Skip to main content

VANCE - NC, NJ, MA, I say, THEN A NIGHT WITH ROBERT CRAY

9/20 - Greensboro, NC, http://fiddleandbow.org/upstage-cabaret-at-triad-stage/
Been playing for these wonderful folks off and on for years!

9/26 - South Orange, NJ South Orange Performing Arts Center www.sopacnow.org -
My own show!!

**9/27 - Northampton, MA The Iron Horse www.iheg.com **
I THINK I’LL HAVE THE NEW CD HERE!!!

10/5 - Tarrytown, NY https://tickets.tarrytownmusichall.org OPENING FOR ROBERT CRAY

GIG FISHING - anyone near Bolivia, NC on 10/18 or near Thousand Oaks, CA (tween LA & Ventura) on 10/25 or 10/27 for coaching, a private party or a house concert? Lemme knwoww…

Coaching of songwriting, performance, voice, private parties, compost artwork available upon request.

-----------------

THE NEW CD

Here’s the deal.

I’ll have 1000 “Good, Good, Man” CDs in my basement by the weekend. You can have one. Just let me know.

Buy it from me at a show
Buy it from me directly - via PayPal to vancefunder@gmail.com
Buy it from me directly via check for anything between $10 - $20 to Vancefunder P.O. Box 17 Arlington, MA 02476
**If your name is on the CD, or if you’re a friend, family member, promoter, cash strapped, or anyone else that thinks they should just have one, send me your address again and I’ll just send one to you. Seriously, just ask for one and I’ll send it.**

Alas, the actual “album release” will be in January. We’ve gotten positive responses from some unbelievably high profile publicists (excitement!!), each of whom has said that they cannot do the work needed to be done in the manner befitting of this album in the short and crowded time frame before and through the Thanksgiving/Christmas media mash.

So Biff (yes, that’s my new project manager’s name) and these powers that will be say we hit the ground in a hard run at radio, print media, specialty TV and web stuff in January, support it all with a big-assed 2020 tour, and see if this striped melange of songs and poetry can make a mark in calendar year 2020.

That means sure, if you’re reading this, you can have a CD. But I won’t make stuff available for download as yet, and I will be trickling out singles and a video or two over the next 100 days. And for Pete’s sake don’t burn CDs and spread it around too much.

Do me a favor, and take this journey with me? I have a wish list. I want this CD to take me to my next places:

~ long decent-paying tour opening for some well known respected musical artist: Johnny Mathis, Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Bonnie Raitt, Yo-Yo-Ma, Robert Cray (wish me luck on the last one - I open for him in a few weeks in Tarrytown, NY). That’s some wide ranging shid. But that’s just the tip of my list.

~ to do my poem that closes my album The Day Before November at next year's Live From Here with Chris Thile Halloween show.

~ some late night TV somewhere show.

~ to end up on some big-assed Spotify playlist.

I’m trying this late in my career to be slightly more famous hoity toity and bigger in profile. You know any of these people above? Can you help?

——————————————————————————————

MONDAY MUSE

At the end of what was a terrific model plane flight this last Sunday at a nearby contest, I got a plane stuck in a willow tree. I borrowed some collapsible poles, and traipsed across the field to retrieve it. Three fellow fliers followed to help. Once we got to the tree, we saw that the plane was 15 feet up and undamaged.

As each of us waded through the bramble that surrounded this willow, I was extending the poles when one fellow, a close friend, called;

“It’s low enough Vance, you can climb to it.”

“Not me” I called back. “I’ll just use the poles…”

“C’mon V, you can climb to it in a minute...”

And now the confession “Nope. I can’t do heights”

“Awwwww c’mon, this is nothing! you can climb this...”

And on he went, despite my fairly soft but persistent protestations. I even said the word acrophobia that I learned from childhood. Yeah, that childhood. The fat, frightened, alcohol-parented, frequently shamed one. He mentioned how I flew in airplanes from gig to gig, and how was this different. This man I adore - with whom I spend holidays with his conservative family and values and self, his straight and gay children, his recently passing parent, all the support unwavering from me - this man was friggin phobia shaming me. Just as I was about to be a little more forceful in my upcoming admonishment, the plane dropped down a notch or two. One guy 3 o’clock from me, George, actually reached out, plucked it by the rear of the fuselage, and handed it out to me. Success in about 5 minutes.

As we were about to leave this tree with my uninjured plane, this friend of mine was exiting the canopy made by the willow, when a pulled back willow branch grabbed his glasses from his face. Gone. Willow-Flung LensCrafters. Sail-away Specs. We looked for another 40 minutes for those glasses. Gridded the area off. I had everyone stand back and I threw my glasses down to see how they might disappear and they nearly did. Finally, George to the rescue again found them 5 feet from where this friend had them pickpocketfaced.

As we walked back from the tree through the 3 foot high hay, another fellow was searching for a plane that had gone missing in that visually unforgiving brush. My friend stopped there and said, “I’m going to help Jim look for this plane to see if I can balance the scales a bit...” Now, I don’t know whether his self-imposed penance was about him realizing the shid he gave me or about paying back God for his good fortune or both. I‘ll still love this guy forever. And there’s really no story moralistic here. Right?

xo and peace vg