November 10th, 2018 – NERFA Day 3 – ESCAPE.

I’ve made my escape. The hotel is big and beautiful and broad, but I needed to make a run for it, get out and escape. I headed to the stairwell and no-one stopped me. I reached the bottom only to find that this ONE exit, marked elsewhere as “leads outside” is alarmed, solely an emergency exit – no escape is here because it’s not YET an emergency. Mayhaps tomorrow I’ll be that desperate, but for the moment I’ll seek other egress.

Back up the stairs, circle around the building, find the CENTRAL stairs – the ones that leave me in plain sight of everyone in the central indoor “courtyard”. I feel their eyes upon me, I know they’re all watching – but no-one moves to stop me. I reach the ground level, head towards the front doors, past the main desk, nodding at Greg Greenway who’s clearly thinking the same thing – though momentarily I wonder why he’s dressed so heavily… but then SUNLIGHT bursts through the ornate brass and glass front façade,the doors part and

OH FUCK IT’S COLD.

I’d managed to forget to check the weather, and have now exited into a pretty brisk New England autumn day, sunshiney or not, with wet hair and a t-shirt. Dead leaves come whirling from one direction, Greg Greenway battons down his hat and throws his scarf in the other direction… I’m not going back in there just yet, the sunshine’s just too good –

But oh fuck it’s cold.

No problem.

I just need

Coffee.

Last night I completely overslept and missed a couple of acts that I’d have dearly liked to see. Heather said Jonathan Byrd’s band (complete with saw player) was truly stunning. I missed Zoe Mulford and Suzie Vinnick but would be able to catch them somewhere in the guerrillas – I’m assuming they filled Annie Sumi’s slot with in alternate since she’d been stopped at the Canadian border and managed to say just… the wrong… thing while looking a little too… not… white (well, I’m just guessing on the latter) but I would’ve liked to catch House of Hamill again, sometime when I’m NOT running sound so I can just sit back and watch their musicianship.

Still, even looking at the clock with a start, realizing it was already past 11 – there was going to be plenty of things to see and we started making the rounds happily, poking into one room after another and catching snippets of songs.

Our first FOCUSED listening experience last night was squeezing into the back of the Big Orange Tarp showcase just as a round with Matt Nakoa, 

Well, back in the warm embrace of the hotel I pop back to the room, and knowing I’ve got about two hours before I kick off NERFA open mic Session 2 – well, I figure a half hour of further chilling and writing to you would be pleasant. This transpires, I grab my bags to go and load in to my room downstairs and then… as I approach Atrium 3 Floor 2 I realize it’s quite occupied! I THOUGHT I’d checked the schedule for other Atrium 3 activities – and THOUGHT there was nothing betwixt me and myself – I’d been given a key to the room so I could set up and leave gear there nice and secure – though I’d found that it DID seem to get opened kind of randomly here and there so I didn’t leave my board or camera bag and stuff like that – but I THOUGHT I certainly wasn’t going to be pressed for time.

Now I have a further hour of downtime, will be able to THEORETICALLY access the room at 1.45pm, reset (removing their table, etc) and set up (mics et al) WHILE greeting people WHILE explaining to people that no, there are no further spaces for signup – fifteen minutes to get that all up and running is… 

not ideal.

So – went from a relatively chill day to OH FUCK in the last 5 minutes and if I’d been more careful looking at the damned schedule… well… I could’ve at least saved myself the spike in blood pressure.