I always give some spare change to buskers on the tube or on the street–that is, if they’re any good. My colleagues are a bit surprised by this, but fortunately they don’t ask me why. You see, it’s because I used to be a busker too.
When I came to London, I discovered that a junior’s salary wouldn’t pay for both food and lodgings. It was either eat or keep a roof over your head–not both. Fortunately, I had a sax-playing friend who was helping out his mum with a contribution from busking at Tottenham Court Road. He also knew I was a recorder player, and invited me to come along.
It wasn’t easy to get started. Buskers have their own systems and ceremonies. For instance, the underpass at Charing Cross is a great place to busk–good passing traffic, well-lit, no hassle from the Underground Police. So there is a list kept of who gets to busk there, and when. Maximum ration: one hour. But getting on the list doesn’t necessarily guarantee you a spot, either, as the list has a strange habit of getting lost or stolen.
Even so, there were regular acts. One of the players from the English National Opera orchestra used to turn up after his day job for an extra hour’s playing. I remember, after I’d been busking there a month, he finally admitted "You know, that’s beginning to sound like a proper musical instrument." Then there was a regular band, a five piece combo that played jazz and blues at Oxford Street. They probably should have been at Ronnie Scott’s place; instead, they were underneath it.
The rewards are variable. Some days, you could get twenty-two pounds in an hour’s playing. A few fifty pence coins and you were doing well. On the other hand, some days you could play forever and get almost nothing–and then you would get moved on by the Underground Police.
I’ve never understood the London Underground’s attitude towards buskers. In New York, they license them; in London they regard them as criminals. They even had a poster campaign suggesting that buskers threaten women on their own–something I found patronising (as a woman), and libelous (as a busker). On the other hand, Covent Garden has made a definite fashion statement about busking; the problem, though, is that it’s comedy, juggling, magic tricks and audience participation that they’re after, leaving blues bands and classical musicians alike wondering where they can play.
It’s a pity London lacks good street music. Everywhere else I’ve been–Vienna, with its wandering song-schools and amateur choirs who just start up in the street; Berlin with its string quartets and brass bands outside the opera houses; Barcelona with its hurdy gurdy players and the "living statues" in the Ramblas–street music is an enjoyable and spontaneous part of life. Maybe London can blame its narrow medieval streets, which offer few pedestrian areas with enough space for buskers to share…. but I’m afraid I rather think it’s because someone in a gray suit, tucked away in a corridor in Westminster Council offices or the Ministry of If-it-tastes-bad-it-must-be-good-for-you, doesn’t really approve of us enjoying ourselves unless we pay money for it.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Hello to you from London That’s a great blog you have going there and I look forward to more posts