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When I first contacted Craig Marks about being featured in UAlbany Magazine, he was the “last music editor standing” at the L.A. Times. A few weeks and some sweeping layoffs later, his X (formerly Twitter) bio read “former last music editor standing.” He still agreed to do this interview.  

Marks is no stranger to shake-ups in publishing. As a seasoned music journalist and executive editor – at CMJ, SPIN, Blender and Billboard, to name a few – he has shepherded major publications through the seismic print-to-digital shift that occurred over the more than three decades he’s been in the business. He’s not taking the layoff personally. “The latest stab wound to journalism is AI,” he tells me, and he’s not worried about his next career move. “It may involve a full-time job. It may not. Either way, it's fine.”

Marks has both reported on music and pop culture and shaped it. “I’m an editor in my DNA,” he says, and his philosophy is this: “I want the writers to be read.” Despite his keen editorial and commercial instincts, he admits that getting read has become more of a challenge since the internet saturated all of us with content, and especially now that robot-generated content dominates search engine results.

Before recording artists took control of their own narratives with social media, journalists had the kind of access to popular musicians that is unheard of today. In 1995, for SPIN’s February cover story, Marks spent a week with Courtney Love as she and her band, Hole, toured just months after her husband and lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide. The article’s sub-headline reads, “As Love publicly contends with her grief and her career, Craig Marks bears witness.”

In 2011, Marks coauthored I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. It’s a compilation of over 400 interviews with artists, executives and video directors that provides an oral history/eyewitness account of the inception and (arguable) heyday of the network.

Most of those interviews were done in person, some on the phone when necessary, but certainly not over Zoom, Marks mentions, as he and I use the platform to face each other on our computer screens. It’s 8 a.m. in Los Angeles when I tell him I blocked out an hour for our interview but offer an out if he has a hard stop before that. “We’ll see how it goes,” he says.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

UAlbany Magazine: So, I have to ask because our magazine team is a little obsessed with the Mayfest concert in 1983 where U2 played on our very own Dutch Quad. Were you there?

Craig Marks: I'm sure I was, although to be honest, I can't recall that particular Mayfest.  I do recall seeing U2 on their very first tour of America, at a club in Albany called J.B. Scott’s in 1981. Bono was given a J.B. Scott's T-shirt, and then in a later U2 video, he was wearing the J.B. Scott's T-shirt. So that is the U2-Albany connection that is clearest in my mind.  

UAMag: Well that’s a good one. Since we're talking about Albany, can you tell me about your experience here at the University, as a DJ for WCDB and writing for the Albany Student Press (ASP)?  

CM: Sure. I grew up on Long Island, came to SUNY Albany, was very interested in music when I got there – and in the kind of music in 1979 that not many people were interested in, which was punk and new wave. And through CDB, the college radio station, I met a number of like-minded people.

The radio station then was in a transitional stage – musically at least – from playing the fringes of the ’70s singer-songwriter rock to new wave and punk and independent rock.

I don't know what made me volunteer for CDB and then later the ASP, but that's how I not just met people who were into music that I was, but friends who I still have relationships with, roommates that I lived off campus with, drinking partners for junior and senior year. That plus the ASP were the things that led me to my career.

UAMag: I read some of your old music reviews from the ASP in the archives.

CM: Oh, God.  

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UAMag: What was the local music scene like while you were here?  

CM: At CDB, especially when the station went from 10 watts to 100 watts, we were a pretty important part of the music scene for national emerging bands.

It was really at the beginning when college radio became this unified force, not just CDB, but all the college stations. They all had very small footprints, but then combined, when an artist or a band would put out a new record on an independent or a major label, getting airplay on those college stations became important to the record companies.

Albany was in a reasonably major market, but even more importantly for a touring band, it was the stop you'd make before you played Boston and New York City. It became an important place to help break bands.  

So with U2, the reason they played Albany was because it was sort of a warm-up date for the really impactful shows for their first American tour in Boston, which is obviously a very major college town and a big market, and then New York.

And the same was true for a lot of bands that would come through town.  

At that point, there was a big revival in England of Ska Bands – a band called The Specials and The Beat, they would come and play J.B. Scott’s. That was the main club, on Central Ave, that was – I'm just guessing here from memory – 300, 400 capacity. And they would have local bands who couldn't play, but also all these national touring bands would come there.  

Bands would also come to the bigger venues. The Palace Theater, I believe it was called?

UAMag: Yep. Still around.  

CM: Well, for what it's worth, the best show I have ever seen in my life was the Talking Heads on their Remain in Life tour. They played at the Palace Theater. I ran into David Byrne a couple of years ago and told him that was the best show I ever saw. But he didn't remember.  

UAMag: Aw, I guess he’s played a lot of shows.

CM: Anyway, we were most interested at that time at the radio station in airing national bands or international bands. The program director and the music director would then report the playlist for the week to a couple of national trade magazines that compiled airplay. One was called CMJ, which I went on to become the editor-in-chief of, actually, not too much longer after CDB. And that would be compiled along with the playlists of all the other college stations in the country.  

So, WCDB through all these various factors, became an important radio station.

And a little later on, more Albany bands started to coalesce and we also then became supportive of these local bands. There was a compilation album that came out probably in ‘82 called Hudson Rock, which compiled all these Albany new wave punk bands. And we became very instrumental in promoting that record and promoting the local scene.

CM: Also in Albany, there were a couple of very good record stores. I believe there was a store called World Records, which had a very cool older guy who had played in this very avant-garde New York City band for a few years and then somehow wound up in Albany working at this record store.

He would bring and import records from overseas or small label records, and we'd go in every week. We had a deal with him where we would promote the store on the station if he would give us records.

So there were enough different disparate parts of the musical ecosystem in Albany then to sustain this small but important subculture that we were a part of.

UAMag: It sounds like your experience at WCDB was more than just being a DJ on air. You really got your hands in the industry behind-the-scenes and even developing certain bands.

CM: Yeah, I went on to co-manage and work at this record distributor and then became the manager of a record label that was through that distributor. Through my ASP experience, while I was at this record label, I put out kind of a fanzine. And that led to my taking a job as the editor of CMJ, which then led to my taking a job as the editor of SPIN.  

UAMag: Any other musical memories from your college days that you can share?

CM: There was a club called the Chateau Lounge where the radio station got involved in putting on shows. We would book bands and promote shows. It was a very small club, probably like 150 or 200 capacity. On their very first EP, R.E.M. played there.  

So, we booked The Bangles to play at the Chateau Lounge and we picked up Susanna Hoffs, the lead singer, at the airport. I just remember driving her around with Jack [Isquith, a friend and roommate who was also WCDB’s music director]. Jack didn’t drive, he was from New York City. I was from the burbs, and I had a car, so I was driving. And just in this one day, we became slightly friendly with Susanna Hoffs. And I will never forget – Jack and I both relish the memory of her and her band inviting us up on stage to dance to “Hero Takes the Fall,” one of their  better songs.

UAMag: Incredible. Craig, thank you so much for your time. I’ll be in touch with a draft of the story.

CM: If you want me to look at it for fact-checking that’s fine. Otherwise, you can write what you want.

UAMag: OK, I’ll do that.

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