Sunday, February 22, 2009
Video of Subway/Stage Performance
Jeff & I recently took our subway act to the stage! We played this concert at Galapagos in Brooklyn.
This is a video of a subway performance!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Excursion #5 “Bucket Blues” 1.24.09 Union Square Station
The plan was to meet Jeff on the 6 Uptown line. It’s always nice to busk ('busking" is a verb for "street performing") with someone, especially if you both have large, non-portable instruments, so that you can take bathroom breaks & coffee breaks while the other person stays with the gear. I’ve also noticed that fewer [crazy] people try to talk to me when I’m not alone. After randomly meeting Rat I headed over to the 6 line and peered down the steps but all I saw was a [growly voice] bucket drummer…. And it was that same bucket drummer who was playing on the 6 uptown last time… And he was playing that same lame basic soca beat. Now, there’s a guy who could really benefit from the Vic Firth drum beat poster. He could learn at least 39 other drum beats to wow the crowds with. I’ll carry one with me next time and drop it in his tip bucket. Hypnotic Brass was in their usual corner—I’ll call it the King Corner (because when you play there and you have enough volume you are the king)—on the mezzanine, just above the 6 line.
I ventured to the other side of the station; maybe Jeff had gone to the L because of the bucket/horn extravaganza. The tap dancing troupe was tapping away above the L line. The smell became thick as I approached the elevator. A mother and child entered the elevator with me. “Push the button for the lady!” the mom cooed. The child rushed over and excitedly pushed the button. Part of me wanted to say, “No! He’ll get sick! At least I’m wearing gloves!” and another part of me felt guiltily relieved that I didn’t have to touch anything on the elevator. I walked down the L platform; huge crowds had formed because something was wrong with one of the trains—a buskers paradise. Only one performer played down at the end, but it wasn’t Jeff.
I went over to the NRW line; I walked close to the center so I wouldn’t drop anything on the tracks. No Jeff.
I went back to the mezzanine and bounced the vibes down the steps of the 6 uptown. Soca Buckets was still playing soca, but sometimes he would mix it up with a static drum set groove by using the metal trash can as a ride cymbal. I rolled the vibes past him but it was difficult to hear even the buckets when Hypnotic Brass played. There, way down at the end, was Jeff (and his brother Joe). His drumset could barely be heard in the awful din. Soca Buckets had set up a few columns away from Jeff and completely overpowered him. We packed up and moved to the L.
Since I had left the L about 30 minutes earlier some bucket drummers arrived there and began to play. I hadn’t seen these two before. They were a man-woman team in sort of matching t-shirts (they both wore green t-shirts) and they played call & answer beats rather than drumset patterns. He played with regular sticks and she played with mini sticks. Their show was high energy, and they kept hollering “Woooo!” and “Yeah!” which had the effect of canned laughter: potential audience members heard the “woo”ing and misinterpreted it for audience enthusiasm. Wanting to see what all the whooping and hollering was about, these potential audience members headed toward the bucket crowd. Once there, it didn’t matter who was making the noise, because the show was energetic and captivating plus, what’s the old adage? ‘Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd’? Something cool was happening, even if the performers created their own audience response. As I studied them, I noticed he was drenched in sweat and she looked exerted. I thought, “These guys will only last another half hour. Then we’ll have the platform to ourselves.” Boy was I wrong.
We set up a good distance away in a nice spot on the L. Over the next three hours, Jeff & I waged an outright sonic war against the Buckets. We played, we drummed, we hammered. I used my hardest mallets and played the vibes so ferociously that the skin on my fingers ripped off. Still, still… despite our best efforts, whenever they played, though they were far from us on the platform, their huge sound completely surrounded us and overwhelmed us. They were so loud from our location that my ears were ringing, so I thought their ears must really be ringing. I figured surely they’ll get migranes and be done with it. When Jeff went on break I tried to work with my enemy and play along to their beats which proved impossible because every beat they played sped up for dramatic effect. Their show was masterfully designed to keep people interested.
The buckets remind me of lions. Non-bucket musicians walk down the lines, introduce themselves and feel you out to avoid confrontation. Bucket drummers are so loud that they don’t care about propriety because they don’t have to, though they all go over the decibel limit allowed on the subway. They set up wherever they want and bully everyone else away. Sometimes they use construction buckets caked with drywall and as they drum they leave a huge mess of spackle dust for someone else to clean up. There’s also an element of pity involved, “Look at them, playing on buckets….” People assume that they don’t have anything else to play on when really, they are taking the easy way out and carrying around a bunch of lightweight buckets because they don’t want to carry drums.
Guy-who-paints-graffiti-on-cardboard walked by with a huge canvas and he was trying to get random people to sign it. I imagine his apartment completely covered in spray paint and permanent marker. He looked at us, “Hey!” Then he nodded towards the buckets, “They are entirely too loud.”
The rhythm of the night went something like this:
Train comes.
Quiet, empty subway. We take advantage of the silence and play for a few minutes.
A crowd builds. Just as we get into our set,
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM Bang do do BOOM BOOM the buckets begin.
We raise our volume, but can’t compete.
People trickle down toward the buckets, or away from us to go somewhere quieter.
Crowd gets bigger. Buckets get even louder and start yelling.
We give up.
Train comes. Buckets stop.
And on and on like this all night.
I really thought the buckets would have enough and leave. But they stayed. Around eleven we packed up while the buckets still boomed. Jeff looked at me and said,
“You know, they won.”
As we left the subway, we took an elevator ride with a man who seemed to have a good heart but a slight mental disability. He carried three or four plastic bags full of who knows what and he shuffled around in untied shoes. We exchanged hellos and somehow we mentioned our bucket frustrations. He said:
“I don’t understand why they play them buckets. Why don’t they get rill instrumenz. Then they could go on some auditions or somethin. If you gonna play an instrumen, play an instrumen. Noone’s gonna be like, ‘hey wanna be in my band’ if you don’t have an instrumen and all you playin is some trash, some buckets. Anyone could go and get some buckets. But an instrumen, not everyone can get that. That’s serious, you know?”
Despite the fact that I too have played buckets, and that Stomp, The Blue Man Group, John Cage and countless others have already shown that great music can be made from everyday objects, I wanted to situationally agree with this elevator philosopher because I was tired of being pushed around by the buckets. “Yeah! Why don’t they get rill instrumenz!” I thought in a rage.
_____________________
Things people said to me:
“Wow, a marimba!”
“I sing opera.”
“Look, the lady has a xylophone!”
loud, frustration,
I ventured to the other side of the station; maybe Jeff had gone to the L because of the bucket/horn extravaganza. The tap dancing troupe was tapping away above the L line. The smell became thick as I approached the elevator. A mother and child entered the elevator with me. “Push the button for the lady!” the mom cooed. The child rushed over and excitedly pushed the button. Part of me wanted to say, “No! He’ll get sick! At least I’m wearing gloves!” and another part of me felt guiltily relieved that I didn’t have to touch anything on the elevator. I walked down the L platform; huge crowds had formed because something was wrong with one of the trains—a buskers paradise. Only one performer played down at the end, but it wasn’t Jeff.
I went over to the NRW line; I walked close to the center so I wouldn’t drop anything on the tracks. No Jeff.
I went back to the mezzanine and bounced the vibes down the steps of the 6 uptown. Soca Buckets was still playing soca, but sometimes he would mix it up with a static drum set groove by using the metal trash can as a ride cymbal. I rolled the vibes past him but it was difficult to hear even the buckets when Hypnotic Brass played. There, way down at the end, was Jeff (and his brother Joe). His drumset could barely be heard in the awful din. Soca Buckets had set up a few columns away from Jeff and completely overpowered him. We packed up and moved to the L.
Since I had left the L about 30 minutes earlier some bucket drummers arrived there and began to play. I hadn’t seen these two before. They were a man-woman team in sort of matching t-shirts (they both wore green t-shirts) and they played call & answer beats rather than drumset patterns. He played with regular sticks and she played with mini sticks. Their show was high energy, and they kept hollering “Woooo!” and “Yeah!” which had the effect of canned laughter: potential audience members heard the “woo”ing and misinterpreted it for audience enthusiasm. Wanting to see what all the whooping and hollering was about, these potential audience members headed toward the bucket crowd. Once there, it didn’t matter who was making the noise, because the show was energetic and captivating plus, what’s the old adage? ‘Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd’? Something cool was happening, even if the performers created their own audience response. As I studied them, I noticed he was drenched in sweat and she looked exerted. I thought, “These guys will only last another half hour. Then we’ll have the platform to ourselves.” Boy was I wrong.
We set up a good distance away in a nice spot on the L. Over the next three hours, Jeff & I waged an outright sonic war against the Buckets. We played, we drummed, we hammered. I used my hardest mallets and played the vibes so ferociously that the skin on my fingers ripped off. Still, still… despite our best efforts, whenever they played, though they were far from us on the platform, their huge sound completely surrounded us and overwhelmed us. They were so loud from our location that my ears were ringing, so I thought their ears must really be ringing. I figured surely they’ll get migranes and be done with it. When Jeff went on break I tried to work with my enemy and play along to their beats which proved impossible because every beat they played sped up for dramatic effect. Their show was masterfully designed to keep people interested.
The buckets remind me of lions. Non-bucket musicians walk down the lines, introduce themselves and feel you out to avoid confrontation. Bucket drummers are so loud that they don’t care about propriety because they don’t have to, though they all go over the decibel limit allowed on the subway. They set up wherever they want and bully everyone else away. Sometimes they use construction buckets caked with drywall and as they drum they leave a huge mess of spackle dust for someone else to clean up. There’s also an element of pity involved, “Look at them, playing on buckets….” People assume that they don’t have anything else to play on when really, they are taking the easy way out and carrying around a bunch of lightweight buckets because they don’t want to carry drums.
Guy-who-paints-graffiti-on-cardboard walked by with a huge canvas and he was trying to get random people to sign it. I imagine his apartment completely covered in spray paint and permanent marker. He looked at us, “Hey!” Then he nodded towards the buckets, “They are entirely too loud.”
The rhythm of the night went something like this:
Train comes.
Quiet, empty subway. We take advantage of the silence and play for a few minutes.
A crowd builds. Just as we get into our set,
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM Bang do do BOOM BOOM the buckets begin.
We raise our volume, but can’t compete.
People trickle down toward the buckets, or away from us to go somewhere quieter.
Crowd gets bigger. Buckets get even louder and start yelling.
We give up.
Train comes. Buckets stop.
And on and on like this all night.
I really thought the buckets would have enough and leave. But they stayed. Around eleven we packed up while the buckets still boomed. Jeff looked at me and said,
“You know, they won.”
As we left the subway, we took an elevator ride with a man who seemed to have a good heart but a slight mental disability. He carried three or four plastic bags full of who knows what and he shuffled around in untied shoes. We exchanged hellos and somehow we mentioned our bucket frustrations. He said:
“I don’t understand why they play them buckets. Why don’t they get rill instrumenz. Then they could go on some auditions or somethin. If you gonna play an instrumen, play an instrumen. Noone’s gonna be like, ‘hey wanna be in my band’ if you don’t have an instrumen and all you playin is some trash, some buckets. Anyone could go and get some buckets. But an instrumen, not everyone can get that. That’s serious, you know?”
Despite the fact that I too have played buckets, and that Stomp, The Blue Man Group, John Cage and countless others have already shown that great music can be made from everyday objects, I wanted to situationally agree with this elevator philosopher because I was tired of being pushed around by the buckets. “Yeah! Why don’t they get rill instrumenz!” I thought in a rage.
_____________________
Things people said to me:
“Wow, a marimba!”
“I sing opera.”
“Look, the lady has a xylophone!”
loud, frustration,
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Excursion #5 “Rats in the Subway”- Prelude to “Bucket Blues” 1.24.09 Union Square
Many moons ago, in the land of Charlottesville, Virginia, I played vibraphone and Vietnamese xylophone (“T’Rung”) in a band called "Julia and the Rat Snax." We specialized in Klezmer and popular dance band music from the 1920s-1940s. The lead accordion player, Lisa (also known as “Rat”), and I met after I had spent afternoons passing her by on Charlottesville’s downtown mall as she played the accordion in front of the theater. She also performed in the band "Accordion Death Squad," which enjoyed much popularity in Charlottesville for the last couple years. I’m not entirely sure about her early history, but I’ve heard tales of how she once traveled train lines all over the US and Mexico as a modern day gypsy of sorts. Her grandmother, in her early teens, ran away from home to work at a vaudeville lounge and had a date with Abbot (or was it Costello?). Her parents restore antique telephones.
We would often meet in the non-drywalled living room of her place (with the toilet of the exposed bathroom just beyond the upright piano) and record songs on her cassette recorder. We became fast friends when she said, “Oh, I have a vibraphone too. I have to pick it up at a friend’s house.” An old roommate had left it behind with Rat several years ago. It turned out she had a rare vibraharp (early vibraphone) from the 20s-40s, and when I stopped by the house-under-construction in which she lived to take a look at the vibes I noticed a bottle of champagne on the mantle—upon closer look I recognized it as a premier cru vintage bottle from the 1980s that would probably sell for well over a thousand dollars. I asked where she had found the bottle and she said, “Oh, we drank that last night.” It turned out an acquaintance in AA relinquished his wine cellar to one of Lisa’s friends!
One afternoon in Charlottesville Lisa & I went to the downtown mall together and busked. I remember that a guitar player held the nice spot for us, but when it became clear he was leaving a bucket drummer went & began to set up even though we were in the process of setting up (bucket drummers don’t care; more about this in “Bucket Blues”). A policeman approached and told the bucket drummer that he would be too loud and was not permitted to play on the mall—the officer didn’t say anything to us! LisaRat has a magnetic, queenly quality about her and seems to, with little effort, magically attract incredible things such as rare antique vibraphones, vintage telephones, great busking spots and amazing bottles of champagne. She doesn’t have a cell phone or email, though, and only recently got her first answering machine, so sometimes it’s difficult to connect. When I left Charlottesville, I wondered if we would ever meet again.
______________
Seven Months Later…..
This time I experimented with a new route to Union Square. Instead of taking the subway I packed my vibes in the car & drove there, alone. Lady Luck presented a nice, free parking spot in close proximity, but with cross-town traffic it had taken me over an hour to arrive (it would have been quicker taking the subway). I gingerly bounced the vibes down the stairs, one step at a time, being careful not to bang the resonators against each other or loose any nuts or bolts, only to discover no service door—just the revolving-teeth doors, impermeable with a vibraphone. I bounced the vibes back up the stairs and went to another entrance (for readers who have never been to Union Square subway station: Whereas most subway stops have just two entrances, Union Square is a huge space where several different lines meet each other and hence there are many entrances and exits on various streets around Union Square). I left the vibes at the top of the stairs and sprinted down to check for a service door—Yes! I ran back up the stairs and proceeded to bounce the vibes down the stairs.
About two stairs down I ran into a guy who said, “Whoaaaa! Hey! A marimba! Let me help you with that, I can’t just let another marimba player go down the stairs by herself!” He helped me get the instrument down the stairs and we stopped to chat for a while. His name was K---- Krupers (I think!) and he told me about his 4-octave marimba that he carries around in soft cases. “You really should get some soft cases—your resonators are so exposed this way,” as he gestured to my traveling vibraphone dolly cart. We clarified that it was a vibraphone and not a marimba (He couldn’t tell because my metal bars were wrapped for protection) “You know,” he said, “another guy, Sean, plays the vibraphone down here.” So far, someone has mentioned Sean each time I play at Union Square. I wonder if he’s heard wind that there’s another vibraphone in town….
Once I got in through the service door I practically ran into a group of three people standing in the middle of the hallway; and who did I run into but the one and only accordion playeress LisaRat! “Ahhhhhhh! Lisa! Rat! OH MY GOODNESS!” I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm! It was so strange to see a familiar face so far out of context from the normal places—places 300 miles away—that we might normally run into each other! And it was so serendipitous! Even if we had both just happened to be in Union Square Subway Station on the same day at the same time, we just so happened to be in the same hallway of that cavernous underground chamber! And even if we happened to be in the same hallway of the same station at the same time, she just so happened to be facing my direction—because otherwise I never would have seen her face and we would have walked right by each other! It was amazing! I’ve never been happier seeing a rat in a subway.
“Oh, hey Erin. That’s weird, I was just thinking about you.”
I asked if she wanted to busk with me, I was just setting up.
“Well, we’re on our way to Brooklyn for an accordion lesson. This great accordion player from R----?-- is only in New York for a few days so this is our only chance to study with him.”
“Oh my gosh well… It was great running into you!”
And just like that, she was gone.
We would often meet in the non-drywalled living room of her place (with the toilet of the exposed bathroom just beyond the upright piano) and record songs on her cassette recorder. We became fast friends when she said, “Oh, I have a vibraphone too. I have to pick it up at a friend’s house.” An old roommate had left it behind with Rat several years ago. It turned out she had a rare vibraharp (early vibraphone) from the 20s-40s, and when I stopped by the house-under-construction in which she lived to take a look at the vibes I noticed a bottle of champagne on the mantle—upon closer look I recognized it as a premier cru vintage bottle from the 1980s that would probably sell for well over a thousand dollars. I asked where she had found the bottle and she said, “Oh, we drank that last night.” It turned out an acquaintance in AA relinquished his wine cellar to one of Lisa’s friends!
One afternoon in Charlottesville Lisa & I went to the downtown mall together and busked. I remember that a guitar player held the nice spot for us, but when it became clear he was leaving a bucket drummer went & began to set up even though we were in the process of setting up (bucket drummers don’t care; more about this in “Bucket Blues”). A policeman approached and told the bucket drummer that he would be too loud and was not permitted to play on the mall—the officer didn’t say anything to us! LisaRat has a magnetic, queenly quality about her and seems to, with little effort, magically attract incredible things such as rare antique vibraphones, vintage telephones, great busking spots and amazing bottles of champagne. She doesn’t have a cell phone or email, though, and only recently got her first answering machine, so sometimes it’s difficult to connect. When I left Charlottesville, I wondered if we would ever meet again.
______________
Seven Months Later…..
This time I experimented with a new route to Union Square. Instead of taking the subway I packed my vibes in the car & drove there, alone. Lady Luck presented a nice, free parking spot in close proximity, but with cross-town traffic it had taken me over an hour to arrive (it would have been quicker taking the subway). I gingerly bounced the vibes down the stairs, one step at a time, being careful not to bang the resonators against each other or loose any nuts or bolts, only to discover no service door—just the revolving-teeth doors, impermeable with a vibraphone. I bounced the vibes back up the stairs and went to another entrance (for readers who have never been to Union Square subway station: Whereas most subway stops have just two entrances, Union Square is a huge space where several different lines meet each other and hence there are many entrances and exits on various streets around Union Square). I left the vibes at the top of the stairs and sprinted down to check for a service door—Yes! I ran back up the stairs and proceeded to bounce the vibes down the stairs.
About two stairs down I ran into a guy who said, “Whoaaaa! Hey! A marimba! Let me help you with that, I can’t just let another marimba player go down the stairs by herself!” He helped me get the instrument down the stairs and we stopped to chat for a while. His name was K---- Krupers (I think!) and he told me about his 4-octave marimba that he carries around in soft cases. “You really should get some soft cases—your resonators are so exposed this way,” as he gestured to my traveling vibraphone dolly cart. We clarified that it was a vibraphone and not a marimba (He couldn’t tell because my metal bars were wrapped for protection) “You know,” he said, “another guy, Sean, plays the vibraphone down here.” So far, someone has mentioned Sean each time I play at Union Square. I wonder if he’s heard wind that there’s another vibraphone in town….
Once I got in through the service door I practically ran into a group of three people standing in the middle of the hallway; and who did I run into but the one and only accordion playeress LisaRat! “Ahhhhhhh! Lisa! Rat! OH MY GOODNESS!” I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm! It was so strange to see a familiar face so far out of context from the normal places—places 300 miles away—that we might normally run into each other! And it was so serendipitous! Even if we had both just happened to be in Union Square Subway Station on the same day at the same time, we just so happened to be in the same hallway of that cavernous underground chamber! And even if we happened to be in the same hallway of the same station at the same time, she just so happened to be facing my direction—because otherwise I never would have seen her face and we would have walked right by each other! It was amazing! I’ve never been happier seeing a rat in a subway.
“Oh, hey Erin. That’s weird, I was just thinking about you.”
I asked if she wanted to busk with me, I was just setting up.
“Well, we’re on our way to Brooklyn for an accordion lesson. This great accordion player from R----?-- is only in New York for a few days so this is our only chance to study with him.”
“Oh my gosh well… It was great running into you!”
And just like that, she was gone.
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