On this outing I teamed up with Jeff, a metal drummer and my neighbor. He’s been playing in the subways by himself, usually late at night. Our schedules coalesced and we decided to hit the underground together as a duo. We met up with Eddie, an outspoken guitar player who helped us move the drum set and vibraphone from various locations in the Bronx and Brooklyn to the Union Square station. Alas, when we arrived at our L platform location two buskers had already usurped the sweet spots: the Motown singer with the distinct vocal timbre sang at the end of the platform and a bearded soft-mannered cellist played in the middle. Three performers can comfortably fit on the platform, but the cellist had set up too close to the far end and hence negated that third spot. I was surprised to see the Motown singer because he usually sings at the 68th street stop late at night, and here he was, sitting right where we wanted to play. I looked at him with apprehension. Just then we made eye contact and he sang to his karaoke machine the lyrics to a Motown tune: “I SEE you! Lookin’ at me with….. appre-heeeeeeeension.” A few columns down we passed a guy painting “I [heart] NY” on subway maps, then the cellist, who was on a break, and I said, “Are you coming or going?”
“I just got here,” he replied, “But I don’t know if anyone can hear me over that guy,” and he nodded in the direction of Motown singer man.
We decided to give up on the L platform and check out the mezzanine, the 6 uptown, and the NRW line.
Not wanting to carry a drum set and vibraphone up three flights of steps we decided to take the elevator to the mezzanine (my first time in the urine encrusted chambers). The rumors and legends proved accurate: the subway elevators reek of urine and feces, and are in general the nastiest nooks I have ever encountered with the exception of an outdoor drum corps rehearsal I spent on a field next to a catfood factory! In the elevator Jeff grimaced and shook his head as he gestured for me to stop leaning against the filthy elevator wall, “Better not touch anything in here.” We laughed, and then quickly closed our mouths because we could practically taste the thick, noxious air. Eddie, laden with a bookbag full of various drum set hardware, ran ahead to scout out the NRW line. The mezzanine and the uptown 6 line were sonically negated by an extremely loud bucket drummer playing a basic soca beat. We met Eddie on the NRW platform, again taking an elevator ride to get down there. The NRW to Queens (the platform we arrived at) was desolate, but several crowds stood on the NRW to Brooklyn so we decided to switch to that side. We headed for the elevators, and as Eddie swerved to avoid a column a piece of cymbal stand flew right onto the subway track! We heard it clang but weren’t sure where it landed—it couldn’t be seen from our vantage point. A girl on the other side of the platform saw it and she pointed, “It’s over there!” Eddie checked for approaching trains and jumped down on the tracks to retrieve it just as an MTA employee walked by! He jumped up, but luckily we weren’t given a ticket for being on the tracks. We took the elevator back up to the mezzanine and then back down to the NRW Brooklyn side and just as we arrived some guitar player stole our spot! Eddie thought up a fitting name for this guitar player, which I will not mention here.
Back on the mezzanine we gathered, and time was running out; we had to set up—anywhere—if we were going to get in some playing time. Eddie ran ahead to scout the L platform again. He ran back shouting, “The singer is gone! Come on!” We raced back down the nasty elevator shaft and went to the end to take the Motown singer’s place. We passed the cellist; I threw him the ‘peace’ sign, he nodded in return but with a strange look on his face. I found out a few minutes later that Eddie had shared words with him and the cellist was opposed to us setting up on the platform because we would drown out his sound.
The cellist had said, “Do you mind?” and Eddie replied with something like, “***k you, it’s a dog-eat-dog world.” (That explained the weird look the cellist gave me when I gave him the peace sign). As I learned on Excursion #1, it’s against the busker code to set up and chase someone away who was there first, so, conflicted but also frustrated and wanting to set up after an hour of fruitless elevator rides, I suggested that we set up at the very end (not the best spot since people don’t usually wait there) and move closer when the cellist left. We did, and as we set up the talented cellist performed a heart rendering version of Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 prelude with such finesse that I likened it to my favorite recording of Pablo Casals’ performance. Again, I thought of Joshua Bell in the Washington Post article. But alas, we too had trekked in from the boroughs and needed to perform as well. Jeff & I began our set with Robert Schumann’s “Little Romance” (of course to a high energy techno beat) and I wondered if the cellist recognized my transcription.
Once we got started people trickled down to our end of the platform, but we were so far away from them that they rarely ventured close enough to drop money in our case. We used the first hour as a sort of rehearsal—we had never practiced together. Between songs wafts of Bach drifted down. Once, out of the corner of my eye I saw a cat run by; when I turned to see I realized that it was not a cat, but a gigantic rat, a HUGE rat, the most gargantuan rat I have ever seen! Another rat chased after it; they probably lived with their 17,000 siblings in the elevator shaft. I thought, “Rats! Here we are, freezing our fingers off carrying around these giant instruments riding these stinky elevators stuck with these nasty gigantic rats making about fifty cents when that cellist is in the middle of the platform with a huge crowd probably making all kinds of money.” We and the cellist were back-to-back, Bach-to-Bach, cello-to-rat. It was a low moment I had down there, four stories underground.
Jeff & I started to gel our styles and we started playing extremely well. We pulled our instruments closer to the people (farther from the rats) and a larger crowd began to gather. Our spirits were refreshed when two consecutive people threw in five dollar bills. A nice, middle-aged man with a guitar on his back ventured over and introduced himself. “I thought you were Sean,” he said to me, “He plays the xylophone too.” (Sean is the other busking vibraphone player with the “Alone” album that I mentioned in a previous entry.) We told this guitar player about our trouble finding a spot and the bad vibes we had going on with the cello player. In his glorious New York accent he exclaimed, “***k him! I’m sick of these people. I call ‘em sympathy musicians. They come down here and they’re not real musicians like us. People just give those kind of people money not because they like the music, but because they feel sorry for them. I’ll go over there and start playin’ Led Zepplin right next to him. Have a nice night guys.” It was interesting to hear a talented cello player described as a fake musician and his approximately 300 year old Bachian repertoire described as “sympathy music.” A few minutes later we heard wafts of a Led Zepplin song drifting our way. We didn’t hear the cello.
So, what exactly is success? Is success making the most money, or is it finely playing the most well-crafted repertoire? If success can be measured with money, the polka pianist I wrote about in Excursion #3 is the most successful busker I have ever seen. If it is repertoire-based then perhaps the cellist was successful. Furthermore, who may measure success—should the locus be internal or should success be judged by others? If subway riders would rather listen to Led Zepplin, perhaps the guitarist was more successful than the cellist.
The next few sets Jeff & I played were successful; we didn’t make any mistakes and since it was our first performance together we were both experimenting with the music. Once we both got our bearings and decided what the music would be the performance had a fresh and creative feeling to it. Enthusiastic crowds gathered and gave us great feedback which included clapping, dollars, dancing, and shouts of approval. One lady almost jumped off the subway car and yelled “You guys are awesome!” One guy slowly peeled off two different dollar bills from his wad and dropped them in our bucket. Then, he came back a minute later and peeled off some more. He didn’t smile once, and when he got on the subway car I made eye contact and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ He still didn’t smile, and left me with a nod. Several MTA employees gathered and even they gave us dollars. “I never seen anyone set up this far down on the platform before,” one of them said.
A girl from Manchester approached us and asked us to fill out a busker questionnaire for a project she was working on. “Are you an ethnomusicologist?” I inquired. “No,” she said, “I’m an illustrator.” I noticed her questionnaire was not a zerox, but a paper card she had just written in purple marker. She asked questions such as “Who is your favorite busker?” and “Do you have another job?” She threw in a dollar and hopped on the L.
We decided to leave around 12:30am but were encouraged to continue playing by a large crowd. We played one more set, and out of that entire crowd we only got one dollar.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Excursion #3 “Sensation(al)” 1.02.09
On New Years Day at the Times Square subway station I passed a fellow busker, a wild-haired 80 year old man, the type of fellow with a twinkle in his eye and ever loose dentures jiggling inside his mouth, who sat cloaked in a turtle neck and warm black jacket in front of a small electric piano. He had the “demo” setting ablast with high energy polka drum beats and his left hand controlled the droning chord changes while he played extremely fast winding melodies with his right hand. When people dropped in a dollar he would forego the chord changes and give them a nice wave. On the small electric piano stood two electronic dolls—one doll (male) played saxophone and had the title “Jazz Man” written on his pedestal; the other doll (female) danced a lovely hula in her grass skirt. In front of the piano an army of dancing dolls paraded by the man’s tip bucket, including a dancing Santa, an army man, and a bunny rabbit. The whole spectacle was intoxicating, and I as well as dozens of others were immediately taken in with this man’s charisma and obvious joy of life and polka. The dollars flew into his two (!) tip buckets and during the minute or so that we stopped to watch he made at least $15. The whole experience got me thinking about spectacle and how/if I should spice up my own act with spectacular dancing dolls or something similar—after all, $15/min is a pretty sensational rate.
My mind wandered to other sensational acts I’ve seen around New York. There is, of course, the famous little person who dresses up as Michael Jackson & moonwalks to “I’m Bad.” There’s Chicken Delicious, the man who dresses up in a different costume (usually equipped with blinking lights) for each song he plays. There are the puppeteers—I’ve never seen them but I have heard amazing legends of their witty hilarity. I also thought of Gene Weingarten’s experiment with Joshua Bell in the Washington Post, which evoked the question, “Are we really too busy to appreciate profound beauty in an unexpected circumstance?” Perhaps buskers resort to dancing dolls and flashing lights and sensation in general not because their music isn’t beautiful and profound enough, but rather because a flashing light or dancing doll can shake a determined walker from their eyes-forward-gotta-keep-moving path and attract them to the deeper beauty behind the dolls and the lights. Would I have seen the polka playing man reveling in his speedy, finger-blurring renditions; could I have experienced the profound beauty of his performance had he not been surrounded by dancing dolls?
As I played this time in the subway, the atmosphere seemed different than the last few times. People seemed more relaxed (perhaps because the holiday season had just ended and many people may have been on vacation). It was also absolutely freezing, which tends to send people huddling in corners with their hands in their pockets. The platform was quiet with no competition from other buskers, though wafts of the Peruvian flutes in the mezzanine above drifted down the staircase every so often. I refrained from sensation and spectacle, thinking that perhaps the vibraphone is spectacle enough, since it is such an interesting looking instrument. I kept thinking, though, especially during those times when the dollars weren’t flowing, “I wish I had a dancing doll!”
_______________________________
Things people said to me:
*”Yeah, that’s a xylophone!”
*”That’s a marimba…… that’s a marimba”
*”Bing bingy bing bing! Yeah! I know that!”
*(As we packed up the vibes, Mika, Joe & I stood by the resonators. The resonators are several large metal tubes attached together and when set beneath the keys they amplify the sound. A man saw the resonators and thought they were giant Peruvian flutes—the kind Yani plays.)
“Wow, man, how do you play that? I’ve seen those other Peruvian guys but I’ve never seen one this big!”
I told him, “It takes all three of us!”
Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything unusual or interesting in the tip bucket.
My mind wandered to other sensational acts I’ve seen around New York. There is, of course, the famous little person who dresses up as Michael Jackson & moonwalks to “I’m Bad.” There’s Chicken Delicious, the man who dresses up in a different costume (usually equipped with blinking lights) for each song he plays. There are the puppeteers—I’ve never seen them but I have heard amazing legends of their witty hilarity. I also thought of Gene Weingarten’s experiment with Joshua Bell in the Washington Post, which evoked the question, “Are we really too busy to appreciate profound beauty in an unexpected circumstance?” Perhaps buskers resort to dancing dolls and flashing lights and sensation in general not because their music isn’t beautiful and profound enough, but rather because a flashing light or dancing doll can shake a determined walker from their eyes-forward-gotta-keep-moving path and attract them to the deeper beauty behind the dolls and the lights. Would I have seen the polka playing man reveling in his speedy, finger-blurring renditions; could I have experienced the profound beauty of his performance had he not been surrounded by dancing dolls?
As I played this time in the subway, the atmosphere seemed different than the last few times. People seemed more relaxed (perhaps because the holiday season had just ended and many people may have been on vacation). It was also absolutely freezing, which tends to send people huddling in corners with their hands in their pockets. The platform was quiet with no competition from other buskers, though wafts of the Peruvian flutes in the mezzanine above drifted down the staircase every so often. I refrained from sensation and spectacle, thinking that perhaps the vibraphone is spectacle enough, since it is such an interesting looking instrument. I kept thinking, though, especially during those times when the dollars weren’t flowing, “I wish I had a dancing doll!”
_______________________________
Things people said to me:
*”Yeah, that’s a xylophone!”
*”That’s a marimba…… that’s a marimba”
*”Bing bingy bing bing! Yeah! I know that!”
*(As we packed up the vibes, Mika, Joe & I stood by the resonators. The resonators are several large metal tubes attached together and when set beneath the keys they amplify the sound. A man saw the resonators and thought they were giant Peruvian flutes—the kind Yani plays.)
“Wow, man, how do you play that? I’ve seen those other Peruvian guys but I’ve never seen one this big!”
I told him, “It takes all three of us!”
Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything unusual or interesting in the tip bucket.
Excursion #2 "Security" 12.16.08 union square
They don’t have bathrooms on the subway platforms, and I couldn’t leave my bulky instrument alone for a trip above ground to the nearest coffee shop nor could I carry it with me. The subway elevators seem to be the location of choice for the people who actually live down there, but that’s not really my style. Luckily, I had my Chief of Security around to keep an eye on the vibes while I made a run for daylight. It did, however, make me nervous for the day I’ll have to go & my Chief of Security isn’t around. What if I can’t break down the vibes, carry them up three flights of stairs & find a coffee shop fast enough? I guess it’s just one of the job hazards. Lesson learned: Go before you leave the house; don’t drink 2 hours before the performance, but bring water with you and start drinking an hour before the performance ends.
Once I had that taken care of, I could get started. There were a lot of buskers (“busking” is the verb for street musicians) in the subway at this particular time and I needed to carve out my own little sonic territory. The 6 downtown platform was peaceful but desolate—not enough traffic to make it fiscally worthwhile. The 6 uptown was jumping, but a Bucket Man was already rocking that crowd. I thought it would be fun to set up next to him and do a duet performance, but I suspect that is usually against the unspoken busking code. In the center of the mezzanine a really loud (but really amazing) brass band played with drums behind them. (Possibly the Hypnotic Brass group that Matt Ruddy mentioned in his comment). They were rocking that area, but their space sat right above two subway lines and projected onto them, so that nullified all those spaces as quiet vibraphone zones. The choice location of the day was the L platform. You get the uptown & downtown crowds on the same platform, plus it’s three stories downstairs from the mezzanine which avoids brass/bucket sonic interference. I had secured a location.
Not a minute after I started playing a guy peaked his head around the corner and said, “Hiya! I’m the guy who paints graffiti on cardboard! I’m right around the corner from you. I thought you were my friend, the red headed guy.” The funniest thing is, I knew who he was talking about—there is a guy with red hair that plays vibes in the subway, I saw him once. He’s really nice and he has a cd called Alone. I wondered why he named his album that. Befriending the graffiti cardboard man made me feel good- as if I had just entered into the delicate web of relationships that buskers(et.al) have with other another. I settled into playing once again.
Not a minute after I started playing a guy peaked his head around the corner and said, “Um, Hi!” This was not cardboard-graffiti guy. This guy had curly red hair and he seemed annoyed. “I’m playing right down there,” he said.
“Oh,” I replied. “I can’t hear you from here.”
“Well. I can hear YOU.”
“Oh, I’ll try to play a little quieter.” My first confrontation!
A few minutes later, another guy with a guitar on his back and long black hair (probably friends with red-curly-hair man) walked by and said, “It’s really not cool to set up on the same platform where another musician has already set up.”
“But, he’s like three walls away- I can’t even hear him from here,” I defended myself.
“Well, it’s not cool. Just so you know for next time.” Then he hopped on the L and was gone.
I wanted to say, “Well, it’s not cool to interrupt a performance in the middle of a song.” It was weird—people just kept coming up to me and talking to me right in the middle of a song. I had this horrible feeling—had I done something wrong? The L platform was so long, it could easily fit three musicians who would not sonically overstep each other. In fact, by the time I left, graffiti man and red-curly-hair man had left, and there was a classical trio playing amplified holiday music, and a little farther down an accordion player had set up.
Say there is a code where you don’t play on the same platform as another musician… maybe the L is an exception because it goes uptown and downtown—it seems greedy that one musician can get both the down and uptown crowds at such a busy station. If the code is true, I’m terrified at the thought of carrying my vibes down three flights of stairs only to find another musician there and have to carry them up the stairs again (and the pee elevator is out of the question). This platform code might not be the best for me because my instrument is so heavy, but I see why it exists. Having a 1-man-alone-on-a-platform code seems to be a way of making the jobplace a little more secure in a profession where there is little security—a jobplace where each of us is essentially Alone.
________________________________________
Things people said to me:
“Do you know What Child Is This?”
“Yeah xylophone!”
“Hiya! I’m the guy who paints graffiti on cardboard.”
“That sounded Monkish.”
And, in my change bucket I got a business card for herbal health supplements for weight loss.
Once I had that taken care of, I could get started. There were a lot of buskers (“busking” is the verb for street musicians) in the subway at this particular time and I needed to carve out my own little sonic territory. The 6 downtown platform was peaceful but desolate—not enough traffic to make it fiscally worthwhile. The 6 uptown was jumping, but a Bucket Man was already rocking that crowd. I thought it would be fun to set up next to him and do a duet performance, but I suspect that is usually against the unspoken busking code. In the center of the mezzanine a really loud (but really amazing) brass band played with drums behind them. (Possibly the Hypnotic Brass group that Matt Ruddy mentioned in his comment). They were rocking that area, but their space sat right above two subway lines and projected onto them, so that nullified all those spaces as quiet vibraphone zones. The choice location of the day was the L platform. You get the uptown & downtown crowds on the same platform, plus it’s three stories downstairs from the mezzanine which avoids brass/bucket sonic interference. I had secured a location.
Not a minute after I started playing a guy peaked his head around the corner and said, “Hiya! I’m the guy who paints graffiti on cardboard! I’m right around the corner from you. I thought you were my friend, the red headed guy.” The funniest thing is, I knew who he was talking about—there is a guy with red hair that plays vibes in the subway, I saw him once. He’s really nice and he has a cd called Alone. I wondered why he named his album that. Befriending the graffiti cardboard man made me feel good- as if I had just entered into the delicate web of relationships that buskers(et.al) have with other another. I settled into playing once again.
Not a minute after I started playing a guy peaked his head around the corner and said, “Um, Hi!” This was not cardboard-graffiti guy. This guy had curly red hair and he seemed annoyed. “I’m playing right down there,” he said.
“Oh,” I replied. “I can’t hear you from here.”
“Well. I can hear YOU.”
“Oh, I’ll try to play a little quieter.” My first confrontation!
A few minutes later, another guy with a guitar on his back and long black hair (probably friends with red-curly-hair man) walked by and said, “It’s really not cool to set up on the same platform where another musician has already set up.”
“But, he’s like three walls away- I can’t even hear him from here,” I defended myself.
“Well, it’s not cool. Just so you know for next time.” Then he hopped on the L and was gone.
I wanted to say, “Well, it’s not cool to interrupt a performance in the middle of a song.” It was weird—people just kept coming up to me and talking to me right in the middle of a song. I had this horrible feeling—had I done something wrong? The L platform was so long, it could easily fit three musicians who would not sonically overstep each other. In fact, by the time I left, graffiti man and red-curly-hair man had left, and there was a classical trio playing amplified holiday music, and a little farther down an accordion player had set up.
Say there is a code where you don’t play on the same platform as another musician… maybe the L is an exception because it goes uptown and downtown—it seems greedy that one musician can get both the down and uptown crowds at such a busy station. If the code is true, I’m terrified at the thought of carrying my vibes down three flights of stairs only to find another musician there and have to carry them up the stairs again (and the pee elevator is out of the question). This platform code might not be the best for me because my instrument is so heavy, but I see why it exists. Having a 1-man-alone-on-a-platform code seems to be a way of making the jobplace a little more secure in a profession where there is little security—a jobplace where each of us is essentially Alone.
________________________________________
Things people said to me:
“Do you know What Child Is This?”
“Yeah xylophone!”
“Hiya! I’m the guy who paints graffiti on cardboard.”
“That sounded Monkish.”
And, in my change bucket I got a business card for herbal health supplements for weight loss.
Excursion #1 "Get out of the Way" 12.6.08 14th St.
You might think, "If I were going to play in the subway, I would go where the most people will see me and therefore have the largest possible audience." That's what I thought. I stopped to play directly in the middle of the mezzanine hallway where hundreds of people whizzed by at rapid paces as they raced from the entrance to catch their train. I had 100% of everyone's ear, and yet, they raced past, hearing distorted Doppler Effect versions of the songs I played. It was very difficult to put out that "stop and listen" energy in such a high velocity area.
As I played a little "Sunshine of My Life" I saw a woman rushing toward me with crazy eyes-- you couldn't miss those gleaming saucers even from your peripheral vision. She saw me but didn't avert her path from my giant immobile instrument; you have to admire such determination. I watched in horror as... "You are the apple of my eye eyeeeee".... she ran right into the vibraphone, knocking over my change bucket and sending quarters rolling! She turned around, scowled, and said, "You're in my WAY!"
When I thought about it, I was in everyone's way. Poor struggling old ladies maneuvered their luggage around the vibes, little kids stopped to watch but almost got run over by tall businessmen who couldn't see them, couples swiveled their hips to avoid collision with the vibraphone, three different people knocked over my change bucket.
It's all copasetic. I expected the first few times to be learning experiences.
Things that people said to me:
*"Do you know O Tannenbaum?"
*"Yeah, look at that xylophone!"
*"I'm in real estate, if you know anyone that needs an apartment, just let me know."
*"Have you accepted the Lord?" (I got three "repent" booklets in my change bucket from them)
*while pointing at some dust on the vibraphone frame, "Lazy."
and the winner....
"You're in my WAY!"
As I played a little "Sunshine of My Life" I saw a woman rushing toward me with crazy eyes-- you couldn't miss those gleaming saucers even from your peripheral vision. She saw me but didn't avert her path from my giant immobile instrument; you have to admire such determination. I watched in horror as... "You are the apple of my eye eyeeeee".... she ran right into the vibraphone, knocking over my change bucket and sending quarters rolling! She turned around, scowled, and said, "You're in my WAY!"
When I thought about it, I was in everyone's way. Poor struggling old ladies maneuvered their luggage around the vibes, little kids stopped to watch but almost got run over by tall businessmen who couldn't see them, couples swiveled their hips to avoid collision with the vibraphone, three different people knocked over my change bucket.
It's all copasetic. I expected the first few times to be learning experiences.
Things that people said to me:
*"Do you know O Tannenbaum?"
*"Yeah, look at that xylophone!"
*"I'm in real estate, if you know anyone that needs an apartment, just let me know."
*"Have you accepted the Lord?" (I got three "repent" booklets in my change bucket from them)
*while pointing at some dust on the vibraphone frame, "Lazy."
and the winner....
"You're in my WAY!"
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