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Al Jardine has spent the vast majority of his long life in California, and as a founding member of the Beach Boys, he embodies the state like very few others. But he was actually born in the small town of Lima, Ohio, and lived there during his early childhood years. When Jardine returned to the state of his birth on Aug. 15 for an intimate show with the Pet Sounds Band at the Robins Theater in Warren, Ohio, he began the encore by telling the crowd they were about to do something they’d never done before.

“I think I did it with the Beach Boys back in 1973,” he said. “After about 50 years of not performing it, we had one little rehearsal today. It’s all about coming back to Ohio.” 

The true die-hards in the audience cheered since they knew he was referring to “Back Home,” which kicks off with the lyrics, “Well, I’m going back this summer to Ohio/I’m going to seek out all my friends I’ve always known/I’m going back to that farm that I remember.” 

Jardine was slightly off by dating it to 1973, but that’s understandable since the history of “Back Home” is oddly complicated. Brian Wilson wrote the song in 1963 with his buddy Bob Norberg, and the band cut a version that year during the Surfer Girl sessions that eventually leaked out to bootleggers. 

The band revisited it twice in 1970 during the Sunflower sessions, including one with Jardine on lead vocals and totally different lyrics, but they wound up shelving them both. It wasn’t until the 1976 15 Big Ones sessions that the band finally recorded a rendition of “Back Home” they deemed worthy of release, once again with Brian Wilson on lead vocals. It wasn’t a single, but Wilson sang it on Saturday Night Live with the house band in November 1976. And the Beach Boys performed it at least 41 times between July 1976 and October 1978.

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“Back Home” totally vanished from the live repertoire of the Beach Boys and their solo offshoots until Jardine went back home to Ohio for the show in Warren. It’s one of many overlooked Seventies gems he’s resurrected over the past year, including the entire 1977 Beach Boys Love You record, and “Sweet Sunday Kind of Love” and “She’s Got Rhythm” from 1978’s M.I.U. Album.

Jardine is the only Beach Boy on the road at the moment since Mike Love recently pulled all of his dates until Sept. 24, nearly 30 in total, following a string of lethargic performances. “We’ve been having a blast out there,” Love said in a statement, “and to keep the good vibrations going strong, we’ll be taking a short break to recharge before getting back on the road in September.”

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Some of the shows were canceled, and others were postponed until later in the year. The Oregon State Fair booked Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band to fill the empty slot. It’s one of many dates on their calendar through late October. Their set features several of the biggest surf-era Beach Boys hits, along with a near-complete performance of The Beach Boys Love You, and a large portion of Pet Sounds to honor the album’s 60th anniversary. 

On special occasions, they dig even deeper for a surprise like “Back Home.” It’s unclear how the show will continue to evolve in the future, but next year marks the 60th anniversary of the aborted Smile album. The only Smile song in their show now is “Heroes and Villains,” but that could easily change come 2027. 

Prior to iOS 15, Do Not Disturb on iPhone was a simple switch that let you silence all calls and notifications. But in 2021, Apple evolved this feature into Focus modes. Instead of one all-or-nothing toggle, you now have several customizable modes to choose what alerts you get in different situations. For example, you might limit notifications to only calls from contacts while driving, or suppress pings from work apps while you're off the clock.

Focus modes help you shift your device between the various roles it serves to declutter it and reduce distractions. The default modes are a great start, but there's the option to make your own as well. It takes a bit of time to set them up properly, but once you start using Focus modes, you'll enjoy fewer interruptions while also knowing that the right notifications will come through.

Introduction to Focus

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To start using Focus on your iPhone, open Settings and tap the Focus entry. We'll concentrate on iPhone here, but these configurations sync to your other Apple devices (including iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac) if you choose. You'll see a list of default modes like Personal, Sleep, and Work. Select one to personalize it.

Controlling notifications is done through two panels: People and Apps. In each, you'll need to choose either Allow Notifications From or Silence Notifications From. The first is good for modes like Sleep, where you only want to hear from a select group of people or apps. The second is better for modes like Work to selectively block noisy apps and people while letting everything else through.

Use the Add button in each panel to select as many contacts and apps as you want to mute or allow through. In the People section, you'll also notice an Allow Calls From toggle (if you've limited alerts to certain people). Select any contact groups you've set up, as well as broader options like Everybody, Allowed People Only, Favorites, and Contacts Only.

Unless you choose Everybody, you'll see an Allow Repeated Calls toggle to allow a second call from the same person within three minutes. If you've chosen to silence specific contacts, this changes to a toggle controlling whether they can still call you. In the Apps section, enable Time Sensitive Notifications to let such alerts through from other apps (like calendar reminders or food deliveries).

To complete the basic setup, hit Options to review a few self-explanatory toggles. In particular, Dim Lock Screen is a great way to de-emphasize your phone when you're trying not to use it as much or are in a dark environment.

Unique Focus features and adding your own

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Tap the Plus (+) icon on the Focus page to access other default Focus modes or set up a custom one. Several of these modes have unique properties beyond the general filters discussed above, mostly related to automatic activations:

• Driving: Configure an Auto-Reply to let people know you're driving. This can also be activated while you're driving with CarPlay or connected to your car's Bluetooth.
• Fitness: Turns on automatically when you start a workout in Fitness on your iPhone or using your Apple Watch.
• Gaming: Will activate when you connect a wireless gaming controller to your phone.
• Mindfulness: By default, this will turn on automatically when you start a session in the app of the same name.
• Sleep: This will turn on according to the sleep schedule you've set up in Health.

Custom Focus modes fill the gaps if the pre-made categories aren't enough. I have one called Calls Only that allows all calls to come through while muting all other alerts.

All modes (except Do Not Disturb) are customizable with an icon and color to help distinguish them at a glance; tap Edit on their page to change this. If you don't use one anymore, tap Delete Focus at the bottom to remove it from the list.

Making the most of Focus

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On the main Focus page, you'll spot two other toggles. With Share Across Devices enabled, setting a Focus mode on your iPhone will mirror it to other devices using your Apple account. In most cases, this is convenient; you don't want to get unwanted alerts on your Apple Watch while they're suppressed on your iPhone. If you turn it off, the status of every device works independently.

Turning on Focus Status means your contacts will see a message that you're in a Focus mode when they open an iMessage conversation with you. If they send a message and it's urgent, they have the option to notify you anyway. This is supposed to work across apps, but in practice it's not really supported outside iMessage. Your contacts won't see the name of the mode you're in, and you can disable it for individual modes if you prefer. You also have the option to stop sharing Focus status with specific contacts: Open their chat in iMessage, tap their name at the top, and disable Share Focus Status.

There's a related setting worth configuring that's not shown in the Focus menus: Emergency Bypass. With this, calls and/or texts from selected contacts will make noise, even if your phone is on silent or in a Focus mode. While great for people you absolutely must hear from, you should use it judiciously; a non-urgent call could ring while you're in a meeting or otherwise need silence. To enable it, open Contacts, select a person, and tap Edit at the top-right of their contact page. Hit Ringtone or Text Tone, then enable Emergency Bypass at the top. %!s()

Key Facts

Shares of SpaceX jumped more than 6% to near $150 as of Monday afternoon, adding to a nearly 87% surge since hitting an all-time low of $104 on Aug. 3.

A boost in SpaceX’s stock added $47.7 billion to Musk’s net worth, valued at $911.9 billion, ranking him the world’s richest person, well ahead of Google co-founder Larry Page ($281.4 billion) at No. 2 and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($268.8 billion) at No. 3.

Friday was the Securities and Exchange Commission’s deadline for institutional investors to disclose their stakes, including Harvard’s endowment, which revealed a roughly $2.2 billion stake—making SpaceX its largest stock holding.

Nvidia disclosed a nearly $21 billion stake totaling 122.8 million shares, while BlackRock disclosed an $8.7 billion stake, Gigafund Management revealed a $29.3 billion stake, and Fidelity disclosed a $51.6 billion stake.

Several billionaires unveiled equity in SpaceX: Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital disclosed a $3.2 billion stake, entities controlled by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund—the rocket maker’s first institutional investor—disclosed a roughly $73 billion stake and Hancock Prospecting, the mining firm owned by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, revealed a $1.3 billion stake.

surprising fact

Musk’s net worth dropped below $700 billion in July, marking the first time his fortune fell below that threshold since December, after SpaceX shares extended a 50% plunge from an all-time high on June 16. As of July 23, Musk’s net worth had declined by about $750 billion after peaking at $1.45 trillion.

key background

SpaceX’s stock has rebounded since hitting an all-time low, with its first earnings report appearing better than Wall Street anticipated. Shares briefly stumbled by 13% after SpaceX’s first-ever earnings, but several brokerages, including Morgan Stanley, Oppenheimer and Cantor, praised the firm’s financial success and argued its AI business outweighed concerns about its increased spending. JPMorgan analysts wrote SpaceX was benefiting from “extreme vertical integration” and noted its “pace of change in AI is incredibly fast,” and that a step-up in AI infrastructure and higher monetization could push SpaceX’s AI revenue to $100 billion in 2027.

further reading

ForbesElon Musk’s Wealth Sinks Below $700 Billion As SpaceX Rout ExtendsBy Ty Roush %!s()