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User:Factelf4/Mark A. Josephson

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Mark Josephson was a music promoter and entrepreneur who founded Rockpool Promotions and was a co-founder of the New Music Seminar.

Early Life

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Josephson was raised in New York City. He attended Ethical Culture Fieldston School and graduated with an B.A. from Brown University[1].

Career

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His career began as a freelance music reviewer for the Soho News and Village Voice[1]. He also worked for RCA Records, promoting college and alternative radio stations[2].

In 1979, he founded Rockpool Promotions[3], a record pool promoting primarily rock and new wave records, to which DJs subscribed[4] to give them access to the emerging alternative, rap, and dance music markets. He also began Rockpool Magazine[5]

He co-founded The New Music Seminar (NMS) with Tom Silverman, Danny Heaps, Joel Webber, and Scott Anderson[6]. NMS was an annual music festival and conference that ran from 1980 to 1995. At its peak, the NMS attracted more than 8,000 people from 35 countries, influencing emerging trends in the music industry[7]. Josephson’s support of the musical fringes and the underdogs helped lead NMS to champion the spread of new genres like reggae, hip hop, house music, and early NY performances from radical new artists from Nirvana to Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force to Dave Matthews[8][9]. Josephson was interviewed by Lou Reed on MTV in 1986[10]

In 1992, Josephson bought the NMS from Silverman[11] and left in 1994[12]. Rockpool magazine ended the same year. From 2013 to 2016, he was Executive Director at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, NJ[13].

  1. ^ a b "MARK JOSEPHSON Obituary (1955 - 2021) - New York, NY - New York Times". www.legacy.com. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  2. ^ Musician, Player, and Listener. Amordian Press. 1981.
  3. ^ Inc, Nielsen Business Media (1985-06-08). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  4. ^ Puterbaugh, Parke; Puterbaugh, Parke (1983-11-10). "Anglomania: The Second British Invasion". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  5. ^ Mattson, Kevin (2020). We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-090823-2.
  6. ^ Setaro, Shawn. "Tom Silverman On The New Music Seminar Past And Present, The Future Of The Industry, And More". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  7. ^ "Mark Josephson Dies: New Music Seminar And Rockpool Entrepreneur Was 65". Washington News Post. 2021-03-04. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  8. ^ "THOMAS SILVERMAN FROM TOMMY BOY ENTERTAIMENT ON THE PASSING OF THE NEW MUSIC SEMINAR'S MARK JOSEPHSON – Times Square Chronicles". Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  9. ^ "New York in 1984 was the time, and the place, dance music became a culture". Mixmag. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  10. ^ "Read This: MTV's 120 Minutes turns 30, remains source of YouTube gold". News. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  11. ^ LLC, SPIN Media (November 1992). SPIN. SPIN Media LLC.
  12. ^ Strauss, Neil (1994-07-20). "New Music Seminar: Total Immersion (Published 1994)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  13. ^ "Mark Josephson Dies: New Music Seminar And Rockpool Entrepreneur Was 65". uk.news.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
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