Carson High, an 11-time City Section champion, has been seeded No. 1 for the City Section Open Division playoffs under first-year coach William Lowe.
Birmingham, which has a 54-game winning streak against City Section opponents, was seeded No. 2. San Pedro is No. 3 and unbeaten Palisades is No. 4.
Carson will host No. 8-seeded King/Drew on Nov. 14. Palisades is the home team against No. 5 Garfield, while San Pedro hosts No. 6 Crenshaw and Birmingham hosts No. 7 Kennedy.
There was no City Open Division champion last season after Narbonne had to vacate the title for rule violations.
Venice is seeded No. 1 in Division I. Cleveland is No. 1 in Division II and Santee is top seeded in Division III.
In girls’ flag football, San Pedro was given the No. 1 seed for the Open Division. Games begin on Friday, with San Pedro hosting No. 8 Verdugo Hills; No. 4 Marshall is at No. 5 Banning; No. 6 Wilson visits No. 3 Panorama; and No. 7 Narbonne travels to No. 2 Eagle Rock.
Eddie Howe was just a couple of days into an end-of-season break when the Newcastle head coach’s phone “exploded” last summer.
Sporting director Paul Mitchell had just announced that he was departing.
While there were initial tensions between the pair, Howe was the first to recognise that such a figure “protects the manager from a lot of things”.
That is why the arrival of Ross Wilson is so significant for Newcastle.
Rather than rushing into the appointment – despite the need for a sporting director during a draining transfer window – Newcastle have been keen to recruit the right person.
In Ross Wilson, who already has a good relationship with Howe, they feel they have that man.
It will fall to Wilson to help plot the medium to long-term strategy of the club.
And, after a period of boardroom upheaval, Newcastle will hope the Scot will stick around long enough to see that vision through.
PHOENIX — A’ja Wilson scored 31 points, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young both added 18 and the Las Vegas Aces won their third WNBA championship in four seasons, beating the Phoenix Mercury 97-86 on Friday night for a four-game sweep of the Finals.
The Aces made quick work of the league’s first best-of-seven Finals. It was another offensive onslaught from Las Vegas, which scored 54 points in the first half and averaged more than 90 points per game in the series.
Wilson — honored as the Finals MVP — was in the middle of the action once again even if she didn’t have the best shooting night. The four-time regular-season MVP finished seven of 21 from the field, but made 17 of 19 free throws. Gray made four three-pointers, including two in the fourth quarter to help turn back a final rally by the Mercury.
The Aces were presented the championship trophy by embattled WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who was greeted with boos from the sizable contingent of Las Vegas fans who made the trip to Phoenix.
The Aces led 76-62 going into the fourth quarter, but the Mercury went on an 8-0 run early that cut the deficit to 76-70 with 7:56 left. That was as close as they would get.
Kahleah Copper led the Mercury with 30 points, shooting 12 of 22 from the field. Alyssa Thomas had 17 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts was ejected in the third quarter after receiving two quick technical fouls from official Gina Cross. Tibbetts was arguing a foul call against Mercury guard Monique Akoa Makani, and reacted in disbelief as he was escorted off the court.
DeWanna Bonner and Copper also got called for technical fouls in the fourth quarter.
The Aces never trailed in the series clincher, building a 30-21 lead by the end of the first quarter on 55% shooting. Jewell Loyd, Gray and Dana Evans made three straight threes early in the second quarter to put Las Vegas ahead by 19.
Las Vegas settled for a 54-38 halftime advantage. Wilson had 14 points before the break while Gray added 10.
The Mercury were without forward Satou Sabally, who suffered a concussion near the end of Game 3. They suffered another injury blow on Friday when Thomas had to leave just before halftime after taking a hard hit to her right shoulder on a screen from Loyd.
Thomas returned for the second half but was hampered by the injury.
The Mercury enjoyed a deep playoff run under Tibbetts, but couldn’t find a way to slow down the Aces. Phoenix made it to the finals after beating the defending champion New York Liberty in the opening round and knocking off the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx in the semifinals.
Phoenix lost in the WNBA Finals for the second time in five years, also falling to the Chicago Sky in 2021. The Mercury have won three championships, with the last coming in 2014.
LAS VEGAS — A’ja Wilson and Dana Evans each scored 21 points, and the Las Vegas Aces beat the Phoenix Mercury 89-86 in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Friday night.
Wilson scored 12 of her points over the final 14 minutes, and Phoenix’s Satou Sabally missed a long 3-pointer with 2 seconds left that would have tied it.
Game 2 is Sunday in Las Vegas.
Evans led an Aces bench that outscored the Mercury’s reserves 41-16. Reserve Jewell Loyd scored 18 points for second-seeded Las Vegas, and starter Jackie Young had 10. Wilson had 10 rebounds, and Chelsea Gray had 10 assists.
Kahleah Cooper scored 21 points for the fourth-seeded Mercury. Sabally added 19 points and Alyssa Thomas had 15 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists.
Copper scored 19 points in the first half, one off her playoff career high for a half. Her personal best also came against the Mercury, when she scored 20 points for Chicago in the first half of Game 3 of the 2021 Finals. Copper’s five 3-pointers in the first half topped her previous high of four for a game.
If this game was any indication, these Finals — a best-of-seven series for the first time — figure to be tight throughout. The largest lead was nine points, and there were 12 lead changes and nine ties.
The Mercury threatened to take control several times, only for the Aces to respond with a run. In the end, it was Las Vegas that nearly pulled away, only for Phoenix to keep it close.
With Phoenix Down a point with 24.6 seconds left, Thomas went to the free-throw line but missed both. Young was fouled on the other end with 13.5 seconds remaining and made both free throws for the final margin.
Post Malone, Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson will headline 2026’s Stagecoach country music festival, organizers announced Thursday, bringing together one of Nashville’s most successful converts with two of its most reliable hitmakers.
The three-day event, scheduled for April 24 to 26 at Indio’s Empire Polo Club, will also feature Brooks & Dunn, Ella Langley, Bailey Zimmerman, Wynonna Judd, Riley Green, Lyle Lovett, Little Big Town, Warren Zeiders, Nate Smith and Hudson Westbrook.
Among the non-country acts on the bill for the annual show, which takes place on the same grounds as Coachella the weekend after that festival, are the rappers Pitbull, Ludacris and BigXthaPlug and the rock bands Journey, Bush, Counting Crows, Third Eye Blind and Hootie & the Blowfish. Noah Cyrus and Teddy Swims will be there, as will the winner of an upcoming CBS singing competition show called “The Road.”
None of next year’s headliners is a stranger to Stagecoach, which premiered in 2007 and which in recent years has rivaled Coachella as a destination for marketers and influencers.
In 2024, Malone played a set of classic country covers at the fest that included guest appearances by Dwight Yoakam, Brad Paisley and Sara Evans; he also joined Morgan Wallen during the latter’s headlining performance to debut “I Had Some Help,” their smash duet from Malone’s first country album after his years working in hip-hop and pop. Wilson, who was named entertainer of the year at May’s ACM Awards, performed at Stagecoach in 2022 and 2023, while Johnson played in 2017 and 2022; both stars are nominated for entertainer of the year at November’s CMA Awards.
Other acts scheduled to perform at Stagecoach 2026 include Red Clay Strays, Sam Barber, Gavin Adcock, Wyatt Flores, Billy Bob Thornton, Charles Wesley Godwin, Chase Rice, Kameron Marlowe, Larkin Poe, S.G. Goodman and the Wallflowers.
Passes for the festival, which start at $549 and go up past $4,000 for various VIP packages, will go on sale Oct. 2. This past April’s show — with headliners Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll and Luke Combs — sold out in advance even as Coachella struggled to move tickets as briskly as it once did.
Goldenvoice, the L.A.-based promoter that puts on both festivals, said Monday that Coachella 2026 had sold out just days after tickets went on sale late last week. The lineup for Coachella, which the company announced months earlier than it typically does, is topped by Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter and Karol G.
The Jester from Leicester secured a 10-5 victory over the Scotsman as he went one better than the 2023 British Open, where he lost in the final to Mark Williams.
In 2024, World No1 Judd Trump became only the third player in history to reach 1,000 century breaks.
But in the very same match, he was eliminated by Mark Allen following a 5-3 defeat in the quarter-finals.
Trump has never won the British Open and will be looking to add the Clive Everton Trophy to his ever-expanding collection of titles.
Kyren Wilson also features in Cheltenham as he looks to put his poor display at the English Open last week behind him.
There will be no Ronnie O’Sullivan this week after the Rocket withdrew from the competition on medical grounds last Tuesday.
When is the British Open 2025?
The British Open 2025 will begin on Monday, September 22.
The tournament will run up until Sunday, September 28.
The Centaur in Cheltenham will host.
What TV channel is the British Open 2025 on and can it be live streamed?
The British Open 2025 will be broadcast live on ITV4.
You can live stream all the action for FREE via the ITVX app/website.
Alternatively, you can keep up to date with all the action by following SunSport’s live blog.
WASHINGTON — For decades, Doug Wilson was a relatively unknown pastor in Idaho, relegated to the fringe of evangelicalism for his radical teachings.
Now he’s an influential voice in the Christian right. That shift in clout was apparent this past week as he took a victory lap through Washington, sharing a stage with Trump administration officials and preaching at his denomination’s new church.
“This is the first time we’ve had connections with as many people in national government as we do now,” Wilson told The Associated Press in August.
Wilson and his acolytes within the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches still teach that empathy can be a sin, that the U.S. is a Christian nation, that giving women the right to vote was a bad idea. But as evangelicalism has aligned more closely with President Trump’s Republican agenda, these teachings have a larger and more receptive audience.
“Whatever he may have been in the past, he’s not fringe now,” said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist minister and Wilson critic who wrote the forthcoming book “The Bible According to Christian Nationalists.”
Wilson’s Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, opened a church blocks from the U.S. Capitol this summer. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, member of a CREC church in Tennessee, attended the opening.
On Saturday, the fledging congregation gathered for its first church conference. It rented a larger space in Virginia for the weekend to accommodate the 350 people who went to hear Wilson, more than doubling their usual Sunday attendance.
Wilson said they started the congregation to serve church members who relocated to work in Trump’s administration.
“We didn’t come to D.C. in order to meet important people,” Wilson told the gathering. “We’re here because we want to create the opportunity for important people and other people to meet with God.”
Making the case for Christian nationalism
At the National Conservatism Conference days earlier, Wilson was a featured speaker along with members of Congress and Trump’s Cabinet, including border czar Tom Homan, budget director Russell Vought and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. Two more CREC ministers were on the program to give an opening prayer and speak on a panel.
From the lectern in his affable baritone, Wilson gave a full-throated endorsement of Christian nationalism.
“America was deeply Christian and Protestant at the founding,” he said, while admitting numerous “credentialed” historians dispute this notion, “which should tell you something about our credentialing system.”
He talked to a sympathetic crowd, filled with conservatives who support a populist, nationalist and largely Christian America. Like Wilson, their movement has momentum, thanks to Trump’s return to the White House.
Wilson’s vision for a renewed Christian America calls for the end of same-sex marriage, abortion and Pride parades. He advocates restricting pornography and immigration.
“It is not xenophobic to object to the immigration policies of those who want to turn the Michigan-Ohio border into something that resembles the India-Pakistan border,” he said onstage.
He questioned, in particular, Muslims’ ability to assimilate: “There’s only so much white sand you can put in the sugar bowl before it isn’t the sugar bowl anymore.”
Downplaying the horrors of slavery
Wilson and the CREC, which he co-founded, ascribe to a strict version of Reformed theology — rooted in the tradition of 16th-century Protestant reformer John Calvin — that puts a heavy emphasis on an all-powerful God with dominion over all of society.
Since the 1970s, Wilson’s ministry and influence have grown to include the Association of Christian Classical Schools and New Saint Andrew’s College in Moscow, Idaho. Wilson is a prolific writer and content creator, and he and his ministry have a robust media presence, including a publishing arm, Canon Press.
His extensive catalog of books and blog posts provides plenty of fodder for his critics. In one infamous example, he co-authored a 1996 book that downplayed the horrors of slavery, an effort not dissimilar from recent Trump administration moves to revise museum exhibits.
Today Wilson says he’d make some points more clearly in “Southern Slavery as It Was.” While he condemns slavery, he still contends some slave owners and enslaved people “had a good relationship with one another.”
“There was horrific maltreatment on the one hand, and then there are other stories that are right out of Disney’s ‘Song of the South,’” Wilson told the AP, referring to the 1946 film that hasn’t been released in decades because it paints a sunny picture of plantation life with racist stereotypes.
Worries that patriarchy can fuel abuse
Wilson’s hard-line theology and happy-warrior ethos have attracted a cadre of young, internet-savvy men to his ministry. They help make slickly produced hype videos to circulate online, like one in which Wilson uses a flamethrower to torch cardboard cutouts of Disney princesses.
CREC leaders like to use humor to poke fun at their reputation.
“We want our wives to be barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen making sourdough,” joked Joe Rigney, one of Wilson’s Idaho pastors, at the church conference.
“Of course, this is a gross slander,” Rigney said. “We are more than happy for our wives to wear shoes while they make the sourdough.”
CREC practices complementarianism — the patriarchal idea that men and women have different God-given roles. Women within CREC churches cannot hold church leadership positions, and married women are to submit to their husbands.
Christ Church allows only heads of households, usually men, to vote in church elections. Though Wilson said his wife and daughters vote in nonchurch elections, he would prefer the United States follow his congregation’s example with household voting.
To the uproar of critics, Wilson has argued sex requires male authority and female submission, a point he acknowledges is “offensive to all egalitarians.”
“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party,” he writes in “Fidelity.” “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”
Former CREC members have accused Wilson and the denomination of fostering a theological environment ripe for patriarchal abuse of women and children.
“I’ve seen how much this hurts people,” said journalist Sarah Stankorb, who documented allegations of mishandled abuse within CREC for Vice and in her 2023 book “Disobedient Women.”
In her 2024 memoir “A Well-Trained Wife,” Tia Levings, a former CREC member, alleges Wilson’s writings on marriage and patriarchy provided a theological justification for her ex-husband’s violence toward her.
“I call it church-sanctioned domestic abuse,” Levings told the AP.
Wilson denies condoning abuse or ever sanctioning physical discipline of wives.
“Our teaching has to be taken as a whole,” he said, emphasizing wives should submit but husbands must love them in a Christ-like way.
“Beating their wives or spanking their wives is a call-the-cops situation,” he told reporters Saturday after his church conference concluded.
CREC has more than 150 churches in the United States and abroad. Wilson said its goal is to have thousands of churches, so most Americans can be within driving distance of one.
Wilson often says his movement is playing the long game, that its efforts won’t come to fruition for two centuries.
“Doug loves to play humble,” Levings said, “that his vision is going to take 250 years to manifest. That’s actually not the case when we look at the results of what his ministry has done.”
After all, it took him only a few decades to get this close to the White House.
In the vast catalog of relationship science research, very little focuses on the second date — or at least beyond what it takes to land one.
There are ample studies about first dates and initial attraction, which are often conducted in speed dating-style experiments. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some researchers devote their entire careers to studying long-term relationship trajectories. But few delineations are made among the dates that make up the period between meet-cute and making it official.
Even under a pop-culture dating framework, which assigns some value to early dating milestones including the third date and the three-month mark, Date No. 2 falls to the wayside.
Yet the second date is psychologically significant, because it marks most daters’ first venture past “initial clearance,” said Bree Jenkins, a licensed marriage and family therapist and dating coach based in Los Angeles.
Instructions for a first date are clear: Introduce yourselves and decide whether you’re compatible. This “meet and greet,” as Jenkins called it, most often happens over coffee or drinks.
“The second date is different, because you have some level of psychological reassurance that the other person is interested,” Jenkins said. “So some of the anxiety comes down, and I think it’s a little bit easier for people to be more intentional about how they want to connect.”
The Times spoke with relationship scientists and dating coaches to determine what types of second-date activities might foster that early sense of connection, which ideally snowballs into successive dates.
Their insights distilled to the following criteria:
Keep it affordable
Money puts the pressure on, and the goal of a second date should be to take the pressure off.
Duana Welch, a dating and relationship coach and author of “Love Factually: 10 Proven Steps From I Wish to I Do,” said that when someone spends heavily on their date, “research shows that a lot of times, there’s a sexual expectation that’s implied or actually real.”
Such a dynamic can hinder daters’ ability to effectively gauge their compatibility, “so take that expectation away from it,” Welch said. “Do something that’s pretty simple and pretty low cost.”
In other words, don’t be stingy, she said, but focus on being generous with your time and compliments rather than with your money.
Get active, but don’t cut the conversation
General second-date advice suggests incorporating an activity as a divergence from the first date-style, sit-down conversation. Relationship scientists agreed but issued a caveat: Make sure you can still talk.
Paul Eastwick, a psychology professor at UC Davis specializing in the science of relationships, said that whereas in the past people might have interacted 10 or 20 times before they went on a first date, with the advent of online dating, “the archetype that people often have is, ‘I met you on the first date.’”
In that paradigm, a follow-up date is still ripe for introductory conversation, which can’t easily occur in many default second-date settings like a movie theater. Instead, Eastwick recommended a cooking class or immersive show — “something that permits interaction, but you’re also doing this third thing.”
Welch recommended a bike ride or museum stroll, as “people sometimes open up more where they don’t feel like they have to look right at each other.”
Lean into novelty
Lastly, the suggestion to try something new may seem like a cliché, but it’s also scientifically legitimate.
“Anytime that you have a novel experience, especially if it’s enjoyable, you’re going to release more dopamine,” Jenkins, the dating coach, said. “It gives people a way to connect and feel more positive emotion behind the connection.”
With all that in mind, here is a list of second-date ideas in L.A. that relationship experts can get behind.
At a time when most of their peers have retired, threatened to call it quits or died, the Beach Boys continue to perform 120 shows per year. Led by original singer Mike Love and longtime multi-instrumentalist Bruce Johnston, this version of the Beach Boys performs the sounds of Southern California to three generations of fans, something which isn’t lost on Love.
“The positivity that our music generates, and the good vibes and good feelings, is a wonderful thing to see,” Love says. “It’s an inspiration to me to see kids with their parents or their grandparents at our shows.”
This weekend, the Beach Boys return to Long Beach for the first time in nearly 15 years to the day, when they performed at Harry Bridges Memorial Park. As Love recalls, the band played one of its first shows in the city at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium on New Year’s Eve 1961.
“That first concert we were paid for as the Beach Boys at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium for the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance,” he recalls. “We played three songs and got $300, but also on that show was Ike Turner and Kings of Rhythm. We got to hear Tina Turner sing this song called ‘I’m Blue.’ It was primordial and blew my mind.”
Thousands of shows later, the Beach Boys continue to have a receptive audience who will gladly see them perform the hits of yesteryear. Love has no issue leaning into the band’s 1960s heyday. In fact, he sees it as his duty to spread “peace and love” through the Beach Boys’ concerts.
Chatting hours before he departed his Lake Tahoe, Calif., home to fly to Southern California for the band’s latest string of shows, Love reflected on nearly 65 years of the Beach Boys, feeling like he finally got his due by being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, why he’s looking forward to the decidedly un-Beach Boys crowd at Riot Fest, and honoring his late cousin Brian Wilson.
Mike Love
(Udo Spreitzenbarth)
How did it feel to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame?
Better late than never, but it was a great honor. It meant a lot because I wasn’t recognized for my contribution to so many of the Beach Boys’ hits over the years. So, the recognition is a good thing. There are various reasons I wasn’t recognized for it. My uncle [Beach Boys original manager] Murry [Wilson], didn’t put my contribution of the lyrics. “I Get Around,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Be True to Your School,” a lot of great songs that I wasn’t credited for. We fired my uncle as manager to get even for me, and he excluded me when he handled the publishing. We didn’t know what publishing was when we started in 1961. We were unsophisticated regarding the business end of it, and we just loved creating music. We loved harmonizing. That was a family tradition that morphed into a long-lasting profession because my cousin Brian and I got together and wrote some songs that people still love to this day.
What is it about the songs that continue to bring people together at a time when people can hardly agree on anything?
The harmonies and the positivity go a long way towards eliminating the negativity. In “Good Vibrations,” I wrote every word of it. I even came up with (sings) “I’m thinking of good vibrations / She gave me excitations” with the chorus melody as well as all the lyrics. But that was written in 1966. The Vietnam War was percolating, and there were student demonstrations. There were problems with integration, and stuff like that made the news. But I wanted to write “Good Vibrations.” I wanted to write this song. I wrote a poem about a girl who loved nature. She was only into the peace, love and flower power, which was also going on at that time. The juxtaposition of the negative and the positive is pretty amazing. It turns out there’s a psychologist in Sheffield, England, who wanted to find out which songs made people feel the best. And our song “Good Vibrations” came in at No. 1, which is unbelievable. In 1966, when it went to No. 1 in England, we were voted the No. 1 group in Great Britain, with No. 2 being the Beatles. Incredible. That was a pretty amazing achievement.
You’ve been joined on stage by the likes of Mark McGrath and Dexter Holland from the Offspring. What does that say to you about the longevity of what the songs have meant?
Dexter sounded amazing on it! He is a really good singer, obviously, but he wanted to do “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and so we rehearsed backstage [at Oceans Calling Festival in Maryland last September], ran through it about once or twice, and came out on stage in front of 40,000 people, and it was pretty amazing! Mark McGrath is just the most positive and fun guy ever. We have the same birthday, so he’s a few years younger than I am (laughs).
And of course, John Stamos, who inducted you into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
He’s been with us since he was Blackie on “General Hospital.” At this point, he is pretty much an honorary Beach Boy and family.
In the days after Brian’s death, the clip of the band appearing on “Full House” made the rounds on Instagram. What’s it like to remember that when both Brian and Carl were there and you appeared on that show?
John Stamos likes to say that we need this music more than ever now because of so much negativity in the world, and I agree. When I was writing, I accentuated the positive with the harmonies, giving that warm feeling, and the subject matter being fun at times. We’d maybe been a little introspective on “God Only Knows,” maybe “In My Room,” and “The Warmth of the Sun.” The upbeat songs are all fun, positive, and make people feel good. We were just in Spain, and we had standing ovations every night. It was amazing.
What’s wild is seeing the Beach Boys appear on the historically punk festival Riot Fest. Are you familiar with it?
Yeah! We were invited to do it a year ago, but we are doing it this year. Our songs go over well with every demographic and all kinds of people. It doesn’t matter what the format of this is. We’ve done very well with some country festivals, enormously well. It doesn’t matter what the genre of the festival appeals to. We played Stagecoach last year, and there were 70 or 80,000 people at our set. Singing along and dancing around, so we had a great time at that one.
Who are you looking forward to seeing at Riot Fest?
Who is on it other than us?
On your day, it is Weezer performing the Blue Album, Jack White, a reconfigured version of the Sex Pistols, Dropkick Murphys, All Time Low, James …
Weezer! They did “California Girls” on a tribute show that aired on Easter Sunday a few years ago. There’s a lot more guitar in that particular version (laughs). Maybe one of those guys will come and sing with us. What happens at those things is that you’re with a lot of people you don’t ordinarily see, and people like to do unique things.
Do you think the Beach Boys would be considered a punk band, if that was a term, in 1961?
If you listen to some of our songs, like “Surfin’ Safari,” “Catch a Wave” and “Hawaii,” there’s a lot of tempo there. I think those songs appeal to all kinds of genres.
Does returning to Long Beach, near where you all grew up, carry more weight with the loss of Brian?
Well, we have a tribute song called “Brian’s Back” that I wrote many, many years ago. So, back when that was released (in 1976 as part of “15 Big Ones”), we did a video tribute to Brian that we play every night at our concerts, which people love and appreciate. He may have passed on, but he’s always with us every night in the music.
Elton John said that the “Pet Sounds” album would be the one album that would be played forever, which is an amazing accolade,” Love said. “So those songs are pretty much immortal to some degree. So if somebody is capable of replicating them as closely as possible for the record, then great.”
(Udo Spreitzenbarth)
Do you see the Beach Boys continuing to tour in name after you and Bruce are done?
I’m not sure. We haven’t given that a whole lot of thought because we’re very active these days with this configuration. Elton John said that the “Pet Sounds” album would be the one album that would be played forever, which is an amazing accolade. So those songs are pretty much immortal to some degree. So if somebody is capable of replicating them as closely as possible for the record, then great.
But the problem is that mortality is an issue, of course. So, at some point in time, nature will take over and say, “OK, you’re out of here, huh?” But in the meantime, I think we’ve got a good several years to go.
What do people misunderstand about your and Brian’s relationship?
Well, there’s a lot of misinformation given out over this early part of our careers that says I didn’t like the “Pet Sounds” album, which is bull—, because I actually named it and Brian brought it to Capitol Records, who didn’t know what to do with it. If you listen to the tracks of “Pet Sounds,” you say, “How the heck did he ever do that with the greatest musicians in L.A., the Wrecking Crew?” My cousin Brian did some amazing stuff that’ll stand the test of time, if Elton John is right, forever. It’s a true blessing to be able to do what started as a family hobby and became a long-lasting profession.
Is “That’s Why God Made the Radio” the last Beach Boys album, or do you all have one more left in you?
Anything’s possible. We don’t have immediate plans, but I do think of that kind of thing from time to time.
Zhao Xintong lost his first snooker match for nine months as he fell victim to the Ding Junhui Curse.
Kyren Wilson moved into Sunday’s final of the Shanghai Masters with a superb 10-5 victory over China’s reigning world snooker champion.
The Warrior, 33, scored breaks of 66, 75, 70, 95, 70, 101 and 51 across the 15 frames and crucially claimed all SIX frames in the evening session.
For Xintong, it was a first defeat since losing to Shaun Murphy in the Last 32 of the UK Championship in York on November 23, 2024.
After that loss in the North Yorkshire cathedral city, Xintong won an astonishing 26 matches in a row, which included lifting the Crucible crown in historic scenes for his country.
But Xintong’s Far East homecoming was ruined by the Kettering cueist as he completely flopped in the evening action.
The Cyclone potted breaks of 113, 59, 95 and then a 121 to lead 5-4 in the afternoon but when nighttime came, he was outclassed by the Englishman.
And forget all about the Crucible Curse, which he has to negotiate next spring in Sheffield – the Curse of Ding Junhui struck again in a competitive environment.
This was the 21st time in a row that someone had beaten Ding, 38, and then LOST their next match.
A run that stretches back to John Higgins being the first victim at the Players Championship in February 2024 in Telford.
Robert Wilson, a leader in avant-garde theater who collaborated with Philip Glass, David Byrne and Lady Gaga over his six-decade career, has died. He was 83.
The “Einstein on the Beach” director died Thursday at his home in Water Mill, N.Y., after a “brief but acute illness,” according to his website.
“While facing his diagnosis with clear eyes and determination, he still felt compelled to keep working and creating right up until the very end,” the statement reads. “His works for the stage, on paper, sculptures and video portraits, as well as the Watermill Center, will endure as Robert Wilson’s artistic legacy.”
Wilson was born on Oct. 4, 1941, in Waco, Texas, to a conservative Southern Baptist family. He struggled with a speech impediment and learning disabilities as a child but was aided by his ballet teacher, Byrd Hoffman.
“She heard me stutter, and she told me, ‘You should take more time to speak. You should speak slowly,’ ” he told the Observer in 2015. “She said one word over a long period of time. She said go home and try it. I did. Within six weeks, I had overcome the stuttering.”
In 1968, Wilson opened an experimental theater workshop named after his mentor: the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds. He created the Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation in 1969, under which he established the Watermill Center in 1992.
In his early 20s, Wilson moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he studied interior design and architecture at the Pratt Institute. Later, he joined the recreation department of Goldwater Memorial Hospital, where he brought dance to catatonic polio patients with iron lungs.
“Because the patients were largely paralyzed, the work he was doing with them was more mental than physical,” wrote his former colleague Robyn Brentano in Frieze. “With his unconventional frankness and tenderness, he drew out people’s hidden qualities.”
Wilson started teaching movement classes in Summit, N.J., while he wrote his early plays. One day in 1968, he witnessed a white police officer about to strike a deaf, mute Black boy, Raymond Andrews, while walking down the street. Wilson came to Andrews’ defense, appeared in court on his behalf and eventually adopted him. Together, Andrews and Wilson created “Deafman Glance,” a seven-hour “silent opera,” which premiered in 1970 in Iowa City, Iowa.
“The world of a deaf child opened up to us like a wordless mouth. For more than four hours, we went to inhabit this universe where, in the absence of words, of sounds, 60 people had no words except to move,” wrote French Surrealist Louis Aragon after the 1971 Paris premiere. “I never saw anything more beautiful in the world since I was born. Never, never has any play come anywhere near this one, because it is at once life awake and the life of closed eyes, the confusion between everyday life and the life of each night, reality mingles with dream, all that’s inexplicable in the life of deaf man.”
In 1973, Glass attended a showing of Wilson’s “The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin,” which ran for 12 hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The two artists, united by their interest in experimenting with time and space in theater, soon teamed up to create “Einstein on the Beach,” which premiered in 1976 in Avignon, France.
“We worked first with the time — four hours — and how we were going to divide it up,” Glass told the Guardian in 2012. “I discovered that Bob thinks with a pencil and paper; everything emerged as drawings. I composed music to these, and then Bob began staging it.”
Times classical music critic Mark Swed called “Einstein” “easily the most important opera of the last half century,” even though “nothing about what composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson put onstage was opera.” Indeed, “Einstein” has become a cult classic despite the fact it has no Einstein, no beach and no narrative.
Wilson and Glass partnered again to create “the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down,” which also featured music from Talking Heads frontman Byrne, for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The project, meant to span 12 hours, was ultimately never completed due to funding problems. In 1995, Wilson shared his concerns about arts funding in the U.S. with The Times.
“The government should assume leadership,” Wilson told Times contributor Jan Breslauer. “By giving the leadership to the private sector in a capitalistic society, we’re going to measure the value of art by how many products we can sell. We need to have a cultural policy [instead]. There has to be a balance between government and the private sector.
“One of the few things that will remain of this time is what artists are doing,” Wilson says. “They are the journal and the diary of our time.”
In addition to his stage work, Wilson created drawings, sculptures, furniture and installations, which he showed at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York beginning in 1975. In 2004, Wilson produced a series of video portraits featuring Brad Pitt, Winona Ryder, Renée Fleming and Alan Cumming. He would return to the medium again in 2013 with Lady Gaga as his subject.
His work on the installation “Memory/Loss” earned him a Golden Lion for sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1993.
One of Wilson’s last projects was an installation commissioned by Salone del Mobile in April Centering on Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà at Milan’s Castello Sforzesco, the project explored the Virgin Mary’s pain following Christ’s death with a combination of music, light and sculpture.
“I’m creating my own vision of the artist’s unfinished masterpiece, torn between a feeling of reverential awe and profound admiration,” he told Wallpaper.
Wilson is survived by Andrews; his sister, Suzanne; and his niece, Lori Lambert.
Showboating Kyren Wilson spurned the chance to make history when he attempted a no-look shot on the black in his 6-5 victory over Si Jiahui at the Shanghai Masters.
The last-16 tie included six century breaks to tie the record for the most ever in a best-of-11 match – equalling Judd Trump and Neil Robertson’s meeting in the 2016 Masters and Robertson’s encounter with Mark Selby in 2020.
Wilson reached 97 in the deciding frame but opted for a no-look shot and missed the black.
The Englishman said he didn’t realise he was on the verge of breaking the record but said it wouldn’t have changed his approach.
“I did the silly no-look thing,” Wilson said.
“Especially in China, I feel the sport is blowing up out here and a lot of it is about doing things a bit differently. You have to have a bit of fun. The crowd appreciate that sort of thing.
“There’s no chance I’d have just rolled that black in, even if I knew about the record. It is still about doing things differently. We are stepping into a modern era in snooker.”
Elsewhere, defending champion Trump advanced with a 6-2 victory against Robertson.
Newcastle are considering Jorgen Strand Larsen as a potential Alexander Isak replacement, Manchester City want defender Tino Livramento and Bayern Munich resume talks with Liverpool to sign Luis Diaz.
Newcastle United have a strong interest in Wolves’ 25-year-old Norway forward Jorgen Strand Larsen as a possible replacement if Sweden striker Alexander Isak, 25, decides to leave this summer. (Express & Star, external)
England striker Callum Wilson, 33, has agreed personal terms with West Ham after leaving Newcastle at the end of his contract last month. (Talksport, external)
Manchester City have made a fresh approach for Newcastle full-back Tino Livramento and are willing to pay more than £50m for the 22-year-old England international. (TBR Football, external)
Bayern Munich have resumed talks with Liverpool over a deal for Luis Diaz but the Bundesliga club are yet to submit a second bid for the 28-year-old Colombia winger. (Athletic – subscription required, external)
Two of Saudi Pro League’s top clubs are interested in signing Antony from Manchester United as a return to Real Betis, where the 25-year-old Brazil winger spent last season on loan, looks unrealistic. (Sky Sports, external)
England left-back Luke Shaw will also listen to offers from clubs in Saudi Arabia as the 30-year-old is ready to quit Manchester United after 11 seasons at Old Trafford. (Sun, external)
Manchester United have had a loan bid rejected for 32-year-old Aston Villa and Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez. (Sun), external
Fulham are set to complete their first signing of the summer with French goalkeeper Benjamin Lecomte, 34, joining from Montpellier. (Standard), external
Everton have added Southampton’s 19-year-old English winger Tyler Dibling to their list of targets as they look to strengthen their options on the flanks. (Times – subscription required, external)
Leeds United have made a bid in excess of £26m for Feyenoord winger Igor Paixao, but Roma have joined Marseille among clubs interested in the 25-year-old Brazilian. (Sky Sports, external)
Tottenham have reluctantly agreed to let Mikey Moore, 17, go out on loan during the upcoming season, with Birmingham City and West Brom interested in the English winger. (Football Insider, external)
Premier League newcomers Burnley have asked Napoli about the availability of 25-year-old Sweden midfielder Jens Cajuste, who spent last season on loan at Ipswich Town. (Gianluca di Marzio – in Italian, external)
Manchester City winger Grealish among Napoli targets, Javi Guerra rejects Valencia contract amid Manchester United interest and Tottenham monitor United midfielder Kobbie Mainoo.
Tottenham are closely monitoring Kobbie Mainoo, with the Manchester United midfielder yet to agree a long-term extension to his contract, which expires in 2027. (tbrfootball.com), external
Atalanta plan to make a move for Liverpool and Italy winger Federico Chiesa, 27, if Juventus meet their €50m (£43m) valuation to sign Nigeria forward Ademola Lookman, 27. (Football Italia), external
West Ham are in talks with Callum Wilson over a free transfer following the 33-year-old England striker’s release from Newcastle. (Sky Sports), external
Spurs are monitoring the contract situation of Bayern Munich’s Joao Palhinha. The Bavarian club are open to talks should an offer arrive for the 30-year-old Portuguese international. (Florian Plettenberg), external
RB Leipzig have named attacking midfielder Xavi Simons in their training camp squad, despite the 22-year-old being linked with a move to Chelsea and the Dutch international holding talks over personal terms with the Blues. (Standard) , external
Borussia Dortmund are interested in signing 20-year-old Brighton midfielder Facundo Buonanotte. The Argentina international spent last season on loan at Leicester City and has three years left on his contract. (Sky Sports), external
Talks between Marseille and Feyenoord for Brazilian winger Igor Paixao are at a standstill after the French club’s £24m bid fell short of the asking price. (RMC – in French), external
Turkey midfielder Hakan Calhanoglu has been linked with a move away from Inter Milan but the 31-year-old says he wants to stay at the Italian club. (Gazzetta dello Sport – in Italian), external
Manchester City want to keep Ederson despite Galatasaray expressing an interest in the 31-year-old Brazil goalkeeper, who is about to enter the final year of his contract. (The Independent), external
Fulham are confident of keeping hold of academy midfielder Seth Ridgeon despite ManchesterUnited, Liverpool and Chelsea showing interest in the 16-year-old England Under-17 captain. (Standard), external
Kelly Osbourne’s engagement to Sid Wilson wound up being a family affair.
The Slipknot DJ proposed to the former “Fashion Police” co-host backstage at Ozzy Osbourne’s final show Saturday, and she said yes. But not before papa Ozzy got a few words in edgewise.
“Kelly, you know I love you more than anything in the world,” Wilson said, holding Kelly‘s hand after family and friends crowded around them and were shushed by mom Sharon Osbourne, according to a video Kelly posted on Instagram.
“F— off, you’re not marrying my daughter!” Ozzy interjected, true to form. A big round of laughter followed before Wilson got back to business.
“Nothing would make me happier than to spend the rest of my life with you,” he told Kelly, reaching into a bag slung across his chest and extracting a small box.
“So in front of your family and all of our friends,” he said as he got down on one knee, “Kelly, will you marry me?”
Kelly‘s jaw dropped as she looked around the room in shock. The two had welcomed a son, Sidney, in November 2022, less than a year after they started dating. Kelly, 40, and Wilson, 48, met more than 20 years ago when Slipknot was part of the Osbourne family’s Ozzfest tour.
She was still in her teens; he was seven years older and better friends at the time with her brother, Jack Osbourne. Kelly said on a podcast in March 2024 that Wilson began liking her — though she had no idea — in 2013, after they ran into each other at his record store on Melrose Avenue. Around 2020, he invited her to a Slipknot show in L.A., and things progressed from there.
“It wasn’t, like, forced. Because we had been friends for so long and known each other for so long, there was a sense of comfortability that I’ve never had with anyone else,” she said on the podcast, via People. Plus, she told her mother, “I was never going to come home with anyone normal.”
But bringing Wilson home now seems like it was a good move. On Saturday, after she nodded yes, he slipped the ring on her left-hand ring finger. Then he and his bride-to-be hugged like there was no tomorrow.
Brian Wilson, the musical savant who scripted a defining Southern California soundtrack with the Beach Boys before being pulled down by despair and depression in full public view, has died. He was 82.
Wilson’s family announced his death Wednesday morning on Facebook. “We are at a loss for words right now,” the post said.
“Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize we are sharing our grief with the world,” said the statement, which was also shared on Instagram and the musician’s website.
The statement didn’t reveal a cause of death. Wilson died more than a year after it was revealed he was diagnosed with dementia and placed under a conservatorship in May 2024. For decades, Wilson battled mental health issues and drug addiction.
“The world mourns a genius today, and we grieve for the loss of our cousin, our friend, and our partner in a great musical adventure,” the Beach Boys said in a statement on Wednesday. “Brian Wilson wasn’t just the heart of The Beach Boys — he was the soul of our sound. The melodies he dreamed up and the emotions he poured into every note changed the course of music forever. “
The group added: “Together, we gave the world the American dream of optimism, joy, and a sense of freedom — music that made people feel good, made them believe in summer and endless possibilities. We are heartbroken by his passing.”
Elton John, the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, Mick Fleetwood and Nancy Sinatra were among the artists who remembered Wilson on social media. Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge and California Gov. Gavin Newsom also paid tribute to Wilson and his contributions to music.
“Wilson fundamentally changed modern music, helping make the Beach Boys not only the defining American band of their era, but also the California band to this day,” Newsom said in a statement. “He captured the mystique and magic of California, carrying it around the world and across generations.”
Roundly regarded as a genius in the music studio, Wilson wrote more than three dozen Top 40 hits, bright summertime singalongs that were radio candy in the early 1960s, anthems to the surf, sun and souped-up cars.
In an era when rock groups were typically force-fed material written by established musicians and seasoned songwriters, Wilson broke the mold by writing, arranging and producing a stream of hits that seemed to flow effortlessly from the studio.
Riding the crest of peppy, radio-friendly songs like “Surfer Girl,” “California Girls” and “Don’t Worry Baby,” Capital Records gave Wilson almost unchecked control over the group’s output. The label came to hold Wilson in such high regard that it even allowed him to record where he wished rather than use the cavernous Capitol studios in Hollywood that the Beach Boy leader felt were suitable only for orchestras.
“There are points where he did 37 takes of the same song,” said William McKeen, who taught a rock ‘n’ roll history course at the University of Florida. “One track will be someone singing ‘doo, doo, doo’ and the next will be ‘da, da, da.’ Then you hear them all together and, my God, it’s a complex piece of music.
“And he heard it all along.”
In many ways, the studio became Wilson’s primary instrument, just as it had been Phil Spector’s. As his confidence grew, Wilson’s compositions became more majestic and complex as he pieced together a far-reaching catalog of music while his bandmates toured the world without him — just as he preferred.
When the group returned from a tour in Asia in 1966, they discovered that Wilson had created an entire album during their absence. He had written the songs — many with guest lyricist Tony Asher, used the highly regarded Wrecking Crew session musicians to record with him and regarded the product as essentially a solo album. All his bandmates needed to do, he explained, was add their voices.
Brian Wilson, second to right, performs with the Beach Boys in California circa 1964.
(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
The songs on “Pet Sounds” were achingly beautiful and introspective. Some were melancholy, wistful, and brimming with nostalgia. Gone were the waves, the sunshine and the blond-haired girls that populated his earlier work. They were replaced with interlocking songs that seemed to form a single piece of music.
His bandmates were dumbstruck. Mike Love, his cousin and lead singer of the group, told him the album would have been better had he had a bigger hand in its creation. “Stop f— with the formula,” he reportedly snapped. Other band members agreed that the songs seemed foreign compared with surefire crowd pleasers like “Surfin’ U.S.A” and “Dance, Dance, Dance.” But they relented, and the album was released.
Love, in a lengthy 2012 L.A. Times op-ed about his brittle relationship with Wilson, told the story far differently, however. He said he was an early champion of the album, wrote some of the songs, came up with the title and helped convince Capitol to get behind the record when the label dragged its feet.
Though “Pet Sounds” was the first Beach Boys recording not to go gold — at least not immediately — it was a virtual narcotic to critics and admirers. Paul McCartney said it was “the classic of the century” and, as the story goes, rallied the rest of the Beatles to record “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in response. Classical composer Leonard Bernstein declared Wilson a genius and one of America’s “most important musicians.”
As the years passed, the album became a treasured gem, saluted as one of the finest of the rock era and preserved in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. Fifty years after it was released, it was still ranked as the second-best album of all time by both Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, topped only by “Sgt. Pepper’s.”
“Part of Brian Wilson’s genius was his ability to express great complexity within the frame of great simplicity,” wrote Anthony DeCurtis, an author and former Rolling Stone editor.
Then things fell apart.
For months, Wilson tinkered in the studio on an album with the working title “Smile” as anticipation built for what it might be and in what direction it might take rock, already shifting quickly in the dawn of the psychedelic era — music, drugs, lifestyle and all. Wilson said the album would be a “teenage symphony to God,” a piece of music so audacious it would unlock the straitjacket he felt was keeping pop music bland and predictable.
The first window into the album was “Good Vibrations,” a 3-minute, 35-second song that featured dramatic shifts in tone and mood with Wilson’s distinctive falsetto soaring above it all. It was an immediate commercial and critical success.
But it was also a disturbing sign of the madcap world Wilson now inhabited. Recordings for “Good Vibrations” stretched over seven months, the sonic blips and beeps he was trying to stitch together consumed 90 hours of tape and costs soared to nearly $75,000 — roughly $740,000 in 2025 valuation. All the while, musicians — some bandmates, others hired guns — filed in and out of four different studios as he searched for perfection.
Not everyone thought it was worth the effort for a single song.
“You had to play it about 90 bloody times to even hear what they were singing about,” complained Pete Townshend, the guitarist and songwriter for the Who. Spector — Wilson’s idol — said it felt “overproduced.” McCartney said it lacked the magic of “Pet Sounds.”
Wilson felt otherwise. When he finished the final mix on “Good Vibrations,” he said it left him with a feeling he’d never experienced.
“It was a feeling of exaltation. Artistic beauty. It was everything.”
The band toured again as Wilson continued work on “Smile,” an increasingly troubled project. He ordered members of a studio orchestra to wear fire gear and reportedly built a fire in the studio during a recording of “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow,” which was to be the album’s opening number. He turned to veteran recording artist Van Dyke Parks for help with the lyrics rather than wait for his bandmates to return.
When Love listened to the still-under-construction album, he dismissed it as “a whole album of Brian’s madness,” according to the Guardian. Parks, an admired lyricist with his own career to worry about, eventually walked away from the project, spooked by Wilson’s erratic behavior and what he saw as Love’s uncomfortable tendency to bully his cousin.
David Marks, from left, Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Blondie Chaplin, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston at the 2024 world premiere of the Disney+ documentary “The Beach Boys” in Hollywood.
(Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images)
Whether it was the hostile reaction from his bandmates or the hopelessness of navigating the maze of half-finished songs and sonic fragments he’d created, Wilson put the whole thing aside. It would be decades before he revisited it.
“When we didn’t finish the album, a part of me was unfinished also, you know?” Wilson wrote in his 2016 memoir “I am Brian Wilson.” “Can you imagine leaving your masterpiece locked up in a drawer for almost 40 years?”
Love, who sued Wilson repeatedly through the years to get songwriting credit for dozens of songs he claimed he helped write, bristled at the suggestion that he had upended his cousin’s masterwork.
“What did I do? Why am I the villain?” Love wondered aloud in a lengthy 2016 profile in Rolling Stone. “How did it get to this?
Wilson’s psyche had been fragile for years. He was reclusive at times, spending days alone in a bedroom at his Malibu mansion, where he had a baby grand piano installed in a sandbox and a teepee erected in the living room. He admitted that he suffered from auditory hallucinations, which caused him to hear voices.
And he took drugs by the bucketful.
He was public about his demons. He was mentally ill, he said, consumed with such depression that he couldn’t get out of bed for days at a time. He smoked pot, experimented with LSD and got through the day with a steady lineup of amphetamines, cocaine and sometimes heroin. A tall man, Wilson’s weight ballooned to more than 300 pounds, and when he did surface in public, he seemed withdrawn and distracted.
“I lost interest in writing songs,” he told The Times in a 1988 interview. “I lost the inspiration. I was too concerned with getting drugs to write songs.”
It all started in Hawthorne, where Wilson was born on June 20, 1942. The eldest of three boys, he grew up in suburban comfort not far from the beaches that would inspire so many of his early songs.
His father, Murry, was a musician and a machinist; his mother, Audree, a homemaker. Wilson went to Hawthorne High, where he played football and baseball. He earned an F for a composition he submitted in his music class, though decades later the school changed his grade to an A when administrators discovered the composition had become the Beach Boys’ first hit song, “Surfing.” School officials invited him to campus to accept their apology.
At home, he played the piano obsessively. He recalled hearing George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” when he was 4, lying on the floor of his grandmother’s house, mesmerized that the composer had captured both a city and an entire era in a single piece of music. He took accordion lessons but set the instrument aside after six weeks. His father, though, noticed his son had the ability to quickly repeat melodies on the piano.
“He was very clever and quick. I just fell in love with him,” Murry Wilson says in Peter Carlin’s “Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson.”
In 1961, with his parents on vacation, Wilson, his brothers, Love and their friend Al Jardine rented guitars, a bass, drums and an amplifier with the food money their parents had left behind and staged a concert for their friends. When Murry Wilson returned home, he was more pleased than angered and encouraged the fledgling musicians to continue. Armed with a handful of songs, the Pendletones — named for the then-popular flannel shirts — began to play at school dances and parties. When they went into the studio to record, a producer changed the group’s name to the Beach Boys and never bothered to tell them.
If it all sounded sunny and carefree, Wilson didn’t remember it that way. He said his father was abusive and seemed to delight in humiliating him, typically in public. It was possible, he said, that his hearing problems stemmed from one of the times his father smacked him in the head.
“I was constantly afraid,” he told The Times in 2002. “That’s what I remember most: being nervous and afraid.”
When the Beach Boys became successful, Murry took over as their manager and increasingly took charge of their business affairs. When money was needed, he overrode his sons’ objections and sold off the band’s publishing company, believing the group had peaked. When the group went on the road, he went with them and fined his sons if they broke his rules — no booze, no profanity, no fraternizing with women. Finally, in 1964, Wilson and his brothers essentially fired their father. Never fully reconciled with his sons, Murry died of a heart attack in 1973.
To some observers, the riddle of Brian Wilson could not be fully explained by the drugs he took, the voices he heard or the depression that smothered him like a blanket. It was more than that.
“My own theory is that he was never able, never quite allowed, to become an adult — and that this, more than anything else, has been the story of his life, and of his band,” wrote Andrew Romano in a lengthy 2012 Newsweek article.
An abusive father, a cousin he regarded as a bully and ultimately a psychologist who sought to control his every move, his every thought — all appeared to have a hand in making Wilson who he was.
For the record:
11:04 a.m. June 13, 2025An earlier version of this article referred to Eugene Landy as a psychiatrist. He was a psychologist.
And then there was Eugene Landy, a colorful character by any measurement. He wore orange sunglasses, drove a Maserati with a license plate reading “HEADDOC,” sported a Rod Stewart-style haircut and practiced a brand of pop psychology that was regarded by some as revolutionary. Others, though, saw Landy as a Svengali-like figure, a man who could make Wilson appear to be on the road to recovery while bleeding him of every resource he had.
Hired by Wilson’s first wife, Marilyn, in 1976, Landy had his first meeting with his new client in Wilson’s bedroom closet, the only place where the musician said he felt safe. Landy gradually won Wilson’s trust and, believing in 24-hour therapy, moved in with the musician.
The results were immediate. Wilson shed weight, quit taking street drugs and rejoined the Beach Boys on stage for the group’s 15th anniversary. For a man who was so paranoid that he reportedly refused to brush his teeth or shower for fear that blood would gush from the faucet, it was a night-and-day change.
But it was short-lived, and Landy was fired when the Beach Boys’ management balked at his fees, which hovered around $35,000 a month — around $345,000 in 2025 valuation.
Without Landy, Wilson quickly regressed — back on drugs, overeating, retreating to his bedroom. He separated from his wife and grew apart from his daughters, Carnie and Wendy. Then with a flourish, Landy returned and — armed with a full team of nutritionists, assistants and caregivers — doubled down on his around-the-clock therapy.
Landy concluded Wilson suffered from a schizoid personality with manic depressive features — introverted, painfully shy, unable to show emotion. Left untreated, Landy said, Wilson would inevitably swing freely between delusional highs and nearly suicidal lows. He loaded Wilson up on medications — lithium, Xanax, Halcion, among others.
So involved was Landy in Wilson’s every move that in 1988 when the musician released “Brian Wilson” — his first solo album and his best effort in years — Landy was listed as the executive producer and given co-writing credit on five of the 11 songs. Landy’s girlfriend was given co-writing credit on three other songs. Landy became Wilson’s manager, formed a business interest with the musician to share in any profits from recordings, films and books and tried to become executor of Wilson’s estate.
Landy was ousted for good when the state attorney general’s office opened an investigation into his relationship with Wilson, probing accusations that he had prescribed drugs without a medical license and had financially exploited his famous client.
Gary Usher, a songwriter who worked with Landy, told state investigators that Wilson was a virtual captive, manipulated by a man who frightened and intimidated him.
In 1989, Landy pleaded guilty to a single charge of unlawfully prescribing drugs, surrendered his license and moved to Hawaii, where he died of lung cancer in 2006.
Wilson, who rarely said anything negative about anyone, could find little kind to say about Landy in a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone. “I thought he was my friend, but he was a very f— up man.”
Despite the tumult, Wilson kept recording and performing, sometimes showing glimpses of his former self, yet always doomed to comparisons with his earlier work.
In 2017, Times rock critic Randy Lewis observed that Wilson seemed chipper and content during a leg of the “Pet Sounds Live” tour at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. His voice, once shriveled by years of smoking and other abuses, was “assertive and confident,” Lewis wrote.
Two years later, though, Wilson postponed a leg of his “Greatest Hits” tour to focus on his mental health.
“It is no secret that I have been living with mental illness for many decades,” he wrote in a tender apology to ticketholders. “I’ve been struggling with stuff in my head and saying things I don’t mean, and I don’t know why.”
Through it all, the unfinished concept album he had put aside hung like a cloud.
A few snippets of the album had been used on “Smiley Smile,” a hurry-up recording in 1967 that the Beach Boys recorded to meet contractual demands, and “Surf’s Up,” a 1971 album built around a song of the same name that Wilson wrote for “Smile.”
Nearly 30 years later, an L.A. musician named Darian Sahanaja asked Wilson whether he’d be interested in revisiting “Smile.” The two had come to know each other on the road when Wilson sat in with Sahanaja’s group, the Wondermints.
The master tapes were unlocked, and Sahanaja said he downloaded the tracks and unconnected song fragments, aware that he was handling the very material that had nearly driven its author mad.
As the two worked on a laptop, the harmonies and unwritten connective tissue seemed to return to Wilson, Sahanaja said. They smoothed out transitions, changed tempos to help connect songs and phoned Parks when they were unable to make out lyrics. If he couldn’t remember a passage, Parks came up with substitute language.
In February 2004, Wilson’s version of “Smile” finally premiered at London’s Royal Festival Hall. With Wilson on stage, seated at a piano, and Parks in the audience, the crowd roared thunderously as a song cycle that had become nearly mythical in its absence was finally unveiled.
“I’m at peace with it,” Wilson said later, smiling.
Wilson is survived by six children, including daughters Carnie and Wendy, who made up two-thirds of the Grammy-nominated pop vocal group Wilson Philips. He is preceded in death by his wife, Melinda, who died in January 2024. His brother Dennis drowned in 1983 while diving in Marina Del Rey, and Carl, his other brother, died of lung cancer in 1998.
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.
John Stamos was by Beach Boys founding member Mike Love’s side when news of bandmate Brian Wilson’s death on Wednesday was made public. The “Full House” star was also the messenger who delivered the heartbreaking news to Love, Wilson’s cousin-turned-longtime collaborator.
“I said, ‘Mike, your cousin passed away,’ and his face went blank,” Stamos, an honorary Beach Boys member, recalled to the New York Post. “And we sat in the car for two and a half hours or so … he didn’t say one word.”
Wilson, the genius behind the Beach Boys, died Wednesday at age 82. The singer’s family announced his death on social media and his website, writing in a statement, “We are at a loss for words right now.” A cause of death was not revealed, but Wilson was diagnosed with dementia and placed under a conservatorship in May 2024. Wilson, who co-founded the Beach Boys in 1961 with brothers Dennis and Carl and cousin Love, also battled mental health issues and drug addiction for decades.
Stamos, 61, relived the somber moment on Thursday ahead of the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York, where Love was among the newest group of inductees that included George Clinton, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins and the Doobie Brothers. Though Love remained speechless after learning of Wilson’s death, Stamos said, “I knew how he was feeling.” The actor, who has performed with the Beach Boys over several decades, also spoke to the Post about Love, 84, and Wilson’s relationship, noting “they made beautiful music together.”
During the Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony, Stamos introduced Love, who paid tribute to Wilson, as “my brother in music.” His sentiments on Thursday added to his social media tribute to Wilson on Wednesday.
“Brian Wilson wasn’t just the heart of The Beach Boys—he was the soul of our sound,” Love wrote as he reminisced on the group’s early days and Wilson’s lasting contributions to music.
Love added in his tribute: “Our journey together was filled with moments of brilliance, heartbreak, laughter, complexity and most of all, LOVE . Like all families, we had our ups and downs. But through it all, we never stopped loving each other, and I never stopped being in awe of what he could do when he sat at a piano or his spontaneity in the studio.”
“Wilson fundamentally changed modern music, helping make the Beach Boys not only the defining American band of their era, but also the California band to this day,” Newsom said in a statement. “He captured the mystique and magic of California, carrying it around the world and across generations.”
The Beach Boys established a quintessentially California sound with popular tracks including “Surfer Girl,” “California Girls” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
Wilson is survived by six children, including daughters Carnie and Wendy, who made up two-thirds of the Grammy-nominated pop vocal group Wilson Phillips with the Mamas and the Papas scion Chynna Phillips. He is preceded in death by his wife, Melinda, who died in January 2024. His brother Dennis drowned in 1983 while diving in Marina Del Rey, and Carl, his other brother, died of lung cancer in 1998.
The death of Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson is an immeasurable loss for music and for California, both the place and the dream of it that Wilson conjured with his regal and tender compositions.
Wilson was the visionary of the defining American rock band, one who competed with the Beatles to move pop music into new realms of sophistication and invention, while writing songs capturing the longing of an ascendant youth culture.
His death leaves only two surviving members of the original lineup — Mike Love and Al Jardine, Wilson’s high school friend who sang lead on early hits like “Help Me Rhonda” and wrote songs for beloved later-period albums like “Surf’s Up” and “Sunflower.”
On the day the world learned of Wilson’s death, Jardine briefly spoke to The Times to remember his lifelong friend and bandmate. The guitarist, vocalist and songwriter — now on tour with his Pet Sounds Band playing Beach Boys hits with a focus on their 1970s output — looked back on six decades of writing and performing with one of the greatest minds of popular music.
Jardine’s conversation was edited for length and clarity.
I just lost my best friend and mentor. It’s not a good feeling, but I’m going to carry on and continue to play our music and perform with the Pet Sounds Band.
Brian was a great friend. We grew up together, we went to high school together. We were both dropouts, which is not a bad thing as long as you have a vision of the future. His and mine was to make music.
We were very good friends and very successful in part because of his great talent. He had an amazing ability to compose, very simple things and very complex things, all at the same time. He was a visionary.
We all grew up together musically, but he grew exponentially. He became a leader, and formed new ways of chord construction, things no one had heard before, and we rose to the challenge with him.
It’s been said that Brian invented the state of California, the state of mind. That’s a cute way of saying it, but he really invented a new form of music in the ’60s and ’70s. It was very sophisticated, but went way beyond that. He was a humble giant, a great American composer.
I don’t think anyone else could walk in his shoes, given all that he went through. I did write some songs he liked, and did help him get through treacherous times. It must be so frightening to be left in the wilderness by yourself and not know how to get home. He said one song I wrote helped him get through that, which is quite a compliment from the great Brian Wilson, who had his own demons to deal with.
Brian Wilson’s band was a reawakening of his professional life. He never enjoyed touring, so this band was a whole new life for him, to experience his own music and an adulation that he never had before.
The Beach Boys — Dennis Wilson, left, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, Mike Love — perform circa 1964 in California.
(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
His legacy is of course in the music, and any interpreter of that legacy has to be sharp and devoted to it. We have the most devoted people that could be there to do that, so many original members of his band. My son Matthew, he’s Brian’s voice, and the DNA is there. With his arranger, Darian, arranging all vocals, we have all the muscle and genius to pull it off.
When Carl Wilson and I were singing those parts back then, we’d abbreviate things — you can’t do everything you did in the studio with only five of us. Now we’ve got 10 people onstage and I just heard some background parts yesterday that sounded just like we used to — you can hear Carl and Dennis in there.
When we take the band out, I have a little white piano onstage, like the one he played in the past. It’s a symbolic moment, the empty piano.
While the Beach Boys tour was a hit-based performance, with this iteration, we’re more introspective, deeper cuts, performing much of the 1970s catalog. There’s quite a few numbers the public hasn’t heard, exploring the heart and soul of those albums. I was hoping Brian would have been able to join us.
But it’s wonderful, we’re hoping this music should last forever, and be felt at the deep levels that Brian experienced it.
It sure is a great responsibility to play it, but it just feels natural to me. I’ve been doing it for so long, It doesn’t feel weighty. I’m confident, especially with this band being so remarkable. I’m still learning from Brian after all these years.
Interview from 2011: How music takes Brian Wilson back to the 1960s
Musicians have paid tribute to Brian Wilson, the legendary frontman and co-founder of The Beach Boys, who has died at the age of 82.
Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan said he had spent “years” admiring Wilson’s “genius” while Sir Elton John described him as a “true giant” who had the “biggest influence” on his songwriting.
Wilson’s family said they were “heartbroken” and “at a loss for words” to announce his death. Their statement did not give a cause.
The Beach Boys were one of America’s biggest bands, whose success rivalled the Beatles in the 1960s.
Born in 1942 and raised in Hawthorne, California, Wilson formed a group with his younger brothers Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine.
They went on to sellmore than 100 million records globally, according to the group’s website.
Music magazine Rolling Stone ranked them at 12 on its list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”.
Wilson churned out dozens of hit singles, including the three number one songs I Get Around, Help Me, Rhonda and Good Vibrations.
He was known for using the recording studio to create unique sounds, especially on the album Pet Sounds, which contributed to his reputation as a music pioneer.
Frank Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy Sinatra, who enjoyed a high-profile music career around the time of The Beach Boys’ heyday, shared a picture with Wilson on Instagram.
“His cherished music will live forever as he travels through the Universe and beyond,” she wrote. “God bless you, sweet Brian.”
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Brian Wilson was a music pioneer
Mick Fleetwood, of the band Fleetwood Mac, wrote: “Anyone with a musical bone in their body must be grateful for Brian Wilson’s genius magical touch !! And greatly saddened of this major worldly loss!!”
Sean Ono Lennon, son of Beatles frontman John Lennon and Yoko Ono, called Wilson the “American Mozart” and a “one of a kind genius from another world”.
“Anyone who really knows me knows how heartbroken I am about Brian Wilson passing,” he wrote on X.
“Not many people influenced me as much as he did. I feel very lucky that I was able to meet him and spend some time with him. He was always very kind and generous.”
Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood said his “world is in mourning”, as he noted that Sly Stone and Wilson both died this week.
Universal Music Group’s chief executive Sir Lucian Grainge called Wilson “one of the most talented singer-songwriters in the history of recorded music”.
“If there was a human being who made art out of inexpressible sadness it was Brian Wilson,” the musician Questlove wrote in a long tribute on Instagram.
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Fans laid flowers on the Beach Boys’ Hollywood Walk of Fame star in LA following news of Wilson’s death
Micky Dolenz, the last surviving member of the band the Monkees, wrote of Wilson’s passing: “His melodies shaped a generation, his harmonies changed the game, and his soul came through in every note.”
Wilson lost his wife Melinda in 2024. The couple had been married for 24 years, and adopted their children Dakota Rose, Daria Rose, Delanie Rose, Dylan and Dash together.
Wilson also had two daughters, Carnie and Wendy, from his first marriage.
The musician was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic in 1984, according to Forbes, when doctors found evidence that his use of psychedelic drugs had potentially damaged his brain.
