About Erasing Clouds

Erasing Clouds is an effort to write about music, film, and other art forms as they exist through our eyes. There's more great art being created each moment than any of us will ever know. All we can hope to do is experience as much of it as possible, react honestly, and share the most powerful or enthusiastic of those reactions with others. So much writing about music seems superficial to me, concerned with matters that have nothing to do with the music itself. And the same goes for film, and other forms of art. I'm always trying to stay as close to the art itself as possible, to understand why it appeals to me and communicate that to others. I try to never delude myself into thinking that the flashiest, most dramatic, most expensive, most fashionable or most popular art is necesarily the best, while keeping in mind that in same cases it might be.

Erasing Clouds was born in April of 2000. It will be alive as long as possible, whether five people are reading or five zillion. Right now the site is updated on a freewheeling basis - we shoot for updates at least once a week, and sometimes get there (dependent on vacations, health, how hectic my day job gets, etc.). If the site hasn't been updated in a while, please check out the archive of old stuff - there's a whole word there of random interviews and half-finished projects, plus reviews of music that may or may not still be in print.

Our home is this mysterious Internet, built from wires and waves, and wherever I live at the moment. Currently it's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. More specifically: Spruce Hill, West Philadelphia, about five blocks from the original home of American Bandstand, seven blocks from the world's only statue of Charles Dickens, and a block and a half from this great restaurant. During this site's lifespan I also lived in Okemos, Michigan (outside of Lansing), and before that my beloved, adopted hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. (I'm from Saint Louis originally.) Our writers are spread out across the globe. Some come and go like the wind, others have been present since the beginning. We're always looking for more writers, readers and friends in general.

I do the editing/putting together of the site, Erin Heaton (nee Hucke, my sister-in-law) is responsible for the current design and look of the site, and everything was written by whoever's name you see by it.

I welcome hate mail, love letters, questions, comments, CDs/records/cassettes/DVDs/books to review, and whatever else you'd like to kindly direct our way.

Our email address is erasingclouds at gmail dot com.

Our mailing address is: Erasing Clouds c/o Dave Heaton, 415 S. 46th St., Apt A, Philadelphia PA 19143, USA

Thanks for visiting the site; I appreciate it beyond words. If you're interested in receiving an e-mail newsletter telling you when the site has been updated and with what, please enter your e-mail address in the box below.

Take care...

Dave Heaton, editor, Erasing Clouds

p.s. As a sidenote I'll mention my other current endeavors that you might be interested in. I'm a writer and associate music editor at PopMatters (I've written for them since 2000). I write short reviews for the print magazine The Big Takeover, and have a blog at the Big Takeover website. Here in Philadelphia, on a monthly basis (usually the last Friday of the month) I play records at the Gold Soundz DJ/band nights at Tritone. In the past I've written for such publications as Sponic (RIP), The Monitor (of Kirksville MO...oh and another, less-cool, dead Kirksville paper called The Catalyst, plus the even less cool university paper The Index), and some long-dead, barely remembered website (out of Florida?) called...man, I can't even remember.

I'm always looking for fun/interesting things to be a part of, whether I have time for them or not. Want me to write for your book project/magazine/website/weird whatchamacallit? Just ask. If it seems cool I'll probably be up for it.