Hi All,

Back off the road from the Milk Carton Kids Tour - their last for a while. And I got to do it!! Read the story below, after seeing where I’m playing - hopefully near you!!:


11/5 Sat - Nashua, NH 603-320-7751 www.simplegiftscoffeehouse.org

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11/11 Fri - Durham, NC 919-433-6718 www.durhamcoho.com

11/12 Sat - Fredericksburk VA 540-373-4555 www.musicandspirits.com

11/13 Sun - Blacksburg, VA 540-382-1483 dalehamilton@ginger-hill.net

Hey new newsletter people - I was near these places with the Milk Carton Kids!! See the full set now!!!

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11/18 Fri - Austin, TX 512-626-2229 www.strangebrewloungeside.com

11/19 Sat - Dallas, TX private thing (see? this could be you…)

11/20 Sun - Richardson, TX 972-863-8999 jcjones@post.com

Teeny Texas Tour!!

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11/26 Sat - West Hartford, CT 860-635-7685 www.folknotes.org

THE Thanksgiving Hartford show!! It fills up, so come early! - and someone bring me a turkey sammich!!

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~~~~ The VancePack. I’ve sold 5 so far (3 went out today!!). All 8 available signed CDs of mine, and 1 signed USB CD player thrown in for $130. Helps to clean my basement of about 2,800 CDs that'r down there (thanks to a warehouse closing), and you get to gift that X’er or Millennial that doesn’t own a CD player all of Uncle Vance’s avail stuff. Lemme know.

~~~~ Coaching songwriting, voice, performance. Even coaching public speaking and presentation. Just lemme know.

~~~~ Short Notice Holiday Parties - December is wide open. I’m less expensive than you’d think. Lemme know

THE MILK CARTON KIDS AND RECOGNIZING GENIUS.

I’m just elated at the response to the recent wedding story. Thanks. Maybe this’ll interest you too..

This past Thursday through Saturday nights I was the opener for the Milk Carton Kids. They have taken the acoustic world by storm, playing to full houses of 400 - 600 people. They are indeed the modern amalgam of Simon & Garfunkel, Everly Brothers, and the Smothers Brothers. The two of them gather in front of one old time microphone with no cords or monitors, with great songs, heartbreaking harmonies, solid guitar playing and soloing, and incisive hysterical between song banter.

They are perfect at what they do, and I remain blown away by all they do.

I’ve seen a lot of music. Best live arena show ever for me ever was Jimmy Buffett at Great Woods. Consummate, total, musical, fun. I shamelessly was making silly fin hands over my head and singing along, and I am still awed by the lyrics to “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”. I recall Tania Maria, Airto Moirea & Flora Purim, and Jose Feliciano all at Jonathan Swifts in Cambridge. Intimate 200+ packed rooms that rocked with Latin wow. Airto did a whole set on tambourine. Tambourine. A whole set. Mesmerizing. Unforgettable.

Live.
Live music.
I’ve seen a lot of it.

Folk wise I have been devastated by Shawn Colvin - one of the reasons I do this was a set of hers at the Old Vienna Coffeehouse in , which was life changing for me. That night I wanted to be a 5’ 5” white woman.
Any and all times I’ve seen and or worked with Richard Thompson.
Tom Rush’s take on Joni Mitchell’s "Urge For Going", and his use of space.
I recall being with Cheryl Wheeler on Rounder Records tour bus across the country and hearing a virginal back of the bus "Driving Home".
Steve Earle doing "Billy Martin" at Rocky mountain Folks had me pulling grass out of the lawn in tears.
Same for Loudon Wainwright III at some fest in the Midwest doing “Hitting You”.
Anytime the Subdudes harmonize.
My first time hearing Martin Sexton live singing anything.
Eric Schwartz at Kerrville this past summer.
Annika Bennett in my very own performance class 2 years ago.

Jazz-wise the list is endless. See, I was the opening cocktail set and the soundman at a place called The Starlight Roof in Boston in the mid-80’s, living the dream doing the Great American Songbook from 5 to 7:30 then running the board and watching the shows, most outstanding that I recall put on by Dakota Stanton, Kenny Burrell, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Tal Farlow. Thanks to Cecil Payne and Jon Hendricks both for letting me sit in and scat.

Then there we nights at Wally’s Jazz Cafe Where I heard the groundbreaking Greg Osby on alto and Terry Conley on organ and Billy Kilson on drums recreate the 50’s and 60’s post bop organ trio sound.

Then the comics. I got to work with Jay Leno for 3, George Carlin for 150, and Paul Reiser recently for about 10 shows. I love watching these men from behind and from front of the house actually stalk the stage. All could brilliantly collapse their exact-same-materialed shows from 90 minutes to about 84 min just by massaging the timing between straight and punch lines depending on the audience’s response times - it was outright Einsteinian how each could play with time without dropping a word. I watched Jay Leno deliver the exact same show to the early dinner-ermine-pearl set and the later frat boy set and not change a thing but this seeming time-space continuum word thing and still make people pee.

And then we have ranking right there in that previous pantheon of Vance viewing and hearing this 30-ish boy duo with one mic and their utter brilliance in execution and concept. My best friend John, Magna from our alma mater Connecticut College, music, religion, masters in philosophy, and the absolute harshest critic I know of others that take the stage even near me, said Saturday night “One is drop dead funny and keeps great time. The other solos and sings simultaneously the whole time. Other than that I’m not exactly sure what it is they even *do*, but they do it brilliantly and I could listen to it all night.”

And they asked me to play with them. And every crowd was on their feet for me. I sold a gagillion CDs. I took no encores but second bows. I murdered. People coming out weeping at the break from my closing “For The Good Times”. . And what did Joey, the tall one say? “The best openers for us are folks that blow us off of the stage. That sets the bar high for us and makes us play better music, which is all this is about anyway..” They were plenty steady in the gale. I almost couldn’t wait to be done just so I could watch them.

Just to screw down the smart cap on their grasp on how this is done, Joey, while we chatted about the art of performance, remarked on how they “have developed a show that works, and so many of peers don’t realize how necessary it is to actually have a *show*...” How heads up and astute is that?

The three of us are forever friends, and after they take this time off from performing you’ll see us all together again because this thing works. Add to that that what they do is amongst the best musical experiences I have ever been in the auspices of - watching or performing. I’d say the last 100 hours has been some of the best hours of my musical, creative life.

Thanks guys.