AMA Answers and Closing My Tabs #2

Hey everyone,

Your questions have stopped rolling in, so below are my answers to the highlights. I'll respond to the rest privately.

I've also put the 2nd edition of "closing my tabs" below, helping you to understand what's going on in the world of busking.

Q: who the f██ are you and why you're presuming I'm interested in your life?

A: Not my favourite question, but point taken.

Q: When will the book come out?

A: I'm working on my book proposal. If I get it in front of agents in July/August, hopefully it'll be snapped up quickly and next year it'll hit the shelves.

Q: Will your book include anything about the diversity of performers? I ask because online everything related to busking is focused on guitarists; there is practically nothing of value in that content for me.

A: The book is about how buskers affect us and how we treat them in return—regardless of the genre. That said, I will be writing quite a lot about the history of rock, country and the blues, which of course includes a lot of guitarists. You can skip those pages.

Q: As a novice blues harmonica player I would appreciate guidance in how to become a busker.

A: I'm afraid I'm the wrong person to ask. The best thing to do would be to talk to other street performers in your area, or just bite the bullet and give it a go :)

Q: It's a real hassle—and expensive—going into Manhattan with my amp and equipment, but I don't know any places in central NJ that I can busk. Even down by the shore, on boardwalks, they usually don't allow it (I rarely see any buskers). Any suggestions?

A: Busking on a public thoroughfare is a constitutionally protected activity in the USA—even on privately managed land, as long as anybody can walk through. We call these "pseudo-public spaces" in the UK, and they are a blight.

You can always call the local police precinct to check how they'll treat you if you're busking on one of the locations they cover, but keep in mind that there's a good chance the police will be ill-informed. My local precinct when I lived in New York told me over the phone that there was a mandatory busking licence, which I could get if I called 311. I knew they were wrong, but called the number anyway, and sure enough the mayor's office told me no such licence exists.

Coincidentally, I just learned that a business association in Hackensack, NJ, is abusing its power as private managers of public space by offering artists the chance to do unpaid gigs, in case that's of interest.

Q: What do you think about the cultural and legal backlash against busking that seems to be taking place lately? There was a recent court decision in London that resulted in busking being banned from some of the famous squares of the city, after complaints about buskers disturbing the peace for people who live or work nearby.

Unfortunately, not all buskers are equally talented and considerate; there are some who play the same song over and over, poorly, amplified to huge volume, and they give buskers in general a bad name that's leading to measures being taken against them and public opinion turning unfavorable. What do you think the busking community should do to re-establish public support?

A: Great question. First of all, there's a multi-millennia-long history of anti-busking legislation in London, including multiple attempts to ban it since the 1830s. Westminster Council's decision to ban busking in Leicester Square came on the back of a ruling in which a judge described busking there as "psychological torture". This could be considered merely a continuation of the rich history of government's cracking down on buskers.

That said, maybe you're right. Maybe this current spate of anti-busking legislation is somehow different. Someone should make that the subject of their PhD and let us know.

So yes, there may be a legal backlash, but as for a cultural backlash? I have yet to see it. I've heard some buskers describe the period between the 1970s and 1990s as busking's high point in the public consciousness, but I think they're mainly talking about circle shows. Maybe things were better then, but are they bad now? I’ve not heard of any significant public discourse criticising street performance in general. It’s why every single lawmaker trying to pass indefensibly cruel anti-busking legislation starts with the line, “We recognise that street performance is a vibrant and important part of [CITY NAME]’s history, but…”.

For interest, here's the bottom half of a lithograph, drawn at some point between 1830 and 1846, sarcastically titled "Harmony in Leicester Square":

As for the kind of 'bad apple' buskers you mentioned, I don’t believe that kind of behaviour is a problem in high-functioning busking ecosystems. Where governments treat buskers with respect, the buskers abide by common sense rules.

This is why Leicester Square got so bad. From the early 2010s, buskers were working with the council to reduce noise complaints against a small number of problem buskers. Then the council messed everything up, by: scrapping this system; handing out “Community Protection Notices” like candy; allowing local businesses to turn the Metropolitan Police into a private militia hired to mess with local buskers; taking buskers to court (and lying in court); working hard to ignore, criticise and make enemies of the local street performers associations; lying on official documents about the number of complaints they were receiving; limiting amplification to just one pitch in Leicester Square...and this was the obvious result.

And that's before you consider the impact of societal changes over this time. Covid has shuttered a lot of indoor venues. The cost-of-living crisis has decimated the value of a £1 tip. This puts serious financial pressure on all the remaining pitches in Westminster. London's buskers have to maximise how much they earn when they're able to get a good pitch. Thus: volume wars. I wish the council had acted in a collaborative way, instead of combative, and these problems could have been avoided.

Q: Is it true that you have to make 200 euros or dollars to get the money of if you linked it through Stripe?

A: No. There's a delay between your first tip and the first deposit in your bank account, but that's a security feature to prevent scammers making off with money before they're discovered. After that initial delay, the money will come out on your schedule. See more about that here.

Q: I play the melodeon (a type of button accordion) so I can't verbally direct people to QR scans, and I find it difficult knowing how to place my laminated QR code A4 sheet in a way that people without cash would see and engage with. Perhaps I need some sort of sign or stand but I don't want to be burdened with more to carry.

A: I've seen people hold up their sign, put it on an A-frame, attach it to the back of their music stand, and even leave multiple copies on the floor where the audience would normally be standing. One busker got their QR code stitched onto a prop, another has printed out business cards with it on, and another even draped a large, vinyl busk.co QR code over the side of their canal boat. Of course, the most common version is having it propped up in an instrument's case.

I'd recommend between songs reminding your audience that they can scan your sign to tip, or sticking it visibly onto your melodeon case. You can also purchase a sign at busk.co/buskpay which might make it easier to prop up (because it's printed on a hard foam board, instead of laminated paper).

Q: What kind of shout-out from the microphone, or signage, is most useful to get people to actually tip? I am generally uncomfortable asking people for money. I know it’s a stupid hangup, but it’s not something I’m good at. What do you say, or do, to get people to take the action you want, namely hand over some cash. I’m sure different people have their own signature styles. I’d love to learn from them.

A: Absolutely the best thing you can do is watch and learn from your local street performers. If you don’t have local street performers to learn from, check full-length videos online of circle shows doing their thing. Incidentally, I also hate asking people for money (or charging for our features). It’s why we’ve never “leveraged our audience”, as business types would call it, to become a commercial powerhouse. The few times a year we ask for donations is always a personal struggle. I’m afraid you’re going to have to get over that hangup though!

Every week I send out a bunch of stories I'm not featuring elsewhere: all the (English language) news from the world of busking in one place.

This week: the displacement of the Kathputli Colony, the Clash, Pen and Teller and “The Dude of Street Performing”.

By sheer coincidence, Wexford (mentioned in last week’s newsletter) is hosting a busker festival on May 31. Acoustic, of course, due to the recent bye-laws. Another irony: the festival is called Buskaphonic. The word ‘phonic’ means “relating to speech sounds”, perhaps in reference to the fact that Wexford Council tried limiting buskers to being no louder than an indoor conversation.

Delhi’s displacement of the Kathputli Colony in New Delhi, a community of street performers that inspired Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children, seems to be entering its final stages, as the artists are being put into high-rise apartments by the Delhi Development Authority. Presumably this is better than the “transit camps” they were forced into in 2010, but whether the colony’s rich tradition will survive its new home is yet to be seen. You can watch a documentary about their displacement on YouTube below (in 2015 we also supported a documentary on the same topic).

The Clash busked in York in May 1985, reportedly to “get back to their roots”, suggesting the band started as buskers. Their frontman, Joe Strummer, told a reporter, "We are fighting against Thatcherism in music. Music now is like a consumer conveyor belt–it's just selling trash." They passed the hat after their show to around 400 fans.

Penn and Teller are on a 50th anniversary tour, which is frankly amazing. In a recent interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer (you can read a free version on MSN), Penn Jillette, who’s talked many times about beginning as a street performer, also said he met and began performing with Teller on the street, something I didn't know.

Music Under New York (MUNY) just held its annual auditions, which the Manhattan Transit Authority (MTA) promotes every year as them “supporting street performance”. This is a lie. MUNY was set up in the 1970s after a federal judge ruled the MTA can’t ban busking on its walkways between platforms. MUNY is an attempt to control and minimise busking, not promote it. We shouldn’t forget that.

I don't know if it's new, but Vancouver Farmers Markets won't allow amplified acts, no touching your audience, no 'dangerous' props, and their rules make it clear that buskers have lower rights than the stallholders. Those might be difficult conditions to enforce, depending on whether their markets take place on private or public property. That said, perhaps markets should be able to set whatever rules they like, considering the fact that the market stalls pay to be there?

If you've ever wanted to meet "The Dude of Street Performing", here he is, settling disputes between buskers who create their own shows, and the buskers who steal them...

Another video, this time from Bulgaria, where a street performer that I'm now obsessed with (I love the artistry in his set up) was stopped during the middle of getting his first tip. And here he is playing Hendrix, in case you want something longer.

Sunderland is launching its "Year of Music" with an announcement that there will be busking pitches across the city to ensure that there's music everywhere. I couldn't find what that means, but maybe email them if you're interested?

Singaporean retirees Davidson Teo, 66, and Gillian Goh, 70, got a nice write up in The Straights Times. Their duo, Silver Hype, has a really endearing story, in case you want a heartwarming read.

I also just enjoyed the line “thirst trap edits of the fish-throwing employees at Pike Place Market” in a Seattle Spectator article titled The Propitious Performers of Pike Place, which is worth reading for the quality of the writing alone.

Cortelia Clark, a musician who busked in Nashville in the 1950s and released an album titled Blues in the Street in 1966 that won a Grammy the following year, also got a nice write up in Nashville's Channel 5 News. Cary Baker wrote about him in his book, Down on the Corner, which isn't perfect but has some good stories and quotes in it. The above article says Cortelia blew up in 1969 in an accident involving a kerosene heater. Brutal.

There are street performances scheduled at Blackpool’s Festival Square during the Blackpool Comedy Festival (May 31 to June 1), Banbridge (June 14), Thunder Bay (July 26-27), and Adelaide (May 30-June 1)

New Zealand band Drax Project and Robin Nolan (who collaborated with George Harrisson) are celebrities using their busking past in promotional materials, highlighting the authenticity that street history implies. Always a good sign that the public supports street performance.

Buskerfests just past include the Wingham Busker Muster (May 17), Ilkley Busking festival (whose first edition on May 3 was called an “outrageous success”), a travelling festival in Albania (which started on May 17-18, hopes to add more Balkan dates in the summer and is a collaboration between balkanbusker.com and busker.pl), and Fort Wayne (May 17),

And as mentioned last week, the Jakartan ‘silvermen' have again been featured, with all those incredible photos, this time in The Atlantic. I’m not happy about their art being called begging, but my god those photos are jaw-droppingly beautiful.