Buskers on the Internet- Building Community

In the British Columbian town of Nanaimo, there is a crowd building around several musicians who are playing music on the street. A man with an accordion, a singer, a guitar player and whoever comes to play is welcome. The musicians do not ask for money today, which is unusual, because these musicians are self proclaimed buskers. These musicians make money by playing shows in public spaces. Some of them play for a living others play for extra cash. MC is the accordion player. He is a big kind looking man with graying hair and bold features, his voice is deep and soft. C has brought the group together to protest the town’s change in bylaw. The new bylaw states that all buskers must audition to receive a $20 license for performing in public according to the Nanaimo Daily News in August 2009. This show is to protesting the ban, and though they ask for no money, the spectators give anyway to show their support. MC created a blog he calls ‘busking Canadian-like.’ Everything the audience needed to know about the busker protest is on that website.

In a traditionally individualistic lifestyle of a street musician, ‘Busker J,’ or MC is one example of the many buskers who have created websites as a reference for fellow street musicians. Many buskers have found that a community is easiest to achieve online. Of the Internet, Mr. C said, “I keep in contact with buskers all over the world.” It’s a very unique phenomenon for buskers to have a structured support. The English term ‘busking’ or, as many Americans say, ‘street performing,’ is ancient. On street corners people have been exchanging their art for money through centuries. They have also been using their art to speak their opinions of government in city environments where they can easily be heard.

The Internet provides a new way to communicate because it does not have the same power from the government that takes form in these bylaws like we saw in Nanaimo. Along with the rest of the world, Internet is changing the way buskers interact with each other and their audience. The lonesome, individualist community of buskers that once stood alone or in small groups on city streets all over the world, has found their community on the web. Busking sites online give information that include the different state laws of busking and advice that includes where to busk and how to get the most tips. Where, in the past the law has found ways to usher buskers into criminality, the web offers a safe haven.  Matt of Australia gives tips on the best places to busk at his site buskerworld.com. “You always have to write down where you go- because you’ll always forget” Matt says on one of his youtube.com advice videos. Street Arts and Buskers Advocates is another site that offers a long history of busking including laws, and stories that go back to the 1960’s. Stefen Bead is a street performer and the founder of the Street Arts and Buskers Advocates web site. The site is embellished with little cut outs of blue performers at the top, and an extensive inventory of history and laws in scattered cities all over the globe.

The lore of busking and its actual history has been interwoven into a tight knot of fact and fiction, because the practice is so ancient and vast. However Mr. Bead was boasted as "the national authority on the history of busking." Stefen Bead is a hard accented Bostonian with a soft but powerful way of going on lengthy speeches about the importance of busking politically and socially. Righteously he said "Since the beginning of time there have been street performers." "It's the street musician's job," he added, "to question society." Similar to Mr. Bead, busker, MC runs buskerworld.com on which he sells a course on how to make a living by busking. “[Busking] is much more regulated now,” he said. “The general public is more supportive now than ever before.”

The history of busking compiled online makes the lineage of buskers fascinatingly mythical. Performing in the streets was born from political advocacy. By definition a busker makes art in public spaces to procure money. The word "busker" comes from the Greek word 'buskin' which were shoes worn by actors in ancient Greek and Roman tragedies. ‘Busker’ also has a derivation from the Italian verb 'buscare' meaning to gain, search for or wander. The verb has not last its meaning in the English coined word for street performers, for many musicians travel around the world on money they earn from busking everyday. A busker or street performer comes in many forms in the city. Street performers range from opera singers, to jugglers, acrobats and fire breathers. However, the most popular form of busking is in the street musician- an instrument and a song. Mr. Bead went on to say that busking was and still is a political movement through art. It has been political from the Ancient Greeks to the French Revolution and the 1960's. “Every generation takes on the streets,” he said.

The busker has always been at the fringes of society, just outside the law. Street Performers began singing political poetry or "libelli famosi" in the streets of Rome between about 450-451 B.C. Street Performers were also taken form in gypsy musicians and fortunetellers. A law was passed in England in 1530 by King Henry VIII stating that any 'fortune teller, street performer or beggar' would be whipped for two consecutive days.' This is according to several websites including buskerworld.com. Whether this piece of information is truth or lore seems irrelevant to the point, which is, a street musician has rarely been understood by the law. All the laws against street musicians have been attempts to plan the spontaneity of the art.

Busking became popular in the US at the turn of the century with blues musicians like Jed Caanon and his Jugstompers. Bands like Jed Caanon played popular songs for money. It was never seen as a 'mainstream' profession, it has been confused with panhandling and begging- as we see in Tudor’s England. New York City Mayor Laguardia passed a law that banned street performing in 1935. It was not until the 1960's when folk singers like Pete Seeger began to play on the streets and Mayor Lindsey lifted the ban. In order to keep the street performing authorized by some kind of outer government organization, it is now strongly advised that people performing in the subways have a license with the Music Under New York program. Music Under New York, or MUNY, is a program that holds auditions for performers of any genre and background to play on the subway platforms of New York (it is still illegal to perform in the subway cars). John Cohen, 77, a former judge for the program and musician who played in a well known band called The New Lost City Ramblers reminisced about the 1960’s and times before MUNY. He remembered the spontaneity of musicians playing on the street “they were just playing in unexpected places” he said, then added with some nostalgia “now the street performers have to be licensed.” However, licenses have never stopped street performers in the past. Jene Giday a full time busker of four years said she never had problems with being asked to “move along” she said, “but some buskers don't evidence much common sense----they use their amps.” It sounds as though they need some solid advice from a man who has been all around the world busking on corners, in parks and on subways for money like Matt.

According to the current public.legalinfo.ny.us website, the current New York law states that a performer should not receive any gratuity for a ‘service’ or performance. This is unless it a “compensation based upon payments received by or on behalf of such member of the public as a result of his employment in the field of show business,” (on the bill section 37.7). Street performers are allowed to play in the street as long as they are receiving money solely for their entertainment.

MC, ‘professional’ busker complained of authorities administering busking and its ever changing, ever confusing laws saying that “the regulations are not monitored properly or fairly...sometimes I just won’t even bother [performing].” Laws like these include fines and the confiscation of instruments, sometimes they are only demands to “move along.” Indeed, with all these laws that appear so random and harsh, it seems that the only people who can grasp and congeal the busking world are the buskers themselves. Buskers use the Internet to organize themselves after a long history of fighting the law on their own. The Internet is a unique invention that has allowed buskers to legitimize themselves.

The British Columbian busking blogger, MC also known as “busker M” has a blog stock full of videos. The videos are short clips of him in an English flag spangled room singing and harping against the laws of busking. The blog advertises to “inspire up and coming artists to freely express their music.” Though it has the low quality feeling of a handmade website, many people have viewed the videos, the site is neither dusty nor ignored by the Internet surfers. Mr. C complains in a rhythmic poem about the laws in British Colombia (and all over the world) on one of the videos called Buskers and the Lawman. This battle cry of the busker community has become more much sharper and organized with these new websites and videos that tie the busking world together for support and to make the practice itself professional.