I only had a go at busking once, after a music workshop some friends and I decided to go to Covent Garden and play in the Piazza. Within a minture of setting up, a Westminster Council official asked if we had a permit to play here. Apparently you had to audition and get a license. But, as he told us, we would have a good chance of getting one as the Council 'is always looking for different stuff.' Meanwhile some solo acoustician was droning out Clapton's Tears In Heaven on the other side of the square.

So we went to Trafalgar Square, where my meager acoustic was all but inaudible, and we played amongst the jetsam of Central London's weekend midnight revellers, one of which joined in on coconuts, which he then broke up and offered to us.

Busking in the London Underground is just crap. It's mostly controlled by beer company Carling. You see these Carling-emblazoned semicircles in the tunnels, and usually sat on one is a harpist, a violinist, a flamenco guitarist, or an opera singer (they're tying in with ENO or suchlike people who are eager to show the 'street' value of opera), and yes they all have to audition and be licensed.

I don't think I ever really saw the best of busking on London's Underground anyway. When I moved here I think it was officially banned, but left to discretion of station controllers. A favourite guy of mine at Marble Arch seemed to be allowed to play or not play inconsistently. He was mostly crap, but for some reason he did this one song that I loved hearing. Most other buskers seemed to be shit duos playing We Can Work It Out.

One of the most memorable was over a period of a month I kept seeing a sign in different stations, a placard warning that there have been two people dressed as cats performing in the tube, please don't approach or encourage them. I thought it was some weird Tube joke campaign until one day I'm going down the escalators at Chancery Lane and I can hear some old-time New Orleans style trumpeting. Lo and behold there are two dudes in really beat-up Sylvester the Cat style outfits having a great time, as if they were part of some invisible big band. Awesome.

I haven't ridden the Tube in months, but I still imagine there is not much to compare with some of the busking I've seen in New York's subway on my visits.

Michael

Busking here (Toronto) is mostly junk too--the guy feebly playing "All Blues" on oboe sticks out in the memory--but I do remember last year running across one guy doing creditable Van Eps-style jazz guitar. It was the first time I've given a busker change in ages. The local stop is a woman playing soppy light classics & pop songs on a synth, a bellowing guitarist/singer, & an amplified erhu player who plays Western tunes.

Yay! It's changed to "smirtsol"!

I've seen Sabir playing in the Astor Place #6 station before.

I an dmy friends used to play in the streets a lot, mostly in pORTLAND (no permit required, as far as I know) but also on the rooad. we got hassled by the fuzz pretty often (on the road), but it was great ot blow trumpet spit-bubbles at people who hadn't even heard any modern music before AT ALL. Also hooked up with some cool players randomly by playing on ye old street corner. There was a curved soprano player in Portland for a while who wore a spiderman suit, full on.

The local news station used to catch us playing at a roundabout for rush-hour-traffic, and my uncle saw it on the news in Salem. Called my folks and sayd "Joe's on tv playing trupmet, but it's not music."

Is this album still out of print?

If this is the recording I'm thinking of, I reviewed it when it came out. My recollection is that Mateen's playing sounded a lot like somebody practicing arpeggios.

Still out of print. Yod has a copy for $30, but I know I've seem less expensive copies floating around.

Applying my Hornian extrapolator device to the above missive I see Uncle Walto doesn’t dig this disc nearly as much as I do. Sure, there’s a fair share of arpeggiating going on from Sabir’s corner, but it fits finger-in-socket with Bruno’s peripatetic brushes, bwtfdik? Alexander, mayhaps Walto will be willing to scrape the rust & brine off his copy and float it your way for perusal?

On the subject of busking, back when I lived in Madison, WI there was a woman named Joanne Pow!ers who would set up stakes regularly on State Street between the Capitol and the U, strap on her sax and blow ear-excoriating free jazz for largely unsuspecting passerby. Her collection of fines & “disturbing the piece” tickets was pretty damn impressive. I think Signal To Noise even did a write-up on her awhile back. Here’s a photo

"Alexander, mayhaps Walto will be willing to scrape the rust & brine off his copy and float it your way for perusal?"

Absolutely! I just have to find it. Can you email me your address, Alexander?

Greetings,

Well Walto, I have posted my home address. Thank you very much for this!

Regards,

Alexander

"Two guys, a tenor sax, one-third of a drum set, a pair of brushes, and the occasional sound of a train being announced....The album is admirable. Both exhilarating and thoughtful." --Walter Horn, Cadence

from the eremite website, Walto!

While Yod's price of $30 may seem expensive, that's probably the equivalent price of any new Eremite disc in Pounds Sterling! Ha Ha . . . uh. I don't buy many cds here.

I really hope her name is Joanne Pow!ers and the ! wasn't a typo.

Pow!

M

Where have you "posted your address," Alexander?

Michael, I think that blurb shows two things:

1. Labels are good at excerpting. Here's the context:

One wonders what Mateen and Bruno could have done with the opportunities available to [Javon] Jackson. (2), while not terrific, is solid music-making, full of skill and passion, two qualities only rarely evident on "Good People." The single cut on (2), recorded live one early afternoon at Grand Central Station, is in the Sonny Rollins/Archie Shepp heritage, and both of the duo here exhibit the stamina and fire needed to be included in that powerful, if sometimes longwinded, tradition. Mateen’s playing contains a slight over-abundance of repeated arpeggios, as if he were taking occasional breaks from his generally interesting solo to master a few fingering exercises; and Bruno suffers from a too-small kit and the exclusive use of brushes. Nevertheless, the album is admirable - both exhilarating and thoughtful.

2. I'm just too damned nice! ;>}

Hey,

I posted it on your e-mail address. Have you not recieved it yet?

Regards,

Alexander

Nope.

That is quite odd, well if you can, e-mail me & I'll reply!

Regards,

Alexander

Nevermind. I have recieved your reply. Once again, I cannot express my graditude enough!

Regards,

Alexander

Walto,

Definitely creative excerpting; but there's clues in there if you're used to reading loads of cut-out quotes.

1) When other quoted reviews are at least twice as long as your quote. Generally that says to me That was the only positive part of the review. Especially when the longer passages don't seem to be included just because they're beautifully written. That ' . . . ' in the quote sparks more interest than what surrounds it. New Review Silence, anyone? Maybe start writing reviews with them in from the start? :)

2)'admirable' - They shouldn't have kept this word in! What were they thinking? 'Admirable' says to me the idea of this album is good, which I admire - but it's not so great in reality. I must now find a word to try to be positive (the 'too damned nice' bit!). Oh, Admirable! The kiss of death! Give me Exhilirating and Thoughtful, but never Admirable!

Excuse my drama ;-)

Michael

I think Walter was asking for trouble by being too nice in that concluding sentence.... :)

Stuart Broomer told me that when he writes a negative review (which he tries to do very rarely) he agonizes over it for days to make sure there's nothing that can be excerpted out of context to make it look positive. -- I must confess I don't care: actually I once wrote a review in a mock-positive tone in hopes that the musician wouldn't catch on & reproduce it verbatim. Didn't happen, alas.

"Stuart Broomer told me that when he writes a negative review (which he tries to do very rarely) he agonizes over it for days to make sure there's nothing that can be excerpted out of context to make it look positive"
Good for Stuart - I prefer to adopt exactly the opposite position. In any case, as soon as the review is out in the wider world, people can excerpt whatever the hell they want. If you don't want people to quote you out of context, keep your trap shut and don't publish a damn thing.

Hi,
Could you tell me what yod is? I'd like to get the CD. Please email me.
Thanks,
Heath