Buskers

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Love them or loathe them?

...and why do they always play "Losing My Religion"?

― MarkH, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One of my favourite bands used to busk before gigs. They said they actually earned more money that way. hahahahaha

― nathalie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, it wasn't Violent Femmes. But they did cover some VF songs though!

― nathalie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm going to shoot the one at Oxford circus who always sings Bob Marley songs and tells everyone to cheer up all the time. I mean how can I be cheerful when I'm listening to him make bad songs even worse???

― chris, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nathalie was it Travis?

― Tom, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I lived in Dundee, I used to regularly see Danny Wilson busking in the Murraygate. Strangely they were far more entertaining than the records they subsequently released.

― Billy Dods, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I fact I learned about Edison from watching TV last night: He hated buskers, and thought he had wasted a third of his life listening to them. He got a bill passed in Parliament banning them, so people paid buskers to play outside his house, and lopped dead cats (!) at him in protest. Despite this, I'd have to take the view of Edison, especially when they seem to expect money.

― Bill, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The ones in New York always play the Theme from the Godfather. I tells ya, nothing beats hearing the Theme from the Godfather played on the Chinese fiddle, steel drums, or the accordian ...

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wasn't that Babbage and not Edison with the dead cat thing?

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Worst busker ever encountered in 1996 outside Shepherds Bush tube where we had arranged to meet a friend before going to the PUB. However we were waiting for 20 minutes, 20 minutes during which the busker played not just the same song over and over again but the only bit he knew of that song, this being the chorus of "Killing Me Softly". On a flute. Absolutely bloody murderous.

― Tom, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh my god TOm, HE'S STILL THERE!! and is equally crap on the clarinet if that makes you feel any better about it!

― katie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The ones down the Tube always sound more interesting by dint of the acoustics down there. The weirdest effects of this kind are in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel which is the nearest to circular in cross section of any tunnel I've been in. Oxford has an amplified flautist who appears from time to time...the sound is very haunting. Just when you've escaped him, then you hear the Andean pipe players and it's like watching "flight of the condor" all over again.

― MarkH, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Old-time XoRford heads - who was that bloody hippie with his electric violin who used to play in the cornmarket all the time and no doubt still does. His albums were always in - and playing in - the 'head shops' up the Cowley Road that I used to get dragged into occasionally. Fucker.

― Tom, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think I'd use the word 'haunting' to describe the sounds that the Oxford flute'n'FX player makes. Something like 'godawful' would be much more appropriate.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't remember the fiddler, but I've just remembered that the Andean pipe players don't have the monopoly in Bonn Square. Sometimes there is a rockabilly band (think: big quiffs, upright bass) of the type which used to play the Bullingdon Arms before the Bully was done up when Oxford was Radio 1 Sound City.

― MarkH, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

in Cambridge there was a guy with an amplified and tremoloed and distorted 12 string acoustic guitar. it sounded quite good sometimes, a bit like Flying Saucer Attack.

― katie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to work in Virgin in Oxford and had to listen to that bloody flute/violin guy all bloody day every Sunday. The tourists loved him though - why?!

― Paul Strange, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Best busker = a guy on a tube train, his guitar was wrecked had screws instead of the usual windy things. But, he was damn good! Well, in comparison to the terrible 'ironic' guided by voices concert we'd just seen.

― james, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i like the 50s r'n'b guitarist who plays at weekends in Oxford St tube, complete with red shirt, bootlace tie, etc

― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No no no, the best guy used to be Old Blues Guy in Manchester, always found in various places round the Arndale Centre. Think he's moved on now, but he was FANTASTIC and shoulda been in some horrible gin soaked dive somewhere in the American Deep South in the 30s. He stamped his foot and howled and had a saxophone. He would never have played "Losing My Religion".

Which would be a gr8 blues title IF ONLY....

― Sarah, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We have a man in edmonton who plays the qi lin (?) like an angel and a woman who sings like patsy cline , the resta are questionable . Alot of my freinds were/are musicans who make money and get to practice this way its a good thing

― anthony, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That 12 string guitar bloke in Cambridge could be good, but was often a bit rubbish. Natural consequence of him being a bit of a hippy and improvising everything I suppose. Definitely the best in Cambridge though. You don't remember Figaro man, do you?

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

no. explain!!

(if he merely warbled "Figaro" a bit i shall be sorely disappointed).

― katie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

He sung opera to a tape recorder accompaniment. Very badly, and only the stuff compiled on The Best Opera Album in The World...Ever! The highpoint of his set was a rendition of the Toreador song featuring one of his friends running around in a cardboard bulls mask. It was rubbish.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the best I knew of was the aging chinese dulcimer player in greenwich, near the foot tunnel entrance. a true musician, presume dead or in a home now.

the worst was a grinning chegwin look-a-like who got on the piccadilly line westbound a few stops out from heathrow and regaled tourists with golden oldies on his disgusting injection molded ovation guitar

― Alasdair, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Flute and fx pedals busker who can be found in Oxford and Swindon far too often = Frei Zinger. Apparently he's really popular in Germany. Eek! Destroy.

Oxford rockabilly band = possibly the Rocking Jaybirds. They're all right. If you're in the mood. Which, let's face it, you generally aren't if you're trying to visit some shops in a hurry and have already been delayed by twenty-three bus queues and a troop of rucksacked and fluorescent-yellow-clad French schoolchildren.

Electric violin guy = probably Ed Alleyne-Johnson (never seen him busk, but he's the local electric violin player who's recorded albums). I was actually quite impressed by the concept of a purple electric violin aged 12, and he appeared on Jools Holland wearing a leather jacket with a Mandelbrot set picture on the back, which I thought was rox0rous. Hm, oh dear.

Destroy those bloody Peruvian panpipe guys who look and sound worryingly like the Fast Show sketch and keep appearing on Bonn Square when I'm in a hurry to return cds to Central Library ten minutes before they close.

Not a big fan of buskers, but there was a really good accordion player busking in Cologne. There was also a bloody awful accordion player who went round all the restaurants when people were trying to eat, played badly right next to their table, and then demanded money. Argh.

― Rebecca, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We don't have buskers in Dallas. Although there is a fellow in Austin who wears a crown and plays blues music on the main frat-club street. There's also a guy in a bikini and heels who ran for mayor once but I don't think he plays any music.

― Samantha, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I always thought ther electric violin bloke was Sir Bald Diddley, not content with residency at the Bully. I always like the one outside of Marks and Sparks who prodded 'tunes' out with one finger on a Casio. Quality entertainment, essential as you stride on down to Tiger Lily in order to buy another stupid fucking hippy shirt. Oh my misspent youth! Why do I have no sense? Oh! The tassles! Surely Central Library is shut at the moment. I'll ask my mum. She should know.

― alix, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That would indeed be Babbage, your badgerness, I deeply apologise. In Winchester there used to be a man who played the upright piano on the high street under a big white umbrella. The novelty value of taking a piano into the bloody high street was quite a winner. Don't know what's happened to him now, though.

― Bill, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't mind buskers so much as the blokes who spray themselves silver and stand still for money. DEATH TO STATUE MEN!

― Madchen, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What about your run of the mill "will work for food" guys? These are the ones we have, on every freaking street corner.

Recently I was coming out of the laundromat when someone asked me for change. I was in a hurry and, quite honestly, said I had none since I just finished the laundry. He said "Thanks a lot. I hope you never need any help." Asshole. He was eating Taco Bell by the way.

― Samantha, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

statue men = piece of piss, simply push them off, they don't fight back as they then wouldn't be allowed back to Covent garden. I once saw someone flicking bogies at them too, that made me laugh a lot.

― chris, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(we are surely approaching the utter social evil that is the street mime: i haf NEVAH seen one outside covent garden, i hasten to add, as toddlers everywhere start crying and small dogs burst into flame...)

― mark s, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

small dogs burst into flame

I wish I had this power.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i saw a Russian music student, in dinner suit, busking with a Vibraphone(!) once, which was v. impressive.

― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I saw a guy in Cambridge the other day playing the guitar in a bin. As in a covered bin with the head of the guitar sticking out of the hole. But I'm sure I've seen this somewhere else, possibly on Trigger Happy TV or something. Does anyone know?

― Sam, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hmmm, it's not the same bloke who went round with a loaf of bread on his head for a while, is it?

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The busker I would gladly bludgeon to death is the one in the Sylvester the cat suit playing Part-Time Lover on trumpet at Victoria.

― Mark Morris, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Central Library is indeed shut, Alix, it's a right pain. I believe the rockabilly types I was thinking of (sometimes seen in place of the Peruvian panpipe guys) are called the Corsairs. Chris, can you be sure the person was flicking bogies? Did you see them, erm, in the act of picking? eurgh.

― MarkH, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom: No, I have to disappoint you, it isn't Travis. It is dEUS. Who? Indeed. An obscure little band from the land of waffles and beer.

― nathalie, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There was a busker on the Metro in Paris when I was there in August. Stand-alone amplified acoustic guitar, versions of Simon and Garfunkel songs, the guy looked like a fifty-year-old Yanni with grizzled long grey hair and mustache, and was dressed fairly nattily. I contemplated him duly.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Although a U.S. official told NBC on Monday that “it’s way too early” for the introduction of special forces, the AC-130 — referred to by the military as “Puff the Magic Dragon” because it destroys targets so thoroughly — is used by U.S. ground forces trained for operations in hostile countries.

"puff the magic dragon"? i didn't know that puff was all that violent. i mean, why not "godzilla"? are these the same military people who came up with "operation noble eagle"?

buskers: when i was working in midtown manhattan, there was a busker in the 50th st./b'way station EVERY DAY. he seemed to make a good deal of money, even though he sounded like travis if they were a singular person as their name would imply.

― fred solinger, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It hadn't occurred to me that one city might have more than one electric violin player inflicting themselves upon unsuspecting shoppers' ears. I'd always assumed (without actually bothering to find out) that Sir Bald Diddley was a guitarist. Hm.

It has officially been TOO LONG since I was in Oxford (or anywhere else with shops). Sigh.

― Rebecca, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We have this one guy we like to call the Unknown Busker. He strikes cocky guitar slinging street corner poses on King, and wears a brown paper bag over his head with only crude eyeholes cut out. He's quite good too. And then there's Harmonica Barney. Looks just like Barney from the Simpsons, and sits on the ground lurching back and forth, hat in hand held out and swinging side to side, and he doesn't actually play the harmonica, just breathes air in and out through it as loud and fast as he can. And I shouldn't forget the funny ranting old guy who sometimes has a sidekick and bangs on a big white bucket with a stick and has a million classic original tunes like "The Fart Song". That guy is the best busker ever. He doesn't even sing "Wish You Were Here". Fun Fact - Toronto is anal enough to designate the 'approved spaces to busk' by deliniating them on the floor or ground with wide yellow tape.

― Kim, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

gotta love the bostno subway "stairway to heaven' man

― Mike Hanle y, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One of the subway stops on the Young line in Tornoto had a round dome main area and a fiddler that used to echo down all the halls. I dont think it was busking area but it was good enough that no one bugged him. I wish I could remember the stop but it was on the part I never go under University/Avenue.

― Mr Noodles, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tell us the truth, Hanle y, did you busk when you still lived in Boston?

I can tell ya one thing ... based on yer MP3's, you'd be a hella better than the overwhelming majority of buskers in the NYC subway system, that's for sure!

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's one regular of the NYC subs that plays guitar and works some electric drums with his feet. I once gave him a dollar, only to realize a few minutes later that he was playing Creed or something just as terrible and really wanted to take my money back.

― bnw, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bring back breakdancing busking. I read about one who was an amputee so lacked one or two antipodean limbs. He used to dance and scare families. Ahh America the promised land. It sounds fantastic. (if you are wondering where I got that from its in John Waters article why I love LA, in the book 'Crackpot'

The man who stands around outside Mc Donalds singing opera is good though. Beats children playing the recorder

― Menelaus Darcy, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The one at Oxford circus today who was singing "I don't wanna talk about it" both sounded and looked as if he had a twisted colon, the poor feller, maybe he was raising money for an operation.

― chris, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sylvester the cat is at Victoria? I thought he was at Tottenham Court Road!

― rosemary, Thursday, 18 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought there were two sylvester the cats who performed togather? Maybe they split due to musical differences and now work different stations?

― chris, Thursday, 18 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

six years pass...

Edwige is my favourite busker -

http://www.edwige.co.uk

Somebody needs to put her in a movie. She's other-worldly.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 7 February 2008 12:56 (eighteen years ago)

six years pass...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/23/noisy-bath-buskers-disrupt-abbey-evensong

i love this quote:

“How do I feel? I feel like weeping. Truly. Weeping for a city ruined by the clamour of music. Weeping for choirs that are victims. Weeping for my staff subjected to music every day. Weeping that we human beings just cannot resolve conflict.”

― john wahey (NickB), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 10:14 (eleven years ago)

just think how he's going to feel when he finds out he's got u2 in his itunes

― john wahey (NickB), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 10:16 (eleven years ago)

lol. This was item no. 3 on Radio 4 news this morning, must be a slow news day what with minor issues such as ISIS, West Lothian Q etc.

― Barry Gordy (Neil S), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 10:27 (eleven years ago)

One hellacious evening I had to wait 30 or 40 minutes for a bus (that was supposed to run every 15 minutes, but the Metrobus schedules are the greatest work of fiction ever produced in Washington, DC). I had to listen to a guy with a trumpet who was cycling through three Christmas carols, NONE of which he could play correctly. Ever since then I have longed to arrest buskers on charges of noise pollution.

Someone is petitioning WMATA to be allowed to busk in Metrorail stations. If I were to encounter someone performing on the platform, I would be seriously tempted to shove him/her/other in the path of an arriving train.

― Miss Anne Thrope (j.lu), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 11:00 (eleven years ago)

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