Anne Clark would be Nowhere without David Harrow

a day ago

4 min read

My writings regarding my work with Anne Clark and how it all went pear shape, please see:

https://substack.com/@petrock1 ~~~ or ~~~ https://petrockz.wixsite.com/petrock/blog starting with “When you're Anne Clark ...”

There are many other platforms I wrote the same to not have all the eggs in one basket.

With writing these and posting online, people comment or contact me, especially Germans who are Clark's main audience since 40 years. She never fully learnt German though, which seems to be normal for British or American people, no effort made and being used to everyone speaking English.

Some of the people who comment or contact me say they are just really only into the music, and not the texts. That explains for sure why no-one saw the mistakes of Anne's book “Notes Taken Traces Left”.

But it also shows that it's really due to David Harrow who wrote and produced many of the early hits, like two of many people's favourites, “Sleeper in Metropolis” and “Our Darkness”.

David Harrow on Daily Bandcamp interview.

If you only take Anne Clark's spoken word, she wouldn't have gone anywhere far with it. It's the music that grabbed the poetry and thrust it into people's ear drums.

I wasn't keen on Anne's music/spoken word at first and had to “smoke” it into my ear, which I explain in “When you're Anne Clark ...”

And for some reason, Anne never mentions David Harrow compared to mentioning Charlie Morgan mainly, who sadly died early in his life and career.

Only Anne and David know why he seems forgotten, and he humbly mentioned on Facebook that it's nice his work is still played, after someone posted “Sleeper...” And even now, people still discover it for the first time, which is weird. But it might be the usual management issues who can't be bothered doing a proper job of promoting the artist they manage. Looking at Jeff Aug.

UPDATE: This particular post of "Sleeper ..." with all the comments has disappeared now after my interaction with David Harrow. That's why I keep receipts. This is how it works when people, be it Anne Clark & Co or collaborators or fans don't want free speech. I've seen accounts with 100K followers disappear for campaigning about something legit, no hate speech, no call for violence etc. It's arbitrary and cowardly. Whoever has either more followings or a stronger voice gets smaller accounts shut down and posts deleted. But keep speaking out, it's just a normal day in the office when it comes to social media platforms. EXPECT to get shut down. Keep speaking/writing etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was Harrow who got it shut down to distance himself. Often in reality people then communicate in the background or meet up to brainstorm how to shut accounts down. Part of the public posts in my conversation with Harrow. My response regarding "wasting time" has to do with writing things off ones system to move on, and the responsibility artists have. Responsibility that I also mean in how careless Anne Clark is with her work and with people who work(ed) on her stuff.

... cutting it shorter ...

Sorry David Harrow, Anne Clark, colleagues, fans, friends etc. but you can all dismiss me as a lunatic or bitter or whatever in your dictionary of definitions for me to make it easier on yourselves. You and Anne will meet up very soon, or at least have communicated already, and you will laugh about what I do, that's your prerogative. I know who I am and what I've survived and what I've been through. And I am not scared or worried about what people think. So, you guys stay in your bubble, and I continue to do what I want to do. I spread out my writings far and wide and don't keep all the eggs in one basket. Just please spare me of cowardliness. That'll be all.

But, back to Anne Clark, it's also an Anne Clark thing to not care properly, parallel to not looking after her book of mistakes and letting others butcher it. She was also followed around on and off for 10 years by a documentary maker who after 10 years came up with only 1 hour 20 minutes of documentary film. And Anne settled for that. It's currently (as in September 2024) at 6.5 out of 10 on IMDb.

If she was young, I'd say she has a lot of talent, the musicians produce incredible sounds, and she has a lot to go for. But she is in a comfortable bubble, mainly tours and works in Germany, then Europe for decades, playing the same venues year after year after year. And that's okay. Why exhaust yourself with bigger venues or further continents?

And touring mainly in Germany since 40 years with a lot of German musicians and friends, Anne still doesn't speak German! Are you kidding me?! She should be fluent in German by now. And this way she would have also been able to catch mistakes or demand better work on the texts and translations. I learned my lesson to never care more about someone's work than they do.

I now suggested to Clark to collaborate with Harrow again and even have him on stage. The fans would flip out. But Anne Clark ghosts people, once she either doesn't need them anymore, or they become inconvenient, or she finds someone more attractive or useful to her. Maybe that's what also happened to Harrow. And that was the last time I gave Anne suggestions, except, she needs a new proper manager.

But Anne Clark without David Harrow just wouldn't exist in the music scene. Harrow created these unique electronic sounds that distinguish Anne Clark from the rest of the early electronic acts. And I simply don't understand why he's never mentioned, unless he did something unforgivable.

But then, with Anne, many people do “unforgivable” things that gets them on the ghosting list, or if you are lucky, she'll call the police on you. That's punk!

Just make sure you don't lose anyone close to you that might traumatize you.

Short snippet of a more recent David Harrow track -

Click play