YEREVAN: British guitarist from Black Sabbath band, Tony Iommi, has composed the music for Armenia’s entry to this year’s Eurovision song contest, the performers said Thursday.
“Iommi’s rock ballad ‘Lonely Planet’ will be performed by Armenian rock singer Gor Sujyan and his band, Dorians,” the group’s spokeswoman Diana Hovannisyan told AFP.
“The manager of the Dorians asked Tony Iommi to write a song for the Armenian participants of Eurovision and he kindly accepted the request,” she said.
The Dorians “are a good band, the singer has a really good voice and the lyrics they’ve written are in English,” the founding member of Black Sabbath wrote on his website.
Iommi has been involved in charitable activities in Armenia since 1988, when a devastating earthquake hit the small Caucasus country, killing up to 45,000 people and leaving another 500,000 homeless.
The Eurovision Song Contest, which is broadcast across Europe but also in dozens of other countries, takes place in the southwestern Swedish city of Malmo on May 18.
Ranked number 25 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” Iommi is best known as the founder and member of pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath from Birmingham.
According to his official biography, Iommi continues writing for Black Sabbath, despite undergoing chemo- and radiotherapy after being diagnosed with lymphoma in 2012.
Armenia withdrew from last year’s Eurovision contest in neighboring Azerbaijan, its bitter foe, citing security concerns. It has been relatively successful in the contest, coming fourth in 2008.
British guitarist writes Armenia Eurovision song
British guitarist writes Armenia Eurovision song
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
