The iconic New York jazz club Blue Note announced Tuesday the opening slate of shows for its long-awaited Los Angeles location, which includes Robert Glasper, Charlie Puth and Killer Mike. After delays caused by construction and permitting in the wake of L.A.’s January fires, the venue will open its doors in mid-August with local favorite Robert Glasper christening the new venue Aug. 14 and 15.
Located in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard and Ivar Avenue, the celebrated jazz institution is rolling out a roster of A-list artists in jazz and other genres. Following Glasper’s two opening shows, Grammy nominee Alex Isley will headline Aug. 16 and 17.
The first month is particularly stacked, as the team behind the Blue Note is taking the responsibility of introducing the ethos and the way they do shows to an L.A. audience very seriously.
Like the New York Blue Note location (the brand has clubs around the world, including in Napa, Tokyo and Honolulu), artists will be doing two shows a night. Both Blue Note Entertainment President Steven Bensusan and Director of Programming/Talent Buyer Alex Kurland have emphasized that the L.A. location will reflect a local vibe, including in the acts they book.
Among the first run of shows will be a heavy slate of local artists, including Terrace Martin with guest Kenyon Dixon Aug. 19 and 20, Braxton Cook Sept. 9 and 10, Kamasi Washington Sept. 30 to Oct. 5 and Oct. 7 to 12, Keyon Harrold Nov. 18 and 19 and many more.
The rest of the released schedule, which runs into 2026, features a stellar array of jazz luminaries such as Branford Marsalis Oct. 21 and 22, Esperanza Spalding Sept. 2 to 7, Ravi Coltrane Aug. 28 to 31, Kenny Garrett Sept. 11 to 14, Cimafunk Nov. 20 and 21, and a Lady Blackbird residency multiple dates.
Also sticking to the Blue Note ethos, there is a healthy dose of musicians from a variety of genres, such as Charlie Puth Oct. 16 to 19, Andra Day Nov. 28 to 30, Killer Mike Sept. 19 to 21, Slum Village Oct. 20, Ben Folds Dec. 11, Mayer Hawthorne Aug. 25 and more.
Sue Cleaver has played Eileen Grimshaw in Coronation Street for 25 years but quit the role earlier this year. She has now revealed if she will ever appear on a rival soap
18:47, 20 Jun 2025Updated 18:47, 20 Jun 2025
Sue Cleaver spent 25 years playing Eileen Grimshaw on Coronation Street, but is she ready for a new soap challenge (Image: ITV)
Former Coronation Street star Sue Cleaver has revealed if she will ever appear on a rival soap following her final appearance as Eileen Grimshaw airing earlier this month. The 61-year-old actress announced her decision to bid farewell to Weatherfield at the start of this year, after an impressive 25 years on the ITV soap.
At the time, she issued a heartfelt statement: “I’ve had 25 privileged years of working on Coronation Street,” adding further, “The door is still firmly open but as I reached my 60th year, I decided it was time to embrace change, look for new adventures and live fearlessly.”
Eileen Grimshaw got her happy ending early this month(Image: ITV)
She also enjoyed a stint on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! Back in 2022. But now she has the time to commit to other projects, will Sue be popping up on a rival soap like Coronation Street or EastEnders?
It’s not unheard of for actors to pop up in multiple soap universes, with the likes of Denise Welch and Michelle Collins appearing on both EastEnders and Coronation Street.
Speaking in a new interview, Sue says she is “chuffed” with her Corrie legacy, and believes she was given “a wonderful send off” but admits she is ready to “live fearlessly.”
“I think people forget that you either have courage or you don’t, courage is a muscle, start really small and put yourself out of your comfort zone for a couple of minutes a day, enquire about a book club or evening class, because that muscle really does,” the actress muses.
Sue continues to recall to The Sun how filming her final scenes “was really weird feeling, but it felt right” and it was “the right time” to go. She is now ready to take advantage of her new found “freedom” after spending over two decades at ITV.
Sue has said goodbye to Eileen but will she say hello to a new soap character?(Image: ITV)
“I love doing Loose Women, there are other things I want to do and there is a lot more of the world I want to see,” Sue admits. But when it comes to going over to the dark side and popping into The Queen Vic or the Woolpack, Sue is adamant that she is still loyal to Corrie.
She rules out appearing on another soap “at this stage” as she is still “very committed to Corrie”, adding: “I’ve been incredibly fortunate and it gave me the opportunity that not many actresses have, to be at home, to be there for my son in the morning and put him to bed at night and to have a proper home life, whereas normally you have to go where the work is. I’ve been extremely fortunate, it’s not lost on me how lucky I’ve been, it has a big place in my heart.”
Speaking to the Mirror in May, Sue opened up on her decision to have co-star Ryan Thomas return for her final episodes, as his character Eileen’s son Jason Grimshaw makes a huge offer. Sue shared: “Ryan was there from the start, and he was inconveniently living in Thailand, and it wouldn’t be too far of a jump to expect that if Eileen was going to make a leap, that she would involve her son.
“And so when I decided to leave, like over a year ago, I rang Ryan, and I said, ‘Ryan, I’m going to tell them that I’m going, and if they ask me about exits, I’d really like to say that you’d come back and take me out, but I don’t know whether they’d go for it or not’.
“And he just went, ‘Oh my gosh, of course, I would’, which was so lovely for me. And it was just so nice to have him back and filming those final scenes with him. It just felt like I’d come full circle really.”
Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITV X.
Having left showbusiness, Noel Edmonds is enjoying a new life in New Zealand, where he focuses on energy, healing crystals and being in tune with the cosmos…
Noel Edmonds’ Kiwi Adventure starts on ITV(Image: ITV)
Ever wondered what happened to Noel Edmonds? For decades, he used to rule the radio waves and Saturday night telly, then suddenly he disappeared. Cut to Noel in his swimming trunks standing under an icy cold shower saying gratitudes, with a few sheep wandering around in the background.
In 2018, Noel turned his back on showbusiness and moved 11,500 miles away with his wife Liz to New Zealand. “I think I might have found my paradise,” he says in Noel Edmonds’ Kiwi Adventure, which starts tonight (June 20) on ITV at 9pm. The couple have spent the last two years building a business in the quiet town of Ngatimoti. River Haven, with the strapline ‘Positively Together’, boats a vineyard, coffee cart, general store, and a restaurant and pub, called The Bugger Inn.
Noel and his wife Liz Davies at their haven in New Zealand(Image: ITV)
On their 800 acres of land, Noel also wants to create a wellness sanctuary and even New Zealand’s first energy garden, whatever that is. “I am John Wayne, I am Clint Eastwood!” says Noel, delighted to be holding a power tool. He’s clearly still a showman. This three-parter follows the challenges, from being accepted by the locals, to bad weather, the absence of tourists and everyone else going bust.
But most fascinating is the insight into Noel’s complete dedication to energy and healing. Lying under a quartz crystal healing bed, the 76-year-old talks about his ‘light bulb moment’ about his health – “We are all body energy systems”. He dedicates his good health to six things – nutrition and good food, good ‘structured’ water, pulsed electro magnetism, tranquil exercise, vibe (his term for ‘visualisation of body energy;) and meditation. Throw in some cold showers and ice baths (we see him with his shirt off A LOT), saunas and a hyperbaric oxygen chamber three times a week and “I am rocking,” he says.
There is much talk of the matrix and universal energy. The couple even has a big clock permanently set to the specific time Noel and Liz met – she was his make up artist on Deal or No Deal. Noel says: “Liz was sent to me. She is an Earth angel. The sustenance of her energy is my life blood. You will never pull us apart because we are one. I believe it’s a gift from the cosmos. This was the time of my life.” Noel also opens up about the negative press he has received, saying: “I do actually care what people think about me. Criticism does hurt. I’m hugely sensitive.” And he explains that he left Britain because the country changed so much. He says: “I missed a quieter country. We’re not trees, so we can move.”
Noel Edmonds’ Kiwi Adventure is airing on ITV tonight at 9pm.
There’s plenty more on TV tonight – here’s the best of the rest..
ALISON HAMMOND’S BIG WEEKEND, BBC1, 8.30pm
In the last of this brilliant series, which will surely be commissioned for a second round, Alison spends the weekend with world champion boxer Tony Bellew. Visiting his house in Southport, Alison learns that Tony and his wife, Rachael, are in the middle of big house renovations. He opens up about life after retirement, sharing his struggles with boredom, missing the thrill of fights and the toll his boxing career has taken on his health.
Tony reveals that due to the number of punches he’s taken to the head, his memory has been affected, and he fears that there may be more health implications to come. He also shows Alison the ropes and puts her through her paces in the ring, revealing that he owes his life to his boxing gym. After taking on Tony on the pads, Alison and Tony head to Goodison Park, not only the home of Tony’s beloved football team but the site where he won his world championship title.
NOT GOING OUT, BBC1, 9pm
For old school Friday night comedy, with a relentless stream of gags, surely this wins every time. Lee Mack, a veteran of the one-liner, plays Lee, who constantly finds himself in ridiculous, farcical situations, causing his wife Lucy (Sally Bretton) to spend the entire episode rolling her eyes.
In this instalment (Mack’s favourite episode), Lee brings a battered box back from the tip, with no idea what is in it. “When I was a kid, going through the bins was like flicking through the Argos catalogue,” says Lee as he rips the box open. But gets a shock when he opens it in front of Lucy and finds what looks like a dead body, but actually turns out to be a robotic sex doll. “It can’t be human, the face looks like it’s silicon,” says Lucy. “Have you not seen Love Island?” quips Lee. What follows is the usual caper as Lee starts to realise what he’s actually dealing with.
EMMERDALE, ITV1, 7.30pm
After a restless night, Robert bumps into Victoria outside Keepers. He clearly wants to avoid opening up to her about his time in prison. After she finally sits him down in Keepers for a chat, Vic’s left worried that Robert still thinks he can win Aaron back. After Charity makes clear that she’s definitely accompanying Sarah to her cancer operation, Sarah eventually expresses her gratitude. Paddy enlists Bob’s help as he tries to get Bear to open up about what’s burdening him.
CORONATION STREET, ITV1, 8pm
Debbie breaks the news to Ronnie and Leanne that she needs to cancel the awards ceremony as there’s a flood at the hotel, but Leanne offers to host it at Speed Daal. Todd finds Theo in the living room repeatedly snapping the elastic band on his wrist. Millie tells them that living with her mum is stressing her out, but when Theo suggests she stays with them a bit longer, will Todd agree? Dee-Dee and James clash over Laila.
The Love Island contestants have only been in a villa for a week – but they’re already spilling all their deepest secrets to one another, as Toni opens up on her NFL encounter
22:25, 18 Jun 2025Updated 23:07, 18 Jun 2025
It’s been an eventful week in Love Island – with the Islanders engaging in some intense conversations. Yesterday, Yasmin asked whether Dejon would have a threesome with her and Toni, and today the conversation continued with Toni’s shock revelation.
During a chat at the beanbags during tonight’s episode, the naughty trio were back with their intimate conversations, as Toni made a wild confession.
The star, who resides in Las Vegas told Yasmin and Dejon she had previously had a threesome with an NFL player and a p**n star. That’s not all, as she said the encounter took place in a room full of people.
“Me, p**n star, NFL player, infront of a whole party,” Toni admitted. Dejon and Yasmin were left in shock as Dejon asked: “Everyone was watching?!” Toni then confirmed they were, although she didn’t reveal the name of the NFL player.
Toni made the shock revelation in a conversation with Dejon (Image: ITV/Love Island)
Like Dejon, fans took to X, formerly known as Twitter to express their shock as one tweeted: “nfl player??? #LoveIsland” tweeted one shocked fan, while another penned: “in front of everyone with a p**n star & NFL player wtf?!”
However, Dejon’s Meg was left less than impressed with the chat, as she pulled Toni and Yasmin for a chat. She told them she didn’t appreciate the trio having sexual chats, deeming it “disrespectful”.
The group failed to make amends during their chat – as Meg told the rest of the girls she felt like “a mug”.
It’s not the first time Dejon has been in trouble this week. Dejon, Harry and Shea landed in hot water when their plan was exposed during Monday night’s challenge. The trio ‘rigged’ the game to make sure they kissed who they fancied. Dejon kissed Malisha, Harry kissed ex Shakira, as Shea kissed Tommy’s partner Megan.
Meg was left less than impressed with Dejon’s conversation with Toni and Yasmin(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
It didn’t go down well with Helena, Meg and Megan, who decided to get revenge on the boys with their own ‘gameplan’. Before new bombshell Harrison arrived in the villa with Toni, the trio decided to pretend they were interesting in getting to know him to scare the boys.
“Even if we don’t think he’s [Harrison] fit, shall we be like, ‘Oh he’s a bit of me’?” Helena asked the girls, as Meg agreed: “All this game playing they’ve been doing [the boys].”
However, it looks like their gameplan may have back fired, as the boys also had Harrison on their mind. Tommy wondered if Harrison will come in and try to break up a strong couple, but Dejon added: “To be honest, the more he does, the more leeway we’ve got to cause havoc!”
Harry then responded: “If he goes and kisses Helena, I’m flying mate! That’d be so good, I didn’t even think of that!”
A flight attendant has revealed the secret reason why cabin crew will greet passengers on the plane – and it’s not just because they’re being polite
Why do flight attendants greet passengers when they’re boarding the craft?(Image: Getty Images)
If you’ve ever taken a flight, you’ll know that the cabin crew greet passengers upon their entry into the aircraft.
While it may have seemed like nothing more than a polite gesture up until now, a flight attendant has revealed the real reason behind the friendly greeting. Ioana Iachim, a flight attendant working for Wizz Air has confessed there’s a hidden meaning behind a cabin crew member’s affable hello during boarding.
Taking to TikTok to share some of her insider secrets, Ioana revealed: “Did you know that your flight attendant greets you not only out of politeness but also, to check whether or not you are too drunk or sick to fly.”
Presumably, cabin crew then keep an eye on passengers they believe could stir up trouble or may not be fit to fly, and might even prevent them from boarding. Ioana’s video currently has over 3.5 million views and over 190k likes.
There’s a reason behind the cabin crew’s pleasantries and it’s not just out of politeness(Image: Getty Images)
Several travellers were shocked at Ioana’s revelation, with one writing: “And I thought they fancied me.” Another TikTok user commented on the video: “I never greet them back because I am an introvert.” One added: “So why do I always sit next to people hacking up a lung and nobody does anything.” Ioana’s hack isn’t the only flight attendant secret that has been revealed in recent times.
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As a flight attendant for the past 22 years, Sue Fogwell has warned fliers against ordering a Bloody Mary while in the skies. While speaking to Travel + Leisure, Sue shared that giving the Bloody Mary a miss is probably wise. The cabin crew member said: “Due to the very high sodium content, I always avoid drinking Mr&Mrs T/bloody mary mix and tomato juice.”
This is because drinks and foods that have a high sodium content can dehydrate passengers fairly quickly, especially on long-haul flights. What’s more, the vodka in a classic Bloody Mary has also been identified as a dehydrator, with the NHS advising fliers to limit their alcohol consumption while on an aircraft.
In another instance, ex-flight attendant and viral TikTok sensation, Kat Kamalani, shared some unnerving truths about the state of an aircraft’s water tanks. She warned: “Don’t you ever, ever, ever consume these products from an airplane, from a flight attendant! Rule number one never consume any liquid that is not in a can or a bottle.”
She went on to claim that “those water tanks are never cleaned and they are disgusting”. In fact, cabin crew themselves won’t touch hot drinks. She explained: “We rarely rarely drink the coffee or tea. They come from the same water tank. And so when you’re drinking that coffee and tea come from that hot water and it’s absolutely disgusting.”
Sue Fogwell, a flight attendant with 22 years of experience up in the skies, has revealed the reason why she never orders one particular drink when she is flying
Fizzy drinks can cause havoc with service time(Image: undefined via Getty Images)
Sue Fogwell, a veteran flight attendant with 22 years in the skies, says that a Bloody Mary is a bad idea on a plane. The cabin crew member told Travel + Leisure that the drink’s sodium level is a recipe for a bad time when up at 30,000 feet.
That is despite the fact that flying tends to leave passengers craving acidity and saltiness due to the extra air pressure—things that tomato juice should be able to deliver in good quantity.
“‘Due to the very high sodium content, I always avoid drinking Mr&Mrs T/bloody mary mix and tomato juice,” Sue said. She avoids the drink because high sodium levels can quickly make passengers feel dehydrated.
There are other tipples that flight attendants advise avoiding. Jet, who also runs a blog sharing her in-flight experiences, has urged travellers to avoid fizzy drinks during their flights. It’s not the drinks themselves that are the issue, but rather the inconvenience they cause for flight attendants when serving them to passengers.
In her online blog, Jet shared that “soft drinks foam up a lot more when poured out of a can”, which means she has “to sit and wait for the bubbles to fall before I can continue pouring”.
This becomes especially time-consuming when there’s a line of passengers all wanting carbonated drinks, leading her to start pouring, take other orders, and then return to finish off the initial drink servings. And it’s not just about the inconvenience.
The dry cabin environment is another factor to consider, as consuming fizzy drinks or alcohol can worsen dehydration, potentially making you feel quite unwell. Furthermore, the fizziness in these drinks can lead to bloating and indigestion – neither of which are pleasant on a long-haul flight.
So, while your main considerations when ordering mid-flight might usually be cost and whether the hunger or thirst justifies the expense, flight attendants suggest there’s more to think about when choosing your in-flight refreshment.
TikTok’s very own flight attendant influencer, Brodie Capron, known on the platform as @brodie. capron, has recently taken to social media to debunk some common myths about in-flight tap water.
The question of whether it’s safe to drink bottled water on planes is a frequent one, particularly with rumours that the onboard water filters are seldom thoroughly cleaned. However, Brodie, who works for Virgin Australia, put these rumours to bed by confirming that their tap water is indeed safe to drink.
She confidently declared: “Is the water safe to drink? Yes, it is. It’s filtered, and it’s clean.”
On the other hand, fellow flight attendant Deja, who shares her insights under the TikTok handle @i. amdejaa, questions the cleanliness of liquids stored on planes.
Her advice to travellers is straightforward: “When you are travelling on an aeroplane please don’t drink coffee or tea,” and she didn’t stop there, adding hot chocolate to the list of drinks to avoid while flying. Deja claims that the “water tanks on the aeroplane are never cleaned, and they are very disgusting”.
EastEnders viewers will be treated to huge episodes in the coming weeks, with Zoe Slater actress Michelle Ryan promising ‘high stakes’ after a big night shoot this week
12:09, 17 Jun 2025Updated 12:09, 17 Jun 2025
EastEnders viewers will be treated to huge episodes in the coming weeks, with Zoe Slater actress Michelle Ryan promising ‘high stakes’ (Image: BBC)
Zoe Slater will feature in “high stakes” scenes on EastEnders in a couple of months time.
Michelle Ryan returned to the BBC soap on Monday night, reprising the role after 20 years. Zoe is in “a mess” with more set to be revealed about her return and what’s gone on with her in the past two decades.
But with her on screen for a few episodes this week it’s been revealed that she will be back full-time in the summer. Now, we’ve got a glimpse at some of the big scenes ahead for the character when she heads back to the show.
Michelle took to Instagram on Tuesday morning to confirm that on Monday evening she and the cast filmed a night shoot. Most night shoots seem to be around huge and dramatic episodes.
While she gave nothing away, she did tease fans can expect big scenes ahead and “high stakes”. She addressed the “new block of episodes” filmed this week, that will likely air in six to eight weeks time, as she returns in the summer.
She spilled in a post online: “Ahh coffee, much needed after the night shoot last night. So excited for this new block of episodes, I can’t reveal anything but wow.
Zoe Slater will feature in ‘high stakes’ scenes on EastEnders in a couple of months(Image: BBC)
“High stakes. I’m carrying around the scripts to prep, new lilac pages. Well done to the writers, who have knocked it out of the park!” Viewers were left reacting to the post, excited for what was ahead.
Commenting under the post, one fan said: “Getting so excited! You and Jessie in them scenes are going to be amazing can’t wait!” Another wrote: “Can’t wait for what’s in store in the months ahead!!!”
A third fan said: “So excited to see what’s going to happen so happy your back!” while a fourth commented: “I am literally so excited for what’s to come for Zoe and I’m equally excited for you Michelle.” It comes amid the mystery surrounding Zoe’s return with her seemingly hiding something.
Michelle took to Instagram on Tuesday morning to confirm that on Monday evening she and the cast filmed a night shoot(Image: BBC)
Michelle teased what fans could expect from the return, hinting that Zoe could be in a bad way. She spilled: “I can’t say too much as there is a lot of drama to come, but Zoe is a mess. She’s not the girl that left Walford twenty years ago, and she’s been really struggling on her own.
“She has her defences up, but this week you will see that she needs help, but whether she is willing to accept it is another story.” So what help does Zoe need, and can her family help her?
According to the soap, Zoe carries twenty years of deep-rooted resentment towards her mum. She’s not even met her other siblings including Tommy and the twins, while it’s not known if her own twin brother Dermott will be addressed.
Love Island fans were shocked as they watched Harry, Dejon and Shea come up with a plan to make sure they got to kiss the girls they were most interested in
22:22, 16 Jun 2025Updated 22:27, 16 Jun 2025
Three Love Island boys came up with the plan(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
Love Island fans were taken aback on Monday nigh by Harry, Dejon and Shea’s “childish” plan. Their antics were quickly rumbled by the other Islanders as it was revealed they had schemed together about who to kiss during the came.
Tommy revealed that he found it suspicious that Harry, Dejon and Shea all ended up kissing the girls that they were most interested in outside of their own couples. Amid Tommy’s probing, Harry cracked as he owned up to their plan.
He revealed: “We were all like, boys lets just forget the question and just say who you wanna kiss – so Shea was like I wanna kiss Megan, when he read it out, me and D said, ‘That’s Megan!’”
The boys created a plan so they could kiss who they wanted to(Image: ITV)
Tommy was stunned as he replied: “Oh my god, f****ng hell! What do you think will happen tonight then? That will all come out?” Harry hit back: “The girls are gonna find out!”
Tommy decided to give the girls a heads up as he took Megan to the Terrace and let her know what he was told. A shocked Megan fumed: “We f***ing knew it!”
Tommy decided to spill more as he said: “Shea said, ‘When it’s my turn say Megan’ – I think that’s out of order. I don’t like confrontation, but I will stand up for what’s right. He failed, you shut him down and he’s still going for it, the only reason I think he’s doing that is to piss me off and he’s f***ing done it.”
Viewers also joined in Tommy and Megan’s anger as they hit out at the trio. One said: “the concept of these 30 year old men making up a secret plan to kiss the girls they want to kiss in a challenge without other people knowing.”
The plan worked until Harry decided to confess(Image: ITV)
Another added: “The whole kissing plan was hella weird, but the way the guys are going about it is making me laugh because they are so oblivious to their stupidity.” Someone else commented: “so harry makes the plan and then is the first to snitch…”
A fourth wrote: “This episode is so childish omds like yall are grown behave.” Others were more confused as to why Harry decided to reveal the plan despite it working for them.
“Harry is a liability why did he tell Tommy the plan?,” asked a viewer. Another added: “None of this would have happened if the guys had kept their devious plan to themselves.”
Someone else commented: “Harry loves chaos because there was no need telling Tommy.” A fan praised: “Harry’s f***ing hilarious icl, what great tv.”
As word of the boys’ plan spread around the Villa, the penny started to drop with some of the Islanders about the choices that were being made in the challenge. Harry protested: “It’s only a challenge” but Tommy made the decision to pull Shea.
The modest but pungent survey of paintings by Noah Davis at the UCLA Hammer Museum is a welcome event. It goes a long way toward demythologizing the Seattle-born, L.A.-based artist, who was heartbreakingly struck down by a rare liposarcoma cancer in 2015, when he was barely 32.
The show affirms his gift for what it was: Davis was a painter’s painter, a deeply thoughtful and idiosyncratic Black voice heard by other artists and aficionados, even as his work was in invigorating development. Talented artists often come into a steadily mature expression in their 30s, the moment when Davis’ accelerating growth was brutally interrupted. The show’s three dozen paintings are understandably uneven, but when Davis was good, he was very good indeed.
That intriguing capacity resonates in the first picture, “40 Acres and a Unicorn,” which hangs alone in the show’s entry to mark the start of his career. Davis was 24 and had studied at Cooper Union in New York and the artist-run Mountain School of Arts in L.A.’s Chinatown. The 2007 painting is not large — 2½ feet tall and slightly narrower — but it casts a spell.
In Western art, a man on a horse is a classic format representing a hero, but here Davis sits a young Black man astride a mythic unicorn — notably white — its buttery beige horn shining amid the painting’s otherwise neutral palette. It’s easy to see the youth as signifying the artist, and the replacement for an art-historical horse likewise standing in for a mule. That animal was famously promised to thousands of formerly enslaved people near the end of the Civil War, along with 40 acres of Confederate land on which they had worked, uncompensated and abused, making the white planter class rich.
Noah Davis, “40 Acres and a Unicorn,” 2007, acrylic and gouache on canvas
(Anna Arca)
The 1865 pledge to redistribute confiscated lands as restitution to African Americans for their enslavement didn’t last a year before being annulled — reparations as rare, unique and desirable as a unicorn, offered by an untrustworthy white ruling class. (Had the 1865 redistribution happened, imagine where we might be today, as racist cruelties initiated by the federal government are running rampant.) Davis, placing his at least symbolic self on the unicorn’s back, plainly asserts his social and cultural confidence. Art is imagination made real, and as a Black American artist, he’s going to ride it forward.
Perhaps the canvas’ most beautiful feature is the rich skin of black acrylic paint within which he and his steed, both rendered in soft veils of thin gouache, are embedded. The luminous black abstraction dominating the surface was visibly painted after the figures, which feel like they are being held in its embrace.
Thirty-nine paintings on canvas and 21 on paper are installed chronologically, the works on paper selected from 70 made during Davis’ lengthy hospitalization. The layering of topicality, color sensitivity, art-historical ancestors and figuration and abstraction in “40 Acres and a Unicorn” recurs throughout the brief eight-year period being surveyed. (The traveling show was organized by London’s Barbican Art Gallery with Das Minsk, an exhibition hall in Potsdam, Germany.) The most abstract painting is on a wall by itself in the next room, and it demonstrates Davis’ unusual exploratory strategies.
Titled “Nobody,” a four-sided geometric shape is rendered in flat purple house paint on linen, 5 feet square. The layered difference in materials — an image built from practical, domestic paint on a refined and artistic support — is notable. The irregular shape, however two-dimensional, seems to hover and tilt in dynamic space. It suggests a 2008 riff on the long, rich legacy of Kazimir Malevich’s radical, revolutionary geometric abstractions from 1915.
Noah Davis, “Nobody,” 2008, house paint on linen
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles)
The reference to the Russian avant-garde recalls that Malevich’s art was dubbed Suprematism, which bumped aside the academic hierarchy of aesthetic rules in favor of “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling,” most famously represented as a painted black square. Here, it twists into an inevitable jab at an ostensibly liberal Modern art world, still in fact dominated by unexamined white supremacy.
“Nobody” weaves together art and social history in surprising ways. It’s one of three geometric abstractions Davis made, their shapes based on the map contour of a battleground state in the revolutionary election year that brought Barack Obama to the presidency.
Colorado, a state whose shape is a simple rectangle, flipped from George W. Bush in 2004, while the secondary color of Davis’ choice of purple paint was created by combining two primary pigments — red and blue. The color purple also carries its own recognizable, resonant reference, embedded in popular consciousness for Alice Walker’s often-banned Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Steven Spielberg’s hit movie of the book, a record holder of dubious distinction, tied for the most Oscar nominations (11) without a single win. Davis’ torqued purple rectangle looks to be in mid-flip.
That Davis exhibited but ultimately painted over the other two works in his geometric series might suggest some dissatisfaction with their admittedly obscure nature. (“Nobody” almost requires footnotes.) He returned to painting the figure — “somebody” — but often embedded it in visually sumptuous abstract fields. The hedge behind “Mary Jane,” a young girl in a striped pinafore, visually a cousin to the little girl engulfed in billowing locomotive steam clouds in Édouard Manet’s “The Railway,” is a gorgeously writhing arena of spectral green, gray and black forms.
Noah Davis, “Mary Jane,” 2008, oil and acrylic on canvas
(Kerry McFate)
So is the forest of “The Missing Link 6,” where a hunter with a rifle sits quietly at the base of a massive tree trunk, virtually secreted in the landscape, like something rustling in the dense foliage in a Gustave Courbet forest. The missing-link title declares Davis’ intention to join an evolutionary chain of artists, the hidden hunter adding an element of surprise.
Art history is threaded throughout Davis’ work. (He spent productive research time working as an employee at Art Catalogues, the late Dagny Corcoran’s celebrated bookstore, when it was at MOCA’s Pacific Design Center location.) The tension between established and new art, which seeks to simultaneously acknowledge greatness in the past while overturning its rank deficiencies, is often palpable. Nowhere is the pressure felt more emphatically than in the knockout “1975 (8),” where joyful exuberance enters the picture, as folks cavort in a swimming pool.
The subject — bathers — is as foundational to Modern art as it gets, conjuring Paul Cézanne. Meanwhile, the swimming pool is quintessentially identified with Los Angeles. (Another fine pool painting, “The Missing Link 4,” has a Modernist Detroit building as backdrop, painted as a grid of color rectangles reminiscent of a David Hockney, an Ed Ruscha or a Mark Bradford.) Bathers are an artistic signal for life crawling onto shore out of the primordial ooze or basking in a pastoral, prelapsarian paradise.
For America, the swimming pool is also an archetypal segregationist site of historical cruelty and exclusion. Davis seized the contradiction.
Draining public swimming pools to avoid integration in the wake of civil rights advances happened in countless places. It showed the self-lacerating depth to which irrational hate can descend, as policy advocate Heather McGhee wrote in her exceptional book, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” People were willing to harm everyone in a community by dismantling a popular public amenity rather than accept full equality. In “1975 (8),” the title’s date is within just a few years of the Supreme Court’s appalling ruling in Palmer vs. Thompson, which gave official blessing to the callous practice McGhee chronicled.
Noah Davis, “The Missing Link 4,” 2013, oil on canvas
(Robert Wedemeyer)
The 2013 painting’s composition is based on a photograph taken by Davis’ mother four decades earlier. A bright blue horizontal band in an urban landscape is dotted with calmly bobbing heads. A leaping male diver seen from behind dominates the lower foreground, angled toward the water. The soles of his bare feet greet our eyes, lining us up behind him as next to plunge in.
Davis suspends the aerial diver in space, a repoussoir figure designed to visually lead us into the scene. Like the unicorn rider, he assumes the artist’s metaphorical profile. A moment of anticipatory transition is frozen, made perpetual. Waiting our turn, we’re left to contemplate the soles of his feet — a familiar symbol of path-following humility, whether in Andrea Mantegna’s Italian Renaissance painting of a “Dead Christ” or countless Asian sculptures of Buddha.
The marvelous painting was made at a pivotal moment. A year before, Davis and his wife, sculptor Karon Davis, joined four storefronts on Washington Boulevard in Arlington Heights to create the Underground Museum. Their aim was to create a self-described family-run cultural space in a Black and Latino neighborhood. (Money came from an inheritance from his recently deceased father, with whom Davis was close.) A year later, the ambitious startup expanded when the project took on the internationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Art as an organizing partner. One room in the show includes mock-ups of classic sculptures — imitations — by Marcel Duchamp, Dan Flavin, Robert Smithson and Jeff Koons, which Davis made for an exhibition to reference the classic 1959 Douglas Sirk movie about racial identity, “Imitation of Life.” The appropriations ricochet off the feminist imitations of Andy Warhol and Frank Stella paintings that Elaine Sturtevant began to make in the 1960s.
Not all of Davis’ paintings succeed, which is to be expected of his youthful and experimental focus. An ambitious group that references raucous daytime TV talk programs from the likes of Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, for example, tries to wrestle with their trashy exploitation of identity issues as entertainment — DNA paternity tests and all. But a glimpse of “Maury” with a crisp Mondrian painting hanging in the background just falls flat. The juxtaposition of popular art’s messy vulgarity with the pristine aspirations of high art is surprisingly uninvolving.
Still, most of the exhibition rewards close attention. It handily does what a museum retrospective should do, securing the artist’s reputation. At any rate it’s just a sliver of some 400 paintings, sculptures and drawings the artist reportedly made. Whatever else might turn up in the future, the current selection at the Hammer represents the brilliant early start of Davis’ abbreviated career. Forget the mythology; the show’s reality is better.
Noah Davis, “Imitation of Jeff Koons,” 2013, mixed media
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
‘Noah Davis’
Where: UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood When: Through Aug. 31. Closed Monday. Info: (310) 443-7000, hammer.ucla.edu
Asda is investing £10million in upgrading 180 of its in-store cafesCredit: Asda
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Asda is rolling out a host of new menu itemsCredit: Asda
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Shoppers will still be able to get “Kids Eat for £1” meal deals at the cafesCredit: Asda
The retailer will start the makeover this month with all works set to be complete by the end of October.
The 180 cafes, managed by Compass Group, will be upgraded to include new digital ordering screens where shoppers can pick what food and drink they want.
Customers will also be able to order from their tables or via staffed tills.
A number of existing menu items will continue to be on sale including full English breakfasts, fish and chips, lasagne and jacket potatoes.
But some new ones will be added as well, including smashed avocado on toast, katsu chicken curry, topped salad bowls and wraps.
Shoppers will be able to buy full 12inch pizzas or single pizza slices from the cafes for the first time as well.
Customers can pick from flavours including margherita, pepperoni, American sizzler, spicy chicken and meat feast.
There will also be a range of hot drinks on offer as well as cold ones like iced coffees and cakes.
We have asked Asda how much some of the menu items will cost and for the full list of 180 stores where cafes will be freshened up and will update this story when we have heard back.
Four simple ways to save money at Asda
Ian McEvans, vice president of commercial food at Asda, said: “This significant investment alongside allows us to bring a new look and feel, as well making improvements to the service and a refresh of the menu.”
She said: “Asda often has an alcohol offer on: buy six bottles and save 25%.
“The offer includes selected bottles with red, white and rose options, as well as prosecco. There are usually lots of popular bottles included, for example, Oyster Bay Hawkes Bay Merlot, Oyster Bay Hawkes Bay Merlot and Freixenet Prosecco D.O.C.
“Obviously, the more expensive the bottles you choose, the more you save.”
Join Facebook groups
The savvy saver also recommends that fans of Asda join Facebook groups to keep in the know about the latest bargains in-store.
Eilish said: “I recommend joining the Latest Deals Facebook Group to find out about the latest deals and new launches in store.
“Every day, more than 250,000 deal hunters share their latest bargain finds and new releases.
“For example, recently a member shared a picture of Asda’s new Barbie range spotted in store.
“Another member shared the bargain outdoor plants she picked up, including roses for 47p, blackcurrant bushes for 14p and topiary trees for 14p.”
Mr Leighton urged Sun readers to come back to see the UK’s third largest grocery chain’s revitalised stores.
FORMER Love Island star Anna Vakili has pulled out all the stops – and tan lines – and flashed a saucy bit of skin in a slashed dress.
The reality TV contestant dared to bare in a figure-hugging cut-out number at Manchester‘s Parklife Festival.
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The striking star showed off her hip tattoo in the barely-there dressCredit: Getty
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The Love Islander displayed a white tan line in the show-stopperCredit: Getty
The brunette bombshell showed off her intimate tattoo in the revealing black cut-away dress as she enjoyed her day out.
Held at Heaton Park, the Love Island star, 34, looked high-fashion at the two-day event where acts including 50 Cent, Charli XCX and Rudimental performed.
The podcaster wore her long dark highlighted hair slicked back into a chic ponytail with gold hoops earrings.
Wearing natural glossy make-up, the star looked more red carpet primed than down-and-dirty festival ready.
Reality star Anna was joined at the music spectacular by reality stars Matilda Draper and Demi Sims at SHEIN‘s VIP party.
She was joined by her sister Mandi who looked equally glam in a strapless blue mini dress and trainers.
They mingled amongst fellow Love Islanders including Nicole Samuel, Jessy Potts, Kaz Crossley and Matilda Draper.
Also on hand were Towie’s Frankie and Demi Sims looking dressed to impress.
Vakili shot to fame after appearing on Love Islandin 2019 – but she failed to find love in the villa.
Love Island star SPLITS from boyfriend just months after getting back together
However, they’ve recently split shortly after getting back together.
Earlier this year, she revealed that she’d dropped out of the last series of All Stars Love Island at the last minute.
She explained that even though she went through the whole process to appear on the ITV2 show – including multiple meetings and STD and drug testing – it wasn’t for her again.
Looking for serious love, she told fans that she decided against it saying ‘the kind of man I want to settle down with wouldn’t really want a woman that’s going on Love Island’.
Anna recently posted a photo in a hospital gown, and revealed she’d completed her first round of egg freezing.
The pharmacist admitted that although appearing on the 2019 series changed her life for the better financially, returning to the show would be “greedy”.
“The guy that I would want to marry now, would look down on that ‘why you on there snogging different guys in a bikini’.
“I’m a 34-year-old woman.”
It comes after Anna spoken candidly about a series of botched procedures she had in the hope of getting her ‘perfect’ body.
She also revealed how much money she has wasted and what she has had done including three BBLs [Brazilian Bum Lift] and a boob job.
Along with her sister Mandi, the pair host the popular podcast Sisters In The City.
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Anna and her podcasting sister Mandi looked glam at the festivalCredit: Getty
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The newly-single star posed up a storm at Heaton Park VIP areaCredit: Getty
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Anna joined a host of reality star at the Manchester festivalCredit: Getty
Coronation Street viewers think they know who reported Maria Connor to the police after a showdown with Lou Michaelis, with someone close to home tipped to be to blame
23:39, 13 Jun 2025Updated 23:41, 13 Jun 2025
Coronation Street viewers think they know who reported Maria Connor to the police (Image: ITV)
There was drama on Coronation Street on Friday night, as a showdown between Maria Connor and Lou Michaelis ended with an arrest.
Maria was horrified when the police came to take her away, with her accused of actual bodily harm. She’d been caught up in a fight with Lou after spotting her trying to steal from Shona Platt.
Her attempt to stop her led to Lou taking a tumble, slamming into a coffee table. As the camera panned back to her she was laying on the floor covered in blood and cuts, with glass everywhere.
She accused Maria of pushing her on purpose, telling the others she had been attacked. As Maria’s partner Gary Windass helped Lou onto her feet, Maria claimed it was an accident and that while she did grab Lou, Lou had tripped over.
With Maria not being believed by some of her neighbours, Gary headed to the hospital with Lou while he begged her not to get the police involved. Gary made it clear he didn’t think it was an accident, telling Maria she needed to apologise.
There was drama on Coronation Street on Friday night, as a showdown between Maria Connor and Lou Michaelis ended with an arrest(Image: ITV)
Maria then accused him of getting too close to Lou, with fans also predicting Lou was trying to get closer to Gary. Gary claimed she was lying about Lou trying to steal money, and also lying about what really happened.
She accused him of fancying her and it led to a row. Things got awkward later on, with Sarah Platt backing Maria and agreeing with her side of the story.
It wasn’t enough though as the police entered the pub and arrested her. But while the obvious culprit behind the report was Lou herself, fans were not convinced.
With upcoming spoilers suggesting Lou denies being involved, fans think they know who really told the police – with an affair plot sealed. Viewers suggested it was Gary behind the call after her refusal to own up and apologise.
Maria accused Gary of getting too close to Lou(Image: ITV)
They think Gary wants Maria out of the way so he can embark on a romance with Lou. Taking to X, one fan suggested: “Gotta be Gary turning Maria in! Lou doesn’t wanna deal with all that, but Gary’s getting so fed up.”
Another fan agreed: “It definitely wasn’t Lou, it was either Gary because he’s sick of it or someone trying to make it look like it was Lou.” A third viewer posted: “Does anyone else think it was Gary who reported Maria to the police? Is he going to have an affair with Lou?”
A further post read: “Maybe he just wanted Maria out the way,” as another fan commented: “Wtf has Gary dobbed Maria to the rozzers?” As for the affair, one fan suggested: “I’m here for Gary and Lou!” as another fan commented: “Gary and Lou affair impending.”
A BEACHFRONT Haven holiday park has revealed plans for a huge new adventure attraction and Wetherspoons pub.
Haven operates more than 50 holiday parks across the UK and attracts more than four million visitors a year.
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A beachfront Haven holiday park has revealed plans for a huge new adventure attraction and Wetherspoons pub
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Haven’s Presthaven Sands Holiday Park has been given permission to refurbish its adventure village and extend its existing play areaCredit: Google
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A climbing wall will be one of the new pieces of equipmentCredit: Haven
Haven’s Presthaven Sands Holiday Park has been given permission to refurbish its adventure village and extend its existing play area.
They applied last year to Flintshire County Council for planning permission to carry out the works at its site.
The new equipment at the park will include an aerial adventure and zipwire, climbing wall, bungee trampolines, an inflatable arena, a “kids and tots” play area, and a “bark yard” for dogs.
The application has since been given planning consent by the council, albeit with some conditions attached.
These conditions include that the works start within five years and are carried out in accordance with the details provided in the planning documents.
A biosecurity risk assessment was to be approved by the council too.
Haven has since submitted a biosecurity risk assessment, which the council has accepted.
Extracts from a supporting statement from agents Planware read: “The proposal represents a major investment by Haven into the Presthaven Sands Holiday Park to enhance existing facilities and the customer experience.
“The existing site comprises a number of existing features and play equipment including crazy golf, play area and activity range, located between the existing entertainment complex serving the park and the swimmingpool facilities.
“In summary, the proposal represents sustainable development and investment into an existing operational holiday park.”
Award-winning holiday park in St Ives
Presthaven Sands caters to thousands of visitors annually reports Rhy Journal.
Plans to open aJD Wetherspoon pubat the park have also been given the go-ahead.
The supporting statement added: “As part of the constant review of improvement, Haven are seeking to upgrade the existing adventure area between the entertainment complex and swimmingpoolcomplex.
“The site of the proposed development lies at the centre of the holiday park, and comprises an existing limited activity range, crazy golf range, play area and show area for new caravans.
How to survive six weeks of school summer holidays
IF you are struggling with the six week summer holidays, you’ve come to the right place…
BATTLING BOREDOM: Despite hours of activities and playdates, if your kids are already complaining there’s nothing to do, parenting expert Liat Hughes Joshi says: “Don’t feel you have to organise every second of the holidays. Kids benefit from boredom and learn to make their own fun.
“Boredom can trigger creative and imaginative play but you need to encourage kids to get used to not being told how to spend their time.
“Ride out the pleas of boredom. Counter it with comments such as, ‘What do you think you could do?’ and maybe have a list of ‘I’m bored’ activity ideas on the fridge.”
SCREEN OVERLOAD: It’s tempting during the holidays to rely on a digital babysitter but don’t let them gawp their whole summer away in front of a screen.
Liat says: “It’s unfair to expect older kids to power down but it’s important to set some ground rules.
“Set family tech rules together. If you’re often distracted by your phone, follow the rules too. Maybe tell the kids they aren’t allowed any screen time until they’ve done set chores, some exercise, or a board game.
“Are there times when you’d like to ban screens completely? Perhaps during dinner or when they have friends over to visit.
“Tech is a battleground for parents, but you have to set boundaries. Stand firm and be prepared to be unpopular.”
TOO MUCH TOGETHERNESS: You love your kids, but being with them 24/7 can be exhausting. Do not feel guilty if you need a bit of downtime.
Liat says: “If you’re juggling work and household tasks as well as occupying the kids, it’s normal to start feeling overwhelmed or jaded and in need of some peace.
“If you can’t afford or don’t want to send your kids to all-day camps, look for free kids’ workshops so you can get on with jobs or have a break for a couple of hours.
“Seeking a spell of quiet every now and then doesn’t make you a bad parent — in fact it will probably make you more positive and enthusiastic when you are with the kids.”
SCHEDULING CONFLICT: Schedules can go out the window during holidays, but late nights and early mornings can mean tired and unhappy children.
Dr Tamara Bugembe, paediatrician and founder of Helperbees.co.uk says: “Children get grumpy, test boundaries and become challenging when routines are broken.
“Sticking to some kind of routine during the holidays is a good idea.
“We release hormones at different times of the day and when regular meal times and bed times are broken, it causes dips and peaks in mood.
“Holidays are about having fun but an early night once or twice a week will make everyone happier.”
EXCESS ENERGY: Make sure kids get out in the fresh air to tire them out — and make them healthier and happier.
Dr Bugembe says: “Sunshine also tops up vital vitamin D levels which helps improve bone strength and energy levels in children. Our levels run low in winter so let the kids stock up in warmer weather.
“Letting them run around in shorts and a T-shirt is the best way to top up. Make sure they’re wearing sun cream, get outside and have fun.
“Encourage them to try healthy habits such as cycling and walking. They’ll hopefully get hooked and want to carry them on when the weather gets colder.”
“This area is currently underutilised given its prominent location within the park, and accessibility to main facilities.”
Previous planning applications at the site which were approved included a “jump tower” and a “junior ropes course”.
The application also involves the introduction of seating areas with LED screens, a sand pit, a briefing room, and storage areas
Existing features at the park will be retained, including the mini golf area, container bar, and Sweet Treats and Chopstix food outlets.
The refurbished adventure village will solely be for the use of holidaymakers already visiting the park.
A BRIDGERTON star has revealed a phone thief threatened to stab her in a cafe attack before she bravely tackled him.
Genevieve Chenneour was sitting in a Joe & The Juice in Kensington, South West London when the terrifying ordeal happened.
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Genevieve Chenneour told This Morning about her ordealCredit: Shutterstock Editorial
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Genevieve plays Clara Livingston in the Netflix show Bridgerton
Zacariah Boulares snuck up behind the 27-year-old and swiped her phone on February 8.
Genevieve – who plays Clara Livingston in the hit Netflix show – revealed that the “full on scrap” lasted for about five minutes.
She pinned the 18-year-old thief to the floor but has now said he threatened to stab her.
“I was threatened with being stabbed, so it became a matter of life and death,” she told ITV.
“I remember kicking him back with my leg to create space in case he had a weapon on him.”
She described it as a “life-changing, crazy moment”.
The star said the ordeal has left her feeling scared to venture outside and she has even left her home in the capital to take a “break” from the lawless city.
Astonishing footage from police showed Genevieve grabbing Boulares’ shoulder as she realised her phone had been taken.
She then tackled the serial thief to the ground with the help of another customer.
Genevieve managed to take her phone back from Boulares before repeatedly hitting him with it in the posh cafe.
She previously claimed she suffered a concussion in the horror in February and said even her dog was “traumatised”.
The star added: “They didn’t expect me to stand up for myself – but I did.”
Algerian national Boulares previously pleaded guilty to stealing the phone.
The teen also admitted common assault against fellow Joe and the Juice customer Carlo Kurcishi, who had stepped in to help.
Boulares pleaded guilty to a separate charge of theft after he swiped a black leather hand bag from a diner at a pizza restaurant.
The court heard he has 12 previous convictions for a total of 28 offences – all relating to theft.
Former Strictly Come Dancing contestant Wynne Evans has posted a video that he claims the BBC wouldn’t let him share with fans in amid a scandal on the show last year
The average teenage girl in the U.S. spends between $8 and $10 a month for rock ‘n’ roll records. Kids buy 80% of single records, 40% of albums sold each year. They accounted for an astounding $250 million of the $580 million spent for platters in 1964.
The highly publicized Beatles are, of course, top sellers in this market. Second place goes to a West Coast (Hawthorne, Calif.) group called the Beach Boys, who don’t even have a press agent. Nevertheless these lads have sold in excess of 10 million singles and albums.
Both organizations record for and are considered the ‘backbone’ of Capitol.
Don’t Ask
Just who are the Beach Boys? Don’t ask the teenagers around your domicile or you’ll rate a contemptuous look. It would be like inquiring of the average adult, “Who’s Bing Crosby, Perry Como or Frank Sinatra?”
The Beach Boys consist of three Wilson brothers—Brian, 23; Dennis, 21; Carl, 19—a cousin, Mike Love, 24; and a neighbor, Alan Jardine, 22. These lads got together about four years ago and with brother Brian elected boss-man decided to create a new concept in rock ‘n’ roll music based on the “social life” of teeners.
Musically awkward at the start, the five soon coordinated their strumming, thumping and wailing into harmonies with a hot rock beat.
First Hit
Then one day Dennis, Hawthorne’s camp “surf fiend” came home from the beach with an idea—a tune themed on the new surfing craze. He mulled it over with Brian, and the latter wrote “Surfin’.” The rookie artists waxed it at an obscure recording studio at their own expense. And sold it.
They were on their way to fame and fortune.
Leader Brian, rugged looking, intellectually inquisitive and mildly eccentric, admitted their rise to popular stardom was simple and uncomplicated. “There is little to tell about our long, bitter struggle for success, which never happened that way,” he declared.
“Expanded rock ‘n’ roll music is generally divided into ‘sound’ classifications,” he explained during an interview at Capitol Records. “There’s the English sound, which is still pretty much early r ‘n’r—they got it late; the Detroit sounds, which is rhythm and blues; and the Spector sound, which results from extensive use of background instruments not usually associated with rock ‘n’ roll, such as oboe, harp, violins, horns etc.
Works Fine
“Then there’s our West Coast sound, which we pioneered and which has put us at the top in record sales. Our songs (he writes most of them) tell stories about teeners; what they do and what their feelings are. We base them on activities of healthy California kids, who like to surf, hot rod and engage in other outdoor fun. It seems to be working out fine.”
Brian foresees a long continuance of this type of music. “We catch the kids young,” he said. “About 12, I’d say. Their social life is associated with their music, and as they grow older it has become part and parcel of their frame of mind.
“Naturally older teeners and those in their early 20s turn to a more discreet type of rock ‘n’ roil. They lose some of the rebelliousness of youth. But the beat has become so ingrained in their lives that they’ll never forsake it altogether. At least, that’s what we believe.”
Rock Show
The Beach Boys, who will star in a big rock ‘n’ roll show Saturday at the Hollywood Bowl, own quite a collection of gold records, awarded for platter sales of a million or more. Their latest single, “Help Me Rhonda,” which was taken from a new album, has ridden the top of the charts for weeks. Sales have exceeded 750,000. The album, called “Beach Boys Today,” is over 340,000 in eight weeks.
Personal appearances keep the Beach Boys occupied between recording sessions, and have proved lucrative. They receive as much as $20,000 guaranteed for one-night stands, plus a percentage of profits.
“Eventually we’ll cut these road trips down to a bare minimum,” Brian said. “But they’re certainly paying off right now. We’re looking for a good movie.”
Billy Joel’s life is awash in revelations these days — some bad, some worse.
Last month, the “Only the Good Die Young” singer-songwriter canceled all his upcoming concerts, revealing he was struggling with a brain disorder that causes a potentially reversible kind of dementia. Then last week, he divulged that he attempted suicide twice in his 20s after falling in love with his bandmate’s wife and causing the downfall of the band itself.
“I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker,” Joel says (via People) in the first half of the two-part documentary “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” which premiered last Wednesday and hits HBO Max in July. “I was just in love with a woman and I got punched in the nose, which I deserved.”
Joel said both he and his friend and Attila bandmate, Jon Small, were upset by what happened while Joel was living with Small and Small’s then-wife, Elizabeth Weber. So upset that Attila — a Led Zeppelin-inspired metal band, according to the New York Times — broke up and Joel started boozing, which sent him into a tailspin.
“I had no place to live,” Joel says in the documentary. “I was sleeping in laundromats, and I was depressed, I think to the point of almost being psychotic. So I figured, ‘That’s it. I don’t want to live anymore.’”
Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States’ first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
He tried twice to end his life in the early 1970s, according to the documentary. First, he took the entire lot of sleeping pills that his sister, then a medical assistant, had given him to help him sleep. That put him in the hospital.
“He was in a coma for days and days and days,” Judy Molinari says in the program. She thought she had killed her brother.
Joel says in the doc that he woke up in the hospital still suicidal, hoping to do it “right” the next time. His sister said he wound up drinking “lemon Pledge” furniture polish. That time, an unlikely person took him to the hospital: Small, his then-estranged best friend.
“Eventually,” Small says in the documentary, “I forgave him.”
As for those impulses to harm himself, they wound up paying off for Joel after he checked out of a facility he had checked himself into after the second suicide attempt.
“I got out of the observation ward and I thought to myself, you can utilize all those emotions to channel that stuff into music.”
Joel reconnected with Weber about a year after that, wrote about her in the 1973 song “Piano Man,” and married her from then until 1982. Marriages to Christie Brinkley, Katie Lee and current wife Alexis Roderick would follow.
The first part of the documentary covers Joel’s childhood and runs through his 1982 motorcycle accident, according to the New York Times. He doesn’t meet his “Uptown Girl,” Brinkley, until Part 2.
The 41-year-old held a news conference on Tuesday after spending his first day training with the Steelers and one of the last questions was about the ring.
“Yeah, it’s a wedding ring,” said Rodgers.
Asked how long he’s been married, he added: “It’s been a couple of months.”
Rodgers was released after a disappointing second season with the New York Jets, becoming a free agent for the first time in his 20-year career.
He had visited the Steelers and reportedly received an offer from the New York Giants, but in April, Rodgers said that he was “open to anything”, including retirement.
The 2011 Super Bowl winner previously said that he delayed his decision because of personal reasons and, earlier in Tuesday’s news conference, he said: “I was dealing with a lot of things in my personal life.
“Some things improved a little bit, where I felt like I could fully be all in here with the guys.
“I didn’t want to short-change the guys and be signed but be elsewhere mentally or physically. Until I could be here and be all in, I needed to take care of my business.”
Love Island returns later tonight with its new series and host Maya Jama has teased what to expect from her fashion choices throughout the ITV2 show this summer
Maya Jama has teased over her wardrobe for the new series of Love Island(Image: Instagram)
Host Maya Jama has teased over her wardrobe for the latest series of Love Island, which launches later tonight. The presenter returns to front the reality TV show as a dozen islanders enter the villa abroad for the first time.
Maya, 30, has been met with praise over outfits that she’s modelled hosting the ITV2 show in the past, with her fashion choices often complimented by fans. She has now teased what to expect from her wardrobe for the new series.
The presenter will join the original twelve islanders in the villa in Majorca on tonight’s launch episode as they get coupled-up for the first time and then return on occasion throughout the series. She’s teased that viewers can expect to see her in vintage-inspired designer looks.
She’s said to have showcased one example on a yacht last night as she made a “showstopping” entrance ahead of entering the villa itself. The “preloved” outfit consisted of a Versace one-piece swimsuit and sarong.
Maya Jama has teased that she will be wearing ‘vintage’ looks on the new series of Love Island(Image: Instagram)
Maya told the Sun: “We’re doing all archive, vintage, Nineties runway inspired.” The presenter, who has hosted Love Island since 2023, having taken over from Laura Whitmore, went on to say they are all from “hidden archives”.
She continued: “The designers have been hunting them down for the last few months for me. Everything should have a runway reference.” She suggested to the outlet that her wardrobe for the new series will be “very vintage”.
Maya then teased that she has chosen fashion options that she can’t “rip” or “ruin” during production of the reality TV show. She explained that that is because the vintage outfits have to “go back” after the host has worn them.
She shared photos of herself modelling the swimsuit on board the yacht on Instagram yesterday and wrote in the caption: “Having fun with it .. Love Island starts tomorrow at 9pm.” Maya later added: “Wearing full archive Versace.”
The presenter has already modelled a Versace swimsuit on a yacht for the show ahead of the launch episode airing tonight(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)
Tonight’s launch episode will introduce the first twelve islanders to viewers. It’s been announced that the process of them coupling-up for the first time will be “slightly different” this year, with Maya revealing the details to the girls, prior to the arrival of the first six boys taking part this series.
After getting the six of them to share their respective types with her, the presenter tells them: “This year things are slightly different. You’ve told me what your type on paper is, but does that match your ideal man in reality?”
As they line up, Maya announces: “Girls, in front of you there are six love hearts and each boy has given me their dating profile which is written on each of these hearts – shall we have a look at what these boys have to offer?”
Once they have looked at the profiles and discussed them as a group, they are given just seconds to make a decision on who to couple up with first. ITV has teased that they must run to a heart but only one girl is allowed at each one.
Love Island returns tonight at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.
TOO Hot To Handle star Chloe Veitch turned down a spot on I’m A Celebrity last year – but has begged bosses to sign her up for 2025.
Chloe, 25, who appeared on the Netflix show in 2020, revealed she was approached for Ant and Dec‘s jungle show.
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Netflix star Chloe Veitch says she turned down I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!Credit: YouTube
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Chloe shot to fame on Too Hot To Handle five years agoCredit: Chloe Veitch
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Chloe is a reality TV star turned presenterCredit: Splash
She told the Go With The Flo series on Youtube: “I would love to do I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!
“I haven’t actually told anyone this but I got offered to go on it before I ever filmed my first hosting show for Netflix.
“I had put it on my mood board, I’d been manifesting having my own show on Netflix for so long.
“I needed to turn down I’m A Celebrity.
“It’s crazy as you get to different stages in your career, you have to turn down opportunities that you thought would be the biggest opportunity you would get in your life.
“Give me all the camel penises!”
Chloe has just landed hosting duties on a show on Netflix called Sneaky Links.
The new dating experiment series features seven couples who aren’t in proper relationships.
On the show, each individual will determine whether they want to commit to their Sneaky Link or explore other options.
All 10 episodes of the new series are available to stream on Netflix now.
Sneaky Links: Dating After Dark slammed for epic twist on show premiere as new dating experiment leaves fans furious
Host of the show Chloe shot to fame on Netflix show Too Hot To Handle.
The 26-year-old reality starlet hails from Essex in England.
She is best known for her appearances in Too Hot To Handle, The Circle and Perfect Match, as well as now being the host of this new exciting dating experiment.
Since being in the public eye, Chloe has been linked to several fellow famous faced.
She had brief romantic connections with Mitchell Eason and Shayne Jansen.
And now she is in a long-term relationship with Joel Mutton, whom she appeared on MTV‘s Celebrity Ex On The Beach with.
It comes as The sun revealed I’m A Celebrity All Stars is casting now and has signed up a former Queen Of The Jungle for a second series of hit show.
