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[folkloristmark]

Busking politics is as complicated as real politics and is seen from the individuals standpoint. The conflict can be real the problem, is that if I claim a right how to I then impose restrictions on others legally or morally.If you like accordeons great what if you dont. That band conflct is classic but  like others you have to adapt. It was south americans in the past. So fist time they blew us away. We came back with amps and the modeling ballons give aways and the started following them because we made money,and they were asking us to go.The trouble was we were all trying to make a living and they were better buskers utill we got better. Not to be confused with better people or musicians . Now that busker in York was experiencing the other end of the stick. He was that band once to some shopworkers.Controls are double edged but I would opt for freedom hoping to avoid anarchy. Sometimes controls  gave us better conditions other times we need freedom. Bath is interesting but at worst it becomes a closed shop with disinformation given to newbies and intimidation sometimes. But we rightly just ignored them, but did not want their spot, so after a while co existed fine. Controls can be used to help buskers or bluntly to stop them that's were the politics also comes in,Ps Bath was never very good and I hear is very bad now. Its a cicular thing . To much of anything is bad.and in the end you work with what you have.

[Nick Collis Bird]

'Spose what you do is spray you and the melodeon with silver paint and stand on a box looking like an idiot and if anyone should chuck some money in the hat, play a quick bout of donkey riding and then freeze again.
Surely the council won't catch you for that.

[Sebastian]

'Spose what you do is spray you and the melodeon with silver paint and stand on a box looking like an idiot and if anyone should chuck some money in the hat, play a quick bout of donkey riding and then freeze again.

Wow, would that be steam-punk?

[Nick Collis Bird]

  .........maybe!

[Thrupenny Bit]

Spray silver, but no need to stand on a box.
Just sit down on an imaginary chair and play like you're in a session......
The silver bloke we saw in Bath in February was lying back reading the paper in an imaginary armchair!

C'mon Nick, you gotta keep up on the cutting edge busking trends if you want to make money 
Q

[malcolmbebb]

Well he's got silver bellows on his Chanson - gotta start somewhere.

[busbox]

BTW the late Alistair Hulett wrote a great song 'Playing for the Traffic' about busking. I guess you can find it on the net somewhere.

[ladydetemps]

Came across this article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28112716
"Section 54 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, which also prohibits kite-flying, sleigh-riding and doorbell-ringing"
Well there goes the plan of playing melodeon on a sleigh with bells while flying as kite.

[Aldina]

Some days ago I did a collection of videos of melodeon buskers at Youtube.

Maybe you want to include this portuguese lady: Patricia Pereira
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw8Ac06BWas
I love her music, there is another video where you can see her playing a handmade melodeon made by a portuguese artisan Fernando Meireles, he also makes a medieval instrument the "sanfona" sorry don't know the name in english.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dBKQFdqLkY
In this video you can also see the "sanfona"
Enjoy

[John MacKenzie (Cugiok)]

Thank you very much for that Aldina. I spent a bit of time in Lisboa, and I miss the place, especially Pasteis de Nata Enjoyed the lady and her playing, very much, I also like the Hurdy Gurdy instrument, which I think is what you call a Sanfona.
Hurdy Gurdy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4y7HNW972M

I used to like a group called Terra a Terra, when I lived in Lisboa.


John

[Aldina]

The Terra a Terra group don't exist anymore, I like their songs too, but pasteis de nata are still great
If you are in UK you can find them in London: http://nata28.co.uk/
For all of you that don't know what we are talking about, I apologize for being out of topic, but if you are near Camden, London, indulge you on a Portuguese delicacy, you will love it.

[Mike Gott]

I did it 26 years ago in Grimsby during a period of unemployment and used to do ok with it. I followed it on by getting a job with the then DHSS (state unemployment/sick benefits department for anyone not familiar with the UK) - I remember hoping that none of my new colleagues recognised me. One lunch break not long after I started I decided to have one last busk to raise some money for the not to far away Christmas. I'd not been at it long when a chap walked by who I'd just been dealing with on the public counter.....he didn't half give me a strange look.

I've just taken early retirement from what is now the DWP and they've still not sorted out my monthly pension, so it looks like my employment with the Department may be bracketed by bouts of busking.............

Mike