Mark Kemp
Mark Kemp is the author of Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race & New Beginnings in a New South (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2004; The University of Georgia Press, 2006). Mark has written new and features, columns, essays and reviews since the late 1980s for Option, Rolling Stone, THe New York Times, The Charlotte Observer, Harp, Paste, Business North Carolina and many other publications. He has served as music editor of Rolling Stone and vice president of music editorial for MTV Networks.
In 1997 he received a Grammy nomination for his liner notes to Farewells & Fantasies, a three-disc retrospective of music by ’60s protest folksinger Phil Ochs.
Mark began his journalism career in the early ’80s as a reporter at the Times-News of Burlington, N.C., and later as an editor at the science magazine Discover. In the early ’90s, he served as editor of the Los Angeles-based Option magazine, one of the chief chroniclers of the post-punk indie and alternative rock, hip-hop, contemporary jazz and avant-garde scenes, as well as a rich source of information on musical styles and trends from other countries and cultures.
In 2002, he returned to his home state of North Carolina where he continues to write about music, business and culture for a variety of publications and websites.
83 articles
List of articles in the library
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals: Jacksonville City Nights
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 27 September 2005
RYAN ADAMS got his PhD in bad behavior from decrepit old Rock 'n' Roll University, where he studied all the greats: Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, ...
Backstreet Boys, One Direction: Just me and the boybands…
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 21 June 2012
IT WAS BEGINNING to get very surreal. For months we'd been broadcasting live out of a brand-new studio overlooking Times Square, first as MTV Live, ...
The Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth: Thurston Moore and Mike D: Starpower
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1992
THE SCENE: A TRENDY RESTAURANT in L.A. called the Hollywood Canteen. Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth is sitting in a corner booth, slouched over a ...
The Beastie Boys: Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique – 20th Anniversary Remastered Edition
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 19 February 2009
IN 1989, FEW people imagined that the bratty trio who took "You Gotta Fight for Your Right" to the Top 10 would do more than ...
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, March 1994
Why do people like Beck? You know he's a loser, definitely. How do you fans like a song about Beck being a loser? He isn't ...
Beck: #1 Artist of the Year: Beck
Report and Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 23 January 1997
ONE NIGHT a few years ago, I was doing laundry with Beck in Los Angeles, listening to him ruminate on whether he might be a ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 13 June 1996
THE BIG QUESTION that followed the runaway success of Beck Hansen's major-label debut, Mellow Gold, was: Can this precocious child of bohemian stock survive one-hit ...
Beck: The Rolling Stone Interview
Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 17 April 1997
"YOU gotta do the chicken thing again." Beck's manager interrupts the 26-year-old singer's lunch on the set of the British popular music show TFI Friday ...
Cindy Lee Berryhill, Kirk Kelly, Lach, Michelle Shocked, Roger Manning: New Folk: Folk You
Report and Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, November 1988
IT'S ANOTHER sweaty, late June New York City Friday evening, and Michelle Shocked is walking eastward across Chinatown's busy Canal Street. ...
Bob Mould, Jello Biafra: Bob Mould and Jello Biafra: Two Faces of Punk
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1991
CLAWING THEIR WAY INTO THE '90S, BOB MOULD & JELLO BIAFRA EXPLORE THE PERSONAL & THE POLITICAL ...
Bikini Kill: Reject All American (Kill Rock Stars) ****
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 16 May 1996
ON THEIR SECOND full-length album, Bikini Kill take some surprisingly gentle turns, supplementing their fiery, bash-'em-in-the-face punk with sweetly seductive pop. ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 3 July 2007
WHEN MADONNA OR DAVID BOWIE enlists the latest production gurus to spice up their music, the results frequently come off sounding desperate, as if the ...
The Black Crowes: Good Olde Boys: The Black Crowes didn't do it
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, L.A. Weekly, 19 November 1992
The point is that, like Richard Hell says, rock'n'roll is an arena in which you re-create yourself, and all this blathering about authenticity is just ...
The Bottle Rockets: The Brooklyn Side
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 19 October 1995
ON THEIR MAJOR-LABEL DEBUT, the Bottle Rockets achieve what Lynyrd Skynyrd often tried to do but never quite pulled off. Without sacrificing their identity as ...
David Bowie: All the Young Dudes
Report and Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 6 March 1997
A cast of modern rockers helps DAVID BOWIE celebrate his 50th ...
David Bowie: Sound + Fisson: David Bowie: Earthling (RCA Records) ***½
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 20 February 1997
David Bowie breaks it down on his new album, Earthling ...
The Breeders: Mountain Battles
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 31 March 2008
The Deal sisters stumble back into the sunshine for another winning set of delicate heartbreakers. Four songs into Mountain Battles, Breeders singer/guitarist Kim Deal announces ...
Buffalo Tom, Giant Sand, Sebadoh: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Mark Kemp, L.A. Weekly, 4 June 1992
IN A PERFECT world, this hot bill would have been inverted. Sincere as Buffalo Tom is, the group's latest album, Let Me Come Over, doesn't ...
Jimmy Buffett: Q&A: Jimmy Buffett
Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 22 August 1996
IT'S BEEN nearly 20 years since Jimmy Buffett bided his time wasting away in Margaritaville. Today, rock's romantic poet-pirate has become a virtual one-man theme ...
R.L. Burnside, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: R.L. Burnside: A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey (Matador) **½
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 22 August 1996
...
John Cale, Lou Reed: John Cale/Lou Reed: 15 Minutes With You
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1990
THE HECKLER'S voice sounded its fury like a cannon about midway through Lou Reed and John Cale's performance of Songs For Drella, a pop requiem ...
Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (Legacy Edition)
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, October 2008
IN THE DOCUMENTARY included with this new edition of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, daughter Rosanne shatters the mythology surrounding her dad, gently bringing him ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 11 September 2007
FOUR SONGS into La Radiolina, an onslaught of beefy, staccato guitar chords chop like butcher knives into a mix of vertigo-inducing electronics and air-raid sirens. ...
Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, R.E.M., Vic Chesnutt: Michael Stipe: What Are Friends For
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, September 1990
2 SODA FOUNTAIN glasses full of strawberry-banana smoothie, a plate of nachos covered with melted cheese, a gorgeous Manhattan spring afternoon: what more could a ...
Vic Chesnutt: Famous By Association
Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 19 September 1996
Vic Chesnutt joins in his rock & roll heroes in the spotlight ...
Cindy Lee Berryhill: Beat Poetry
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Spin, June 1989
Cindy Lee Berryhill, a bowl of musical trailmix, left California for New York. But she brought a lot of folklore with her. ...
Live Review by Mark Kemp, L.A. Weekly, 17 December 1992
IN MARKED contrast to Nirvana, Rocket From the Crypt's five clean-cut jocks looked like working-class heroes when they walked onstage Sunday night. They had short ...
Coolio: My Soul (Tommy Boy) ***
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 21 August 1997
Paradise Lost ...
Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 14 December 1995
Coolio completes his fantastic voyage from the mean streets of Los Angeles to the top of the pop charts ...
Obituary by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 27 November 1997
Country-pop star dies in plane crash ...
Drive-By Truckers: A Blessing and a Curse
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 12 April 2006
PATTERSON HOOD SUMS UP Drive-By Truckers' new album, A Blessing and a Curse, in one line of the closing track: "To love is to feel ...
Aretha Franklin: The First Lady: Aretha Franklin, 1942-2018
Obituary by Mark Kemp, Rock's Backpages, 16 August 2018
CHILDHOOD MEMORY: I'm ten years old and sitting on the floor in the living room of the family home in the early 1970s, vinyl albums ...
Fugazi: Red Medicine (Dischord) ***½
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 13 July 1995
FUGAZI HAVE never been quite as one-dimensional as their critics would have it. On their first full-length album, 1990's Repeater, the D.C. quartet reinvented the ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 15 December 1994
"IT DOESN'T FEEL good to be stuck," Lisa Germano says, as she surveys the opening of a dark tunnel that cuts a 30-foot passageway through ...
Golden Smog: Tramps, New York NY
Live Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 30 May 1996
THE PROBLEM with supergroups is that they have no center of gravity. Try finding a predominant vision in the music of rock's original supergroup, Blind ...
The Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee Pierce: Jeffrey Lee Pierce 1958-1996
Obituary by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 16 May 1996
AS THE guitarist and singer for the Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee Pierce unleashed the primal passion of the blues onto Los Angeles' thriving early '80s ...
Merle Haggard: Down Every Road (Capitol) ****
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 2 May 1996
COUNTRY'S FIGHTIN' FUGITIVE ...
Buddy Holly: Down the Line: Buddy Holly
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Texas Music, January 2009
WHEN THE FIRST gentle notes ring from Buddy Holly's acoustic guitar on his cover of Mickey & Sylvia's 'Dearest', you could swear it was recorded ...
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: Lightning Rod
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 19 February 2009
Ex-Trucker takes on heartland rock and brooding weepers. ...
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1948-1997
Obituary by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 2 October 1997
STAR OF PAKISTAN DEAD AT 48 ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 28 March 2018
THE YEAR WAS 2008. Charlotte-based Russian guitar virtuoso Vadim Kolpakov was onstage in front of 60,000 Madonna fans packed into Park Izvor in Bucharest, Romania. ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 21 September 1995
IN THE TITLE TRACK of Lenny Kravitz's new album, the singer struggles with the dictates of reality that come to bear on fantasy. "Welcome to ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 12 December 2006
SOPHOMORE SLUMP? What sophomore slump? On the follow-up to Get Lifted, the Grammy-winning multi-platinum debut from John Legend, the one-time session man chucks the simple ...
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Paste, October 2007
ONE OF THE MORE telling songs in John Lennon's solo catalog is the tender 'Look at Me.' Not the well-scrubbed version on his first album, ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd: On Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ed King, and Trayvon Martin
Letter by Mark Kemp, Rock and Rap Confidential, 17 July 2013
JUST WANTED to let you folks at RRC know that Ed King, ostensibly one of the more enlightened original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a former member ...
Madonna: Time Warner Cable Arena, Charlotte, NC
Live Review by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 16 November 2012
IF YOU WALKED away from the Madonna spectacle Thursday at Time Warner Cable Arena with only the image of the 54-year-old pop icon's ultra-fit ass ...
Comment by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 14 November 2012
WHEN MADONNA drolly announced to fans packed into the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24, that "we have a black Muslim in the ...
Meat Puppets Saved By Show Biz
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1995
IT WAS LIKE A MIRAGE. The Meat Puppets ambled onstage at the KROQ Christmas Party last December, and nearly every member of the largely teenaged ...
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 16 May 2018
THE SINGER AND guitarist for the Mighty Shamrocks was packing up his gear one night after an early-'80s pub gig in the Bogside neighborhood of ...
Thurston Moore: Psychic Hearts
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 1 June 1995
THURSTON MOORE has said that although he's flattered when younger bands cite Sonic Youth as an influence, it would be nice if the group were ...
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, May 1991
MANCHESTER IS 185 RAILROAD MILES NORTH OF LONDON, LINKED BY SIGNPOSTS THAT READ RUGBY, BIRMINGHAM, AND STOKE-ON-TRENT; BY SPRAWLING MISTY GREEN MEADOWS, GUSHING STREAMS, AND ...
Morrissey: Wake Me When It's Over
Interview by Mark Kemp, Select, July 1991
The Manchester scene is press-created, shallow, turgid, "a shuddering disappointment". Dance music has destroyed everything, it's "totally shocking and revolting". You are Morrissey and 1991 ...
My Bloody Valentine: Beauty In The Beast
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, March 1992
WELCOME TO "God's Own Country," as a Texas politician recently decribed his home on the range, "where the grass grows tall and the wind blows ...
Me'Shell Ndegeocello: The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance of the Infidel
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 1 August 2005
WITH THE EXCEPTION OF BECK, no popular artist since Prince has jumped so freely from one genre to the next on each successive album. What ...
Phil Ochs: Pioneers: Phil Ochs
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Texas Music, Spring 2009
WHEN CONVERSATION turns to the great lyricists of the '60s and '70s, Bob Dylan's name invariably comes first. Then maybe John Lennon, Neil Young, Bob ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1992
LIVING WELL may be the best revenge, but vindication is just as sweet. In Yoko Ono's case, the payback is that while many of her ...
Dolly Parton: Backwoods Barbie **½
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone Online, 6 March 2008
NO MATTER how flamboyantly pop Dolly Parton's music became in the early Eighties, she was always a country girl at heart. ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 2 February 1998
WHAT DOES A defiantly anti-corporate rock band do when it starts getting too much attention? In Pavement's case, they recoil. ...
The Pixies: Democracy Cuban Style
Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, January 1991
"OH, DON'T print this," Black Francis says, in a gentle voice, catching himself midway through a tell-all about a one-time Spider From Mars. "What if ...
PM Dawn: P.M. Dawn: Jesus Wept (Gee Streel/Island)
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 2 November 1995
JESUS WEPT is a multitracked feast of guitar rock, pillow-soft pop, moody psychedelia and sugary-sweet R&B with only one straight-up rap track on the entire ...
Iggy Pop: American Caesar (Virgin) ****
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 14 October 1993
IGGY POP'S LAST ALBUM, Brick by Brick (1990), seemed as if it might be his swan song — one last blast of creative juice after ...
Public Enemy: Hank Shocklee: Turntable Terrorist
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, May 1991
WHEN NEW YORK hiphop filtered down from Harlem and the Bronx into the suburbs of Long Island around the turn of the last decade, a ...
R.E.M.: New Adventures In Hi-Fi (Warner Bros.) **** ½
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 19 September 1996
New Day Rising: R.E.M. make a great new album in the face of disaster ...
Radiohead: Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer (reissues)
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Paste, 27 March 2009
WHILE THE BRITISH PRESS argued over whether Oasis' Definitely Maybe or Blur's Parklife would be the savior of mid-'90s U.K. rock, Radiohead sneaked a spanner ...
Radiohead: OK Computer (Capitol) ****
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 10 July 1997
THE DAYS of whine and poses may be over, but don't tell that to Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. He has survived the demise of grunge ...
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Paste, 8 November 2007
Original debut and outtakes cast Boston rockers as America's lost Stones ...
The Rolling Stones: Bridges To Babylon (Virgin) ****
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 2 October 1997
ON THEIR last two albums, the Rolling Stones proved that they still had verve and stamina, and that they could re-create the sounds of their ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 1 December 1994
AS A SONGWRITER, Lou Barlow is the Joni Mitchell of indie rock's low-fi chic. His simple, often acoustic-based pop melodies are packed with twisted, unresolved ...
Sebadoh: Harmacy (Sub Pop) ***½
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 5 September 1996
FOR YEARS, the '60s-garage-style dissonance and folk-inspired melodicism of this prolific indie band have been associated with the low-fi movement. But Sebadoh really make high-risk ...
Shakira: Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 (Epic)
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 23 August 2005
Beyond the Belly: Colombian songstress trumps lazy stereotypes with raw talent ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 16 July 2002
THE FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD mall rats who recorded Silverchair's mid-Nineties debut, Frogstomp, got plenty of flak from folks who couldn't get beyond the band's preoccupation with Pearl ...
Jessica Simpson: Gone Country: On Jessica Simpson's Nashville Conversion
Comment by Mark Kemp, Texas Music, January 2009
ASIDE FROM HIP-HOP, country music is the most wildly popular musical style people love to hate. The Bottle Rockets once wrote a song about a ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 8 May 2007
ONE DAY in the late 1990s, not long after his sublime performance of 'Miss Misery' in between the bombast of Celine Dion and bravado of ...
The Sonics' 'Witch' Craft: Huntersville Resident's 1960s Garage-Rock Band Invented Punk
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 17 May 2017
WHEN MILD-MANNERED Rob Lind isn't on the links at Birkdale Golf Club with his wife Suzanne, or on his boat with his son Robbie during ...
Sublime: Bradley Nowell: Life After Death
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 25 December 1997
Two months before the release of his band's finest album, Bradley Nowell stuck a needle in his arm and died. In the 18 months since, ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 9 December 1993
BEFORE UNCLE TUPELO'S No Depression sneaked out of Belleville, Ill., in 1990, the respective sounds of Sonic Youth and Lynyrd Skynyrd probably never occupied a ...
Interview by Mark Kemp, Harp, December 2006
Whackv.tr.1. To strike (someone or something) with a sharp blow; slap.2. Slang: To kill deliberately; murder.n.1. A sharp, swift blow.2. The sound made by a ...
Lucinda Williams: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (Deluxe Edition)
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, 1 February 2007
The story of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is long and winding. ...
List of genre pieces
And Now, For Something Completely Different
Comment by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 11 May 2005
HAVING SERVED as The Charlotte Observer's entertainment editor for the past two and a half years, I've often picked up the latest issue of Creative ...
Welcome to Fez: The Sacred Music Capital of the World
Report and Interview by Mark Kemp, unpublished, 1 June 2010
"The city of Fez lies below, very slowly disengaging itself from the morning mist and smoke, while a million cocks crow at once." Paul Bowles, 1947 ...
Comment by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1992
"We have been more unified in the last four days than we have been in the last 30 years...To the brothers and sisters out there: ...
Report by Mark Kemp, Option, May 1989
"You see you misunderstood A sample's just a tactic. It's a portion of my method, A tool in fact. It's only of importance When I ...
Book Excerpt by Mark Kemp, Novello Festival Press, April 2008
Essay published in music anthology: Wicker, Ann, ed., Making Notes: Music of the Carolinas. Charlotte, NC: Novello Festival Press, April 2008. ISBN: 0615159699 ...
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