Jeff Tamarkin
For more than two and a half decades, Jeff Tamarkin has been a prolific music and popular culture journalist and historian. For 15 years he was Editor of Goldmine, the "bible" of record/CD collectors. Prior to that, he served as the first Editor of CMJ (College Media Journal) and as Editor of Relix. He was also the first Editor of Grateful Dead Comix, editor of Global Rhythm, has written for dozens of publications, including Boston Phoenix, Playbill, East Bay Express, Sing Out!, New York Daily News, Billboard, Pulse, Creem, Mojo, Newsday, Tracks and ICE, and has contributed to the Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music and the All-Music Guide.
The first biography of this legendary San Francisco band, it was written with the cooperation of all of the band members and placed the Airplane into the context of their times, the volatile 1960s. Got a Revolution! was named one of the best books of 2003 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Boston Phoenix, and received rave reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Austin Chronicle, New York Daily News, The Onion, Uncut and many others.
Jeff is currently the Associate Editor of JazzTimes. He lives in Hoboken, NJ, with his wife, the novelist and book columnist Caroline Leavitt, and their son, Max.
List of articles in the library by artist
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, October 1983
Goldmine: What was the impetus behind this reunion album and tour? The last time the original group was together was for the 1977 album, Before ...
Band, The: The Band: Life Is A Carnival
Essay by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, July 1991
THE QUINTET KNOWN as the Band never did get back together in that same, familiar aggregation. To this day, however, there is a band called ...
Bill Haley & His Comets: The Decca Years And More
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, April 1991
TO A CONTEMPORARY listener already mystified by '50s rock 'n' roll. Bill Haley might be the greatest mystery of all. Elvis's success is easy to ...
Blood Sweat & Tears, Al Kooper: Al Kooper: The Adventures Of Kooperman
Retrospective and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, February 1994
THE COVER of Rekooperation, Al Kooper's new album, his first in 12 years, is divided into 16 postage stamp-sized photographic portraits of the artist as ...
Profile and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, February 1991
LET'S PLAY the numbers game. According to Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1986, Pat Boone is the fifth highest-ranking artist in the history of the ...
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Harp, September 2007
"THERE IS only one thing I still don’t understand," Manu Chao says the day after his triumphant Bonnaroo set and not long after an equally ...
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Harp, March 2007
WHEN RY Cooder received a doctored photo in the mail, of a red cat in the guise of Leadbelly, he knew he had found a ...
J. Geils Band: Exclusive Interview with Peter Wolf
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, October 1983
1967 has gone down in history as the Summer of Love, not as the year for great white R&B bands forming. But it was during ...
Georgia Satellites: Fire The Retro Rockets
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, April 1987
"CREEM WAS always my favorite magazine when I was a kid," Rick Richards is saying, dreams of Boy Howdy running through his mind. "I remember ...
Jefferson Airplane: The Summer Of Haight
Retrospective and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, MOJO, April 2003
In January 1967, Jefferson Airplane were all set for take-off. But within months their dream was crumbling. Jeff Tamarkin on the destructive undercurrent to the ...
Jefferson Airplane's Joey Covington
Retrospective and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, December 1995
BORN IN EAST Conemaugh, Pennsylvania, Covington moved to Los Angeles, where he played in a band called Tsong before meeting the Airplane's male lead singer, ...
Jefferson Airplane: The End Of The Beginning: Jefferson Airplane at Altamont
Book Excerpt by Jeff Tamarkin, Helter Skelter Books, Summer 2003
THE VIOLENCE AT Altamont had begun before the Airplane even arrived, when a number of Hell’s Angels, who had been amassing near the stage, wantonly ...
Jefferson Airplane: The Jefferson Airplane Chronicles: Marty Balin
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Relix, April 1993
READING THE following interview, one might get a sense that there are two Marty Balins. ...
Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Skip Spence : Skip Spence and the Sad Saga of Moby Grape
Book Excerpt by Jeff Tamarkin, 'Got a Revolution', 2003
IN THE SUMMER of 1965, Jefferson Airplane decided to dismiss their first drummer, Jerry Peloquin. That's when a golden boy named Alexander "Skip" Spence came ...
Greg Kihn: Reckihning & Rolling
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, November 1984
EVEN IF YOU'VE never heard Greg Kihn's music, you probably know who he is – he's the character who comes up with dumb puns on ...
Long Ryders, The: Long Ryders: Bye Bye Byrdie
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, October 1987
LET'S JUST GET this part out of the way, since it's gonna come up anyway and maybe you're one of the ones who got pissed ...
Long Ryders, The: Long Ryders: Don't Call Us Country-Rock
Profile and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, January 1984
L.A. Band Following in Burrito Brothers' Footsteps ...
Yoko Ono: Scream And Scream Again
Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, September 1986
Yoko Ono: Beacon Theater, New York, May 22, 1986 ...
Yoko Ono: The Outsider Peeks Inside
Profile and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Global Rhythm, January 2004
THE WOMAN'S clothing is being snipped from her body. Systematically, one by one, 200 scissors-wielding strangers – and the woman's son – silently have a ...
Pogues, The: The Pogues: Aye, Laddie — We're Off To The Isle…
Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, June 1986
The Pogues: The World, New York NY ...
Ramones, The: Things Get Exciting Again for Ramones
Profile and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, November 1984
'Too Tough To Die' After 10 Years ...
Residents, The: The Residents: Eyeball To Eyeball
Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, June 1986
The Residents: The Ritz, New York, Jan. 16, 1986 ...
Righteous Brothers, The, Darlene Love: Bill Medley and Darlene Love: Righteous Brother and Sister
Retrospective and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, March 1994
THERE'S A point during Darlene Love's one-woman show, Portrait Of A Singer, where she's talking about singing background vocals on the Righteous Brothers' 1966 #1 ...
Scorpions, The: Scorpions: Around the World
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Circus, November 1985
IT TOOK THE Scorpions more than a dozen years to do it, but there now remains no doubt that the Hannover, West Germany-based rockers have ...
Scorpions, The: The Scorpions: From Europe To Video Domination
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Circus, August 1985
AFTER SPENDING virtually all of 1984 on the road, rocking fans on four continents, you'd think Scorpions needed a break. So they did, and they ...
Brian Setzer: Stray Cats No More
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, June 1986
BRIAN SETZER has been keeping a mental list. Everyone he's spoken to lately seems to think his first post-Stray Cats album, The Knife Feels Like ...
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Harp, September 2006
PF SLOAN was a 19-year-old bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders when he wrote the protest classic 'Eve of Destruction' back in ...
List of genre pieces
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Goldmine, December 1990
THE MOST AMAZING thing about Dick Clark is not that "America's Oldest Living Teenager" still fits that role at age 61. It's not that he's ...
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