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Zach Vinson

Presented by The 5 Spot at The 5 Spot

October 20, 2011

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Rewind to the spring of 2003. Location: Sheboygan, Wisconsin. A scrawny, slightly awkward Zach Vinson sits fidgeting at a desk with his No. 2 pencil, filling in circles on the ACT test. His strange aptitude for filling in the correct circles results in a near-perfect score, which is followed quickly by mounds of college letters. Institutions across the country try to sweet-talk him into steppi...ng onto their campus—from Harvard to Stanford, from huge public schools to prestigious private schools. Seventeen-year-old Zach holds his destiny in his hands like never before.

So what does he choose?

Rock n roll.

Spurning all the advances of academia, Vinson packs up his life in a 1989 Ford Econoline van and moves out to Boston with his former band-mates. The dream of a high-class education is traded in for a year of stale pastries, expired dairy products, a soul-sucking day job, and yes, rock n roll.

A year later (we’re up to 2005 now, in case you’re keeping track), that band breaks up and nineteen-year-old Zach decides to give college the old college try. But instead of breaking into the Ivy League ranks, he drives up to a tiny school in Grand Rapids, Michigan that is barely even known within that city, let alone anywhere else.

The reason?

Rock n roll.

And after four years of tirelessly studying piano performance, he emerges on the other side with a meaningless degree stuck in a cardboard box in his closets and the passion of Jerry Lee Lewis in his fingers (passion for rock n roll, that is, not for the thirteen-year-old cousin that Lewis married).

In 2010, after a couple years of playing shows around the country and cutting his teeth in the piano bars of West Michigan, Vinson packs up his life (and now, also, his wife), leaving behind their comfortable surroundings to live in the city where musicians go to die: Nashville, Tennessee.

So you see, folks, what we have here is a story of a young man who could have had just about anything. But as someone once said, what good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul? So what does he keep on choosing? Rock n roll. It’s not because of the fame (he has none), it’s not because of the money (he’s not making any), it’s because rock n roll is what he needs to do. It’s because the music lives in his spirit, and he has no choice but to rip it out and share it with anyone willing to lend an ear. Are you willing?

Vinson has had the honor of sharing the stage with the likes of Sleeping at Last, The Daredevil Christopher Wright, David Ford, Samantha Crain, Ellery, Drew Danburry, Coolhand Luke, Theodore, Cedarwell, Winter Took His Life, and a distant relative of former NBA great Jack Sikma.

Don't miss Zach Vinson's CD Release show at The 5 Spot! Everyone will leave with a copy of his new record, "The Streets Will Turn to Streams", AND dessert is being catered by Silly Goose. Also performing: Jasmin Caset & By Lightning!