Clark Blogs

I’ve been thinking about MySpace, Twitter, & Facebook a lot over the last few days. I feel guilty when I’m not posting something every day, mostly because of how hard all the music-biz “consultants” and “gurus” pound us musicians on the subject. Nearly all of them say it’s “critical” to participate heavily in all of the “web 2.0″ social sites if you want to be successful. I’m there, on the “big 3″ but I just don’t have the time to play the game the way these people say it needs to be played.

Take twitter, for example. Twitter etiquette says if someone is following you, you should follow them. So I tried. But I gotta tell you, even though some of these folks are my friends, I really don’t need to see all these “tweets” about how the guy next to them on the bus has B.O., or they just had the best pickle from the funkiest little deli, or how they wish they would have ordered pasta instead of a salad, or the cat just did a cute thing, or bla bla bla. I’m interested in their lives, of course, but I really don’t need to know that someone just finished flossing & didn’t like it. And wading through all the floss & pickle “tweets” to find one little tidbit that I did want to know was just too time consuming. So I dropped a ton of people that I had been following. And I am certainly not going to bother the world with all of my daily minutiae. (Although, I tried sort of half-heartedly once or twice after the “gurus” hammered me with the “importance” of writing a tweet 6 times a day minimum. It didn’t last.)

Then I saw this article about the very issue that’s been on my mind, followed by someone sending me a link to this very funny video, and thought “Okay! I’m not alone.” And for a very short time I thought I would just stop participating in all of this social networking.  After all, right now I am in the middle of two recording projects where I am the producer, engineer, & guitarist on both, and on one I’m additionally the bassist, vocalist, songwriter, sometime drummer, and keyboardist. Plus I fill all of the following positions for my music career: booking agent, publicist (note: these first two are about to be handed over to someone else - yay!), accountant, guitar tech, photographer, videographer, graphic artist, video editor, webmaster, tour manager, road manager (different duties from tour manager), stage manager, stage hand (this means I move my own gear), lighting director, advertising copywriter & director, and gig transportation co-ordinator. Plus I am a husband, father, and homeowner. I also like to work out on a regular basis, and I do need to work in time to practice my guitar playing on top of it all. Oh yeah, finding time to write some new songs would be good, too. So I should just stop all the social networking, I thought, and move on to doing what I was put on this earth to do: make music.

But then, I thought about my old friend Sam, in Florida, who found me via MySpace. And my new fan (& friend) Jason, from California, who always has a kind word or two for me just when I think no one gives a sh!# about my music. Or Blaine & Betsy, who moved out of state just as we were becoming good friends, & now use Facebook to stay in touch. And others, actually quite a few others, are connecting with me via these social networks. So I hesitated about just stopping, and ultimately decided to stay. But here’s the thing: I am not going to “work” these sites like the business consultants say I should. They want you manipulating your relationships in the name of finding new fans or business connections or whatever, & I’m just not going to do that.

I’ll post things that I’d like to have known, or that I think you might find interesting, when I have a few minutes. Like today, with this post. I’m taking a little time in between vocal takes during this morning’s recording session just to put something out there that I kind of want my friends & fans to know.  And if I need help on something, I’ll just ask. But I’m not going to spend endless hours “tweeting,” or trolling MySpace & FaceBook for names, all for the sake of artificially “befriending” people hoping they will buy something from me. No question, I need some new fans & need to get word out about what I do musically. But I think I will just keep on writing & recording, speaking up when it’s appropriate, and hope that those of you who like my music will spread the word when you sincerely feel like doing so. Perhaps by spending a little extra time on my writing & recording process, on band rehearsals, etc - time that would have been otherwise spent on social networking - I can improve what I do enough that new fans come to me honestly, because of the music, not because I am a “master networker.”

Well, it’s time to get back to recording. I was going to “tweet” about the session, but don’t have time at the moment. Maybe later…

Clark