Dana Clark

Dear Friends:

With this new website design (so artfully done by web genius Susan Smylie!) I am attempting to embrace technology as never before, face reality in the twenty-first century, and turn my back on all my natural Luddite tendencies.  No more weeping and wailing:  "All I ever wanted to do was just play INSTRUMENTS, damn it!  Not TYPE!!!!!"  No more gnashing of teeth when my computer goes on strike.  No more kicking and screaming when my digital recorder refuses to talk to my audio editing program.  My new mantra:  "I can cope with technology.  I CAN cope with technology."

After all, any child can do it, so all I need to do is connect with my inner child and......
 
Sigh.  Back in the good old days, gigging in Chicago, there were an endless number of places to play, and the whole game was about building a following.  I just LOVE performing live, sharing vibes with an audience.  And I take pride in lugging around bulky hunks of p.a. equipment and heavy pianos.  (After all, I grew up in a farm town where no one would marry you if you couldn't haul your own weight in hog feed!)   

But the biz seems a bit different now.  It's at least as much about creating a presence on the web as it is about building a live following.  SO!!!  I'm determined to adapt!  

I'm even cutting back on the gigs until I have accomplished some of my other goals, because I KNOW ME!  If I'm preparing for a special concert, the rest of my life stops and I have all the excuse I need to stop working at what are more arduous tasks for me:  RECORDING more of my songs, and fleshing out my website until it truly represents all aspects of my work.  Picture my life flashing before my eyes as I sort through decades of songwriting, workshops, teaching, prose, poetry, jewelry making, etc., in order to find what I want to share.  My goal is to have a website that is my window on the world and the world's window on ME!  I tell myself that if there is some aspect of my work that is not reflected on my website, then it might as well not exist!  

Sigh.  But I miss gigging my brains out.  And....sigh.  I miss slinging large objects around.  I'll have to lay out a track in the back yard and schedule some regular times to jog around it packing a piano or two.  Just to keep in shape, don'tcha know.  

Yes!  It is my intention to stop doing the "ordinary" gigs and just do the "extraordinary" ones.  I want to stop gigging so often, and instead enjoy the luxury of such thorough preparation that I can feel sure that each performance is a new personal best.  I plan to devote all the time I need to writing that next song....  

Please know, that though you may not see me so often--when you do see me, you'll be getting the best I've got to give.

As Sherlock Holmes would say, "The games afoot."  

Tune in for the continuing saga.......