Leaning into the Staten Island–ness of the UMCs’ origins and eventual brief success would be a disservice to Kool Kim and Haas G (who now goes by Past Perfect
The UMCs
Fruits of Nature
July 3rd, 2026 | by Kevin J. Ellliott | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
Leaning into the Staten Island–ness of the UMCs’ origins and eventual brief success would be a disservice to Kool Kim and Haas G (who now goes by
Smashing Pumpkins
Machina/The Machines of God
August 25th, 2025 | by Kevin J. Ellliott | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
Whatever one’s take on the Smashing Pumpkins’ critically mixed and commercially ignored 1998 album, Adore, it signaled a stylistic fugue for Billy
Unrest
Perfect Teeth
May 1st, 2025 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
Formed in 1983 while the band’s members were still in high school, Unrest made half a dozen or so eclectic full-length records before calling it a day after
Guinea Worms
Duct Tape You
April 1st, 2025 | by Kevin J. Ellliott | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
File under “things I should have listened to when I was handed them.“ The Guinea Worms’ Duct Tape You is a chunk of amber, preserved and blown out to make
The Starvations
Get Well Soon
March 14th, 2025 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
The early 2000s may very well end up being remembered as a particularly fertile musical period. After the grunge dust of the ‘90s had finally
Richard Thompson
(guitar, vocal)
April 25th, 2022 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
Over the course of his more than 50-year career, Richard Thompson has established himself as a virtuosic guitarist and a gifted songwriter. But in 1976
Joe Strummer
Assembly
April 19th, 2021 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
As much as music has always meant to me, I’ve never been one to get too emotional over the passings of the people who make it. (Unless, it’s someone I
Orchestra Baobab
Specialist in All Styles
October 12th, 2020 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
Begun 50 years ago, when the shrewd owner of Club Baobab (so named because it was built around a baobab tree) in Dakar poached members of the house
Wipers
Is This Real?
August 30th, 2020 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
Still several years before it became a hipster utopia worthy of it own sketch comedy TV show, I moved to Portland on a whim from New York City. It only took
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Souvenir
November 8th, 2019 | by Stephen Slaybaugh | published in Past Perfect | Leave A Comment »
While to mainstream audiences Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (a.k.a. OMD) may forever be remembered simply for “If You Leave,” their big U.S.