A Busker's Tale

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 08 Aug 02 - 10:39 PM

One of the few regrets I have in life is that I never tried busking during the time of my residence in the USA.

BUT, I know where I will go to do it if I ever return again and that is the most southerly point of mainland USA in Key West, Florida. There is a marker there saying "Southernmost Point of the USA" that is a tourist magnet, but any time I was there there were never any buskers. The place is a gold mine waiting to be discovered.

There are a few drunks hanging around offering to take your picture, but I doubt they would be a problem ...

Murray

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 02 - 11:24 PM

About 18 years ago the worst storm in recent history started to build up while a mate and I were out scouting for sea urchin beds, in a little dive-boat off the coast here in Southern California. We got blown into Avalon and tied up snug; it was a helluva blow and it went on for several days. Several boats were blown right off their moorings.

Anyway, we were out of dough and kinda short on food by the time it was over. So for the last couple of days we just turned out ashore with a six-string and a blues harp and played for the local breakfast cafe, which earned us enough to eat. Not our usual approach to breadwinning, but when you're out of luck ya gotta make do somehow. It kept us together until the weather blew over and we could skedaddle for home!

A

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 01:16 AM

I guess I just have to be brave and try this one of these days.......problem for me is that EVERYBODY in this small town knows me; maybe I should just go to a bigger town where nobody knows me. Do ya'll "salt" the box or is that cheating?

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: hesperis
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 01:24 AM

Salt it. Better yet, put it in the case before you leave home, and always leave a dollar or two in the case afterwards. (I always feel nervous about putting my own money in it in public.)

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: alanabit
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 02:55 AM

Yes Sorcha. It's not cheating. What's more, leave the bigger money in and take the shrapnel out. You are worth money, so always tell your audience that you expect to get it. You are not playing for nickels and dimes, you are playing for dollars. Good luck. Alan.

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 01:47 PM

Murray--You must have hit Key West on on off day--when I was last there, it seemed a Mecca for buskers--though for most, the "Kaaba" seemed to be Margaritaville--

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: GUEST,Master McGrath
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 03:54 PM

There used to be a busker in Liverpool who used to make himself a new banjo every day out of waste cardboard. He would just cut out the shape and draw the strings on with a felt tipped pen. He would then sing....."PLING PLING A PLINGA PLING PLING PLING A PLINGA PLING ...." (I'm sure you all recognised "Bring out the Barrel" there) He made good money and used to give the banjo away at the end of the day to any passing curious child.

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: ollaimh
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 09:45 PM

well i'm going to revive this thread. i have been busking for thirty year--i ought not to admit that, and have a few tales, but for now let me say it is the people who you actually cheer up in the midst of depression or grief who are whorth the hasles of the job. there are lots of hassles at times but every few weeks someone tells me of their personal disaster that was getting them down untill they heard me palying a tune that cheered them up or a sad song. now we do rather get treated like gypsies from time to time. i was in new brunswick a few weeks ago and tried to busk the noncton market and some self important fat head kicked me out--even though they permit busking. i went to the street near the entrance and still got most of the crowd. i was making a lot of money as they don't see much but a singer guitarist there, and i was playing harp or mandolin in turn. didn't the jerk try to get the police to arrest me. this can be a touchy situation as even if you atre right when you are on the road you can't wait around for a court date to prove it. luckily for me the bicycle cops who tour the market came over listened to me and told the market boss he didn't know class when he saw it. so they left me alone.

i wassinging a few somgs in french as well . something i thought i ought to do as i am a quarter acadien and the response from the local acadiens was terrific. they could tell by french was sketchy but they were very appreciative all the same . so busk on

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: alanabit
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 07:02 AM

In my experience, you are not in too much danger from the normal uniformed police if you handle them courteously. By explaining calmly that you will try to disturb nobody and that you are earning your living, you can often negotiate a sensible compromise. Of course, usually, if some local windbag orders the police to remove you - or even charge you, they have to do it. In practice, the police will come if they have to, but they are unlikely to come rushing out with sirens and flashing blue lights. They feel more comfortable nicking real criminals.

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: Blues=Life
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 08:54 AM

Years ago, I was hanging out in Jackson Square in New Orleans, listening to two guys who were playing jazz. The money wasn't falling very well, but the crowd was getting bigger. Finally, the younger of the two stood up, and announced that he would now do something he rarely did, but to please remember that the money goes INTO the case. He cleared a path on the bricks, moved back 30 paces, started sprinting, then did 3 roundoffs and a back flip. The crowd went nuts, the cash fell like rain, and they went back to busking, only this time profitably. Sometimes you just got to get their attention!

LOL, Blues

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 12:07 PM

The other day it was windy here and I saw two guys braving the gusts to try and work the crowd. A man past and went to put a bill in the guitar case when the wind plucked it out of his hand and blew it around the corner. In mid-tune the guitar player (not a very young man) took off sprinting after it and actually got on his hands and knees to retrieve the money from under a van!

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 22 Aug 02 - 11:03 AM

The following is NOT my story. Dennis Cramer told it at Augusta (Elkins WV) this summer.

Dennis was a folk newbie. He had never played in front of people. He decided that his first venture into public peformance would be as a busker.

He sets up on a street corner and begins to play and sing. He'd been at it for about 10 or 15 seconds when a drunk wanders up. The drunk listens for a few moments and then screams for the world to hear, "You suck!" Dennis doesn't know how he did it but he kept going. After listening for a few moments more, the drunk screams, "I cannot believe how bad you suck!"

At this point Dennis says he was trying to decide whether to curl up and die or fold his tent and crawl silently away.

But then he had an epiphany. He thought to himself, "Wait a minute. I have been singing publicly for less than a minute, and already the worst possible thing that can happen to a performer is happening to me. It's over with. It's behind me. Now I can get on with it." So he kept on singing. Finally the drunk wandered off, and as he left he dropped a $10.00 bill into the guitar case.

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 11:04 PM



    On the platform of the Washington stop of the O'Hare line of Cicago's CTA, last Saturday,there was a short, middle-aged Hispanic man making remarkable music in a most remarkable way.

    He was playing a twelve-string guitar and a fiddle. The fiddle was attached to the neck of the guitar and the bow attached to his wrist. When he came to a rest, in a given piece of music, on the guitar he would reach up to do a one or two note fill with the fiddle.
Meanwhile, he was whistling the main melody and dancing (he wore tap shoes, so that the dancing added to the music).

    Before you ask, the answer is "YES"! Your darned right I dropped some money in his case. I'd have done that just for hearing the twelve-string used in a Spanish context (that sound alone was amazing). What grabbed me was the fact that he was very good at each of the things that he was doing. When done together the effect was nothing short of miraculous and wonderful. Talk about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: GUEST,hoonio
Date: 01 Oct 02 - 03:17 AM

In the early 80's a girlfriend and I met up with a couple of musicians in a youth hostel in Dublin and we decided to go out busking. There was a Hurling championship going on, lots of people out in the streets. Made a good bit of change, the unlikely four of us, an English and a German lad (both guitarists) and two American lasses (she on fiddle and I singing and dancing a bit) playing (mostly) Irish music on the streets of Dublin. You all know, of course, it's considered good luck to give money to buskers! (And not just for the buskers!)

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: Leadfingers
Date: 01 Oct 02 - 07:09 PM

Not quite busking,but two or three of you with instruments and voices
can do quite well for free drinks on the Inland Waterways in England.
The Canalside pubs are generally in favour of a bit of live music.
However the drinks run a bit short when there are thirty odd of you
in four narrow boats.

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: GUEST,MrBlue
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 11:12 AM

Once, years ago, i travelled to England. I generally lived from busking while i was there for 2 years. Alot of that busking was done on an electric guitar with a bass string on it, in Nottingham. Between the broadmarsh centre, and 'the lions'. Once, on a freezing monday, near the end of the school holidays, a swarm of about 13 kids, housing commision kids, 11 years old at a guess, approached me, and circled around me, and pulled out cans of what appeared to be spray deoderant. I HATE that stuff. I told them "Don't even think about it" and they all lunged and sprayed me, DOUSED me really, in what in fact turned out to be 'Fart spray'. Obtainable from a joke/gag shop near you. One of them even set fire to the spray and i then discovered the true woe of being right in the firing line of a fart-spray flame thrower. Idiots. I became furious and leapt to my feet and began flailing my arms about and they all ran off.
   I tried to resume busking, but the smell was nothing to be reckoned with. I stunk like i could only smell like months after my own death. I packed up and made for the Bus station, and waited, stinkingly, for the 1A to bridgeford.
On the bus, i looked around, to see all the folks looking around and flaring their nostrils with expressions of much nausia. And i didn't blame them at all, so, i joined in, as though i wondered where that pong was coming from too.

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: Green Man
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 09:15 AM

Wonderful!

Subject: RE: A Busker's Tale
From: gnu
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 03:18 PM

MrBlue... how horrifying!

Subject: RE: JIM COUZA
From: GUEST,KAREN COUZA
Date: 07 Aug 10 - 06:25 AM

We are doing it all over again at yew tree whitchurch on the 21st of august 2010. from around 12 till its over . Every thing is organized for that date and the whole family is looking forward to a garden filled with music and laughter with everyone swapping memories of Jim and remembering him through the music that played such an important part of his life ….and I know that some where against that fantastic backdrop of friends and family a great man will be sitting next to each and every one of us shaking his head in disbelief that so many people still hold him in such high esteem that we have all got together again to celebrate his life.

It will be great to welcome you all again… old friends and new on the 21st the more the merrier. food (barbeque) and drinks will be on tap as before and any help with them would be greatly appreciated .So lets get the ball rolling and the more of Karen and Jims friend that are there the better it will be !!! I still have all the e-mail addresses of everyone so I will send out the invites from here as well ,I am sure that if they all overlap with yours it wont matter too much , I will try and get a few announcements on radio 2 folk as well and I will also wiz off an e-mail to nme.

Please keep in touch; I think that this year is as important to Karen as last year's celebrations So the more friends that can make it the better it will be. The only things to bring is yourselves and your instruments . Please pass this on to as many of Jims old friends as possible .

Thank you so much perhaps mudcat can do something too.

Love to you all Karen, John and the entire family x

Subject: London Buskers
From: GUEST,John Vanek
Date: 24 Aug 11 - 07:08 AM

London buskers are featured on the website www.londonbusker.com
London Buskers