Articles in Stasis

Terri Clark loves getting up close with audience
Published: Tuesday, February 14, 2012
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Oh, joy! Two Borsch trademarks: hogging an interview with a minor celeb, and talking about a concert at the Sellersville Theater. Will the intimacy of the venue be discussed, possibly with a "living room" reference?

On her last visit to the Sellersville Theater 1894, Terri Clark was very much aware of the intimacy the theater offers its performers, so much so that it made her worry about her eyebrows.

To paraphrase the creepy General from White Christmas: We have established the fact that the Theater is intimate. Can now discuss something - anything - else about this venue?

“The crowd seemed so much more up close to me,” said Clark, known for such No. 1 hits as “You’re Easy on the Eyes” and “Girls Lie, Too.” “They’re like in your lap. This time, I just need to make sure I pluck my eyebrows so they won’t be able to see the strays.”

You are close to the audience there. I get it.

Proper unruly hair maintenance aside, fans will once again get an up-close- and-personal look at Clark during her already-sold-out stop here for the “Roots & Wings” unplugged acoustic tour at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.

What does "proper unruly hair maintenance" mean? Seriously. What does "proper" apply to? Does "unruly" apply to the maintenance or to the hair?

Although there is new music included, the show will have a similar vibe to the one the Canadian singer-songwriter performed at ST94 in October 2010. It will be just Clark and a handful of guitars onstage, singing and engaging with the crowd that appears to be sitting in her lap.

From Borsch's November 1, 2010 story about said concert: "...show that she hopes is 'like sitting in a living room at a party with someone who has a guitar in her lap.'"

Clark then describes this show, which she says will be even better than her last one (and, presumably, even more intimate).

That’s taking it up to an ever higher level, considering what Clark was dealing with the last time she was in Sellersville. She had lost her mother, Linda, to cancer just six months earlier.

Borsch mentions this in his November 1 2010 article AND his January 4 2011 article, both about the same concert. I'm beginning to wonder if we are going to learn anything about Ms. Clark that we didn't know 1 1/2 years ago.

Clark said with this new CD — her eighth studio album, which includes the song “Smile,” written for her mom and one that she sang in the 2010 show here even before it had been recorded — she took more of a fun and lighthearted approach to making the album.

Watch out, folks - it's the Borsch Dash! Can't figure out a way to smoothly integrate information into your story? Just jam unrelated bits of trivia between a pair of dashes! Make the dashed-off aside longer than the sentence containing it! The beauty of this strategy is that the information doesn't necessarily have to relate to the surrounding narrative. For instance:

"Ms. Clark - who once ran naked through the National Mall - is a big fan of smooth jazz."

JOURNALISM!

Just last week, Clark — already an eight-time Canadian Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year — scored a JUNO Award nomination for “Roots & Wings” for country album of the year. The JUNO Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands.

This is just lazy writing. The sentence could very easily have been written: "Clark, who is already an eight-time Canadian Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year, scored a JUNO Award nomination... last week." This is further proof that Borsch never re-reads or edits his articles.

Clark, who has been an independent artist since walking away from her record deal with Sony/BMG in 2008 and doesn’t get much, if any, play time on U.S. radio now, has been able to create buzz for her new music through social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

See? See that? Why couldn't he have done that before? Of course, this particular sentence is already pretty bad without the dashes.

As for the ST94, Clark liked it the last time and said she’s going to like performing there again.

“The show I did there in Sellersville was one of my favorite ones on the last tour and that’s why we’re coming back,” she said. “I find the audience in that part of the country is so engaged in the singer-songwriter vibe. They really appreciate the organic side of things so much.”

From his last article: "...the northeast hillbillies in the crowd — whom Clark suggested could be considered more “sophisticated” than hillbillies in other parts of the country -..."

That doesn’t mean, though, that Clark won’t ever take to the road again with her band, even though she likes the unplugged gigs quite a lot.

“I might start staggering every other year — doing an unplugged tour and then going back and doing a band tour,” she said. “That keeps things fresh for me as well as the fan base. I did the same show for 15 years. That’s the whole reason for doing this [unplugged] tour. But I don’t want the fans to get this show now for the next 15 years. I want to bounce back and forth and keep it fresh for everybody.”

Yeah, that's the end of the article.

I found this fascinating. Except for a few sentences, you could switch the "previews" he wrote in 2010 and 2012 and not be able to tell the difference. Intimate venue, mother's cancer, alone on stage. Tell me, Mr. Borsch: is it satisfying to know that your "craft" has not evolved in the least over these two years?

By the way... if the show is already sold out... this preview seems a tad unnecessary, doesn't it?