Divine Comedy from p15 tour, which kicked off in Portland in Sep- tember, and will resume overseas in Febru- ary. “Miraculously, everybody was safe from COVID,” she says. “No band, crew, anybody got sick on that tour, which is such a miracle because it was booked before the delta vari- ant took over. It was booked when we thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but we managed to do it and it was just so fun. “I mean, it was just joyful in a way of get- ting to see people again and the experience of the show. It just was kind of a new level of like, gratitude and joy … which you know those aren’t words I like to ... ” She stops her own thought with a laugh. “I don’t own the book The Secret, you know what I mean? But it’s deep, it’s deep.” As Clark relayed again to host James Cor- den this month on his Late Late Show, she recently tried to return a compliment she re- ceived from Sir Paul with a sincere kind word. McCartney responded with “It’s great, this music thing we get to do. It’s great.” The words have stayed with her like an heirloom kept dutifully through genera- tions and her love of the craft seems reig- nited. (“Miracle” or “miraculous” come up frequently when she speaks, among other reverent descriptors.) Another keepsake memory for Clark, she says, was the tour treatment given to one of the tracks on Daddy’s Home. “There was a moment at the end of the show that I always loved where we sing ‘The Melting of the Sun’ and the band would stop,” she says, “and it was just me and the singers singing the last refrain a capella and the crowd is singing along and we would like, spin out of sight. And it was just a nice way. ‘Cause the show goes a lot of places, we usually end the show with that moment and I just thought it was such a nice … it was just, you know, a beautiful moment.” But other pandemic-induced thoughts also stuck around. “I think everybody’s sense of time, it was recalibrated, “ she says. “The sense of the passing of time. And also — I forget who said it, maybe you can look it up — but there’s a great quote that says, ‘How you spend your days is how you spend your life’ and that re- ally resonated, you know, just to not waste any time.” (The quote belongs to writer Annie Dil- lard.) “And besides that, in 2020 I just thought, well, I should brush up on my Russian litera- ture and history and just kind of went down a Stalin, gulag, Dostoyevsky kind of rabbit hole,” she continues. “So that wasn’t the lightest reading, but some people I think went escapism, then I went like, ‘Well, I guess it could be a lot worse.’” Just a year ago, Clark starred in The No- 16 16 where Inn, cowritten by Clark and Brown- stein and directed by Bill Benz. It started out, in the plot and in real life, as a documen- tary on Clark, and diverted into a philosoph- ical dilemma as a study on fame, perception and other illusions. Early on in the film, Clark talks about wanting people to know her, but does she really? “Well, I think it’s an interesting question because I feel like if you know my music you know me in a very deep way,” she says. “And so there’s that, I think, real intimacy that gets to happen in music, and I think in The Nowhere Inn the conundrum that we’re faced with is the conundrum of a documen- tary about a musician. ... At the end of the day it’s still going to be a documentary that the musician in question has final cut over and they still will be controlling. ... You’ll still get to see their version of who they want you to think they are. “And I’m not saying that’s wrong or bad or anything like that,” she says. “But at the end of the day, that’s propaganda. And I think that’s, that was sort of the question we were wrestling with. ‘Cuz I thought I could make a straight-ahead documentary that ostensibly would function to endear people to me [laughs] but that’s called ‘manipulative.’ Well, what happens if we just explore all these questions that we have about authenticity and identity, you know, especially in a time the film but rather cautionary production tales. “Well, you know, it’s something I learned about Hollywood,” she says. “You think you can be making something and then it can just sort of go into a forever limbo.” In terms of Dorian, “there’s nothing started, anything,” she says. “In general, in this time, we all have an embarrassment of riches in terms of content to watch, like films and TV and all that stuff. But that said, it still is a sort of mini miracle when any- thing gets made because it takes so much capital, it takes so many people signing off, it takes so many puzzle pieces to fit together in order for it to kind of happen, is what I learned. “And it’s a very different process to me than music. Which is, if I have an idea, I can go in my studio and make it in a day, usually. So this making films is so different.” The modern wealth of entertainment choices is but one barrier among a great gen- Her latest, Daddy’s Home, shows once again Clark’s brilliant compositional hand. While her persona is prismatic and com- plex, her songs are still musically equipped for radio, which makes them no less excel- lent. The depth of the funk grooves in the al- bum are shaded as if by a master painter. The record opens with “Pay Your Way in Pain,” which teases what’s to come with a moan and a bordello-like piano. The saloon doors soon slam open, however, to a synth- made throb. As St. Vincent sings, “You’ve got to pay your way in pain,” the last word re- calls David Bowie’s famous sounds of “Fame.” Her voice explodes like stardust. The Bowie comparisons were endless when describing Daddy’s Home, but many figures contributed to Clark’s gallery of in- spiration, namely those found in her father’s old vinyl collection, her source material when writing the record: The Stones, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed. Her blond wig is inspired by New York icon and Warhol muse Candy Darling, for whom she also named a song. “I never wanna leave your perfume candy scene,” Clark sings breathily, “So, Candy Darling, I brought bo- dega roses for your feet.” The record has three interludes, called “Humming,” that are a distant glimpse of a dreamlike melody. Other songs wrap up and fade away with a saxophone solo. Clark per- formed the singles on tour and on TV con- sistently in full vintage costuming, under her flip-curled Candy Darling wig, with giant gold jewelry, gesturing like that favorite aunt of yours who’s really lived. As much as Clark is an aesthete whose performance art elements fit right into the creative culture of Instagram, the demands of social media don’t inspire her in the least. “Personally, I find social media very Zackery Michael when I think for a new generation there is no line between online [and offline]?” In the age of social media fame and the often staged, forced, uncomfortable paradox of public intimacy, Clark isn’t interested in offering her mundane worst to the masses. She’s no more “real” than what she reveals at her artistic best. “That’s kind of where we got to, and the point in Nowhere Inn was I don’t know,” she says. “For me, personally, I actually care more about the art somebody makes and how that makes me feel and makes me think than about who someone is as a person. ... But I think we’re in an era where the para- digm is authenticity, but the authenticity is always moderated by a screen. So it’s like, who can seem the most real in a fabrication? And I just don’t know how to answer that question. And I think that’s not the para- digm I really want to work in, so we just did something else.” Many of these themes are woven into Clark’s other projects. In 2017, it was widely reported that Clark would be directing her first full-length film, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the main character was going to be female — a woman whose painting ages for her. Clark doesn’t have any status updates on Annie Clark is the thinking man’s rockstar. erational divide, but Clark doesn’t believe she’d do anything different than kids today had she been one of them. “I think everybody is really a product of their time and place in history,” she says “I think even if we’re talking about a decade or two split, really, especially now things change very quickly. I mean, social mores seem like they’re changing by the day, and it might be true that also we might just per- ceive that things are moving more quickly because we hear about them, when in times past, we would not have. So I don’t … I defi- nitely would have been a different person for sure.” Clark’s brand of rock stardom is a rare item; she’s the thinking man’s rock star. Her book recommendations for NPR ran the gamut from Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust and Joan Didion to The History of Punk and Just Kids to Tracy Morgan. She has a sober grasp over her ideas and words. There are no mindless tweets to be found from Clark, no careless statements to be re- tracted. Her stage presence is synchronized, her abandon unreckless. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she’s never had to substi- tute artistic substance for debauchery. stressful,” she says. “I find it to be a stressful thing. I used to enjoy being on Twitter or something, but now I don’t. I find it really hectic and stressful, so I don’t go there.” She isn’t worried about scrutiny. It’s just not her medium. Clark doesn’t care for per- formative virtue signaling. “What I love is making work,” she says. ”I love, I love making music. I love it. I love making things and I’m lucky it’s my life’s work, and when I’m making things I’m just following some internal north star, you know, just following my instincts. Then I can present it and people can like it, hate it, love it, not care about it, whatever. Any of those things is a perfectly acceptable reac- tion, right? But it’s something like, I’ve made the vision. And I’ve gone to really, really ex- plore the idea until what I feel is like its pre- sentable form, whereas, and I’ll say, I’m not really into, like, morality pageantry,” she says with a laugh. Clark says that looking back on The No- where Inn, “What would have been probably a savvier, smarter way to get more likes would be to not turn into a terrible ego mon- ster in the film,” she says of the plot. “But the contrarian in Carrie Brownstein was, like, ‘What if we just become really unlikable people?’ That’s fun, that’s funny and that’s not who we are culturally. But to ... the social media side of it … if you know me, you know my morals. I don’t need to make a pageant of them and make them a cudgel to harm other people.” JANUARY 27–FEBRUARY 2, 2022 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
