To Busk or Not to Busk, That is the Question!

To busk or not to busk, that is the question.  I choose to busk.  Today I busked in two different "underground railway" stations.  I spent the late afternoon and early evening playing my violin at the 16th Ave. and Mission BART station.  I really enjoy spending time in the Mission.  It is a great neighborhood with a colorful and proud Latino culture at it's core.  The most beautiful murals I've ever seen, and hundreds of them!  Almost every alley in the area has been transformed into an outdoor art gallery, depicting the rich history of this strong and nurturing community.

When you busk, you are never guaranteed a spot.  I don't believe in the concept of "turf" except for a few exceptions.  Always respect your elders...true.  Some of these guys have been busking these same streets and stations since I was in diapers.  Is it good to be tactful and friendly and polite when dealing with other buskers?  Definitely.  Matter a fact, the busking subculture is an amazing community with a free-spirit and a ton of talent and undying enthusiasm.  I've experienced that in every city I've ever busked.  Like a well kept secret, here are all these wonderful, and for the most part unknown, performing artists.  String quartets playing on street corners in Aspen.  A lone mandolin player playing daily in front of the historic Water Tower in Chicago, incidentally one of the only structures that survived the Great Chicago Fire of a hundred years ago.  You know the one that the cow started.  Young bluegrass bands in Madison, Wisconsin cutting their teeth on State Street and at the Farmer's Market that surrounds the Capital Building.  Countless old time and novelty string bands on every corner and even swinging from trees in Asheville, North Carolina where a young Jimmy Rodgers, the father of Country Music known as the singing brakeman, got his start performing in string bands eighty some odd years ago.  Here in San Francisco?  This is the most diverse and full-on busking subculture I've ever experienced.  Horn players on every other corner; full electric bands set up in front of big storefronts; celebrity-like bucket players; Mexican-American guitarists singing great harmonies; Chinese one-string cello players and even entire Chinese Orchestras in North Beach; territorial doo-wop a cappella groups; experimental neo-classical musicians;  jolly accordion players; high energy tap dance crews; and every other type of performance you could imagine, you just mind find on the streets of San Francisco.  I was hoping to peel back the layers a bit and expose this vibrant subculture.  I ended up becoming a part of it, through and through.  Now I have busking fever.  I can feel the experience making a marked difference in my life.  I can feel the experience making at least a small difference in the daily lives of at least one person a day, although my guess is that that number is perhaps much higher.  Perhaps a busker can brighten the lives of hundreds of people a day.  Maybe even thousands.

Today I walked from my North Beach haven all the way to the Mission.  It was a hot October day today, apparently summer comes in the fall in SF.  I stopped at the Civic Center station after my brisk walk through Chinatown and the Financial District.  I was looking for a "spot" that was semi-outdoors since it was a very warm and lovely day.  The BART stations in the Mission are all semi-outdoors with wonderful acoustic-friendly alcoves where the escalators transport people from street level to the concourse level.  The Civic Center station also has a nice semi-outdoor alcove which takes people to and from the United Nations Plaza.  The United Nations was founded in San Francisco and the city dedicated a plaza where farmers markets and arts and craft fairs take place.  So I took a look down into the alcove and saw not only "Scratchman", but the juggler who always drops the balls was down there too.  So off to the Mission I was, and on such a beautiful day a walk from 6th St. to 16th St. didn't seem like a terrible idea.  But first, who is this "Scratchman" that you speak of Fiddle Dave?

"Scratchman" is an infamous SF busker who essentially pretends to play the fiddle.  He produces only one tone, and that is one of ultimate scratchiness, and plays no notes.  Just scratches.  He really gets into it and fully immerses himself in this scratching.  I saw him the first day I busked in SF on the Fisherman's Wharf.  Him and "Bushman" are both old school street performance artists.  "Bushman" is a guy who hides behind a bush that he is holding and waits for unsuspecting tourists to walk by as they're strolling the Wharf.  Then he jumps out and with a goofy smile and an imitation lion's growl does his best to startle the passer-bys.

I've had a couple, slightly insane conversations with Scratchman in the past.  He liked it when I told him he was taking the tone of his fiddle to new limits.  Well, a couple weeks ago I had a very surreal, and absolutely laugh out loud hilarious "life imitating art" experience with the Scratchman.  It was a Wednesday morning and I was playing the United Nations Plaza alcove for the Farmer's Market people and the morning rush hour commuters.  Things were going well and I was in the zone.  People were responding positively to the music and that was encouraging me to play with more and more passion.  Next thing you know, I see Scratchman setting up in the concourse of the station.  For the next hour, Scratchman scratched along with every note I played with tremendous enthusiasm.  He was far enough away, and he only produces a scratching sound, so I was able to keep on playing despite Scratchman's energetic and rather frenetic hoedown.  So it only made me laugh.  And as the smile grew on my face and I began to laugh out loud while playing my violin, other people too began to smile uncontrollably and laugh with me.  Scratchman had the biggest smile of all.  I could tell that he really was enjoying this bizarre shared busking experience.  The funniest part of this whole episode was that every time the rush of people went past and it was just him and I, Scratchman would get super animated and jump around and click his heels just for me.  The more I laughed, the more he jumped around, and Scratchman is no spring chicken.  Amazingly spry for his age. It was a very funny morning of avant-garde dueling fiddles.

Eventually, I got to the Mission today and had a nice time busking.  The acoustics are great and with newer strings on the fiddle I thoroughly enjoyed playing for about two and a half hours continuously.  Unexpectedly I ran into a busking buddy of mine who plays the cello.  We decided to jam for a little while and took a nice "breather" before we started and admired the twilight sky.  Pink clouds hovered in the direction of the ocean.  We played a little chamber-rock then and shortly into the jam I was feeling famished and ready for a taco break.  There are no shortage of fantastic taquerias in the Mission.  I have a new favorite that has a great veggie taco for two dollars.  Fits nicely into the busker budget.  

After my taco and walking around the Mission in a bit of a daze I decided to wake up for round two of busking with an Americano at a quiet coffee house on Valencia.  I then hopped on a BART train and cruised back downtown to the Powell St. station and found the 4th St. tunnel vacant to my professional delight.  I was tired, but rent was beginning to loom over me.  I played for another two hours to mostly conscious people...there were a couple bums taking rest and solace in the tunnel.  I play them to sleep typically and they are harmless.  I have become quite fond of one of the bums.  He is a sweet old 65 year-old man named Joe.  He is very drunk most of the time.  Tonight someone tried to steal his chicken from him while he was passed out.  I stopped in the middle of a song and had to tell the would be thief.."Hey!  Don't steal from old Joe." At midnite I quit for the day and headed home to North Beach.  Another day in the life of an American busker.  

North Beach Busking Base

Here I sit in my North Beach home.  I live in a hotel room in the Little Italy section of San Francisco.  I have a turret room, that is to say a round room that sits on the corner of a three way intersection.  It's my "tower of song" as Leonard Cohen might see it.  Chinatown is essentially across the street from my turret.  Off in the distance through one window I see Russian Hill, through another window I see Knob Hill, the next window over I see downtown with the magnificent and sometimes even mystical Trans-American Pyramid at the dead end of my street, and the next window over I can see Telegraph Hill where the Coit Tower overlooks both the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge with impressive views of Angel Island and Alcatraz.  All these great views from my little turret.

Little Italy is a nice place to live.  Lots of Italian and French/Italian bakerys, outdoor dining, and plenty of gelato places where I like to treat myself to the occasional sorbeto.  Lots of cafes and Italian restaurants and countless places to get a delicious slice of pizza.  People visit this neighborhood from all over the world and I've been very happy to call this neighborhood home for the last seven months.  I work pretty hard sometimes to make the bills as a busker, and rent is not exactly cheap in San Francisco, but this is a beautiful neighborhood to live in and is a motivating force in my daily efforts as a busker.  If I ever need more motivation, I just take a walk around my neighborhood.  Climb up Telegraph Hill and stare at the Bay and the two "great bridges."  Then wind my way down the bay-side of the hill where there are lush gardens with gigantic flowers, plants and rosebushes that look like they came from outer-space.  Then I remember one of the reasons that I am working hard.  To maintain a happy life in a vibrant neighborhood such as North Beach is definitely a goal that keeps me pushing forward.  When I wake up and see awesome architecture like the gothic buildings on Knob Hill and the imposing skyscrapers of downtown being lit my the morning sun busting through a veil of ocean fog, I am happy to be here and to start another day.

I live on the corner of Stockton, Green and Columbus.  Typically, I start my busking day with a walk through Chinatown which begins right across the street.  It's always a stimulating and colorful walk and sometimes even a bit of a challenge to work my way up the street past throngs of Chinese people buying and selling fruit, fish and everything else imaginable, pouring out of stores and into the street.  By the time I hit the Stockton Tunnel, which I call the "singing tunnel," I am usually a bit relieved to get out of the crowd.  Sometimes I grab a cheap black bean roll as a snack while I am walking.  I like bakeries of ALL nationalities, and their are no shortage of Italian, French, Chinese, Mexican bakeries plus a plethora of "Ma and Pop" donut shops.   It's hard not to sing when you walk through the "singing tunnel."  The acoustics are so great!  Late at night I like to sing doo-wop a cappella classics from my teenage years of a cappella singing.  A few weeks ago I recorded a super-falsetto version of the Lion Sleeps Tonight with my Macbook flipped open and since it was late night post busking, only a couple cars went wooshing by and I got a funny recording.  

When I get through the tunnel I am downtown in the financial district.  A couple blocks later I am walking through Union Square where I usually see my friend Ron Coolidge playing his trumpet on the corner.  He's the one who introduced me to North Beach in the first place.  I was staying at the Fisherman's Wharf hostel, desperately craving some privacy and needing more sufficient rest then the hostel would allow, and I ran into Ron one night while I was out busking.  He was playing his trumpet with such precision and great tone, with the command of a classical musician.  At first, I just listened to him for about twenty minutes or so.  Then after I tipped him and we got to talking, he told me about all these hotels in North Beach where people were living.  I moved into the Hotel Europa the very next day and have been in the neighborhood ever since.

A couple blocks past Ron's corner at the park I am at Market Street and ready to go underground and see what the happenings are in the BART(Bay Area Rapid Transit) station.  If it's quiet when I get downstairs my adrenaline starts pumping a bit as I know there is probably an open spot and it is time for my next show to begin.  I get as excited as I can about sharing my music and hope that my enthusiasm is contagious.  I crack my case, rosin my bow and tune my fiddle.  I keep a lucky two dollar bill in my case for bait and begin to play the best that I can.

I leave the rest to fate.

 I thought I would share this video clip of one of my busking experiences.  A picture is worth a thousand words and a moving picture is well...worth probably a million words maybe?  Wishful thinking probably, but that's OK.  The message is good. Positive.  Loving.  You will hear it.  The friendship.  The warmth. Communication that is universal.  Compassionate music.  Spontaneously performed and delivered to the general public. Catching people during their hustle-bustle and helping them slow down for a quick moment.  A shared, in-the-moment experience.

So all that warm fuzziness aside, here is an example of what I do when I collaborate with a friend and busk in San Francisco.  The acoustics of the railway stations are pretty nice.  Some stations, like in the Mission for example, have outstanding acoustics.  I see this type of acoustic-friendly concrete construction in some modern university recital halls and for some reason they applied some of the same principles when building these alcoves where the escalators and stairs bring people to and from the underground railway.  

This is an original song of my friend Jody Moore who I am seen performing with in this clip. His song, "Just What It Is" is featured on a soon to be released album that his band Soundpire(who formerly called themselves Updraft), have been working on for the past 5 years. Members of the Sam Bush Band and the Allison Krauss Band are featured on this debut effort by my good friends.  This is how I first became friends with Jody.  His band mate Deva Blanchard and I had made friends in Asheville, North Carolina and not long after I was invited by Deva to join his band in Nashville, Tennessee for a week of recording at Sound Stage Studios.  One week turned into 3 different weeks spent in Nashville back in the summer of 2004.  I've been great friends with those guys ever since.

I hope you enjoy the video clip.  I think it has a pretty sweet touch to it.  I can hear the good vibes.  I can also hear the overhead intercom at the train station, but jokingly I just call that the Pink Floyd effect.  We play through it and I have to admit that I like the edge it gives the recordings. Gives it that urban feel.  Some sort of authentication of the subway station experience.  I document a lot of sessions with straight audio recordings using my Macbook plopped down next to the old fiddle case.  You can hear the change clanking as it hits the case.

Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Zen of Busking.  More soon as I continue my musical journey as a full-time professional busker in the greatest city in America.  Fly high friends.