For the past 50 years, composer/multi-instrumentalist/ author Todd Tamanend Clark has been sharing his unique artistic vision with the world.
Clark was born on August 10, 1952, at Greene County Memorial Hospital in Waynesburg. When he was born, his family was living in Greensboro in the home of his maternal grandparents, Price Harvey (1883-1968) and Mona Gabler Harvey (1895-1962). He briefly lived in Crucible and Carmichaels while growing up, before going to eighth grade and high school in Waynesburg.
“I had my first keyboard lesson at age nine in 1961 and my first guitar lesson at age fifteen in 1967, but they weren’t constant… I’m largely self-taught, although I took a lot of music courses as an undergraduate at Slippery Rock and in graduate school at IUP,” Clark says. He later began playing drums in 1970, theremin and violin in 1974, and flute in 1985.
While he was attending high school at Waynesburg Central High School, Clark began experimenting in the creative fields that would eventually capture his attention. He would occasionally get up and perform vocals on a song or two with his friends’ band, The Velvet Myst. He would also run lights and draw posters for them.
After graduating in 1970, just four years later, Clark had his first band and manager. The next year, 1975, he recorded his first album, A Deathguard Sampler, in Cleveland as part of Todd Clark & The Stars. He formed The Eyes a couple years later and released a second album, New Gods: Aardvark Through Zymurgy. His third studio album, We’re Not Safe, was released with members of The Eyes, now called The Todd Clark Group. His last album of the 1980s was Into The Vision.
During these years, Clark had six songs that were popular on college radio: “We’re Not Safe” (1979), “Secret Sinema” (1980), “Nightlife Of The New Gods” (1980), “Stars In Heat” (1984), “Flame Over Philadelphia” (1985), and “Oceans Of She” (1985).
Clark then took a thirteen-year break from releasing recordings to raise his three sons from his second marriage as a custodial divorced dad.
He returned to releasing music in the early 2000s. He released three instrumental albums that included his children as guest musicians: Owls In Obsidian (2000); Staff, Mask, Rattle (2002); and Monongahela Riverrun(2004). The latter album features compositions representing sixteen towns along the Monongahela River.
Thirty-one of the songs Clark released between 1975 and 1985 were collected on a CD set entitled Nova Psychedelia in 2005 on a label from San Francisco. Three other compilations were released over the next fifteen years, as well as three additional studio albums. One of those albums was Whirlwind Of The Whispering Worlds (2020).
“I spent seven years creating Whirlwind Of The Whispering Worlds,” Clark says. “It was a hell of a lot of work! And painful! Each of the eighteen songs was the emotional equivalent of passing a kidney stone. Joined together with the previous album Dancing Through The Side Worlds, it forms a four-disc autobiographical set.”
Dancing with the Side Worlds (2014) has one of Clark’s favorite pieces: “Shapeshifting The Monongahela Night.” Clark played everything in the 18-minute song. Another complicated piece, the 2020 song, “The Nature Of Tongues” saw Clark playing all the instruments, as well as all the vocals.
Over the years, as technology progressed, Clark’s musical sound evolved as well. “As more synthesizers, effects units, and drum machines were invented over the decades, I became more able to realize the sounds in my mind, resulting in a vast palette of audio options, many of which weren’t available when I first started.”
Clark finds inspiration in the world around him: “A lot of my songs are autobiographical. I also own several thousand books, ninety percent of which I’ve read. I study the ornithology of owls, and I keep myself well-informed of current events. And I love old monster movies from the 1950s and silver age comic books.”
He has multiple musical and artistic influences: Jim Morrison (vocals), Frank Zappa composition), Sun Ra (keyboard), Jimi Hendrix (guitar), Carmine Appice (drums) and William Burroughs (literary). He collaborated with Burroughs on the title song to his 1984 album Into The Vision.
In addition to poetry and music, Clark also does photography and artwork, as well as writing sociological essays and reviews of books, albums, and films. Out of all the creative endeavors Clark is involved in, his favorite is writing poetry to set to music. “I find that most popular songs have weak lyrics, and I put in extra effort to avoid that pitfall, carefully contemplating every comma and syllable, sometimes for months! But I also compose a lot of instrumental music.”
While attending art school in San Francisco in 1970, Clark also became involved with Native American activism during the time of the Alcatraz occupation. His family has Onodowaga and Lenape ancestry. Clark joined the Council of Three Rivers in Pittsburgh in the 1980s. In the 1990s, Russell Means mentored Clark into the American Indian Movement (AIM), and he eventually became the head of the Pennsylvania chapter. “I’m also a member of the Green Party and an enthusiastic supporter of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who voices many of my positions on contemporary political issues.”
Clark hasn’t let time keep him from making music. Despite a moderate case of Parkinson’s disease diagnosed within the last few years, he rehearses on his instruments constantly. He also stays well-informed about the technological progress of music equipment and isn’t afraid of change; he believes it is an integral part of creativity. “Innovation! Deconstructing the old rules and recombining them into futuristic formations that have never existed before!”
Clark spent some years moving around the United States, later settling near Masontown in 1993. He now has six adult children and seven grandchildren. He is working on one last vocal album now entitled Nocturnal Journal, and after that, he has three instrumental albums planned. Clark has no intentions of living in a world without art: “My art keeps my mind open to the vast possibilities of life and keeps me from becoming a conformist to the social pressures of the dominant colonial society.”
“In addition to enjoying the outcome of having a finished work, despite whatever suffering and sacrifice went into creating it, I find the very thought of having lived a life that leaves no art behind to be totally unacceptable!”
If you’d like to listen to Clark’s music, visit Bandcamp or check out YouTube, where he has 160 videos available—with more on the way!
