Who The Heck Is Darkin And Other Indie Tales Of Woe
There are advantages to being an independent artist. I'm in control of my material. I can put whatever song I want on my album and can pick and choose the musicians for my band.
Naturally, there are disadvantages. Trying to get radio airplay is one. I've been able to get some airplay on college radio here in the USA and some indie themed shows in Europe. I was lucky enough to be able to get airplay on some small market commercial stations here in the USA for "Roll River On". Enough so, that I actually hit two of the national charts monitoring small markets. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to take me to the next level or to hit Billboard, but I still consider it a great accomplishment.
At the time "Roll River On" hit I had two distributors. Thanks to one of them, my Cd's are available to this day at hundreds of internet sites and can be special ordered at most music stores. The "Dakin" CD even made it into some stores via the distribution. Anyway, every week I was receiving reports of what stations were playing RRO. I would then find out what music stores were in that particular town, and forward the information concerning the charts, and contact info for the music store to the distributors, asking them if they could try to place a few copies in the stores. Even though the distributors had the capabilities to supply the stores, I was ignored. One of them actually told me that there was no reason why somebody from Kansas would buy a CD from a St. Louisan in Louisiana that nobody has ever heard of. Yeah--great attitude ----there is a station in that town where I am 2 on the charts--somebody is interested. Needless to say, I terminated my agreement with that distributor, but that is the kind of nonsense I have had to put up with.
You will also notice sometimes that if you come across the Living In Dakin's Neighborhood album it is listed as Living In Darkin's Neighborhood. Trying to get this fixed has been to no avail. I've contacted my distributor and everybody else I can think of including the Muse company, which was the primary company supplying information on album's at the time of release. (You may remember Muse machines in music stores---you were able to look up bands/albums on them. They have now pretty much been replaced by simple internet access.)
Along the same lines you will see I am often mistakenly listed in the "blues" genre. This is due to 1) a couple of song titles of mine using the word blues--even though they are not "blues" songs. (Would be interesting to see if things get screwed up if I use the word "rap", "jazz" or "heavy metal" in any of my songs).
2) Another reason may be that there is an excellent African-American guitar player from Chicago now living Los Angeles by the name of Fred Clark who is a session player for many major label Rhythm n Blues and gospel groups (including, for example, the Pointer Sisters). Somebody saw the words blues, and Fred Clark, and well, there you have it...
Being named Fred Clark is another issue. There are probably about a million of us with that name, and with the exception of my Dad and 2 year old son I think they are all in the entertainment industry. There is the actor who died back in '68, the guitar player in San Francisco, the guitar player in Connecticut, and the teenager in England who could be a major (expletive deleted) star once he quits trying to record everything himself and instead goes into the studio with a producer.
Anyway, my name is Fred Clark. I have a song called "Roll River On" on a CD called "Living In Dakin's Neighborhood". I am an independent recording artist, songwriter and performer. I am from Collinsville, IL and live in Houma, LA. Thank you for your support.
To read my other music blogs go to my my space site; www.myspace.com/fredclarkmusic
