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Mark Kemp

Author, journalist, storyteller, music opinionator

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Tag: Option magazine

Featured, MusicMarch 17, 2022

The Black Crowes: Floating Down a River Called Denial

In my 2004 book Dixie Lullaby, I wrote about a confrontational encounter I had with Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes backstage in Los Angeles in 1992. This is the story of that incident.

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Featured, MusicDecember 11, 2021

Big Star’s Third: Fully Loaded

Billed as “The Fully Orchestrated Live Premiere of Big Star’s Third,” the core musicians included Mike Mills of R.E.M., Chris Stamey and Will Rigby of the dB’s, Mitch Easter of Let’s Active, and original Big Star drummer Jody Stephens.

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Featured, Music, News & CultureDecember 8, 2021

Beat Generation in the Generation of Beats

Chuck D looked at me quizzically, his furrowed brow barely showing beneath the bill of his black Raiders cap. “Sure,” the rapper said as I handed him a yellowed copy of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. “I’ll read it. Sounds interesting.”

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Featured, Music, News & CultureNovember 25, 2021

The Death of Sampling

TweetIn December 1991, Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy ruled that rapper Biz Markie’s song “Alone Again” violated copyright law when it took a digital sample from […]

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Featured, MusicNovember 3, 2021

Lisa Germano: Musical Therapy

Lisa Germano was one of the most interesting and adventurous musicians of the 1990s. Today, for some reason, she’s a mere footnote in the history of that era — an unsung heroine.

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Featured, Music, News & CultureAugust 6, 2021

Nathan Bell: Red, White and American Blues

Before the worst president in American history incited a deadly insurrection at the White House, singer-songwriter Nathan Bell asked me to write the liner notes for his latest album, Red, White and American Blues (it couldn’t happen here).

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Featured, MusicJuly 9, 2021

Fifteen Minutes with You: Lou Reed + John Cale

In July 1990, I landed my first magazine cover: a story on Velvet Underground co-founders Lou Reed and John Cale, who’d reunited to perform and record Songs for Drella, a tribute to their mentor, the late pop artist Andy Warhol.

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Featured, MusicJune 28, 2021

Vic Chesnutt: Famous By Association

In 1996, seven years after I wrote my first profile of the late Vic Chesnutt for Option magazine, I flew down to his Athens, Georgia, home to do this full feature for Rolling Stone.

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Featured, MusicJuly 17, 2020

The Pixies: Democracy, Cuban-style

Thirty years ago this August, The Pixies released their third album, Bossanova. That year, I sat down with Black Francis over rice and beans at a Cuban restaurant in Manhattan.

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Featured, MusicNovember 14, 2019

Yoko Ono: She Who Laughs Last

It’s been said that falling in love with John Lennon was the worst career move that Yoko Ono could have made.

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