The Clarks: Still thriving after all these years
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Scott Blasey was actually pretty happy working for a home medical supply company, selling wheelchairs, oxygen tanks and the like.
“I really enjoyed it,” he says. “It wasn’t your typical sales gig. I got to help people in need, and the company I worked for was great.”
It just seemed more and more like the band he formed with his friends at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, The Clarks, was getting in the way. The group’s second, self-titled album led with a song, “If I Fall Through,” that hinted at calling it quits, but down at track 11 was “Penny on the Floor,” a little heartbreak song getting major play on WDVE-FM.
“I was having to take more time off work,” Mr. Blasey says, “and I talked to the company president one day, and he actually encouraged me to pursue my dream. He said, ‘You’ll always have a job with me. Go try and do what you want to do.’ That meant the world to me.”
The singer walked away and never looked back. That was almost 30 years ago, and since then, The Clarks have been a Pittsburgh institution.
On Saturday, they headline their annual show at Stage AE Outdoors on the North Shore having just released their 11th album, “Madly in Love at the End of the World.” Once again, The Clarks stay true to the straight-ahead guitar rock of bands like the Hoodoo Gurus, Smithereens and the Plimsouls that inspired them to assemble and start playing fraternity gigs in 1986.
“We just have to make something that we like,” he says, “and if we like it, we hope other people will like it. At this point in our career, you can’t think, OK, we’re going to write this kind of music or we’re going to tailor this song for this audience or this style of radio play.”
If you get the vinyl or just like to think of albums as having two sides, this one has a Greg side and a Scott side. It begins with six Americana-style songs written by Greg Joseph, including “She’s on Fire” (”a salute to the guys in the band who have With: SVEN. Where: Stage AE Outdoors, North Shore. When: Doors at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets: $27.50 advance, $30 door; ticketmaster.com. kids,” the bassist noted), the band-on-theroad song “What Do You Do?” and “Dying to Live,” with guest vocalist Kayla Schureman, about the determination of his World War II veteran father.
“I’ve always had the job of song order,” Mr. Blasey says, “and there was definitely a story arc that Greg had written about. All of his songs are very relationship-oriented from various points of view, whether it’s father-child or lovers. Musically and