Lady Gaga's Gold Wheelchair: All the Details

Lady Gaga's custom gold wheelchair; Lady Gaga in Las Vegas, Nevada.Ken Borochov/Splash News; Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Clear Channel

Trust Lady Gaga to turn injury into spectacle. After canceling the rest of her Born This Way Ball Tour and going into surgery for an inflammatory joint infection called synovitis, she is currently confined to a wheelchair – but, per usual, the chair is an elaborate one covered in 24-karat gold.

According to the Daily Beast, the chair was commissioned by Gaga's stylist to jewelry designer Ken Borochov. Borochov, of the label Mordekai, completed the throne with only a week's notice and worked with manufacturers across the country on each costly component. "It was a huge undertaking," Borochov said. "It was made all over the United States. My assistant had to run around everywhere."

Photos: Lady Gaga's Wildest Looks

The chair is plated with 1.5 ounces of gold, an approximate $2,600 value. It's a functional chair but not state-of-the-art – Gaga will have to power herself manually in it – with a tufted leather seat that was inspired by leather jackets. It also has a removable canopy to keep Lady Gaga guarded from the sun. The singer has not been seen in public with the chair except at a Terry Richardson photo shoot.

The Mordekai jewelry line was launched two years ago by the 30-year-old Borochov and has received attention from Gaga, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj. Borochov has not met Lady Gaga yet but says he hopes to "when the time is right."

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Lady Gaga's Gold Wheelchair: All the Details

Lady Gaga's custom gold wheelchair; Lady Gaga in Las Vegas, Nevada.Ken Borochov/Splash News; Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Clear Channel

Trust Lady Gaga to turn injury into spectacle. After canceling the rest of her Born This Way Ball Tour and going into surgery for an inflammatory joint infection called synovitis, she is currently confined to a wheelchair – but, per usual, the chair is an elaborate one covered in 24-karat gold.

According to the Daily Beast, the chair was commissioned by Gaga's stylist to jewelry designer Ken Borochov. Borochov, of the label Mordekai, completed the throne with only a week's notice and worked with manufacturers across the country on each costly component. "It was a huge undertaking," Borochov said. "It was made all over the United States. My assistant had to run around everywhere."

Photos: Lady Gaga's Wildest Looks

The chair is plated with 1.5 ounces of gold, an approximate $2,600 value. It's a functional chair but not state-of-the-art – Gaga will have to power herself manually in it – with a tufted leather seat that was inspired by leather jackets. It also has a removable canopy to keep Lady Gaga guarded from the sun. The singer has not been seen in public with the chair except at a Terry Richardson photo shoot.

The Mordekai jewelry line was launched two years ago by the 30-year-old Borochov and has received attention from Gaga, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj. Borochov has not met Lady Gaga yet but says he hopes to "when the time is right."

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Beyonce Super Bowl Set List Details Emerge

Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

New details have emerged about what songs Beyoncé will perform during the halftime show at this year's Super Bowl, with Us Weekly reporting that the singer will open a solo set with "Crazy in Love" before Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland join her for a Destiny's Child reunion.

The three will perform a medley of some of their biggest hits, including "Bills, Bills, Bills" and "Survivor," before ending with "Nuclear," a new track appearing on the upcoming compilation Love Songs. Beyoncé is said to be closing the show with the premiere of a track from her next album.

From the Archives: Destiny's Child Grow Up (2004)

The singer appeared earlier this week at President Obama's second inauguration, where she created a furor by apparently lip-syncing the national anthem to a version of the song she recorded with the Marine Band the weekend before the swearing-in. 

Destiny's Child released five studio albums in an on-again, off-again career dating back to 1990. Beyoncé's next album, which is expected sometime this year, will be her fifth solo release.

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First Details of Bob Dylan's Upcoming Album 'Tempest'

Bob Dylan has revealed more information about his upcoming album Tempest, including cover art and the track listing. It's his 35th studio album. 

The album contains 10 songs, including a John Lennon tribute entitled "Roll on John," which quotes lines from multiple Beatles songs, including "Come together right now" from "Come Together" and "I heard the news today, oh boy" from "A Day in the Life." The title track is a 14-minute epic about the sinking of the Titanic, which actually refers to a scene from James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic at one point. The chorus of another standout track, "Pay in Blood," includes the line, "I'll pay in blood, but not my own." 

Tempest arrives in stores on September 11th, 11 years to the day after the release of Dylan's 2001, LP Love and Theft.  

Here is the full track listing for Tempest:

"Duquesne Whistle"
"Soon After Midnight"
"Narrow Way"
"Long and Wasted Years"
"Pay in Blood"
"Scarlet Town"
"Early Roman Kings"
"Tin Angel"
"Tempest"
"Roll on John"

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Quentin Tarantino and Cast Reveal 'Django' Details at Comic-Con

The cast of Django Unchained talked about the new Quentin Tarantino film during a Comic-Con International panel on Saturday afternoon.

The film – which opens in theaters on Christmas Day 2012 – stars Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave in the Deep South who teams up with a German bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (played by Christoph Waltz), to save his wife Broomhilda von Shaft (Kerry Washington), from plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

In a discussion moderated by Entertainment Weekly film writer Anthony Breznican, Tarantino said that his goal for the film was to put a new twist on the classic Spaghetti Western genre.

"To me, one of the fun things about telling the story was to take the Western genre we know so well and place it in the Antebellum South and place a black character in it," he said, according to Sports Mole.

Tarantino, who was joined on the panel by five cast members, has long been attracted to the intense violence, cool music and surreal elements of the Italian-made Spaghetti Westerns, which emerged in the mid-Sixties. He’d been thinking about doing a Western for 13 years, and said the scenes in Django Unchained aren’t nearly as bad as what life was actually like during America’s pre-Civil War years.

"You can’t be more surrealistic than it was in real life," he said. "It's unimaginable to think of the pain and the suffering that went on in this country."

When Django is introduced in the film, he’s on a chain gang being led from Mississippi to Texas. To get into character, Foxx said he drew on his experiences growing up in racially charged Texas.

"Being called a n***er as a kid by grown people was something I had to deal with," he said. "By having that done to me, I was able to grasp what was being said in the script."

As the Huffington Post reports, Waltz's Dr. King Schultz plays a Yoda-like role for Django, teaching him to be a fighter. But Waltz noted that the relationship is more reciprocal. "Dr. Schultz needs Django," he said. "This is a different relationship than someone picking up a slave and rescuing him."

The film has one week left of shooting. Last week, they finished a scene with actor Jonah Hill, who plays a member of the Regulators, a pre-KKK posse that terrorizes slaves. Tarantino said it’s one of the funniest scenes he’s ever written, comparing it to the color-coded nicknames the bandits use in Reservoir Dogs.

He also said that Django and Broomhilda are related to a well-known character in blaxploitation film: John Shaft. "[They] will have a baby, then that baby will have a baby and so on and so on," he said, "and then John Shaft will be born."

Before the panel, fans had lined up outside for hours, and one had come all the way from Malaysia, Entertainment Weekly reports.

Tarantino did not disappoint, screening an eight-minute sizzle reel that included a clip of Django getting in a shootout with a snowman, among other tidbits. Tarantino originally made the reel for industry professionals.

@Stephanietely tweeted the director's pronouncement on the selection: "If it’s good enough for the industry, it’s good enough for the fans!"

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Aerosmith Tour Details Start To Emerge

Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith perform in Burbank, California.Kevin Winter/NBCUniversal/Getty Images

When we ran into Steven Tyler at Elton John's Oscar Party last month,  he told us the Aerosmith summer tour kicks off in June. "June 18th it starts, so spread the word," he said at the time. While no concrete plans have emerged yet, it looks like the word Aerosmith fans have been waiting for will come out this week.

In a press release detailing plans for Aerosmith to play Milwaukee's Summerfest on July 7th, the band also announced that presale info for the Aerosmith "Global Warming" summer tour will be available this Thursday, March 29th. This comes on the heels of the news that Aerosmith will hold a press conference in L.A. this week.

The Summerfest release only holds info for the one date: July 7th at Marcus Ampitheater, with Cheap Trick opening. (No word on whether they're opening the whole tour or just in Milwaukee.) But in the statement, the band talked about hitting the road this summer.

"The old Aerosmith is back with a new vengeance and we will kick your ass and make out with yur mothers," Steven Tyler said in the release.

And guitarist Joe Perry added, "Can't wait to bring this band back home. It feels like we've been away too long."

In that absence, there was a lot of public turmoil as the four band members discussed bringing in a new lead singer while Tyler worked first on solo material, then was named a judge on American Idol. In 2010, however, the band returned to the road.

All of those tensions now seem to be a thing of the past. The group has been working on a new album in L.A. with producer Jack Douglas (Toys In The Attic, Get Your Wings, Draw The Line) and Tyler says the recording's been going great.

I'm having such a good time writing again," he said at the Elton John party.

Bassist Tom Hamilton said in the Summerfest release that fans might get a preview of the new material live. "After touring Japan and South America last year we're psyched about bringing it all back for the hometown fans," he said. " We're going to break out the classics, the hits and maybe even some of the new ones we've been banging out in the studio."

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Aerosmith Tour Details Start To Emerge

Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith perform in Burbank, California.Kevin Winter/NBCUniversal/Getty Images

When we ran into Steven Tyler at Elton John's Oscar Party last month,  he told us the Aerosmith summer tour kicks off in June. "June 18th it starts, so spread the word," he said at the time. While no concrete plans have emerged yet, it looks like the word Aerosmith fans have been waiting for will come out this week.

In a press release detailing plans for Aerosmith to play Milwaukee's Summerfest on July 7th, the band also announced that presale info for the Aerosmith "Global Warming" summer tour will be available this Thursday, March 29th. This comes on the heels of the news that Aerosmith will hold a press conference in L.A. this week.

The Summerfest release only holds info for the one date: July 7th at Marcus Ampitheater, with Cheap Trick opening. (No word on whether they're opening the whole tour or just in Milwaukee.) But in the statement, the band talked about hitting the road this summer.

"The old Aerosmith is back with a new vengeance and we will kick your ass and make out with yur mothers," Steven Tyler said in the release.

And guitarist Joe Perry added, "Can't wait to bring this band back home. It feels like we've been away too long."

In that absence, there was a lot of public turmoil as the four band members discussed bringing in a new lead singer while Tyler worked first on solo material, then was named a judge on American Idol. In 2010, however, the band returned to the road.

All of those tensions now seem to be a thing of the past. The group has been working on a new album in L.A. with producer Jack Douglas (Toys In The Attic, Get Your Wings, Draw The Line) and Tyler says the recording's been going great.

I'm having such a good time writing again," he said at the Elton John party.

Bassist Tom Hamilton said in the Summerfest release that fans might get a preview of the new material live. "After touring Japan and South America last year we're psyched about bringing it all back for the hometown fans," he said. " We're going to break out the classics, the hits and maybe even some of the new ones we've been banging out in the studio."

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Etta James Funeral Details Announced

Etta James remembered on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The family of late R&B icon Etta James have announced that the Rev. Al Sharpton will preside over her funeral on Saturday. A public viewing for the singer will be held on Friday at the Inglewood Cemetery in Inglewood, California, but the funeral at the Greater Bethany Community Church City of Refuge in Gardena will be restricted to immediate family and friends.

James' family has requested that donations be sent to the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of R&B music.

James died at the age of 73 on Friday following a lengthy battle with leukemia, dementia and hepatitis C. The singer passed away at a California hospital with her husband, Artis Mills, and her sons Donto and Sametto James by her side.

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Etta James Funeral Details Announced

Etta James remembered on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The family of late R&B icon Etta James have announced that the Rev. Al Sharpton will preside over her funeral on Saturday. A public viewing for the singer will be held on Friday at the Inglewood Cemetery in Inglewood, California, but the funeral at the Greater Bethany Community Church City of Refuge in Gardena will be restricted to immediate family and friends.

James' family has requested that donations be sent to the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of R&B music.

James died at the age of 73 on Friday following a lengthy battle with leukemia, dementia and hepatitis C. The singer passed away at a California hospital with her husband, Artis Mills, and her sons Donto and Sametto James by her side.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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