Music
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Words for Words Without Music
Philip Glass has written a memoir. Philip Glass has written a memoir. The composer Philip Glass has written a memoir. Philip Glass has written a memoir. It begins in Baltimore. The composer Philip Glass has written a memoir. It begins…
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Seeking a Literary-Minded Music Editor
The Rumpus Music Editor oversees all aspects of the music section, including the ongoing series Albums of Our Lives and Songs of Our Lives. We are looking for someone who is savvy and knowledgeable in the intersection between literature and…
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Word Vomit
Jack-of-all-trades Nick Cave just pulled a J.K. Rowling, this time on barf bags rather than a cocktail napkin. During his 2014 tour with The Bad Seeds, the multimedia musician/writer/actor penned an entire book on the sides of airplane sick bags,…
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Cultural Constellations of Agee and Smith
But who said a chronology had to be straightforward?
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Songs of Our Lives: A Certain Ratio’s “All Night Party”
Even the girl busted for drunk driving before she was even old enough to get her license seemed impressed: “You and your parties! You guys are just crazy.”
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Sound & Vision: Shannon Conley
Hard-rocking artist Shannon Conley talks to Allyson McCabe about the exceptional more-than-a-tribute band Lez Zeppelin, her unconventional upbringing by Hindu Baptists, and her role as Yitzhak in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
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Songs of Our Lives: Look Blue Go Purple’s “Circumspect Penelope”
Distance always seduced me—distance from whatever was most familiar, especially myself—but the difficulties in achieving such remove vexed me.
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The Wind Cries Mary
Last week we highlighted Rachel Kaadzhi Ghansah’s piece, “A River Runs Through It,” over at The Believer. Now, she shares a playlist of tunes, recorded at Electric Lady Studios, to accompany the original article: “They all have one thing in common, and…
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Voodoo Chile
A decade ago, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah stopped by Electric Lady Studios; ten years later, she’s writing about it for The Believer: Maybe that’s why it’s difficult not to feel sentimental, blessed even, when one gets a chance to go inside.…
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One Man Choir
In the wake of D’Angelo’s Black Messiah, Dan Piepenbring waxes poetic on R&B groups, the state of the genre, and how, when it comes down to it, the swinging feel of a swinging chorus is all but irreplaceable: Not that…
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The Language and Experience of Solitude
Many times music and literature can evoke pretty similar feelings. That was the case for Kyle Kramer with Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild and Grouper’s latest album Ruins, as Kramer writes in a must-read essay over at Noisey.
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Sound & Vision: Brian McTear
Music producer Brian McTear talks with Allyson McCabe about building a studio centered on relationships with musicians, his non-profit Weathervane, and the end of the DIY era.