A lot can happen in 5 images. I went back to the cafe in Abbey Green to find a loud American on a world tour. He was so loud that another busker came over from the nearby square to tell him to turn down the amplifier through which he was projecting his middle-of-the-road guitar and vocals. I was extremely lucky in that I turned up as he was finishing the first part of his performance and was giving everyone a half hour break. This photo was taken when he started again and when I left.
I don't want to turn this post into the standard elder's impotent rant (though I will if I have to), but I have to say a few words about buskers. I don't know what we have done to deserve it, but here in Bath we have more than our fair share of them. They are positively encouraged by the local authority, who seem to think that in filling the streets with them they will take everyone's attention away from the increasing number of empty, desolate shops with unopened bills piled up behind locked glass doors.
In the same way that cyclists have been encouraged to believe that they are beyond reproach when they ride the wrong way on pavements or shoot red lights at pedestrian crossings, buskers would like you to think that they are serving the community when they set up in a public place, rather than serving themselves and their massive egos.
Because they all use amplifiers at close to maximum volume, there are spots in Bath where you are equidistant between three or four of them, and the cacophony is hideous.
Abbey Green was the last beautiful little place to escape in the centre, but now it is just another stage for mediocre musicians to act out their stadium fantasies.
Oh dear again. This would annoy me, too.
ReplyDeleteWell, I am more tired than annoyed. There is no peace from incessant music almost anywhere these days.
DeleteI prefer buskers, most have a degree of talent, than the beggars who sit there with their poor half starved dog and can of beer.
ReplyDeleteThere is no comparison. Most buskers are not junkies. There have been plenty of good musicians who were, but they could afford it.
DeleteI like buskers but only if they are good. My husband and I always have to give them something. XXXX
ReplyDeleteYou cannot pick and choose when it comes to buskers. I have learned not to feed the pigeons here as well, even if I do feel sorry for them. I have given quite a lot of money to junkies over the years, mainly because I feel more empathy with them than I do buskers.
DeleteIn Berlin we had a lot of Rumanian buskers - they went through the underground, most of them thanks heaven only for one song (loud!!!). Then it was forbidden, because one of them beat out some teeth from a passenger who had asked them to play a bit less noisy.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how the situation is now - because I still do not use the underground.
But on some places there are very good musicians, and to those I give money.
The Romanians are very different.
DeleteBuskers don't needs amps.
ReplyDeleteNot all bike riders deserve to be called cyclists! They get the rest of us a bad name.
I am very aware of the difference between people who ride bikes and the ones I complain about. I have no argument with ordinary polite people!
DeleteI forget: if you sit on a terrace, I sometimes think that the bad ones sing so long till they blackmail money to go away :-)
ReplyDeleteThose ones are not tolerated in Bath.
DeleteOh, can I jump on this bandwagon? That council sanctioning exists here, too, and the most woeful muzik can be heard at full pelt in our public spaces. I commiserated with a half-demented shopkeeper in pre-Covid times whose repeated reports back to Council fell on deaf ears. "Atmosphere" was what Council felt was the the result. Why is it that the half-decent buskers are the ones with no amplifier at all, or turned right down?
ReplyDeleteWhen they're good, I like the doppler effect of buskers playing in corridors underground as you walk through train stations. But we have to plead guilty to buying a CD off a troop of alleged Peruvian pan-pipers we heard in London decades ago. Probably the self same ones that were parodied by English skit shows later. Bring it home like a trophy, stick it into the stereo ... then look at one another with incredulity ... What were we thinking???
Those Peruvian pan-pipe bands started to make a comeback a couple of years ago, but thankfully it didn't work. Councils actually mention buskers in their publicity blurb. They hate the idea of peaceful city centres, they equate peace with death.
DeleteThis problem will not go away until those they entertain are fed up. Sadly, those are not you and I.
ReplyDeleteThe busker in the photo got cheering and applause each time he 'finished' the same tune in a different guise. There is no hope.
DeleteIt is the captive audience that I feel for. Years ago in York my fellow shop workers had to listen to the same old song time after time, day after day. 'Here comes the sun' AGAIN!
ReplyDeleteSome buskers get paid to go away. That's another way of making money.
DeleteBuskers have to earn a donation
ReplyDeleteAt least two songs and no rushing
Do you stop and listen to them?
Delete