New Years Edition! News and Top 10 list!

I have a couple things to address today, first off, happy new year!  I had a lovely time hanging with friends on a horse farm in Coldwater Ontario.  Good times.  Also, for Christmas this year I got this wonderful little guy:

 

Yup, my very own Ukulele!  And it's all I've been playing for the last 2 weeks.  I love it so much, that tomorrow night (Sunday Jan 7th) I'll be playing a show at the Holy Oak, with only the Ukulele.  I'll play some old standards, maybe a couple Beatles tunes.  Should be fun! 

That brings me to my New Years resolution.  I started a new Tumblr account called "52 Songs Written By Other People".  (Click the title to go to the page).  I plan on learning a new songs every week and putting a video up!  I'm the worst at learning songs, so this will be a pretty big challenge.  Tune in this Monday, hopefully I'll have it ready!

Now finally, my end of year tradition, I give you my top 10 albums of 2012 (in no particular order).  Please check these out if you haven't all ready.

The Mouthbreathers- Appetite for Deconstruction

Godspeed You! Black Emperor- 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

  

Patrick Watson- Adventures in Your Own Backyard

Dirty Projectors- Swing Low Magellan

Lisa Bozikovic- This is How We Swim 

Grizzly Bear- Shields

  Evening Hymns- Spectral Dust

Olenka & the Autumn Lovers- Hard Times

Frank Ocean- Channel Orange

The Tallest Man on Earth- No Leaving Now

What were some of your favorites?  Leave them in the comments, I would love to hear some good new music! 

Tour and free NEW music!

Hey there people, how are things? Just wanted to update you on some very cool new news in the Shawn Clarke universe.

First and most important, I'm going on Tour! This is my second solo tour, you'll remember my first one was... quaint.  This time I'm bringing some friends along.  I had the pleasure of meeting Aaron Mangoff a few years back when I played a show in my home town of Orillia.  We communicated through the interwebs over a few years, and finally played a show together.  H'e really great.  Voice of an angel, that man has.  Christopher Thompson, I only had the pleasure of meeting a few weeks ago, but I've been checking out his music for a few months.  He's young, but plays the guitar like a man twice his age. 

And so the three of us will sally forth, on a 12 date tour.  Where?  Well, maybe this poster will answer your question:

2nd thing, the free music part.  To commemorate this tour, the three of us put together a little sampler of our music.  For me that includes two brand new recordings!  "Zombies, Clash, Cars and Kinks" and "A Song of Peace" were recorded by my good friend Ryan Warner.  You can listen and download them at http://autumntour.bandcamp.com/ or click the widget to the left of your screen!

Hopefully we'll see you in one of these towns.  If you have questions, don't hesitate to email me at shawnclarkemusic@gmail.com

See ya soon!

Indie Week

Hey there, long time no see. I just wanted to let you know about a great event happening this week. It's called... Indie Week! A bunch of great young bands perform for industry people, with one band going on to perform at Indie Week in Ireland! Sounds pretty good. While I don't normally go in for the pit bands against each other model, I feel like this is going to be a great chance to meet new people, and new acts.

 My first show is this Thursday, Oct 11th, at 9:15pm sharp. These things go by the book, so be there for 9!

And, in celebration of Indie Week, I have my 6 song free downloadable sampler available! You can download it to the left of the page, or by clicking on this Indie Week picture:

Also in Shawn Clarke news, I will be doing a 3 province tour in November! Keep checking back over the next week or so, and I'll have the dates up!!

Free Sampler update

Well, NXNE is officially over, but I feel like I got such a great reaction to my Free Sampler that I've decided to keep it up.  Since the show has come and gone, I've decided to change the title of the sampler, and make a different cover for it.  My apologies to Jessica Gordon (she created the fox/bird image), I have put this together myself, she would have definitely done a better job!  But here it is, feel free to download it and share it! (just click the picture).

Since I put up the free sample a couple weeks ago, it has been downloaded almost 100 times.  That's pretty good!  Thank you so much for sharing and enjoying the music!

NXNE update

Hey folks, just wanted to tell you how great my NXNE showcase went.  Well... that's pretty much it.  It was great.  I played a solo set to a very attentive audience, AND some of the people were there to see me who WEREN'T my friends!  Some of them download my NXNE Sampler (which you can still download by clicking this sentence!) and some of them had read the interview I did with The Examiner (Clicky clicky!).

I couldn't have asked for a better night, so thanks to The Central, The North By North East Fest, all the bands who played and everyone who came, you've all made me a happy man.

Balcony TV

Back in January, I filmed a spot for Balcony TV.  For those who don't know, Balcony TV is a music website set up in various cities around the world including Toronto.
I had trouble getting a band together for it, so Marty Smyth and I went in a performed a track from "Stray Birds" called "In Transit".  It was cold.  And very noisy.

Here it is!




A quick reminder, if you haven't downloaded my NXNE sampler (for free!)  You can still do it here, or on the playlist to your left. ANDNDNDNDND my NXNE showcase is a week today, Friday June 15th at Central (603 Markham St.), 1am.  Come one, come all.

NXNE info and free sampler!

I've been selected again this year to play one of Canada's most important music festivals, North by North East!  This is my 5th year attended in some form, twice with Olenka and the Autumn Lovers, once with Timber Timbre and twice as a solo artist.  Every year has been wonderful.  So much excitement, running around seeing as many bands as possible.  It's crazy.

Anyways, I will be performing this year at Central.  It's at 603 Markham St, in Mirvish village.  I will be on the night of June 15th at 1am.  So feel free to come out late, or early, there are a few acts performing before me and from what I can tell, they are all very enjoyable. 



To celebrate this years performance, I have put together a little 6 song sampler.  Please download it for free!  It features songs from my 2010 album "like Birds Too Tired to Fly" and my 2012 EP "Stray Birds".  This year will be a more personal performance, so the songs reflect that.  You can either download it from the player to the left of the screen or by click the link immediately below.


 FREE NXNE SAMPLER!!  CLICK THIS BOLD TYPE!!  FREE!! 

I hope you enjoy the music, and I'll see you at NXNE!

A start up tour. Warts and all.

Shawne Clark! 

Ok, to call 5 dates spread over 2 weeks in Southern Ontario a "tour" might be a bit of an exaggeration.  But it was a first for me as a solo artist.  I'd played a few of these cities in the past, but usually as one offs, and by invitation of other acts.

I'll level with you here.  We're all friends, so I feel like I can be frank with you.  I have a fear of booking shows.  While, in general, I'm a pretty socially active guy, I have to overcome certain personal anxieties.  The idea of calling a bar owner in a town I know little about terrifies me.  It's pretty irrational, I know, at my age this sort of thing should be old hat, but alas, here we are.

So I mustered up some courage and booked this thing, with the help of a few people, including Graham Nicholas who I shared 3 bills with, and Anthony Damaio who I shared 2 with.  I put together 5 dates in Hamilton, Peterborough, Toronto, London and Guelph.

Touring is such an interesting experience.  I learned a lot traveling east with Olenka and the Autumn Lovers.  Although comparing the two is really night and day.  First off, all I had to do was show up for that tour, Olenka did everything (and the things she does for that band makes me sick to my stomach.  No one works harder than that women.  No one), secondly, it was a group of 6... actually, I don't even know why I bring it up, they are exceptionally different experiences... less night and day, more like night and truck.

Back to my thing.  I did a bit of writing over the last two weeks, and assembled a little tour summary.  Some of my points are as follows:

• 5 Shows
• 8 other acts on the 5 night bills
• $200-$250 made overall
• Over half of that went to my guitarist (and driver for 4 of the shows)
• $20- 30 for GO bus travel from Peterborough and to Guelph
• 1 6 pack of Steam Whistle Pilsner for a ride up to Peterborough, my only solo outing
• 0 CD's sold
• 0 T shirts sold
• 8 CD's given away (maybe more)
• 2 shows that felt good
• 2 shows that felt awful
• 1 undecided

So it's not exactly a pretty picture, but it wasn't exactly under my expectations, so no harm there.  I found the experience somewhat humbling.  It's nice to get an idea of where you stand, and what you have ahead of you... sometimes.  It's a long and dusty road, it's a hard and heavy load. 

What I really did enjoy on this tour was the amazing acts I had the chance to share the stage with.  Please check out Jos. Fortin, Graham Nicholas, Anthony Damaio, Sarah Jane Scouten, Martha Meredith, Little City, Patrick McCauley and Matt Lamers.  You can just click on their names, and hear some of the wonderful music they've created.

I was also very happy with the hospitality that was provided by the various clubs.  Especially from Dave Tobey at The Spill and Ron and Judith at Artword Artbar.  Really wonderful experiences.

And a last thank you to the people who attended the shows!  Hopefully you liked what  you heard, and you'll try to make the trip out to the next one.

Stay tuned, very soon I'm going to get back out of my comfort zone and book another Southern Ontario tour.  Hopefully I up the ante to at least 7 venues this time!  At this rate I'll be a star sometime before the end of this century.

 Me, Mark and some baby-makin' music

 If you have any more questions about these events, or if you just want to talk music, send me an email at shawnclarkemusic@gmail.com

A Small Ontario Tour

April is shaping up to be a nice months for shows!  I'll be doing a small tour, hitting up Hamilton, Peterborough, Toronto, London and Guelph.  If you know anybody in these cities, send them my way!  Here's the show poster, designed by Jessica Rae Gordon.

Shawn Clarke- I Will

Happy Valentines Day! Here's a quick cover of one of my favourite Beatles love songs, "I Will".