When you are Anne Clark and the Rest doesn't Matter
(Please note, the audio version might get out of date if I have to edit the text for mistakes or update something. This is for people with visual impairment or people on the go. Also, Jeff Aug's name in the AI audio is assumed as the month of August, but it's simply “Aug”.)
When I was around 16/17 years old in Germany, I was introduced to Anne Clark's music by someone in hospital. I wasn't too keen on the harsh sounds and cold voice at first, and I'm ashamed to say I started loving Clark's music after I smoked a joint with the same friend who introduced me to her music. Maybe I wasn't ready for new sounds, and had to “get it” while under some kind of influence.
It wasn't that her music was bad or boring or low-quality, it was that I loved soft sounds and singing at the time, as well as folky stuff. I had to find my way to her music. But loved it from then on.
Fast forward a couple of decades, having moved away from Germany to two countries, and for a few years having Clark's music off my radar, I rediscovered it again in the late 2000's when I moved back to London.
I started to buy her new, more mellow music, still with poetry, combined with my discovery of Rainer Maria Rilke, Erich Fried, Emily Dickinson, Kae Tempest (formerly Kate) parallel to that and years before. I started searching for gigs in the UK as I went to hundreds of concerts over the years, and London being paradise for music, I didn't see any concerts with Anne Clark.
On her website I started to fill in a contact form to enquire if she ever plays in London as I could see concert dates mainly in Germany. To my surprise, Anne herself responded. I did not expect a response, and if at all then from a representative or management
Anne was very prompt and kind in her response, and a few months later she did play in London with Herr B.
From then on some correspondence started, which was mainly initiated by me. I was gobsmacked of course, having listened to her music on and off for many years.
When Clark and Herr B. played in London's The Garage in Islington, I saw a fan outside the venue in the queue behind me holding up a big black book with Anne's image. After the concert at home I started to research what books where out there on or by Anne and found “Notes Taken, Traces Left”.
It was a little bit of a challenge to find a copy, I cannot remember if it was on Clark's website in the merch store, or where I finally found it. I ordered it, and started to devour the 300+ page part autobiography, part lyrics with translation book.
The middle section like in all artists’ books full of photos from gigs, interviews, touring etc. But I actually started READING the book, word for word. On the left page the English song lyric, opposite on the right the German translation.
Knowing her songs and lyrics, I started to discover a mistake. And then another, and then another … Being in email correspondence with Anne already with small talk and about her gig, I emailed her that I found a few mistakes.
The more I read, the more mistakes popped up. Anne then asked me to go through the whole book looking for mistakes, which I did. She then commissioned me and later someone created a website where I was placed as the main translator with the others who helped me in a team upon requesting some help. Some of Anne’s German friends who love English and her work, and previously were introduced to me. They and the band and other collaborators also appeared on the new website. And to my despair the website also was full of mistakes, even though for weeks I tried to get access to it to look for mistakes before they launched it. Anne just gave jobs to everyone but didn’t take charge.
I started to get angry with further mistakes on a new project with the website. My anger that time manifested in cynicism and sarcasm which pissed Anne off. If people have watched Ricky Gervais’ series “Afterlife” where he plays a widow who pisses everyone off with angry sarcasm after his wife died of cancer, I turned to sarcasm when I discovered mistakes on the website hours before launch, but was denied access until the day before while I worked at my job until 9pm, no time to correct everything.
In hindsight, this “commissioning” which was completely verbal (well, in writing via email), but should have been done professionally, with a contract, a deadline etc.
But of course, as she is “Anne Clark” I was delighted, gobsmacked and happy to dive into the work.
The book was initially done and overseen by Clark's manager Jeff Aug, who also is her guitarist. When Anne referred me to Aug to liaise with the mistakes I found, he wasn't a happy camper and from the get go started to passive-aggressively patronise me. It wasn't a one-off and at one point I was hurt and confused and mentioned something to Anne. She then rebuked him via email copying me in.
From then on he stopped, but even among meeting the band for the first time in Bochum, Germany at one of Clark's concerts in 2014, Aug was always distant and ignored me. Fair enough, it must have pissed him off that some “fan” out of the UK presents his butchering of Anne Clark's lyrics, and he was confronted with such a mess of a book that he fucked up.
In hindsight, after the initial “wow, I met Anne Clark and work on her book”, she should have fired him. Maybe I'm too harsh, and surely if she would fire him, she'd fire at least two positions in one person: her management and her guitarist, and in the case of the book the translator and editor. At least three known positions in one person. And maybe this is a band on a tight budget, but I’d rather scrap some projects and do whatever remaining project properly. Less is more. And quality is everything.
I appreciate that Anne did not fire him and that her band are a close-nit band, like family. But what happened after is what has made me stop respecting her work. I respect Anne Clark as a human being and truly believe she is a good person.
I just have different work ethics when it comes to the work I put out. It felt like her lyrics, her book, her work was more important to me than to her. She even made a joke at one point when I asked her about a sentence in one of her songs, if she meant it in this or that way in order to know how to accurately interpret and therefore translate it.
Her joking kind of knocked the wind out of it a little, because I tried to correct her work in the best possible way and “fix” the disaster Jeff Aug created. But in hindsight I think Anne doesn't even care.
When Emailing became my Source for Communication as well as Curse
In the middle of working on the book my brother died. I don't want to get into great detail at this point and might do a longer version at a later time. But everything surrounding his death was extremely traumatic. On top of that, my workplace had nothing better to do than try to get rid of me from day one I became bereaved. That in itself fills books, and I may elaborate on this here later as well.
Anne was extremely empathetic and supportive, even visiting me for a weekend. And even in hindsight I believe, I know she meant it. What followed was just 100% my fault, but my trauma and years of writing emails to Anne, to friends, to strangers, to my workplace, to anyone I had an email address.
I went into years-long “emailing-spree” after I received the news of my brother's death via an ice-cold email. In the beginning I didn't understand my emailing until it dawned on me that this email about his death catapulted me into this emailing frenzy.
Of course Anne, like many others started to withdraw, and from early on ghosted me for years. My trauma also was that the friends I had, or thought I had, some friends of 30 years withdrew early on, and not because of emailing. They were just at a loss and left me for dead.
This added to the grief and trauma and I started drinking heavily, writing countless drunken mails to countless people, including Anne. At first Anne responded that I could “write it all to her” after one person who worked on her website was confused about my emails as well as Facebook public posts.
And I did, I wrote it all to Anne, but also to countless other people.
My grief was 95% anger. Later diagnosed with PTSD, lost my job, lost more friends, lost my parents as they died and a rat-tail of losses for 9 years. I still stand at Ground Zero of my life and don’t want to go on.
Fast forward to 2024, I am still writing emails to people, not as intense or angry, but still not recovered. The NHS mental health service has always been hard to access, even before the pandemic. With hard to access I mean specific trauma therapy. I can access therapy which is mostly a one-of 6-session therapy, but there is a huge lack of trauma therapy. My odyssey through the NHS mental health service is another book.
And at this point here I want to say again in case Anne reads this one day, I'm not sure if I'll tag her in, but my emails were too much, too angry, too drunk, too traumatised, rubbish written at times. And I apologise again for that and any emails and online comments. I will always regret this, not just regarding her. But she never once requested for me to stop.
I even thought she must have blocked me or doesn't access her email anymore, or my mails land in the spam folder. I thought she doesn't read or receive my mails, even though none of my mails ever bounced back like it started doing about a year after my brother died, as I was bombarding his email inbox even though he died. But as there was no logging into his account and no more engagement on his account apart from emails coming in, his email account shut down about a year or two after his death.
Sometime early in 2024, me being drunk again, I couldn't understand why Anne never responded, even not responding by asking me to stop emailing. It could have been her management, representative or lawyer asking me to stop. But she just did what she always does when she drops people, she ghosted me.
I did apologise many times, then emailed again, then apologised, then emailed again, angry, regretful, pleading, angry, drunk … everything in-between.
I then emailed her, her management and some of her fans after she openly copied some of her fans in when she sent out a newsletter. I was angry and did what I never did in my normal times before my brother died. I used to be extremely discreet and loyal, so much so, I neglected my own health. That is my fault and responsibility.
After my brother died, all the trauma, what happened at work etc. etc. I became the opposite.
I emailed Clark, her fans, her management … and a few days later received an email from police in the UK with the threat that I would get arrested if I email Anne again. In an email to her fans she accused me of “stalking” her for years, even though 1. she never ask me to stop emailing and 2. I emailed countless people with equal length and/or intensity. That doesn't excuse anything, but I am giving context here. And 3. Anne gave me her phone numbers and address. Stalking is when people show up at your home or workplace which I never did nor would do. And according to the police station she reported me to, Anne lives about 30-60+ minute away by public bus depending on time of the day and traffic. And if there is online stalking, that would be after someone asked a stalker to stop contacting them, but they continued. Anne never asked me to stop emailing, and she is free to sue me now in case I tag her in with this post or email her again.
ONLY WHEN I copied some of her fans in did Anne call the police and lie that I supposedly stalk her, while she never asked me to stop emailing. That's rock'n'roll for you!
This police threat of arrest, I happened to know, was an unlawful threat by a police officer who already has a complaint about harassment against him. As the police are public servants, paid for by us tax payers, WE are their boss not the other way around! And as they are public servants, we can request and also on the Internet access information about every officer. And this officer has a harassment complaint by a woman against him. This complaint was found in favour of the cop. But knowing the corruption in British police, which is reported about constantly, it is common knowledge how male officers harass not only female colleagues, or reports on domestic violence, but also harass members of the public.
I know that it takes a lot for a woman to come forward and raise a formal complaint against a police officer, and with it basically come up against a system of the infamous “thin blue line”. Most women, even after being raped by men don’t go to police because they know how they are often victim-blamed at worst or ignored at best by police. And for a woman to come forward with a complaint of harassment against an officer means something.
I raised a complaint about two officers once threatening me because I wouldn’t give them my name after I called 999 a few times regarding what sounded like domestic violence at my neighbour’s flat on another floor. I could not get to the other floor as we don’t have fob keys to other levels and other levels have no access to my floor. The female cop threatened me with court order that they would ram in my door if I don’t give them my name. Of course she had no cause for such a threat and was bluffing. Her male colleague even started by saying “You have done nothing wrong …” while the female officer played bad cop.
I realized later I should have never opened the door and will never open the door to police ever again, which is my right. But I raised the complaint against the officers at a time when I was very vulnerable as my mum just died a week before and I couldn’t bury her. I even made the mistake to say in my complaint that I feel vulnerable and with anxiety due to all the losses and traumas in the last few years.
A few days into my complaint, a male police officer without uniform turned up at my door alone saying he’s police and “just wants to chat”. He must have been part of the investigative team reading my complaint, thinking ‘woman + vulnerable = opportunity’. He knocked quite persistent and walked back and forth between my kitchen and bathroom windows. He kept saying my name and in a creepy way said, “I know you’re there, I just want to chat”. Again, it was clear he was bluffing. It is very noisy outside my flat entrance. My thick door and double glaze windows keep noise out as well as in. I could have talked in a normal way with a guest in my flat, he would not have heard me. It was the usual police trick to try and get access or unlawfully fish for data like they always love to do.
I remained silent as I know you do NOT need to open the door to police and ignored his bluffs. Police can only demand you to open when they have a search or arrest warrant, which of course he not only didn’t have, but would have had no grounds for having. He even checked if my door was unlocked as I saw the door handle move slightly. That then really freaked me out! It felt all around like someone trying to cross boundaries.
Now, call me paranoid, but if a lone male cop without uniform wiggles at the door handle, imagine my door would have been unlocked. And with the horrific rape and murder of Sarah Everard by an off-duty officer who was KNOWN for flashing his junk in photos, and the many other revelations of cops harassing and raping women as well as police corruption in Britain, I was shaking in my home not opening the door. The creepy cop eventually left and of course my complaint didn’t go anywhere as cops always get off the hook unless you have solid evidence and stamina to go through with the complaint. But I know in my gut he was up to no good.
On a side note, the domestic violence noise stopped after the police came by a few times and I heard loud knocks at the neighbour’s door. I cannot ignore when I hear what sounds like a child or high pitched woman crying and screaming.
When I raised my counter argument to the police regarding Anne Clark’s allegation of stalking, and raised a complaint against this officer for making an unlawful threat of arrest, as well as presenting emails to police between Anne Clark and me, the police dropped the threat of arrest. But angry at police yet again not following laws themselves and trying to abuse their powers, I continued to request accountability of this particular officer. But it finally showed me how Anne deals with people she can't be bothered with anymore.
I read a comment on YouTube once under one of Clark's videos by a person who lamented their mistake, saying that they started a friendship with Anne, but they made a mistake and the friendship was ruined. But I also saw how when Anne doesn't need people anymore, she just drops them like “hot potatoes” as we say in Germany. She just moves on like they never existed. And this is the reason why I write this down, apart from having written her (too much) but she decided to ghost forever I write in the open. I exist. I have dignity, even though I was and am a mess with all the losses and trauma. Thank you to Anne again for the opportunity, and I will always be sorry and regretful to how I became and wrote.
But most people just go into the hole in the ground and lick their wounds and might think they are at fault for everything, because this is “Anne Clark”, and she can do no wrong. And Anne is used to being the only “type” in her genre who is not challenged like other artists are. That might have put her in this position to just drop people because she can. She can get what she wants, when she wants because she is “Anne Clark” no matter how others may feel. Just drop them once they are of no use for you or too inconvenient. I surely have messed up with all my emailing, with many people, and drinking and trauma doesn't excuse everything.
I still have enough anger in me in how neglectful and careless German police was regarding my brother's death, especially passing the buck to a woman who was appointed by the court to look after my brother's estate as they could not have been arsed to find at least my mum who lived about 50km away from my brother. And this woman then emailing me the news of his death which was the duty of police to do!
German police should have contacted British police to knock at my door. Or if police didn't know my address, they could've emailed me asking me to please contact British police or give them my address or whatever way to give me the news IN PERSON with a mental health worker present!!!
I still have enough anger in me to not only NOT fear police, but to know enough of my rights to distinguish a lawful vs. an unlawful arrest including a threat of arrest. Unlawful arrests and unlawful threats of arrest piss me off after having been fear managed at work and in this supposedly free society that thinks they can boss people around who seem “less” or vulnerable to whoever seems stronger but on a power trip. And this one was so unlawful, any person without any legal knowledge would have known that.
But it showed me how careless Anne Clark is, and what it says about her, never asking me to stop emailing, but going to police once I wrote in anger to her fans that her book is full of mistakes.
I agree, I wasn't fair doing this after initially back in 2014 and beyond having been extremely protective of her book and work. I think deep down inside I felt, why the heck does Anne Clark not care about her own work, in how Jeff Aug butchered it? And I'm taking on this labour of love, because I never did this for money. Although now for the record I requested for Anne, Jeff etc. to not use my work or if it's used, then pay me!
I wanted to tell this to Anne while she, I and everyone else is still alive. I do not know what Anne planned or plans for her book in the future, but I wanted her to know that I don't appreciate how she handled everything. I apologised many times and still fell again. That is my fault and my flaw. But I was traumatised and alone, without support. And because she knows other issues in my life, traumas, experiences, it seems she just dismissed me as a survivor who can take some more bullshit.
To run an organization, organization as in a band, music projects etc. and not be responsible for your own work and to show contempt for those who poured their love, time and money into your work, you show more about yourself than the screwed up way I have become.
How easy and convenient for Anne & Co. to solely put the blame on me without taking any responsibility of the way she/they handled things or neglect their part in anything. That is the difference between entitlement in artists vs. regular people who work from pay-check to pay-check.
Anne’s way to deal with things is to ignore it and hope it goes away. It doesn’t work that way. Unsolved or unresolved issues will always come back to haunt you.
Anne has an army of fans behind her, groups of family, friends, her band etc. I have no-one and was left for dead. I picked a fight with police in Germany while drunk and my mum's dementia getting worse. I was back into the losing streak again watching my mum slip away, having lost my father already two years before. I was drunk and five tall German police men grabbed me, shoved me into their car and whisked me off to jail where I spent a night to sober up.
When they released me the next morning, they literally kicked me out, refusing to tell me why I was man-handled so badly and jailed for the night. As I was drunk and alone, I couldn’t fully remember what happened and would have no chance against five police men in court. When I arrived home, my mum thought I spent the night with a friend, which I often did over the years when I visited my mum in Germany and did my little tour in neighbouring villages and towns, spending the night at friends.
I never told her that I spent the night in a jail cell sobering up, and covered over my black and blue marks on my legs, the marks from the handcuffs after these five tall brave German police men grabbed me, with no police woman present. They were handcuffing and holding me in a lock until we reached the police station and then dragged me to a cell like I was a Mafia boss about to terrorise the city. I don't fear police dear Anne. In a drunken stupor I wanted them to kill me! I come up against strong people, against a group, against anyone bigger than me. I don't hide behind a group or a band or fans or friends.
My mum died during the 2. lockdown in Germany, both the UK and Germany shut down again. I couldn't bury her.
To go to police, to instrumentalize police as if they are your personal bodyguard, your personal jury and judge, showed me that I wasted my time on Anne's work. I still have her music someone buried deep on a hard-drive, in case I need them for reference regarding the book, but have thrown away all the CDs. It has no meaning anymore, and I have no interest in any of her work anymore.
I have lost everything and have nothing left to lose. I don't care what people think or do. It means nothing anymore.
When you're an artist like Anne Clark or any other artist, and you mainly know applause, compliments, haven't worked for years or even decades in a “normal” job, maybe you think that it's an entitled response to ghost people. Maybe it’s normal to leave them for dead, to treat them like they're a nuisance, or like they never existed in the first place. That's okay, but I'm a human who was dealt a shit deck of cards, had no support, everyone shitting on me while I was in the mud. And all I could do was scream in emails. Call the police, superstar.
And all people do to make it easier on themselves is to tell people like me who go through the pits of hell alone to be sweet, to forgive, to not be bitter and spew their toxic positivity on me.
It's so much easier to care about puppies and animals in general. They don't talk back, they don’t challenge you, they don't question you.
What hurt me as well is that fans, including myself, spend their hard-earned money on Anne Clark's book and get such a poor product with wrong meaning in some of the translations due to the original English text being wrong at times.
Yes, I don't take this for granted and was deeply touched to have had this opportunity to work with Anne. And I fucked it all up. I take responsibility. BUT, I was alone. I was traumatised. The alcohol didn't help. But if you think that you can just leave me for dead because my trauma fucked me up, and I have survived so much, I cannot be silent and just roll over to keep letting people treat me like shit. Call me bitter or whatever else in your dictionary, but I have lost everything, have nothing to lose, and don’t care whatever else I lose. But I keep my dignity.
You can come after me, and try to shut me down all over the Internet, I don't give a flying fuck. I PUROOSELY burn bridges now, especially this bridge with Anne Clark. I have my dignity, no matter how fucked up I am.
I'm sure Jeff Aug is delighted how I am the villain now and he is vindicated. But how many copies of his butchered version of Anne Clark's work lies in book shelves of fans who, some like me, might have scratched together their last penny to purchase the book. They might have devoured it, not fluent in English like I am, not realising how some of the meaning of the lyrics and therefore the German translation is distorted. No-one discovered any mistakes, none of her long-term friends, none of her German fans, none of her band members until I showed it to Anne. And even now I found more mistakes.
This also means that none of her friends, colleagues, no-one really seemed to have read the text. They probably just scanned over it or looked at their favourite song. People tend to just skip to the middle section of the photos and see this kind of book as a memorabilia. But I actually read books. And when you come to my home and I have a special set of dishes, or items that hang on the wall, I also use them, no matter how precious they are. In other words, those are not just items hanging on the wall to go oooh and aaah, they are there for decoration AND practical use. The most precious book by your favourite artist, even if it’s a limited edition or a Deluxe version with gold binding … is there to READ, not just to collect as a trophy or for the artist to add to their portfolio while the work is shit.
I remember when Anne visited me, I opened the book to its last pages and asked her with excitement what this album is which title I didn’t recognize, as I thought there must be an album I don’t know yet and can discover. I thought I knew her complete published discography, but maybe I missed an album and could add it to my collection. She looked at it and in a more humorous way said something like, “Ah, that’s such-and-such an album, the name (title of the album) is just wrong …”
Another sinking of the heart.
I basically did the post-production proof-read. I self-published a book of poetry in German and know how expensive proof-reading is. It covers half the bill when you do self-publishing book-on-demand. I didn't purchase the proof-read for my poems because, 1. I couldn't afford it, and 2. I mistyped some words and sentences on purpose. The title of my book is already a word that doesn’t exist, but people still understand what I meant to say. A professional proof-reader would have had to get back to me constantly about the meaning, or I would have had to constantly correct the proof-readers “corrections” on my purposely misspelled words/sentences.
It's like with Quentin Tarantino's film "Inglourious Basterds" or the name Google being a misspelling of “Googol”, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros and other purposely misspelled pieces of literature or brand names. So, spending half the budget of the whole book project on proof-reading would have been a waste of money. And apart from that I was not and am not an established artist where my work would be of great significance or hurt my reputation with my work ethics. And to this day, I'm proud to say, I have not fond ANY mistakes in my own book! Unfortunately the publisher went bust a few years after I put my book out. I never had the chance to grow the book and grow the sales. But I'm used to losses now. And maybe I sabotage myself for fear of more losses. I don’t know.
In hindsight as well, in one of my later emails I wrote to Anne, when she already ghosted me, that as soon as she learnt about mistakes in her book, she should have pulled the book off the sales. But she continued to sell it, KNOWING how flawed it was. I was even told by the person who manned the merch table at gigs, when the last book was sold. I remember having had an unpleasant feeling in my gut because the book was NOT what fans expected NOR what they deserved! It feels so disrespectful from an artist towards her fans to then keep selling a poor product, knowing how poor it is.
If as an artist you act so privileged and you forgot where you came from, you are so used to flattery and even worship that you disrespect your fans, your customers, you don't deserve my respect. I respect Anne Clark as a person, and I know she is a good human. But I lost my respect for her work ethics, even lost my love for her music, and I surely have not respect for Jeff Aug's attitude. I don't care how good you are in your craft, if you disrespect your customers, your fans who many of them live from pay-check to pay-check like I did, living in London on low-pay, and feel no shame, and you call the police on me …
Anne Clark is the person who is ultimately responsible for the work she puts out or the work she commissions to be put out on her behalf. And if you don't care about your own work, no-one will, and no wonder your work gets butchered. But even after it got distorted, Anne still doesn't care. And there is where I wasted my time and money.
If you read this Anne, as I'm not sure if to tag you in, I have nothing against you personally, but I'm burning this bridge forever and am grateful that you have shown by calling police how little you care for people. You are free to sue me, I really don't give a flying fuck. I had to grow up and not see artists’ work as something special. It's just another artist putting out art, in this case pretty careless and you have decades of having people listen to your work and applaud you constantly.
I will not be applauded, I am used to being the “bad guy” now since my brother died, while all I tried to do was coming to terms. And I will not apologise anymore. I need people to apologise to me. I will not request it, because It will never come. But I need to tell my story.
And if you were to ask me what the most punk thing is that I've ever experienced, I'd say that the "cool" Anne Clark called the police on me for emailing, even though she never asked me to stop. And on top of that, she happened to report me to a police man who has had a complaint of harassment towards a woman against him. You can't make that shit up!
“I see your true colours shining through.”
For readers, I might add some more either underneath here, or on a separate space here on this page regarding what happened with my brother, my work etc. to give context to why I became so screwed up. I used to be discreet, put my head down, worked my ass off. Those days are over. And I willingly burn bridges that need to be burnt. Anne Clark can do whatever she wants, try to shut me down, talk to fans, it’s her prerogative. But my time of flipping out and licking wounds in the pit of hell is over.
And as a tip, if an artist that you love asks you to do work on their projects, make sure it's in a contract, not by word, not even by email, but a formal PROFESSIONAL contract with guidelines and what you will get out of it! I still say that I never did this for money, but for the love of Anne's work. I lost that love and have no interest in anything related to Anne Clark.
Thank you for reading. Best wishes to all.
P.S. if you find mistakes in my text, please note I am not a professional writer, English is not my first language, and I write this solely on my own without any help. Apart from that, I don’t get paid for this.
