above accountability.

The recently announced Summer of ’99 Cruise, featuring the first performances from Creed in more than a decade, sold out in record time. That has led to the announcement of a second Creed-headlined cruise, dubbed Summer of ’99 and Beyond, setting sail just five days after the first cruise wraps up.

Like the first cruise, the second one will feature a number of Creed’s contemporaries, with very special guest Daughtry and acts such as Buckcherry, Tonic, Vertical Horizon, Fuel, The Verve Pipe, Tantric, Louise Post (of Veruca Salt), Nine Days, and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack.

Summer of ’99 and Beyond will depart from Port Canaveral near Orlando, and travel to Nassau, Bahamas, aboard the Norwegian Jade. The trip will run from April 27th through May 1st, 2024. Fans can sign up now at the cruise’s official website to become eligible for a pre-sale that begins Friday (September 8th).

As previously reported, the...

Creed are getting back together to headline the Summer of ’99 Cruise in 2024. They’ll be joined by fellow hit-making bands of the era, including 3 Doors Down, Buckcherry, Tonic, Fuel, and more.

It’s been more than a decade since Creed played a show, with their last gig taking place in December 2012 as they capped off their first reunion tour. The band had broken up in 2004, but got back together in 2009. They’ve been on hiatus ever since that final 2012 show.

The Summer of ’99 Cruise will set sail aboard the Norwegian Pearl on April 18th from Miami, and travel to Nassau, Bahamas, before returning on April 22nd. Joining the aforementioned acts on the boat will be Vertical Horizon, The Verve Pipe, Tantric, Dishwalla, Nine Days, and Veruca Salt’s Louise Post. Radio personality Eddie Trunk and the stars of Axs TV’s The Power Hour (including Matt Pinfield) will serve as hosts of the cruise.

You might know Louise Post as the co-frontwoman of ’90s alt-rock icons Veruca Salt, but she’s now going solo with Sleepwalker, her debut album under her own name.

After Veruca Salt released their 2015 comeback album Ghost Notes, Post went back to writing music as usual. But the songs that began flowing out of her — which she says “almost appeared to be writing themselves” — felt much more personal to her than what she’d done previously with a band.

“I have always identified as a sleepwalker,” Post said of the album’s title in a statement. “I slept-walked around my house routinely when I was a child, and even down the street. I believe in hindsight it was me trying to process what was going on in my home with my parents’ troubled marriage. As far as I know, I stopped sleepwalking after the divorce when I was eight, but...

Last month, Veruca Salt’s Louise Post announced her forthcoming debut solo album, Sleepwalker. Now, the trailblazing alt-rocker is unveiling the record’s second single, “What About.”

Sleepwalker (due on June 2nd) is the first record of new material from Post since Veruca Salt’s 2015 comeback album, Ghost Notes. But unlike previous releases, the writing for Sleepwalker took on a more personal and intimate tone, inspiring the 56-year-old songwriter to explore new themes.

“What About” conveys this mode of writing — the candid, emotional tune explores the dynamic of a “together forever” relationship that has fallen apart, leaving the protagonist with a feeling of displacement. Beneath sharp lyricism, a bed of fuzzy guitars and ethereal accents augments the message.

“‘What About’ addresses loss,” Post explained in a press statement. “And navigating the world without someone you thought you would spend an eternity with. Trying to find your footing after the disappearance of someone you love.

Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, Drake samples Kim K, Rae Sremmurd make their return, and Suga of BTS, performing as Agust D, shares the first single off his anticipated solo debut album. Plus, Brothers Osbourne, Lil Yachty, and Wednesday.

Drake, “Search & Rescue” (YouTube)

Suga, “People Pt 2” (YouTube)

Lil Yachty, “Strike (Holster)” (YouTube)

Rae Sremmurd feat. Future, “Activate” (YouTube)

Towa Bird, “Wild Heart” (YouTube)

Anna St. Louis, “Phone” (YouTube)

Ralph, “Scary Hot” (YouTube)

Mark,...

Oscar nominee James Toback is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by over three dozen women.

After sexual assault claims against Toback came to light in 2017, the “Gambler” screenwriter and “The Pick-Up Artist” director is accused of using his “reputation, power and influence in the entertainment industry” to target aspiring actresses.

The court filing (via Page Six) alleges Toback would “lure young women through fraud, coercion, force and intimidation into compromising situations where he falsely imprisoned, sexually abused, assaulted, and/or battered them.” The almost 90-page lawsuit notes that Toback, now age 78, would make women “act provocatively” and perform sex acts on him to “see if they were right for the alleged ‘role'” in a fraudulent film.

The lawsuit calls Toback a “serial sexual predator” and names the Harvard Club of New York City as a complicit enterprise for allowing “Toback’s abuse to continue unchecked.”

The abuse...

Olivia Rodrigo kicked off her highly anticipated Sour Tour in Portland Tuesday evening — and news of the teen superstar’s surprise cover of Veruca Salt’s 1994 single “Seether” during the show set music Twitter ablaze, with reactions from fans of the trailblazing grunge outfit ranging from enthusiastic to bewildered.

Veruca Salt, however, is lending their full support to Rodrigo’s rendition of their breakthrough hit, sharing their reaction to the news on social media. “Xx to @oliviarodrigo for covering our bop amidst all of hers! We love it,” the band wrote in an Instagram post.

Before Glenn Whipp broke the story of James Toback’s serial sexual harassment with testimonies from 31 women, there was “Doctor Strange” director Scott Derrickson’s Twitter feed. He has nearly 67,000 followers who love his films as well as his passionate takedowns of sexism. When the Harvey Weinstein story first broke in early October, Derrickson cheered on the women who told their stories and the journalists who reported them — and soon he received a Dm from a follower, actress Selma Blair, who had a Toback story to tell.

Derrickson is good friends with Glenn Whipp, a longtime entertainment reporter at the paper. “[Blair] was scared, because she’s a single mother, and she didn’t want to be sued,” Whipp said in an interview with IndieWire on November 3. “With the Times, we can’t offer legal protection, but typically what happens is that the news organization — not the individual — is sued, and...

Director James Toback is the latest Hollywood figure to be accused of sexual harassment and assault, in the aftermath of the widespread reports of Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault accusations. A new report from The Los Angeles Time revealed that 38 separate women have come forward to accuse James Toback, best known for films such as Tyson, Two Girls and a Guy and Bugsy of sexual harassment over a span of the past few decades. 31 of the 38 women interviewed went on record with their accusations, including a number of young actresses and Louise Post, the singer and vocalist for the rock group Veruca Salt.

This report reveals that James Toback would often approach women he saw on the street or other places in public, and introduce himself as a film director, mentioning some of his projects, including the Oscar nomination he received for writing the Best Picture nominee Bugsy. The director...

James Toback, the writer and director of films like Black and White and Two Girls and a Guy, has been accused of sexually harassing over 30 women over the course of the last three decades.

While rumors of Toback's behavior toward women had widely been reported in previous exposés, the Los Angeles Times published the full scope of Toback's actions after speaking to 38 of the director's victims.

The latest story of a Hollywood figure's attempts to use their power in the industry to pressure women into sex comes just weeks after...

More than 30 women have come forward to accuse director James Toback of sexual harassment. The Los Angeles Times broke the story, which is based on interviews with accusers whose accounts take place over several decades.

Toback, 72, has denied all allegations, telling the Times that he has either never met any of the women or, if he has, it “was for five minutes and have no recollection”; he also says it’s been “biologically impossible” for him to do anything he’s been accused of for the last 22 years due to diabetes and a heart condition.

Read More:Roman Polanski Accused of Molesting a 10-Year-Old Girl

31 of the 38 women spoke on the record about Toback, whose films include “The Gambler” and “The Pick-up Artist.” His most recent movie, “The Private Life of a Modern Woman,” stars Sienna Miller and premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Many of the stories...

Ready to feel old? '90s rockers Veruca Salt are doing a goddamn reunion tour. The Nina Gordon/Louise Post-fronted band, who rose to fame on the strength of their hit 1994 single "Seether," has announced a 15-date North American tour (full lineup below) that will see all four original members (Gordon, Post, Steve Lack and Jim Shapiro) hitting the stage together for the first time in nearly two decades. The reunion ball got rolling just last month when the group revealed they'd be releasing a 10-inch on Record Store Day (April 19) featuring "Seether" and two all-new songs entitled "The Museum of Broken Relationships" and "It's Holy." Gordon left the band to pursue a solo career in 1998, reportedly due to a creative dispute with Post. The band released a total of four albums and three EPs under various lineups. Tickets for the tour go on sale this Friday, April 18. Will...

Alt-rock band Veruca Salt has reunited. The '90s darlings tweeted that they will be recording new songs in the near future with Brad Wood, who produced the band’s 1994 hit record, American Thighs. Wood’s fingerprints were all over a number of other seminal '90s LPs, like Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville and Whip-Smart, Ben Lee’s Grandpa Would, Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary, and Seam’s The Problem With Me. According to another tweet from Veruca Salt’s page, Nina Gordon and Louise Post have been “writing/rehearsing like mad,” and both bassist Steve Lack and ...

If there’s a theme to 2011’s crop of films featuring lesbian/bi women, it’s that this was a very good year for emerging voices. First time and younger filmmakers made a mark in huge ways this year, providing everything from spellbinding documentaries (No Look Pass), heart-wrenching drama (Pariah, Break My Fall, Circumstance), and fresh comedy (Jamie and Jessie are Not Together, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same). Pair that with the quality coming from established filmmakers like Celine Sciamma (Tomboy), and you have a year marked by the presence of strong, unique voices.

Hard Hitters

Nowhere is that strength of vision more prominent than in the year’s dramas. Well-meaning (but tired) melodramas were drowned out by clear-eyed, nuanced filmmaking, most evident in Pariah, the story of a young African-American woman struggling with her identity, and Circumstance, which features the romance between two teenaged girls in Iran.

As AfterEllen.

There was a period of time in the '90s when you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a woman with a loud guitar. While the predominant sound of female rock in the last decade of the 20th century may be defined by the overriding sound of Lilith Fair (where ladies with acoustic guitars shared gentle feelings), there were no shortage of chicks who wanted to turn their amps up to 11 and bang along with the boys. Taking cues from the jagged sounds of riot grrrl, female-centric acts found their way onto the radio and into the hearts of fans and critics alike. And it wasn't just about the savage garage wailing of Hole, either. There was new wave (Elastica), gutter folk (Liz Phair), dream pop (Belly), electro-rock (Luscious Jackson) and rugged arena-sized riffage (L7). Today, you have to dig pretty deep to find transgressive woman playing loud and not...