(CAPE TOWN) Buskers and street-performers are busy celebrating City Hall's decision to legalize performing in Cape Town.The South African city made news earlier this year when blind busker Lunga Nono was beaten by metro police for busking in St. George's Mall.

Charges against the busker have recently been dropped in favor of new legislation. Nono's guitar was broken in the melee which took place in front of his family and onlooking tourists. A music shop donated a new guitar to Nono who has filed a lawsuit.

Now that the city has come to it's senses about the performing artists and tourism, just about anything goes. This includes street musicians, acrobats, clowning, comedy, contortions, dance, singing, fire skills, mime, living statues, music performance, puppeteering, storytelling, poetry, painting,...

[ Continued ]

(LIAM MURRAY BELL) Three cities, two years, one chance - a story of a young man determined to find his voice in this world. Plucked from obscurity in Glasgow, Rab Dillon is about to become the next great protest singer.Seduced by promises of stardom and carrying only the guitar given to him by the girl who broke his heart, he travels down the road to London. There, he records his debut album that will speak to the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, and the disheartened. But one year later, he is sleeping rough on the streets of Brighton.

A modern-day ballad set across three cities and two years, The Busker is a rich comic exposé of the music industry, the Occupy movement, homelessness, squatting - and failing to live up to the name you share with your hero, Bob Dylan. It is also the story of what survives ...

[ Continued ]

Tom Jones’s first attempt at busking began ominously as a crowd gathered around a set of speakers and a lone microphone set up on the South Bank of the Thames near the Royal Festival Hall. “It’s Tom Jones, isn’t it?” one woman asked. “I’ve never liked him since he had his nose done. He had a sensible Welsh nose in the old days.”

Skateboarders and BMX bikers gathered nonplussed at a nearby underpass. Sir Tom would be using the graffiti-covered skating area if it rained, they were told. “That would be a bit awkward,” one BMX rider said. “We’d have to ride around him.”

But any doubt that the 68-year-old singer could still thrill a crowd was dispelled the moment he stepped up to the microphone. “Can you hear me all right?” he asked. The crowd, which had swelled to about 400, cheered and raised their arms, not in celebration, but to capture the moment on their mobile telephones.
...

[ Continued ]

It's survival of the fittest as some resort to dirty tactics in face of stiffer competition.

Outwit, outplay, outlast.
That motto from TV reality series Survivor also holds true for the buskers in Orchard Road.

The current economic downturn is certainly not music to their ears as they have seen takings drop in recent months.

If that's not enough of a worry, they also have to fend off competition from both legitimate and illegal buskers.

But more of that later. For now, the downturn is a more worrisome test of survivor skills.

Take the case of Mr Donald Wee, 51, who strums the guitar near Shaw House.

'More people are donating coins instead of $5 or $10 notes,' he lamented.

He used to earn about $100 in two hours but can net only $40 now. The former security guard went into busking four years ago when he could not find another job after he was arrested for fighting....

[ Continued ]

(PITTSBURGH) Bringing the "Weird, Wild and Wonderful" to the streets, the Busker Street Union enlivens city streets making them safer. It also gives a voice to the voiceless. Busker Street Union is a national placemaking program."We reactivate street spaces. We engage community members through performance. We do research by collecting busking guidelines around the world and we map the safe places to play. The mapping allows us to identify spaces that are protected Free Speech allowing others to use the spaces as a venue for activism. If you are looking for a safe place to play, join the union and sign up here. You’ll get tips on the best places to play and friendly business owners looking to stir up a crowd."

An interesting take on the history of busking, street stages, and busking l...

[ Continued ]