User:Factelf4/Mark A. Josephson

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

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

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

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

He co-founded The New Music Seminar (NMS) with Tom Silverman, Danny Heaps, Joel Webber, and Scott Anderson. 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. 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. Josephson was interviewed by Lou Reed on MTV in 1986

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