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Best Buskers

pointless and uncalled for

15:09 / 13.05.04

There's a quartet that play in Covent Garden from time to time. It seems that there's a rota for the members but occasionally this really good group gets together. There are two violinists (although one turns up with a viola on occasion), a cellist and a flautist. They really seem to click and know each others moves.

Of course Feb 2002 New York barbemeet attendees will recall Crackedy Blind Blues Man.

Nobody's girl

15:15 / 13.05.04

There's an older man who plays guitar and whistles along in the subway near my house. He always makes me smile.

illmatic

15:20 / 13.05.04

There used to a buser who played the Harp, going out of Earl's Court tube. That was fine. And there's an amazing old bluesman on the crossover from Victoria to Ditrcit lines at Victoria Station. I slow down just to hear him.

Char Aina

15:29 / 13.05.04

'will backflip for a dollar'

sign seen in front of random hip-hopper in melbourne, outside the library.

BigCedar

16:40 / 13.05.04

'will wrestle for your change'

Sign held by a guy with a big backpack on 7th ave. in Brooklyn.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

17:07 / 13.05.04

There's a mean horn player who dresses in a Sylvester the Cat outfit, from head to toe, and plays superb jazz licks all afternoon at the foot of the elevators to the Central Line at Chancery Lane Tube.

The effort with the outfit alone is worthy of a donation. But the man can play that trumpet. Everybody smiles and enjoys it. Good Things.

Tryphena Absent

17:53 / 13.05.04

I'm with Moneyshot, Sylvester usually has a partner and they've got the moves. I once walked past when they were stopped by the police and it took everything I've got not to yell leave them alone!

Haus of Mystery

18:09 / 13.05.04

I worked in a bookshop for a while, and across the road was a 'busker' who sat day & night playing the same chord endlessly. Without a break. And he didn't have a hat or anything to collect money, so it's debatable whether he can be called a busker. I miss that guy.

The Strobe

20:06 / 13.05.04

There was a guy in Cambridge a lot last year who played the musical saw wonderfully. Always brought a smile to me.

rizla mission

21:16 / 13.05.04

I saw a guy on the London Underground once who was doing nothing but Jonathan Richman tunes. That was cool.

It strikes me writing that that maybe I actually saw Jonathan Richman and due to some weird mental glitch reinterpreted the experience via the concept of a tube busker..

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

09:50 / 14.05.04

I saw an awesome sax player in Roseau, in Dominica (Commonwealth of, not the Republic)...The Dude was about 640 years old, blind as a bat, and had a little ancient mono tape player playing drum'n'bass, really minimal snares and mooing b-lines...He just blew pure science over it all afternoon, so I sat, drinking rum, and absolutely bloody loved every note and minute of it. I love that shit.

There's a good sax player who hangs around outside HSBC in Camden until he has enough money for an afternoon on the beers, then packs up and gets shit-faced.

I suspect he may actually be Enlightened.

lord nuneaton savage

11:02 / 14.05.04

The guy who sits outside the DLR station in Greenwich and blows a traffic cone is bitchin'.
Art Ensemble of Chicago got nothin' on the cat.

wembley can change in 28 days

11:18 / 14.05.04

What about the Hunchback of Camden Lock?

His Dylan covers, with accordion no less, never failed to prompt a desperate outburst of "please kill me" from Rothkoid.

Baz Auckland

13:41 / 14.05.04

There's a guy on the northbound platform at Bloor st. station that does amazing Eastern European violin stuff. I used to always try and stop and watch...

Once in Vancouver there was a couple doing nothing but Ramones covers on violin and guitar, which rocked of course...

Pan Paniscus

14:09 / 14.05.04

Nottingham's Xylophone Man is a particular favourite.

He can't play anything, but the way he happily taps away at his (kiddie's toy) xylophone will always raise a smile on the streets of Hoodtown.

After Robin Hood, he's probably also Nottingham's biggest celebrity. I'm not sure yet if this fact is rather depressing, or rocks so hard it's painful.

Maybe a bit of both.

mkt

18:15 / 14.05.04

In Brighton, a couple of years ago, there was an old couple who would sit on Western Road with an old Casio in front of them. The Casio was set to 'demo mode', ie playing one of the three songs in the world that keyboards know how to play by themselves. Sometimes the old man would press a key in order to change the key of the song. People were giving them money.

Also in Brighton: The Drunken Accordionist. Truly amazing. "AN' THIS... IS THE BALLAD... OF... GHAHGFHJD." (accordion pumped frantically to produced discordant wheezing; incomprehensible bellowing from the accordionist) "THANK YOU."
At Christmas he puts on a Santa outfit and scares all the children outside Woolworths.
Like Tom Waits, only for real.

Bed Head

18:54 / 14.05.04

There used to be a guy in Carlisle who specialised in doing all the fiddly guitar bits on ‘Second Coming’-era Stone Roses tunes, far better than John Squire ever did. Financially, he probably would have been better off with ‘Streets Of London’, but apparently he loved playing those songs and wanted to share them. With the people of Carlisle.

Char Aina

19:05 / 14.05.04

is the guy with a fretless bass and a phaser a regular in the lanes in brighton?
he was about a bit when i was there, playing trancey stuff with finger tapping.

he earned my change, but i was poor.
someone go give him something.

mkt

10:54 / 15.05.04

The bass guy? Hngh. Yeah, he's about quite a lot. I don't know anyone who doesn't want to make him EAT HIS STUPID BASS, though.

Loomis

11:13 / 01.12.04

I saw a couple of great buskers during the Edinburgh festival. The first was a double act, with one guy playing tunes on an accordian and the other guy was wearing a jumpsuit with lots of little horns attached to his body. He had one under his chin and one on either shoulder that he played with his head, plus horns in his armpits, elbows, and on his knees, feet and chest. Each one played a different note, and he would play along to quite complex tunes by jerking his head and limbs about to sound each horn. Very clever indeed was was quite popular.

The other was one I saw from a bus window. A guy was doing a headstand. In a bucket. With his arms folded across his chest. I don't know how long he kept it up for but it certainly impressed me.

XXII:X:II = XXX

19:14 / 02.12.04

There used to be a guy who was a fixture in my neighborhood who my roommate and I took to referring to as "King Woof," since he would randomly break out into a frenzied chorus of "Who Let The Dogs Out?" He was perhaps the most entertaining vagabond I've ever met. Other bits of his repetoire:

* "Wanna get married? I got food stamps!"

* "Can ya spare some change? I'm tryna git married!"

* [holding up hair pick] "I'm a celebrity: Sean 'Puffy' COMBS!"

There were more classics I can't remember at the moment. Sadly, he's not been around the 'hood so much in the past year or so, and I've personally not seen him in months. But he's disappeared for long periods before and returned, so I figure he works a neighborhood, charms the fuck outta people until that has diminishing returns, then moves on until people miss or forget him again.

/+,

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

12:00 / 12.12.05

Holy shit. Saw a fucking amazing four-piece called Portico Quartet on Saturday, who then went on to play a gig at Cargo on Sunday night with a whole load of other really good bands.

They play a brand new instrument called a Hang, sort of like steel drums but shaped likea wok (seriously)...two of those, an upright bass and alto sax, fucking WICKED sound.

They busk outsude the NFT on London's South Bank every Saturday between 12 and 6 pm...highly recommended.

You might also see Lily Farthing, who is also very good. 30's moll who plays piano, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, that kind of thing. Really good act, got the costume and wan smile and everything. Plus, you know, kudos for busking with a piano...

Axolotl

12:32 / 12.12.05

There's a guy who has been busking in my home town for as far back as I can remember. He's this really ancient old man who stands by the market each saturday dressed in the full stereotypical frenchman costume (beret, stripy t-shirt, neckerchief) and plays the accordion, and also has a teddy bear next to him who is dressed the same (though obviously it doesn't play an accordion).
The most impressive thing is that he's been doing this for the last twenty years and hasn't changed at all. My current working theory is that the council replaced him with an animatronic version some years ago. Either that or he's a legacy-hero like the Phantom.

Jack Fear

12:54 / 12.12.05

(ifo on the hang, BTW, can be found here. Sound samples, too!)

Ninjas make great pets

13:56 / 12.12.05

One of my fav buskers is a jamaican bloke.
He's not particularly good or anything but he's so lively. He used to come over only once a year. In these crazy yellow pants and limbo limbo limbo under a pole on some rum bottles. He was kinda like a street robin redbreast.. a sign that new years eve and lots of parties where just around the corner.

There's also a crazy asian lady. I'm not sure where from. She used to busk outside the gaiety theatre all the time. A big smile and little jingly fans. Even though there was a cd player she'd dance like a woman with a soft song in her head that only she could hear. Very sweet and very sad all at once.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

14:02 / 12.12.05

Yep, that's the Hang. Only two people in the world are making them, I plan to get an Aeolian tuned one, but they can't delliver until Summer next year!!

They're £320. Awesome instrument.

gingerbop

16:14 / 12.12.05

My favourite, who I saw both at the Edinburgh festival and outside the National Theatre, was "Mario, Queen of the Circus" who did a juggling tribute to Freddie Mercury. Genius.

Mirror

21:04 / 12.12.05

This guy is a good friend of mine and a great busker. He does an amazing memory show based upon postal codes, and also storytelling shows on arbitrary occasions.

The storytelling shows are the best - this guy has had some truly bizarre experiences in his lifetime of being a street performer, and for the past few years he's been making occasional trips all over the world to try out weird psychedelic drugs with groups of indigenous people. Just today I got an email from him - he's just gotten back from a trip to Gabon that he took for the sole purpose of trying out iboga.

Saint Keggers

21:39 / 12.12.05

Montreal is famous for this guy Huggerbusker target="_blank"

(ok, we're not really famous because of him, but he is a nice piece of the montreal landscape)

Shrug

21:48 / 12.12.05

The women who imitates bird whistles, usually found at the corner of Talbot st. I haven't been that way or seen her for years. Chirpy little thing though. (arf)

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