JAKE UITTI

Today (June 6), the Alaska-born and Portland, Oregon-based band Portugal. The Man released its latest album, an EP titled uLu Selects Volume 2. The four-song work marks the latest offering from the Grammy Award-winning group since their 2023 LP, Chris Black Changed My Life.

Back in the day—say, the 1970s and 1980s—NBA teams had two jerseys. One for home games and one for away games. The home games were always white, to distinguish on television and in person who was the home team, and the away games were darker and more colorful. That’s just the way it was.

Peter Buck, the former lead guitarist for the iconic rock band R.E.M., is one of the most prolific and collaborative artists you can ever meet. Over a handful of decades making music, he’s worked in seemingly countless projects. But his latest offering is a new supergroup with Barrett Martin, Duke Garwood, Alain Johannes, and Lisette Garcia called Drink the Sea.

On Friday (May 30), the Madison, Wisconsin-born rock band Garbage will release their newest LP, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light. The music on the record is a testament to seeing the world with new eyes. Eyes that want to see more.

Two-time NBA All-Star Reggie Theus remembers the 1981 playoffs. In a “big time” opening round series, his Chicago Bulls faced the New York Knicks. The first game tipped off in one of the world’s most famous arenas, Madison Square Garden, and it included stars such as Artis Gilmore, Bill Cartwright and Michael Ray Richardson. The Bulls won game one and went on to win the series, playing Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics in the next round. Theus scored 37 points in the clincher against New York, an overtime victory in the Windy City. But it was a thrill he never quite felt again.

Natalie Bergman is numinous. The spiritual-minded artist writes songs that seem to have been around for decades, perhaps even hundreds of years. And yet they are brand new. With a blend of gospel, doo-wop, rock, and soul, Bergman offers an authentic bent on music that is timeless.

Wow. That’s the only word that can be used to describe what happened Monday night in the National Basketball Association.

To start the night, the Dallas Mavericks, after trading away generational superstar Luka Dončić, won the 2025 draft lottery, giving them the right to take Duke standout Cooper Flagg. Then, just two hours later, Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum injured himself so badly that it’s likely he’s out for a long time. Things happen quickly in the NBA.

Welcome to Act III of the 2024-25 NBA season. It was a rough start for the league this year. People came out of the woodwork to criticize it, offering wild solutions, and pointing out the low early season TV ratings. But then the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers and things got real interesting in Act II.

Now, though, we’re in the third portion of the season and it couldn’t be more exciting. Indeed, we seem far away from those calls for sweeping change. Let’s look at five players who have wowed us and taken us to the edge of our seats in this third act.

Dave Matthews, the recently inducted Rock & Roll Hall of Fame legend, says he still gets nervous before a gig. Talking backstage at the Wells Fargo Autograph Card exclusive event in Houston, Texas, on Friday night (May 2), Matthews joked about his fear of stepping on stage and bombing. But of course, that was the furthest thing from happening when the songwriter took up his acoustic in front of an intimate audience of a few hundred fans at the White Oak Music Hall over the weekend.

When Tarik El-Abour was in middle school, his teacher asked him and his classmates a simple question. What do you want to be when you grow up? When it was time for him to answer, El-Abour gave a reply that thousands of children have said before. He wanted to be a baseball player. But his teacher shot back with something less than encouraging: “You’d better have a Plan B.” El-Abour, who was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, remained undeterred. Rather than listening to his pessimistic instructor, he distanced himself from her.

In 2016, when songwriter and performer K.Flay released her hit single, “Blood in the Cut,” it marked a major moment in her career. The rhythmic breakup track and the album it was released on, Every Where Is Some Where, each earned Grammy nominations a couple of years later in 2018, including one for Best Rock Song. The future seemed bright.

This weekend, the NBA playoffs officially begin. After 82 games, the in-season tournament and the play-in games, it’s been a long trek to get here. But the reward is a rollicking couple of months of top-notch competition between some of the best athletes in the world. Incredibly, though, the field is as wide open this year as its ever been.

Rhiannon Giddens is a flame-keeper. At any given moment, she is keeping history alive. Music alive. Stories alive. Authenticity alive. But she does all this in a way that bridges academic prestige with pop culture sensibilities. After all, she earned a Pulitzer Prize and has been featured prominently on Beyoncé songs. Who does that?

If you were to find some mysterious, enticing doorway—maybe it shows itself along a path somewhere you’ve taken a million times before—would you open it and walk through? And if you did, as you meandered through the dimly lit tunnels, hoping to find some magical end, some pot of gold or key truth that would change you forever, who might you hope to see at the end of the long hallways to greet you? Probably someone like Bootsy Collins, that’s who. Collins, who released his latest studio album, Album of the Year #1 Funkateer, on April 11, is the type of person who can illustrate an idea as if reading it from a tome of spells. He can pick up a bass and mesmerize. Or you can look into his eyes and simply ask, “What is the secret?”And then he answers.

The business of sports is about winning. But that, of course, doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of losers out there. That’s most evident every year in the NBA around the first day of spring. With about a dozen games left in the regular season, it’s obvious which teams are also-rans – and they have probably known that for some time. But when a team are losing and losing often, how does that affect the roster? How do the players deal with the constant lows?