Musicians in the Subway

roffling started at "west coast crustpunk Carlos Santana" and continued all the way through "Godfather theme."

I sorely miss the African drum sessions in the station at Strasbourg/Saint-Denis when I pass through after smoking hash. The buskers in Paris are good and I remember one small chamber ensemble that used to play in Chatelet when I was on my way to work in the morning.

Here in SF, I usually only hear anybody in the Montgomery Street station. There's a fey little little contralto country singer dude who's okay and some fiddlers who are tolerable and sometimes a Chinese guy who plays one of the Chinese fiddles (I don't know which kind) which can be kind of enchanting.

Worst thing is always singing dudes with guitars.

I like some of the mexican guitar dudes who walk around the cars, as long as they don't sing guantanamera

Exactly.

Search: Elderly woman playing a zither accompanied by a CD of light instrumental classics (she's not good, I just like her); three dudes with guitars and awesome harmony who sing Ventura Highway and Gordon Lightfoot songs in the Lake St. Red Line station.
Destroy: A cappella guy with a shaker egg who sings Stand By Me and Under the Boardwalk all the time (he's not bad, he just annoys ths shit out of me).
Dependant on my mood and their talent: Bucket Boys

I would probably give a pan pipes dude a dollar just to be contrary, however.

A cappella guy with a shaker egg who sings Stand By Me and Under the Boardwalk

Aside from the fact that all enjoyment has long been wrung from those songs due to overplaying, my beef is with one particular shaker egg guy at the Jackson Red Line station because he was always down there was I was coming home from law school all tired and mentally ragged and wanting nothing more than quiet and instead here is this bozo shaking his egg and wailing about hanging out under boardwalks and standing by me and JUST SHUT UP FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES OKAY???? The association is still so strong that many years later, hearing those songs makes me feel tired and a little panicky and I have to suppress the urge to bean him in the head with his own shaker egg.

all tired and mentally ragged and wanting nothing more than quiet

Both of those songs have a corny syncopation upon which performers try to outdo each other in herky-jerkiness. Something inside of me dies every time during that little break during the Duh-Duh-Dum-(pause)-Dum in "Stand By Me."

how do you play A Neutral Milk Hotel song on a Ray Bradbury novel...?

Destroy: Two scruffy kids with a beat-up acoustic guitar and a Ray Bradbury paperback singing a Neutral Milk Hotel song

A loooong time ago, there was an a capella trio at Grand Central who sang a version of "My Girl" that was so good that a legless beggar took some money out of his own cup and dropped it into the singers' upturned hat.

Does Mary Lou Lord still play in the subway stations in Boston?

Dear Shakey,
Scruff number one plays beat-up acoustic guitar and sings
Scruff number two holds up vintage copy of Fahrenheit 451 and sings harmony

Both scruffs cast gleeful sidelong looks into each other's eyes whilst singing.

Regards,
James Redd

best i've seen in a while: two saxes plus drums trio at bedford ave L station, repeating a really catchy funk-ish riff over and over with variations.

Last week at Penn or maybe Union Station saw an eight string bassist a cellist and a drummer wearing Commedia dell'arte masks like something out of Blow Up or a caper movie. I was predisposed to dislike them, they had a weird name too, but they sounded OK. youbredraptors.com

best i've seen in a while: two saxes plus drums trio at bedford ave L station, repeating a really catchy funk-ish riff over and over with variations.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, August 26, 2010 11:44 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

These guys are called Moon Hooch, and they are fucking amazing. Not to be confused with the one sax and drummer guys who seem to be copping their style.

Every morning at 51st st there's an andean pan flute guy who is playing the exact same melody every time. He plays with a recording, and I get the sense that the recording is providing most of the sound rather than his playing.

Never send an Andean flute outfit that wasn't like that, tbh.

There's a jazz drummer named Thomas Galliano who plays on the L platform at Union Square most evenings now -- pretty sick! He usually has this tenor player with him who I like a lot. Occasionally there's this bass player who you can't hear very well (he's not very powerful and you can't use an amp on the platform). Sometimes there's an alto instead of tenor. A few times there was a jazz harmonica, which is up there with andean pan pipes and steel drums for me.

nyc has a generally high quality of buskers imo

agreed, majority of what I hear is listenable to very good.

On the fence about the guitarist on the 7 platform at Grand Central the other evening with a balaclava covering his head playing "Cosmic Slop."

Three cheers for the three tenors in the Port Authority part of the subway tonight at the end of the tunnel that leads to the Seventh Avenue end of the station.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvODZf0yJZE

Was so mesmerized by the guy playing popular tunes like “Can’t By Me Love” and “Happy Together” at Times Square this morning that I went up the wrong staircase to transfer.

Left out the three most important words, “on the ocarina.”

one of the down ballot horrors that our current administration has done is eliminate the mariachi/latinx bands that used to busk on the subways

i have not noticed their elimination

In that you never noticed they were gone or that you still see them? Bc I don’t!

saw one yesterday (or maybe friday?) although it was just one dude, not a trio

Ya I’m talking about the full band dudes. I’m sure they are out there in isolation

xxxxxp Ocarina of Time(s Square)

I've noticed when I go back to Glasgow or Paisley there's buskers everywhere, I'm sure the local councils are encouraging it in some misguided attempt to make the streets seem more, I don't know, vibrant? This is more true in a shithole like Paisley. Also so many of them are Ed Sheeran/ Lewis Capaldi wannabes.

There are two older guys that always seem to be in Norwich city centre when I'm there that always seem to choose cool songs, last time I heard a lovely version of 'Harvest Moon' floating towards me, sounded great.