The Mix
16 | Rolling Stone | February 2020
DENNIS^MORRIS/DENNISMORRI
S.COM,^7I
N JUNE 2018, Sophie Allison took the
stage at amphitheaters across the eastern
United States as the opening act for pop-
punk mainstays Paramore. For Allison, who
writes and performs perceptive, melanchol-
ic rock songs under the name Soccer Mommy,
playing for outdoor crowds of dancing emo-
pop fans that summer felt, at times, like an un-
likely match.
“It’s hard having to play in front of an au-
dience that sometimes does not like it, or just
doesn’t care,” says the singer-songwriter, 22,
SOCCER MOMMYwho’s also opened for Kacey Musgraves and
Vampire Weekend over the past two years.
“There are definitely times where I am shocked
at audiences liking us. Someone like Paramore
— I’m surprised the fans would be into this.”
Listening to Clean, her 2018 studio debut, it’s
easy to hear why Allison found such wide ap-
peal so quickly, with her forthright lyrics about
adolescent insecurities and her singalong mel-
odies. Her biting kiss-offs (“Your Dog”) and her
admiring odes to heartbreakers (“Cool”) pull as
much from Sonic Youth as they do from Taylor
Swift. On her new album, Color Theory, Allison
turns the focus on her earlier memories, with a
wider-ranging sound that includes hints of in-dustrial rock and songs about internal and fa-
milial conflicts dating back to her preteen years.
Allison began writing and recording songs at
home during the summer after high school, re-
leasing them online with album titles like Songs
for the Recently Sad. The Soccer Mommy proj-
ect became more fully realized while she was
an undergraduate at New York University; Alli-
son was taking music-business courses but was
uninterested in a career that didn’t involve writ-
ing or performing onstage. She took to emailing
booking agents during class time to land gigs,
playing shows at the now-defunct Silent Barn
in Brooklyn, and eventually scoring a deal with
Mississippi indie label Fat Possum.FAST FACTS
LISTEN UP Allison’s
favorite LPs from
2019 range from
Wilco to Lana Del
Rey to FKA Twigs.
HOT PROPERTY
Her cassette-only
2016 release, For
Young Hearts,
recorded in her
NYU dorm, is now
a collectors’ item,
with prices as
high as $124.
on Discogs.PHOTOS
Bob Marley:
The Legend
Lives On
DENNIS MORRIS FIRST met Bob Marley at the Speakeasy
Club in London in 1973. “During soundcheck, he asked
me what life was like as a young black British kid,” recalls the
photographer, who was a high school student in Eng land at the
time. Marley was impressed enough to spontaneously ask him
to come along for the rest of the tour. “The next day, I met Bob
and the rest of the Wailers at their hotel and climbed in their
transit tour van,” Morris continues. “Bob then turned around
and said to me, ‘Are you ready, Dennis?’ and my life-changing
adventure began.” Morris be-
came a friend to the reggae su-
perstar for the next eight years,
capturing candid, soon-to-be-
iconic images of Marley strum-
ming a guitar, dancing, and
playing ping-pong — a collab-
oration that lasted until Mar-
ley’s death from melanoma in
- This month, Morris’ pho-
tographs from those unforget-
table days will be on display in
Los Angeles, at a gallery show
organized to mark what would
have been Marley’s 75th birth-
day. “He gave me confidence,
he gave me hope, he gave me
identity, he made my dreams
possible,” Morris said in a state-
ment. “And for millions of oth-
ers worldwide, he did the
same. Live up Bob, the Rebel
lives on.” ANGIE MARTOCCIO
Bob Marley: Portraits of the King
Atelier Gulla Jonsdottir
Los Angeles, February 3rd-9th
DEEP THOUGHTS
“It was said that Bob smoked
over one pound of ganja a
day,” Morris says. “He and I
had many conversations.”ON THE ROAD, 1973
“None of my portraits of Bob
were taken in a photo studio,”
Morris says. “All were taken
on location.”