This is a blog about busking. There are times, however, that I do write about the glories of gigging; today is not one of them. When I think about going busking, I think about the love and the freedom and the fun. When I think about performing on stage, these tenets do come to mind, but only in a modified fashion. I shall elaborate.
- THE LOVE
There is certainly love on the stage, but not all the time. Stage gigs come with considerable
angst. Getting the gig is easy;
soliciting for bandmates is not so easy.
Sure, I have a cache of ever-faithful guitar-slingers who are positively
just a text away. For example, one
confidante gig-mate of mine, Trent, is a guitar virtuoso, and has NEVER missed
a gig with me at the BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB! For the last eight years have had four singer-songwriter Bushwakker
stage appearances every year, one for each season!
Like Trent,
all my gig-mates are just great to be around. However, a significant piece of
my imaginary and unwritten gig mandate, is to recruit new and raw talent for
the Bushwakker stage; therefore, I am always on the hunt for new members. Being
a busker, I know that the biggest bush to beat in search of local talent is in
front of liquor stores! I have recruited
many a young and fresh guitar-slinger-songwriter from this very challenging and
gritty venue.
Other stage
angst includes creating playlists, practicing songs, and being politically
motivated to keep everyone happy. Keeping
everyone happy includes the bar staff, the sound technician,
fellow performers, and of course, the bar crowd of imbibers! The bigger the crowd, the bigger the loot. The daily loot for a busker is always a
guesstimate, whereas the amount of money for a gigger has a guaranteed minimum.
- THE FREEDOM
On stage I
am tethered to a written contract. I
show up at such-and-such a time, perform two or three sets on a prescribed
time, and close on a set time.
Busking I am
unbound. In time I am unstuck. Busking I can show up whenever I want. If, for example, I know that in Victoria,
B.C. that the thickest crowds are those that take leave of their cruise ship to
shop downtown, then I play according to the ship schedules. Or if it is sunny and windless, I sometimes
thrum all day. No matter the locale if I
am in the mood I stay and strum. If I am
not in the mood, I go elsewhere and do other things.
On stage the
gigs are weatherproof. Just like the gig
take, the temperature is pretty much a constant. Sometimes, though, under the stage lights, the
temperature rises. Sweating while strumming
and singing on stage is not uncommon.
Busking on
the street, one must weather the elements.
A brutto-tempo busker, purportedly by me to be sometimes, in truth I am
not. I am a very weathered busker, but this
measure according to time spent rather than weather persevered. Quite unlike the postal person who delivers
the mail in rain and snow and sleet and hail, I suffer the elements only by
choice, my choice!
Factoid:
Magnificent weather makes for munificent gestures from my passer-by
consumers.
- THE FUN
Meeting up
with my gig mates four times at year at the BUSHWAKKER BREW PUB gives me the
opportunity to transcend time! Four
times a year I molt all my infirm and self-alchemize to be a thirty-something
beer-chugger with my guitar-slinger half-my-age stage-mates. Yes, I am that delusional.
And it is fun,
too, in delusional fashion busking and morphing into that stranger-comes-to-town
persona. In real time I get to embellish
that road theme that I love so much in novels and movies and real life! Whenever I am traveling down that busker road
in new surroundings and meeting new and perfect strangers, as always, people
approach me with phatic chit chat on their mind. And whenever such chats are over I always
imagine these perfect strangers, saying as they re-connect with whomever, “See
that guy over there, Martha,” as they point at me, “well I’ve just had a
chat with him. He looks good; he speaks
well; he seems bright. I just wonder what the hell his story his. I wonder how he has been reduced to this.”
Though I
fancy myself as being that stranger-comes-to-town planetary-busker,
certainly there are those, who see me as a guttersnipe rather than as a globe
trotter.
These are just
my imaginings; I am sure as my coping rationalization to reinforce my notion of
being the main character in the continuing road theme romantic saga.
To close, a
dram of delight can be wrought from a stage, whereas a magnum of mirth can be
got from the street.
A STAGE IS A
GEMSTONE; THE STREET IS THE LODESTONE!
However, if
I’ve ever the urge to perform on stage, THE BUSHWAKKER BREW PUB is certainly
the place to be!
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