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dot com. Command don't get sorely down south coming. Welcome back everybody,
as we enter our third hour newmerow trace of Matt Connerton unleashed. It is
Saturday, March sixteen, twenty twenty four, and Jenny is here, of
course in the in the studio at the news table. Presentent accounted for yes,
yes, and we have joining us all the way from Texas via Skype.
And we just heard one of her beautiful songs right before the break.
We have Nancy Manet am I, oh, let me get that mic up
there? Am I saying that correctly? Nancy? Yeah, Nancy Manet,
Okay, excellent. I suspected it might be as much, but I wanted
to make make sure we were trying to figure out is it Manet. Is
it Manette, But welcome to the show. Thank you. I am very
excited, in fact, so much so I was here an hour early.
I notice. Yeah, well, you know time zones, time zones and
daylight savings, time and everything is sometimes it throws to people, so no,
hey, better to be early than late. So I suppose no,
no, no worries there, No worries there. I'm Jenny and I are
both very interested in talking to you because not only you know, a beautiful
voice, really like your music, but I was reading up about your story
and something that is a theme on the show, a subject that we talk
about quite a bit is well we talk about mental health, and we also
talk about how it's the best thing you can do ultimately with things that have
happened to you that are traumatic, things that have affected you in a negative
way, bad experiences and so forth. If you can take those things and
do something creative with them, something productive with them, like creating music,
that's really kind of the best therapy, I think. And you're and you're
taking something bad and turning it into something positive that you can then put out
into the world and other people can relate to or or just enjoy and so
that's part of, uh, part of the reason why we've been looking forward
to this. And I was reading your story and it sounds like you've you
know, you've really been through it, to put it mildly, and that
has of course inspired your music obviously, Yes, yes, thank you.
Yeah, I also too. I thought it was interesting that so you've been
according to your bio, you've been a performing musician for over thirty five years.
But but you're just now you've just now gotten around to recording your own,
your own album at Abbey Road Studios. By the way, we should
mention. So that's a hell of a way to that's a hell of a
way to start for your debut. Nothing nothing special about that Abby Road.
I've never heard of it. It's been it's been quite the ride. It's
been quite the journey. From the moment I found my incredible producer, David
Percifal, it was just let's let's the sky's limit on this thing. Yeah,
and it's been. It's actually I'm humbled and I'm honored. To be
honest, I'm you know, standing around the best in the business and to
work with these incredible people and artists and studios I'm grateful, just unbelievably grateful.
Well, so here's kind of an obvious question, but I will I'll
ask you, so, what did take you so long? Thirty five years
more than thirty five years before you did this? What took me so long?
So, Matt Jenny, if I had a buck for every time somebody
said, why don't you recorded your own album? Why haven't you recorded your
own album? Why just recorded your own album? That is not an easy
answer. I could say and point and target one situation, but it's it's
more complicated than that, right, you know. We can start as a
teenager, I was told music was a hobby, not a profession, and
I was forbidden to play, and I sought refuge in a church from the
abuse of my teenage years. And they, of course had a very specific
style and type of music they wanted to have played and were only interested in
what it is that they wanted to play. Any given sunday, I got
married, raised a family, ran a couple businesses, and always thought about
it, thought about what I'd want to share. But I had a lot
of healing to do and a lot of confidence I would say to build.
I just did as me If that makes sense, Like you know, just
in my house, I played played on stages for years and years and years,
but still lacked the confidence or the belief that maybe people would want to
hear what I wanted to say and play, not what I was being told
to say and play. And I think that that is probably one of the
biggest you want to talk about mental health overcoming being told you can't, being
told you couldn't, being told you can't say that, being told you can't
think that you shouldn't question that. And that was a long road for me
to move through. And really in twenty twenty, when we were all homebound,
was the first time that I had not stood on a worship stage.
And again, you know, I not again because I haven't said it yet,
but it's not a war that I have against the established Christian Church.
But it was very oppressive for me as a musician and as a woman,
and it was the first time that I was really not part of that community.
And I called my worship pastor and said, I don't ever want to
play on the stage again. Wow, I'm done, and I'm going to
go write my own stuff. And there's a lot more to that as well
to abusive marriages, one that ended in you know, just tragic ending and
scary and never thought I would really come out into the public again. Wow,
And I decided that what I have to share and what I want to
say and is more important than me staying comfortable behind my doors in the middle
of nowhere, right right. That is so powerful. That is so powerful
especially, I mean, I think that's something that I admire you for and
I'm so happy that you're out there sharing that because that's a really hard thing
for women especially, And I can kind of relate a little bit to what
you're talking about in that you're you're told what your place is and how you're
supposed to behave to have the ability to break away from that and go in
your own direction is very It's it's amazing to see, and I'm so happy
that you're out there sharing that, because that's that's what it takes sometimes for
somebody else to get that moment, is maybe they hear your song and they
hear your voice and they go, all right, I'm going to walk out
the door this time, yes, yes, and and find one I'll you
know, find our own path. What is that for you as a unique
human walking this planet individually and yet collectively, right because we're not We're not
you know, I actually I didn't know you were going to spin to love
you and me, And we're not you know, here alone. We're not
doing this alone. And that I think if we can see that there's other
people on this journey with us, and we can encourage one another wherever we
are in whatever phase that is. And a lot of it's recovery. You
know, we've gone through some massive changes since I was a child, and
we are morphine as a people, as a human race, and there's a
lot of resistance. And yet there's a good number of us that are saying,
yeah, we want to create something that's beautiful and lovely and heal,
and let's do that, and let's do that together. So if I can
be part of that, and I can help encourage people that they can lose
it all. They can you know, live on you know, food stamps
and dig themselves out of the whole. They can be beaten and abused and
held back and told no, and they can still find a way to get
out that there will be people there cheering them along. One of them.
Yeah, Yeah, I'm curious going back to your childhood for a moment.
So you mentioned being forbidden to did your family initially did they forbid you to
learn a musical instrument or sing? No? So I was a ward of
the state at birth and was in two foster homes to start, and then
relatively, you know, three or six months into the foster system, I
was placed in a home that became my permanent home. So that family adopted
me. I refer to them as my adoptive family. I had an amazing
father. And when you when you say amazing, or I say, or
anybody says they have a great dad. I had the world's best dad.
And his story is a is a you know, come from nothing and build
himself into not just an extraordinary financial success, but was an incredible human.
And everywhere he went, everybody that he interacted with just he treated them with
such kindness and respect. And it didn't matter who you were, you his
greatest client, or the girl you know at the diner serving him coffee.
He showed everyone the same amount of respect. And I shadowed him. He
was my shadow. I mean I was his shadow, and he read me
stories by you know, some of the old greats like Augmandino, were my
bedtime stories, and he encouraged the gift of music. Okay, So around
seven, we moved into a home that had a piano. I had taken
some violin lessons, I believe right before that. We moved into a home
with a piano, and from a practical standpoint, there was a piano.
My adoptive mom said, play piano. I said, okay. Probably four
or five years after that, the piano instructor told my parents she needs to
be in a conservatory. Send her to a conservatory. Wow. Shortly thereafter,
on Christmas even eighty one, my dad died of a massive heart attack.
Oh god, what I was unaware of at the time, you know,
because you're just a child. I was twelve. My mom has borderline
personality disorder, so my adoptive family, and at that point she shattered,
and so the rage, the abuse, the beatings just became commonplace, and
I became I became household help, and which you know, I look back
and go, okay, you know, great, I learned a really good
cleaning skill because as an adult, I owned a carpet cleaning business. So
yes, right, right, So when she came home from work, she
didn't want to hear me play. When my adoptive brother was home. He
was terrorizing and would threaten to beat if I touched the piano, So I
stopped, didn't ever go to concert seravatory. She had started the enrollment into
a Ramonte well into a convent, an all girls boarding school that's no longer
in existence. So if my dad had been alive, I was likely heading
off to the convent, not a conservatory. Wow, and knowing what we
do you know know now about even more so about mental health. Borderline personality
disorders seek to isolate or to remove who they perceive as the threat. And
so it was. Oh maybe I was sixteen and I brought home a friend's
of guitar electric thinking, you know, all just play quietly in my bedroom
and we're going to form a garage band, of which I did not play
the guitar. And there was the threat if I didn't return it she would
throw it into the swimming pool. Oh, so music was just forbidden.
And that summer of my graduating the year I graduated from high school, I
was seventeen, I went and worked at a camp all summer and picked up
a five dollars guitar and I think it was a kids a kid's guitar now
that I look back, and a pitch pipe and a chord book and sat
in the local mountains during my off time reading this chord book, pitching you
know, with the pipe, the tuning, and discovered that I was also
told I couldn't sing, that I was tone deaf, and I discovered I
would discovered that I could sing. I was singing in the wrong keys,
and I didn't know how to sing high notes yet because I was truly an
alto. So I got home that summer I turned eighteen. She beat me
the last time, and I said I'm out, and I said goodbye to
the family money. I said goodbye to the brand new car, the condo,
the full ride to college paid by my adoptive mother, and I lived
in my car. Wow, and I bought a full like adult guitar at
that time. You really you really committed, you were all in. I
mean, that's a lot to walk away from. Good for you, I
mean that's a that's a big roll of the dice. Where you were you
scared or did or did you have the conviction that you were doing the right
thing? Or how did you how did you do that? As a teenager.
Sure I was scared out of my mind, but that was my touch
point. So a few things, if you know, we really want to
look back at that era of my life. And from a mental health standpoint,
you never know who you are going to interact with and where they're coming
from in life, and in a child, we see a child and and
and they may they may be acting out, or they may be shy,
or they may be boisterous. I was more boisterous. I never acted out
in a negative way, but you never know what's going on at home.
And an encouraging word and kindness and you know, lifting them up, even
in a moment, you do not know how that could change that child's life.
And I will say there were key adults that intersected. And when somebody's
abused, they're used to crumbs and they find their encouragement on crumbs. I
mean, it's terrible, but it is what happens. And those crumbs,
those trail of crumbs at people throughout my teenage life left me was enough for
me to say I can do this. There is hope, There is hope.
That clock is eighteen. I was twelve, thirteen years old, and
I said that eighteen years old, I'm out. I'm out at eighteen and
so yeah, scared. What was I going to do? But I was
in my car and I wasn't going to get hit again. And then I
can figure it out and how to pull a little bit of the silver spoon
out of my mouth. I didn't know what. I didn't know. My
parents were, you know, I shared earlier. My dad did very well.
So there are a lot of things. I had zero street smarts,
zero, very naive, and I thought, well, okay, I'll go
figure this out. And I did. Found a place to live with an
elderly lady and took care of her and had room and board. So that's
how I entered adult life. And I will say this the other saving grace
for me and why I chose to do it is one of the things in
the mental health community that they do say you're kind of an anomaly, Nancy.
I chose to volunteer and give back during my teenage years. I volunteered
for students against drunk driving, you know, getting my friends home safely on
the weekend. I volunteered at soup kitchens. I volunteered at the hospital as
a candy striper, I just poured myself into service. I realized, then
there are people that are way way worse off than I was. And I
think I look back now and I thought, wow, that was cultivated in
that season in my life. So no matter what season I've walked through in
my own mental health journey, which included making some really unhealthy choices when you
don't even know why you're making them, right, Like, why do we
attract unhealthy people into our lives? Well, there's more work to do,
you know, right, But I believe that framework set me up. And
then at eighteen or nineteen, I moved in with a roommate. Found the
piano. I don't know if you could see me, but I have a
piano behind me. I bought it when I was eighteen or nineteen years old
for five hundred bucks, and I had it restored when I was forty three.
Yeah. Wow, that's what I write on and I've played ever since
in the closet. I've played the piano in the closet. Wow. Now
I'm curious, and I kind of think I might know the answer. But
did you if you had any contact with your the family that you left My
adoptive family? Absolutely? Oh, you have. Well, it took six
months before I, you know, spoke with my adoptive mom again. And
it was actually one of my best friend's mothers who pretty much stood in the
gap. You know. She was very strong, very very strong, Laura
Fishman. She deserves to be honored. She stood in the gap for me
many, many, many times, and her home became the place of my
refuge. And the Fishmens would leave their home open for me if it got
too difficult at my house and I would know whether they were home or not.
I had a safe place to go, and no, I stayed in
contact, and you know, read what I thought was rebuilding a relationship.
And somewhere in my I believe I was in my mid forties, I discovered
I was being used. It was a scam, I or just it was
fake. It was what a borderline personality disorder does, pitying the children against
each other. One's the good child, one's the bad child. And for
most of my life I was just the bad child. But there was a
season where I suppose I became the good child in this dynamic with my siblings,
and my siblings became very jealous and very angry and retaliated emotionally, and
eventually I learned things about the family that I had not known, and I
said, okay, this is unhealthy. I need to draw stronger boundaries.
And then let's just fast forward my second marriage. I thought, you know,
we lost my kid's dad, not to death, but to the streets
to addiction. So my kids after eighteen years of marriage, my kid's dad
was a fallout of the cotton and hydrocodones and the you know, the narcotics
in pain management. And he was a pastor and a businessman, and we
lost him and he was just he was gone. And four years after that,
I remarried who I thought was just the love of my life. And
about five years into that I detected things were really wrong and I questioned him,
are you having an affair? And of course he said no, And
long story short, that relationship ended with a pillow over my head, Oh
my god, and he demanded that I sleep with him or the pillow stayed
over my head. And in a split second, you ask yourself in that
situation. Now we were at our cabin. He had destroyed our personal home
and so it was being remodeled or rebuilt. It destroyed it. How what
do you mean. He We were taking down some dry wall, and I
asked him, hey, before you start that project, please make sure you
protect everything and cover and seal off zones, because we don't know what's behind
that wall. We knew there was a chimney, but we don't know what's
in it. But he really believed nothing. You know, the laws of
the universe did not apply, and go nowhere and there would be no troubles
ever one of those and the chimney fell with like from the nineteen hundreds,
and it had cold dust in it. Oh my god, and the central
units were on, and it sucked it through the house. It was like
a fire without the flame. But it destroyed everything in its path. It
was uninhabitable. Every electronic had to be replaced. It ate through surfaces.
It was awful. It looked like there was a fire, but there was
actually no heat. So I moved up to our cabin. He traveled for
a living. He would come up occasionally and visit. And it was in
one of those evenings that we had a fight. And I went to the
loft to sleep, and I woke up with a pillow over my head.
Oh my god. And he said, no, woman of mine will ever
sleep, you know, somewhere else but our own bed. And in that
split second, you have to ask yourself, do I have enough air to
navigate this situation? And it's nano seconds, do I nenee him in the
groin and go run in for the car because cell phones did not work,
only landlines worked up in that area of the Pacific Northwest, and I could
breathe. I had enough air, and so I went down and slept with
him when I shared this, And then after that the marriage started to crumble
and we found out that, you know, he essentially had another family.
He had been vacationing, buying, you know, household goods. And when
I confronted it all, confronted him on it, he was very adamant they
were his family. I was like, well, but we're your family.
Wow, So he actually had Yeah. You hear about men doing that,
and it's always like how does how does anybody pull that off? But how
do you pull it off? It's exhausting. I just think it's so much
easier to be honest, yeah, because it's just exhausting. And he hadn't
married her. They weren't his biological kids, but he was adamant they were
his family, and they had they'd been vacationing together. They actually had a
cruise planned, and so the marriage was ending. And as I shared this
with my adoptive mother, she said, well, Nancy, he's a good
provider and sometimes you just have to put up with the other woman. Oh
my god, And I thought, heck no. And then she continued to
have a relationship with him. And I said, here's the thing, mom,
the man tried to kill me. Do you dispute that. No?
Okay, he forced me to sleep with him. That's called rape. Mom.
Yeah, I'm like, okay, where's the disconnect? And she said,
well, I talked to him and it wasn't his intention to kill you.
He just wanted to get your attention. Wow. I drew a boundary,
and I said, okay, adoptive mother, I didn't call her that
and call her mom, I said, And I differentiate because I've had contact
with my birth mom, and so I want to make sure I'm never referencing
this horror story to my birth mom who forced to give me up. But
my adoptive mother, I said, okay, here's your boundary. You have
a relationship with him, or you have one with me. You choose because
he's not allowed in our life, and he's scary and he stalks, and
he stalked me when I still lived in the Pacific Northwest. He stalked my
daughter and I said, you got to choose. It's one or the other.
And she said, I resent you telling me who you could be friends
with. And I said, okay, I can respect that. That's a
valid feeling. My boundary still sits and stands, so okay, we travel
four or five years down the road. This last December, I was with
a videography of film crew and we were going through the different areas locations of
where I lived, and we're preparing to do a documentary. And I had
written a Christmas song that reminded me of my mom, and I thought,
you know, she's in her mid eighties, she's getting older. You know.
It's okay, you know I love is love, you know, extend
love to all. And I'll come by and say hello. And I had
the film crew with me, but nope, they can sit in the car.
That's fine, But I want to share this this Christmas song I wrote
because I realized, oh my gosh, it's about you, and it's about
every person. Who's had loss and is suffering, and it's not just once
a year. Generosity is all year long. And receive a hug from me,
and having the loss that I did during Christmas time. Christmas has become
my favorite season and just the theme behind Christmas is generosity. So let's just
live that in our hearts all and long. So I went to share that
song with her, and I was greeted by again my very terrorizing, hostile,
angry adoptive brother and threatening me, threatening to sue me, threatening to
I'm like, wait what It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. I
walked in and she said the same thing. Because I'm sharing the story of
abuse to hope. He was like, Mom, you never denied it.
We've talked about it, we've talked about mental and oh it was. It
was verbally violent, so much so my film crew had witnessed the beginning.
They were actually scared. This was December, you guys, last December.
And I get in the car and I burst into tears and I said,
Okay, you will never have access to me again, never again. And
it's sad because I believe there's true hope, there's really hope, And I
thought, Wow, I am so far down this road. I joke that
I have a PhD In being therapied because I've been through so much therapy and
so much healing. And then yet wow, okay, now I do choose
to see it with a heart of compassion and heartompathy and even a heart of
gratitude, because the heart of bitterness and the heart of anger just destroys us,
and it destroys our bodies, and it keeps us from doing the things
that we're really here to go do, right, and and so but that
was that was as recent, you guys, as as a December. Wow.
Oh sorry, you don't deserve that pain. Yeah, that is horrible
in my experience. I mean, I assume, uh, I assume she's
she doesn't she hasn't sought help for her BPD. I assume no, no,
and most don't, right, and the and the and I think the
reality is and and you know, those of us who have dealt with people
with that who don't get help, it's that there's never any winning. In
other words, if you had gone to her, and uh, you know,
it could have been under any circumstances, she would have found some sort
of reason to be angry with you. Yes, And it wouldn't have it
could have been anything, you know, it wouldn't have. It wouldn't have
mattered what the circumstances were, because someone who has that, who has that
condition and does not get help, there's there's no winning with them. And
and you know, and I want to approach it with compassion and empathy as
well, because obviously it's you know, they're sick, but but if they're
not going to get help, then there really is no I I heard a
joke once, but I'm not going to tell it, but because I don't
want to want to. I don't want no, I don't want to hurt
anybody, but I'll I'll email it to you. But it's but it's a
it's about dealing with someone with bipolar disorders. So but yeah, so that
was that was pretty recent then? Wow, yep. Yes, And what
was shocking was my adoptive brother. I had pretty much written him out of
like my life and never even really thought about him. And he really wasn't.
In fact, this first project, he really wasn't. He's not weaved
throughout it the way you know. There there are some there are some songs
or just some experiences that I really reference back to my my adoptive mom.
I really kind of left him out of the story and I realized, I
realize, then, oh my gosh, you were the terror. You were
really the monster you and and he was so angry about a promotional video saying
that that I opened it with. He had me pinned up against the piano,
saying, hit me, Nancy, hit me, Nancy, hit me,
Nancy. I'm referring to my second husband that night preceding the pillow where
he had me pinned up against the piano at the cabin that we owned as
adults, right wow. And I couldn't get I couldn't figure out in the
moment, why was my adoptive brother so angry? Why was he so upset,
you know, your spew and lies about the piano. And I was
like, wait, I don't what are you talking about? And then it
dawned on me. As a kid, we had a cabin in the local
mountains of southern California, so in Big Bear, and Gosh, we had
that cabin since I was five years old till I was probably forty five,
and there was a piano there, and all of a sudden, I'm catapulted
back to my childhood when he would threaten and I'm like, oh my gosh,
he thinks it's about him. Wow, he thinks the stories about him
and it's not. It was about pillow Man, but you're so guilty.
And I realized, and I kid you, not you guys. I went
home and I wrote a song called it Monster. It's not on this album,
but it will be on the next we record. In this coming June,
We're going back to Abby Road to record two more and I'm so excited
about it because I was like an insert the adoptive brother into the story.
Does he also have BPD? You know? I? Is he a borderline?
I? You know, I don't know. I don't I really haven't
had a lot of contact with him as an adult. I would say I
would say very aggressive narcissistic tendencies for sure, hands down, because because when
you look back at my childhood and then all of a sudden, these memories
are flooding, and then you know, we met with some girls. I've
known some of them since I was five years old, and we all got
together for a dinner, and I had my film crew with me and my
film producer actually just started to share, Yeah, we saw her brother and
her mom and the girls, some of them I haven't seen since high school.
Said oh my gosh, her brother is a monster, and started to
recount times where he would be dragging me by my hair across the floor at
the church gym. And again I was like, wow, I really kind
of wrote him out of my memory. Yeah, and I thought, oh
my gosh. And of course, you know, I call my therapist.
I'm like, well, we may need to process the monster. And you
know, I've come so much further down this road, and I thought,
wow, okay, okay, Wow, this all right, this is part
of the story and part of the healing, and part of you know,
we circle it back. Why didn't you have the confidence or believe that you
could really do it sooner? Nancy? For all those reasons, he was
the one that was marched me back to the store. And I was not
allowed to listen to Ozzy Osbourne. Oh good, girls do not listen to
heavy metal. Wow. So I was not allowed. I was restricted to
what music I was allowed to listen to when he was home or And at
that point, I was just like, Okay, you know, he's the
obedient, He's not only a monster, but a very cliche one at that,
with the you know, can't listen to Ozzy. So here, I
am forty nine years old. We're all shut down, and I have been
advised by my advisors. You are sitting duck. It's dangerous now because the
reason that you know, he continued. The second husband continued to stalk the
woman he was with. Supposedly his family had killed her husband and had done
seven and a half years in prison. Oh my god, I know,
just is the story real? Wow? And my advisors were actually worried for
my safety. They said, Nanty, it's one thing to have the freedom
of movement, it's another that they know where you are at all times.
And do you have anywhere to go? And I said, you know what,
I spent eighteen years in Wisconsin. I have family there. I will
My kid's uncle actually lives there and we've stayed very, very close. And
I said, I'll head towards Wisconsin. At the time, I had re
enrolled back in college, the local community college, and was taking music courses
with the intention of getting a music degree because I couldn't read music well,
if at all, and I didn't really speak the language. When I spoke
with other musicians. I just didn't understand something. So I was in my
third quarter of theory and my piano instructor, and it wasn't the department at
chair, it was someone else, but with in that rank. They they
said to me, you're in the wrong school. This is a teaching track.
We think you should be in a conservatory. And at that point I
said, oh wait, this sounds familiar. And you recommended if I stayed
local, go to Seattle or they said, we really think if you could,
if you could make it work, like it means a move Nancy,
go to Berkeley College of Music. So on that road trip, I said,
well, let's head to Boston. And it was the shutdown. So
it was me in my car, of which I am familiar. I had
my guitar, I had my keyboard, I had my bicycle, and I
had my baseball glove. And I'm like, what more does a girl need
other than those four essential items, Like I may find somebody who want to
play catch, and I could certainly ride my bike freely, and I did,
and I eventually made it all the way out to Boston, stayed near
Fenway, of course, and went for long walks and walked around the Berkeley
College of Music. You know, it was shut down, but I was
thinking and like, you know, you kind of get a feel of what
you should be doing. Yeah. Well, somebody not at Berkeley but a
Her name is Sue Lancer. She's a professor on the East Coast in women's
studies and literature. And she told her son, who was a good friend
of mine, why is Nancy thinking of going to Berkeley? She just needs
you know, here's a PhD who promotes, you know, university. And
she said she just needs to go out and do it. Just tell her
to go do it. And when her son called me, he's like,
Nancy my mom. I'm like, okay, okay, so you know,
come full circle, Sue Lancer, Nancy, just go do it. I'm
like, okay, I guess I will. And I wrote four songs on
that trip and I was out for three months. I got home and then
really started to consider where should I move because I didn't feel safe. Yeah,
and and here I am present day. Wow, So how did it?
How did it come about? Again? What you do? Have a
You have a hell of a story, Jaz, You've really been through it,
Like I said, but now, how did this come about recording this
album the way that you did working with Dave pal is that how you say
is yes, working with Dave for okay, so that stories. I love
this story. I love the story so much. Okay, So okay,
So for all intents and purposes, let's just say I am a city girl.
The answer to that is yes, absolutely. Now, I've always loved
nature, and so the time in the mountains. I actually thought at one
point I'd be a forest ranger. Oh I, oh my goodness, Yes,
because I love the mountains, I love the you know, horses I
loved. I love trees. I save trees. I have saved trees since
I was a child. You know, trees that are being grown under power
lines that they're going to, you know, cut down. I'll keep a
you know something in my car to get them out and I'll replant them somewhere.
Oh yes, yes, save trees, and save animals, be kind
to all of nature, and and and so all of that to say here,
I am a city girl, and I'm looking for you know, at
the time, you know, I had sold my carpet cleaning business before I
married Pillowman and moved to the Pacific Northwest. But when I was in the
Pacific Northwest, I started investing in real estate and found my lane and and
did a lot of work in five years that I really focused on. I
guess that job, I suppose is what would say. But I built up,
you know, a rental portfolio. I also did some flipping, but
and I tied it to a mission of every working class human deserves to buy
a home. And because everybody wanted all the fancy houses, you know,
on the rich side of town, I'm like, what about these two bedrooms
that are dilapidated in neighborhoods that people forgot right? And that's that's my heartbeat,
you know, whether it's old homes and you know, old neighborhoods that
people don't want to care about, Like, no, why don't we rebuild
these neighborhoods the way they want them. We don't need, you know,
a fancy coffee shop on every corner. What about the foods in the community
they want to build? And these homes are beautiful. We don't all need
a McMansion or even want at this point, who want? Who wants?
So all that to say, I was looking for, well, where can
I go and continue to invest and feel safe. Well, I started traveling
to Texas, of which my daughter was very angry when I moved here,
very upset. Oh really why? Oh yeah? My daughter is queer and
from a women's right standpoint and from a LGBTQIA standpoint, she was really She's
like, Mom, what the heck are you doing? And I said,
they need good people in Texas too, babe. And so I landed north
of the Houston market in the country, in the middle of nowhere. And
so again, here you have this city girl in the middle of the country.
So what do we do when we live in the country. We learned
a two step, so I was like, I'm a dancer. I can
dance like a ballroom dance. I can, but I didn't know how to
two step. And I'd never listened to country music, so I was like,
wow, what is this stuff called? You know? Country music?
And I mean I listened to some of course, Texans have their whole different
style and it was just so much fun. So I ended up at a
bar with a girlfriend and we were two step in and there was this fantastic
band plane and one of the band members came down and sat at our table,
older gentleman, and you know, it was flirting a little bit and
telling us about what they were doing. And they were heading to Austin the
next day to record an album at Yellow Dog Studios, and I asked some
questions. Didn't tell them that I was a musician, because it's not about
me, right, I'm there to two step and encourage them and send them
on their way. But I filed it away in my head. I'm like,
huh, because I had, prior to that, been searching for a
recording studio that I could just get in and start recording the music I was
writing. But I couldn't really find traction, and not because they weren't interested.
It was timing. It was all timing, sure, And so it
was a month later. I got a call from my girlfriend and she said,
if you don't, someone else will have you sent your music. I'm
just like she was, Nancy, do you hunno? How many stories are
out there that other people have written, what other people have written and they
never even knew each other. Because inspiration will go where it's going to go
and whoever's going to be responsible for it? So are you going to pick
up the mantle? Are you going to pick it up and do something with
it because somebody else will. I was like, oh, my gosh,
what's the name of that studio? He likes dogs. I like dogs,
And I literally googled dog record Studio Austin and then it popped up Yellow Dogs
and I'm like, that's it. They liked labs and I'm like, if
he likes dogs and I like dogs, well he's probably pretty cool, so
why don't I send him an email? And that is literally how it happened.
I met a band they like the you know, I remembered the name
because he liked dogs. So if we didn't like dogs, we would not
be having this conversation today. And then I sent him a message and I
said, hello, David, you know this is who I am. I
have a body of work. I need composition. I would like strings added
to it, and somebody that can help with the composing and the conducting.
That's not my wheelhouse. And he said, sim what you've got. I
said, are you okay with just iPhone recordings? Because I am not an
engineer and wouldn't even know the first thing, And he goes, that's better.
I want to hear you know, the raws footage you've got. So
I sent him all of the music and my sixty five page backstory that I
had written. I had written why, I had written every song, and
he said, I will dig into it and get back to you. And
I said okay. And a week later he said, I don't know if
that is more chilling or more inspirational. When can we meet? Wow?
And he said, you know, he goes, are you local? I'm
like, yes, four and a half hours local, absolutely, what time
and where? And you know, a few days later we met and we
have been running ever since and it's just been it's it's really a beautiful story
to watch and even just to see the way we interact. And he,
you know, what I will say is that he saw it, he saw
me, he believed in it. I was still a little bit gun shy.
I'm like, well what about this? And you know, well,
oh, and I'm going to add another song. I added two songs.
In fact, to Love You and Me is the last song I wrote.
Oh. I realized I couldn't because the Nancy Mine album that is coming out
on May twenty ninth is a companion piece to a larger work, and that
larger work tells the entire story, and I realized I can't open the story
with trauma. I need to have some hope, you know, I need
to be like and so then of course I start to love you and me,
which you know starts off. I just wanted to hie. I just
want to go to sleep and not wake up. And then it was like,
no, I don't. I believe in this world and that we have
hope and that we can all band together and we can create something beautiful.
And you know, not very long after I was feeling forlorn, I wrote
that song. You know, an hour later it was done. Wow.
Yeah, we're gonna be uh wow. The time goes so quick, Nancy.
But we're gonna be in a couple of moments. We're gonna we're gonna
end with uh don't let her ruin You, which I assume is this the
single? It is the single. Now there is a there is a an
E word at the end of it, so I want to make sure that
everybody's aware of that. For radio play, there's an E word. There's
the F word. Oh oh oh yeah, no, that's uh yeah,
okay, no, no, I'm not gonna actually I'm not gonna play that
one I the FCC would No, I guess. I guess I didn't listen
to that one all the way through. I thought I did. Oh,
you never miss I know, I know, I want you. I was
just one time at the very end of the build in the choru. Yeah.
No, that's one time too many, you know what, you know
what I will do though, because I did listen to the song, I
guess I didn't hear the end of it. I will, Uh, I
can always make a radio edit of it. Just do that, you know,
and play it at a future date. But I'll let you pick what
should I play. Why don't you spin Insecurities? Okay, yeah, I
like that one too. Yeah, i'll play I'll play that. But yeah,
all the time goes so quick. But but I'm glad. I'm glad
we got to hear your story or I mean, you know, there's always
more, of course, but and we'll definitely have you back. I mean,
you've got to you've got something, You've got something new coming out in
May, you said, I do, okay, very good. Yeah,
So I'll also be in your neck of the woods at that time, too,
you will, I will, oh, well, very good, Yes,
I have that on my calendar. You're going to be around. Yeah,
the possibility that you could stop in and see us maybehind. I believe
it's the date. Oh, very very good, very good. All right,
well that is excellent, Nancy. What should people know about how to
find you online? How to keep up with everything that you're doing? Follow
you? Uh, I don't know if you're playing any shows, but any
shows you might have coming up or yeah, well, we are going to
be updating the website, so Nancy maney so n A n as in Nancy
see why m A is an Apple n e T dot com. We will
be updating the events where people can find me or listen or the different shows
that will be coming come the goodness summer. Okay, I'm actually healing from
a surgery that I had, so you know, I get back on the
road in May actually, and so we'll update all of that on at my
website as well as find me on Facebook. Yeah, you know my Instagram.
We're you know, everybody asked why why aren't you on Instagram? Like,
because I'm fifty four years old and we built Facebook. We all found
each other on Facebook. But we'll get Instagram, I laughed, so hard
about it. But yeah, there's there's uh you know, find me Nancy
Minee on Facebook and I will tell you. If you reach out to me,
I will respond. I love connecting with people. I will write you
back. I will send you a voice note, sometimes even send a little
video. I love connecting with other people, and so please please reach out
and you will hear from me. Outstanding, outstanding. All Right, Nancy,
we'll let you go for now, but it sounds like we're going to
be talking again soon and hopefully meeting you, so that'll be uh, that'll
be wonderful. But thank you so much for joining us today. We're gonna
thank you, Jenny. We're gonna wrap up and then and then we'll spin
that track in Securities. But Nancy Manet, thank you so much. This
has been great. Thank you. All right, we'll talk to you soon.
Bye bye byebye. All right, wonderful. Yeah that was Wow.
She's got quite a story, huh very much. So, yes, and
I love all the history in her songs. Yes, yes, it's definitely
worth reading her background. Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. Miriam in the
chatroom was commenting she was riveted by her story. Oh and our friend Rocky
Huber. We haven't seen him in there in a while, but hey,
he's also in the chat room. Hello. Hello. So before we go,
and by the way, we should mention you have a video that's been
getting a lot of attention. I'm a little viral on Twitter. Yes,
on the tweet. Yes, we should mention that. For people who haven't
seen it so they curious. Nowhere to check it out? You can.
It's actually quite a different few places that have it. But if you look
up be a Hero on Twitter, it's actually the pinned post. And we're
looking like we might cross a line here. We're at one hundred and ninety
six thousand views on Twitter alone, outstanding. Yeah, it's well over four
hundred shares, and yeah, it's been an incredible thing we've gotten. There's
a petition attached to it. We're asking people to sign and the petitions at
twenty three thousand and ninety nine signatures right now. I have a hope to
get it to twenty five thousand. Help me meet bike. Oh, feel
free to reach out to me. Go to Gencoffee dot com, j E
N N C O F f Ey dot com. You can find more information
in my blog or you know, feel free to just drop me a line
and be happy to talk with you. Absolutely, absolutely, all right.
We're gonna wrap up in a moment with one more track from Nancy Mane.
And by the way, thank you to everybody who joined us today. We
had Pop Farmers in the Pop Farmers, I should say, in the first
hour, and of course I then we had Eric Pilter's classic film review,
and then mister Jesse Coffee was here with us. Who's that sounding great?
I think I think you might be related, just possibly the O F.
F Ey and of course Nance Nancy Mane in the third hour. We're gonna
close with this track from Nancy and if you missed any part of today's show
and we'll be up in just a little bit at Wmnhradio dot org and at
my website Matt Connorton dot com. But here it is. This track is
called Insecurities. Oh your insecurities, they are not mind bear, and I
will not appall the jizz. I will not be compared. And I belong
in this world exactly as I am. It's not my fault. Be you
yourself, accuse and blame your man. I have spent years working on myself
to be who I am today. There are days that I just could not
see. So I fell to my knees and pray. If you don't like
who you have become, decide and change your ways, take some time and
again side you might have some to blame. Are insecurities. They are not
my bear and I will not call the jide. I will not be compared,
and I belong in this world exactly as I am. It's not my
fall that yourself accused, and blame your mar to down your wall and build
again, create something madnessness, love yourself and who you are. Make no
excuse in your go far. Don't play games. Who has the time?
Take your authority? If you're not happy, just walk away. Not your
target. I'm not your cross How are you Tuesday the wood? You chosen
to speak to me Tuesday? No, it's not Oh are you Tuesday the
wood? You chosen to speak to me Tuesday? Oh? Your insecure tees
aren't my cross bear? Why not? What not call the giant? Not
be her? Why not boing this world exactly as I am. It's not
my mom that you yourself bart willing to expand. It's not my fault that
you yourself are willing to expand. No, it's not love. How are
you tues? Say no word? You know John's up to speak to me
today. No, it's not all a lot, Come loud. I am
the one who does say all thank the grim and don't think the fall.
Don't mew from you when doll day. Most of time, listen to me.
I'm always sorry. I'll pay your face from you. I was you
way I feel