Busk London - Time Out Investigation
It took 23 years for the tube to catch up with New York’s licensed busker scheme, Music Under New York (MUNY), but in 2003 Transport for London(TfL) tried it and we liked it. Hold our breath for another 20 years and we might just get 24-hour trains too.
On the Big Apple’s MUNY website, busker profiles gleam with images, biogs and sample tracks. Try the same in the Big Smoke and you’ll find some guff about details of a new 0845 number used as an ‘interim in-house booking system while we… look for a sponsor.’
Previous sponsorship – Carling followed by thelondonpaper/ Capital Radio – dried up last spring and the scheme, now administered in-house, is showing cracks under the financial pressure. The 0845 number, introduced in December, appears to be part of the solution.
The bad news for tube buskers is that unless you use a BT landline, calls to book a pitch can cost up to 25p a minute. TfL estimates it receives 13,000 calls on Tuesdays alone from more than 300 active licensed buskers. A pretty penny no doubt, and TO can confirm that this money is going straight toTfL.
‘It’s like walking into the office every week and the boss asking you for money because times are tough,’ says didgeridoo stalwart Beppe Nieddu, a tube busker since before it was legal. ‘But we’re stuck. If we don’t make the calls at 9.30am on Tuesday, we can’t secure the sorts of pitches (Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street) which make playing worth our while.’
Jo Laverty of the Musicians’ Union has been trying in vain to bridge the communication gap between TfL and Peter Murphy, the head of a 147-strongYahoo! Group and the nearest thing tube buskers have to a representative body.
Or should that be ‘had’: on January 23 TfL sent out a statement effective last Saturday (February 14) stating that any activity decided on the Yahoo! Group (used primarily to co-ordinate last-minute pitch swaps) would no longer be recognised by station supervisors.
A spokesperson for TfL told TO: ‘Any income from the 0845 is tiny compared to the cost of administering the scheme,’ and suggested buskers call less frequently. Curious advice for a first-come, first-served system. As for the termination of the Yahoo! Group, no explanation or alternative has been offered.
Above ground, licensing laws for performers are even more obscure. Busking is not illegal, but since 2003 boroughs have been allowed to decide for themselves whether to set up licensed schemes. Few have bothered, leaving decision-making to the police.
Not all buskers want to operate within a regulated system, but many who do find that the better the busk, the bigger the crowd and the more likely it is to be deemed an ‘obstruction’ – a word which along with ‘begging’ appears in Met Police clauses dating back to the 1824 Vagrancy Act.
That was a time of exceptional poverty, when disenfranchised soldiers returning from the Napoleonic Wars gave rise to the phenomenon of the ‘griddler’. Montagu Williams’s 1894 book ‘Round London’ described these men as unemployed ‘gutter singers’ who would bellow the song ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ until ‘they’ve got enough money to get drunk on’.
Each of our five profiled buskers – all professional musicians – agree this Victorian conflation of street performance with poverty still pervades busking. ‘The authorities are mind-blowingly patronising,’ says 26-year-old Emily Edmondstone (aka Milli Moonstone).
Dave Osbourne (aka Puncturekit) agrees: ‘The worst is not knowing how cops are going to react to you. It’s nerve-wracking being at the mercy of their whim.’
The good news is that the Greater London Authority is willing to back a rethink. A spokesperson said, ‘We would be happy to participate in discussions about how the implementation of the 2003 Licensing Act might be improved,’ and pointed to the tube scheme as a template.
Yet with pitches down from 42 to 23 in the past two years and London Underground set to cut 1,000 jobs , questions about the sponsorless scheme at TfL are surfacing.
TfL insists that it is committed to busking and finding a new sponsor, but perhaps a better template for the GLA to adopt would be Bertie and Evelyn Anderson, the sisters who represent Covent Garden Courtyard Buskers.
They have fostered a respectful relationship with their landlords, Liberty International (LI). Evelyn says, ‘It’s amazing. Historically, buskers are the bottom of the heap, but they respect us and accept that even though we are not employees, we are as important as any business in the market.’
After a disastrous start in 2006 when LI threatened to cut shows in Covent Garden by 50 per cent, the sisters took their plight to the press and used the strength of public support to leverage discussion with the new developers.
A similar push seems needed now; here’s hoping we can help.
- See the Best of the Buskers at Ginglik, 1 Shepherd’s Bush Green, Thur Feb 19.
MEET THE BUSKERS:
Milli Moonstone
Instrument Singer-songwriter, guitar and serangi
Age 25
Busking for 8 years
Spot her South Bank, tube
Why? ’I love music and sharing music. I come home buzzing – all the connections you make with people. My family and I went caroling every Christmas, and by the time I was nine I was out playing my flute down Winchester High Street. But it was after travelling in Indonesia when I was 17 that busking became real. It’s a hard life to live off, but it’s all or nothing. I’ve got a band, an album and I’m working towards a career.’
Steel Pan Sam
Instrument Alto steel pan
Age 29
Busking for 8 years
Spot him ‘Where the wind blows’
Why? ‘Once you see it in your head and you know that you can do it, just go and do it. All it takes is that push to say, “C’mon, get up.” Even if I’ve been teaching or done a gig and made £200, I’ll get home to the TV and think “Nah, I’m not tired, get out and do something.” My friends and family think I’m weird. They don’t get me. But I’ve always been self-driven, a free spirit.’
Beppe Nieddu
Instrument Didgeridoo
Age 39
Busking for 6 years
Spot him Tube
Why? ‘With an instrument like mine it’s very hard to make enough money from gigging in London. Busking is the best way to practise, meet people and make a bit on the side. The underground system doesn’t make it easy though. You can’t sell CDs; the old sponsors never paid us anything; staff are often rude and to book pitches we all have to call the 0845 line. The average holding time is about an hour, which means TfL are milking us like cows.’
Puncturekit - Dave Osborne
Instrument Drums and electronica
Age 37
Busking for 8 months
Spot him Off Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus
Why? ‘My friend Ariel said, “Just get out there and play it.” So I rode to Brick Lane on my bike, turned it upside down and re-assembled it into a drum kit. I’d been a furniture designer and uni technician in Adelaide, Australia, and during my lunch breaks I’d admire the buskers and think, “Man, that’s the greatest way to make a living.” Soon after, I came to London to drum and invented the Puncturekit design. Only complaint? Police inconsistency – London needs to sort out its laws.’
MC Xander
Instrument Beatbox and multivocalist
Age 26
Busking for 2 years
Spot him Brick Lane, Carnaby Street
Why? ‘Freedom to be able to play in situations which are not constrained by promoters, venues, labels or sales. In the street you find out how your music translates to the average person. You can experiment and passers-by have no vested interests in your music, so you have to get them involved with banter, tricks, jokes – if it brings a smile or inspires a kid or two to buy a sampler to loop their beats, even better.’
Permalink | February 17, 2009