Voila! The Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel in Asbury Park, NJ. The last NERFA I attended was at a higher-end hotel. I don’t remember complaining about ANYTHING weird about it. Being introduced to the MANY things I can complain about with the Berkeley, I realize that having a weird hotel for a folk conference is frankly ABSOLUTELY imperative. I don’t remember that other place at ALL – but adore the strange memories of the old NERFA hotel and quite enjoyed getting to know the idiosyncrasies of this one. So though there were PROBLEMS – I think we should probably look forward to working with those issues and settle into enjoying bitching about them, rather than throw out the venue.
One of the most immediate notable features of the Berkeley : chandeliers EVERYWHERE.
This is written in post. I had neither the time nor the mental wherewithal to write about NERFA at NERFA – so it’s actually November 17th, the day after our 21st anniversary (Heather and I’s ilyVersary, not Kristen and I … she new!) and I’ve got to admit, today’s the first day I felt like I got enough sleep since before this time last week.
Barring a centralized Privella Schedule Database, we resorted to photographing the schedules of our friends and of individual showcases (posted PDQ on people’s doors) so that we could figure out when and where we could catch what we wanted.
The run up to NERFA isn’t THAT stressful for me. Heather stresses about it. I generally just dread it. And we drove up to Asbury Park, NJ with a rob who was NOT in a good mental space for four days of Hawt Folksy Networking. I have a lot of suspicion and distrust built up about professional organizations, and at the root of this is the sheer amount of money involved. There are dues and fees and registrations, and then they take you to a resort town with a resort hotel and there’s a lot of money dropped there and then the food’s all double-priced and… and especially ilyAIMY of 15 years ago the sheer COST of attending any of these things was an unimaginable expense – and even if we were ASSURED a return on the investment, fronting the cost in the first place was simply beyond us.
Oh what a difference time and reputation make.
The Philadelphia Folk community had a a BIG presence – understandable – and “Bang Bang 2” was a really cool room to boot… though in post I don’t think I caught ANY music there.
We’re in a place where we can afford this sort of thing now. I don’t know that we could happily shell out for more than one of these conferences a year, and having attended SERFA and heard rumour of FARM and FAR… Erfa or whatever it’s called, and of course Folk Alliance International – it’d be really great to go to ALL of them and really compare and contrast – but we ain’t THAT comfortable…
In any case, even though we can afford it now, it’s with a feeling in my heart that I’m buying into the basest of all gatekeepers-of-talent – that of the buy-in. There is nothing else keeping you from attending NERFA than the money. And you needn’t bother applying to the showcases, professional, formal, guerilla, private, DJ or otherwise if you don’t have about a thousand bucks ready to plunk down…
It’s crazy. Looking back at some of the schedules I photographed AND feeling that the whole conference was a LOT smaller than previous years (I think it was about half the population and 2/3 the performers?) – I look at this schedule and realize I only saw SIX of the performers on this list while making my way from place to place. So no matter how glutted I feel I was on music, there was a LOT more to hear…
Or at least, this is how I generally feel about it. Fortunately – Kristen reminded me of the following :
At least we’re doing something DIFFERENT.
Yeah, money, gatekeeping, large organizations and chaos, ego aside – sometimes it’s time to remind myself – this is part of my LIFE and I should get my head out of my aging ass about it all and simply sit back and enjoy the ride.
Because if I can back my head away from the politics of it all, if I can remind myself that I’m not WELL established but I AM established and it’s not going to HARM me if I come away from this with naught but the experience – I can then just… enjoy the experience.
ALL THIS TO SAY : we drove up to NERFA with me well-and-thoroughly in a SULK and it’s honestly, probably better that I wasn’t writing as we were driving up. It’d have been epic rob sullenness and y’all get enough of that.
We’re ready for many!Matt Nakoa was amused at the number of electric guitar graphics at the folk conference…Just cool decor.Ethan Baird taking people on a tour of the space.Luxli USED to have little lights and big lights and medium lights. Then they partnered with NERFA and rebranded for musicians… violin, viola, cello… and taiko!Part of exploring is figuring out where I’Part of exploring is figuring out where I’ll be running my open mics on Friday and Saturday. And behold! The Johnny and June room. Apparently Johnny Cash had owned? Lived in? Invested heavily in? The Berkeley Hotel in the 80s and so there’s this intensely decorated room for us to play music in…
With a warm, beautiful day outside, and having wrapped our initial wandering, we took the time to go explore the outdoors as the sun went down….
I think I was also deep in my feelings about the agonies of FocusMusic, politics, Life, the Universe and Everything and my back probably hurt too. Yeah. Better that I wasn’t writing.
It was a smooth drive. That helped. The architecture of the town of Asbury Park is pretty fascinating. A little patch of New England just two hours away. Creepy pseudo-Victorian homes replete with wrap-around porches and hidden windows and towering turrets. The weather is INCREDIBLY warm for November and we realize we’re literally a block from the beach. There are definitely worse places to be.
The boardwalk was beautifully abandoned and other than a momager and her kids and a photographer no doubt shooting for The Gram we were able to just explore freely…
Tastefully placed bubbles gave this mural a tasteful SEAL of approval…
Check in is smooth and the social aspect… is good almost immediately. Seeing Coco Wilde and John Platt and Greg Klyma, Matt Nakoa and Neale and so many others rapidly puts me in a better head space and despite the awkwardness of masking (will we? Won’t we? Should we? Shouldn’t we?) I begin to feel a lot happier with a swiftness.
A big part of this I lay at Jillian Matundan’s feet. Jillian? You don’t know how much I treasure you. But I do. You are instant comfort.
The first night at NERFA is really just about getting settled, learning the lay of the land, finding secondary and tertiary coffee sources since that’s going to be IMPERATIVE… and figuring out where the stairwells are because elevators are bullshit and stairwells have better acoustics.
And so – that is what we did.
Just a hefty stone’s throw away. May I present : the Atlantic!
Also – since this year there was no centralized source for finding guerill- ahem “private” showcase schedules – we went around taking pictures of all the schedules we could find for future reference.
Kristen and Jillian Matundan helping me explore. Sassily.
Notes on “private” showcases : I’m not sure why the name is changed, but knowing my community I imagine it’s because the term “guerilla” has militant connotations? Personally I don’t like the term “private” because it implies it’s “by invitation”, but changes in nomenclature are low on my list of things to complain about. Additionally, I’m not sure if there was a “centralized” schedule of guerivate showcases in the past, but I know for a fact I made little lists of who I wanted to see and when, I felt like I’d made those lists in advance, so I feel like this was a resource that HAD existed in previous years… ? But maybe I’m making that up.
Also – obviously the best term would be “privella”. Privella showcases.
Okay – enough said. Now for photos…
The boardwalk thingie.Art along the boardwalk…… cool death stuff…How very Baltimore.Well, I guess I need to look this guy up…. “Athenagoras was born as Aristocles Matthew Spyrou on April 6 [O.S. March 25] 1886 in the village of Vasiliko, near Ioannina, Epirus (then Ottoman Empire).[2] He has been described as having been of Aromanian,[3][4][5] Albanian,[6] or Greek descent.[2] Athenagoras was the son of Matthew N. Spyrou, a doctor, and Helen V. Mokoros.[2] Athenagoras devoted himself to religion at an early age because of the encouragement he received from his mother and a priest from his village.[2] After completing his secondary education in 1906, he entered the Holy Trinity Theological School at Halki, near Istanbul, and was ordained a deacon in 1910.[2]” Well… I guess I’m going to have to keep reading to see why he’s got anything to do with a boardwalk in New Jersey… nice sculpt though.There’s nothing quite so beautiful as a resort town in the off season…Off to the Bang Bang for dinner. With it’s pretty tables.But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t check out the gear….Kicking off the DJ showcases with a familiar face…Jillian Matundan! The first performer of NERFA!Drank the Gold (DJ Showcases)A lot of empty seats for the DJ showcases. Basically this is an opportunity for DJs across the region to say “here’s someone I really want to share”. We were chosen for one of these several years ago and it’s a great way to be put in front of people, though as you can see – sadly small audience this year. I have NO concept as to how many people were tuned in later, though due to technical problems (some I could help with, some I could not) it may have been MUCH later…This is not a good photo of me. Weirdly, it may also be the only bad photo ever anywhere of Matt Nakoa.Karyn Ann was in from Oregon and just playing one of the NERFA open mics – but had a great, fierce voice.I went and wandered for a bit and discovered the pimpin room (Bang Bang 2)Complete with pimpin skull chair.We haven’t seen Ryan Fitzsimmons in a LONG time – he’s merely been a face in a Zoom call or a voice on a phone for YEARS – so it’s good that he understands the True Meaning of the Pimpin Skull Chair. This was MY NERFA!Nick Depuy – another good performer at the open mic that got me to slow down and take a listen.Back to the DJ Showcases and the first of the Keynote Speakers – Sarah Craig. I found her VERY inspirational and it was my pleasure to be on a panel with her the next day. What she and Lena’s have been doing to not just survive but to thrive has been incredible, and it gave me a LOT of ideas for things I could bring to Focus, IMT, and my own businesses… if I’ve got time and wherewithal and energy.Sarah’s tech guy Reese Fulmer headed up this string band. Unfortunately the poor organization of NERFA’s online presence means I can’t turn up ANY names from the DJ showcases… I must admit, the sound was SO bad for the DJ showcases I frequently escaped to the underpopulated, but much better-sounding Bang Bang Open Mic.This dog is apparently the hotel dog. He leads you nowhere though and is purely aesthetic in nature.Exploring…Girl Blue. Heather’s been raving about Arielle (her) and them collectively for a long time… and now I get to see what the fuss is about.And holy shit. We know a LOT of amazing performers. And within that greatness there is a tier of true rockstar level. People who… are unimaginable in their perfection and yet still come across as honest. People who are in colour while the rest of us are in black and white – and yet you spend most of your Life in black and white not even really realizing there’s a whole other LAYER out there. It is not hyperbole to say Arielle may be one of the best performers I’ve ever seen. Think Ani Difranco if she’d learned to play the guitar “the right way” (for better or for worse)… and honestly maybe that was the only distraction, that I felt that if I closed my eyes and solely listened to the vocals it would’ve been a song or four before I knew for SURE I wasn’t listening to Ani Difranco. However, I also KNOW that there are performers that ARE this good… the Matt Nakoas, the Joy Ikes, the Nelson Emokpae’s… and it made my kind of question, no matter that the rest of the evening was solid, what ANY of the other performers were doing sharing a stage with these two.
After the DJ showcases it was time to go explore the Prifilla Showcases… (hrm, that sounds like birth control, maybe it’s NOT the best name…)
After ilyAIMY kicked off the introductory set in Brad Yoder’s Musical Chairs room, we stuck around for the first round! Tina Ross. Lovely tune about aging in this business. I recorded Kristen’s cello for Tina’s most recent album. Owen Walsh from PA had a powerful voice. All the better for being backed by Brad on his new sax.Jillian Matundan.Another rockstar group – Corner House is VERY Chris Thiele, but with a front man who’s bizarrely, beautifully expressive. Adam Sandler crossed with Bowser. Thank me later for THAT mental image…I’d caught some videos of Bethlehem previously and was VERY excited to see her at some point… now was not that point… HOWEVER I got to experience Jillian and Corner House sitting on a bed with Bethlehem. I didn’t realize this at first. However, she’s a dancer both on and off the stage and the way she responded to the music was unique. I look askance all around me and beg for forgiveness for what I’m about to say – but ALL good music should at least ONCE be experienced while in bed with a dancer.Then there was THIS round. FULL of rockstars: l-r Rees Shad (recognized as a rockstar, he had a Formal Showcase Saturday night), Miss Emily (intense, surprisingly huge voice) and Taylor Abrahamse.Taylor Abrahamse… sheesh… think Michael Jackson-style vocals on top of bluegrass right hand with a swing jazz left-hand and you MIGHT grasp this guy….Our friends the Honey Badgers. Erin and Michael were some of the first people we saw when we arrived, and some of the last people was said farewell to. Glad we could catch their set…And up next was Bethlehem. Her videos were very artsy and you didn’t really grasp what she did. I had sort of assumed that her title of “vocussionist” meant … tap dancing? But this was much more body percussion than anything more recognizable… … oh … body percussion with an AMAZING voice that’ll take you to church.Heather and Ethan Scott Baird relaxing a bit as day one comes to a close.Took one last wandering down the boardwalk to the water… because when else am I gonna get to do this?With an attendance of about 500 people, I imagine there were about 1000 photographs JUST like this one. Didn’t stop me tho.
