UAS's. Yeah, I see them all the time downtown here.

The majority of buskers deserve death as a preliminary light sentence. Very, very ocassionally, you'll see one that is so good it makes you re-adjust your face in a lovely way. The best ones I saw recently were some very angry and stoned kids playing bongos in the most obnoxious way imaginable.

Buskers are fine by me because:

1. Some of them are pretty good,
2. Many of them are jolly nice,
3. They annoy the hell out of busybody council types, which is a good thing.

I don't like them playing along to backing tapes though. That doesn't seem right somehow.

An only very slightly busking-related Gomez video which is quite nice nonethless and accompanies a song that's all about a day out in Manchester (a favourite thing).

I am actually employed as a busybody council type at the moment, believe it or not.

Are you really? No offence, I hope, but too many council types take these minor things far too seriously, as I'm sure you know. I'd rather they fixed the streetlights or something than try to stop the evil of unlicensed guitar playing.

Love.

Hehe. No, I am really. I shan't bore you with my capacities, but I am, in some fashion, commited to a certain officious-ness. I have nothing but sympathy for most of the people I work with, but there are a noted few who are doing absolutely nothing for the image of councils as useless jobsworths. Like so many of these things, it's the few that destroy the good work of the many.

Very true. Part of me would very much like to work for our council, to try and do things nicely, but I'm sure tradition, rules and regulations would hinder that.

I for one would very much like to know what you do.

Crikey... there's a whole world of things I could say to this. If you're genuinely interested, we can take this to the PM's... insofar as I can offer a generic answer, I think one of the most important things to remember is that most, if not all councils in Britain are running on a shoestring, and that is often reflected in the anxiety and frustration latent to officiousness. Some of the people I work with are the nicest, most caring people you could ever hope to meet. Their altruism is unreal, seriously.

I despise thew contradiction that means that a council failing to meet 'targets' gets punished for being inneficient, whilst when the government themselves fail to meet their own targets they claim it's somehow a good thing, and shows how high they are aiming. So councils get less money whilst evil governemnt appropriates even more.

I do know peole working for our council whowere once very passionate but have just been worn down by the system of inaction and corruption. Good things don't get done because they are very deliberately prevented from happening, in favour of more power-grabbing measures that benefit, ultimately, no-one.

I'm hesitant to agree - not because I think you're wrong, but because I've worked in several Government/ Council/ Civil Service positions which mean I've been privy to a lot of information which would suggest that the lay understanding of the economics of organisation is off-mark somewhat. By this I mean, if you take an area the size of, say, Liverpool, it is generally beyond a single human's comprehension just how many things will be needed for that sort of area, hence discrimination by borough, hence mistakes and apparant beurocracy. I will say this much, of all the places I've worked, I was most shocked by the Police's latent racism.

Synopsis - It's not 'wrong' so much as 'ill-effective', but unfortunately holding jurisprudence over a wide mass was difficult enough for the Polis of Plato, let alone tens of thousands more people.

I can appreciate that, certainly - I'm sure the logistics are horrendous, and I think it's quite an acievement that everything gets managed at all. But having said that, councils are there for exactly that purpose, and we would all be much better served if, instead of a constant and continuous glut of new regulations emanating from central government, we just took a period (six months, maybe) where we looked at all of the regulations, and dropped or modified those that were failing, or whose sole purpose is power.

I'm afraid I'm a libertarian who feels that taking my money and using it to impose rules and restrictions on me is something of an imposition in the first place. I'm all for local bodies serving the local people, though, as long as it is all done with a view of serving efficiently and wisely.

I'll have to return to this thread tomorrow, I must sleep now, but this certainly merits a lengthy response.

Meanwhile, someone keep bumping this so I don't forget.

Sleep well. See you tomorrow.

I agree with you one hundred percent. i always stop to talk to buskers and listen. there always super nice, and many of the ones i have talked with are quite good. one guy sounded just like Jeff Mangum, so me and a friend secretly wished he would play some Neutral Milk Hotel. he didn't. cool no less.

There's this italian guy often playing at the city promenade. He lives in his van and drives around europe, with guitar and small amp, and busks all over the continent. For some reason he's been coming here for several years already and can be seen playing alone on the street, in the middle of the night in wintertime even if it's -25 C cold.

I'm feeling altogether kinder today. There was a guy on Hungerford Bridge a couple of weeks ago playing steel drums, and he was really good. Also, he was there for at least six hours on one of the hottest days of the year, which shows a certain dedication to his art.

Oh i know him,he's a super sweet guy that one.Same goes for a german guy who used to play violin under Waterloo Bridge and is the first busker to have been made legal in Britain.I didn't imply that all buskers are shite.

they really are awful people.

Most of them are but some of them are ace musicians.

they piss me off, they stand outside work and play their guitars all day in the heat, trying to make me feel bad for them when i go out for a smoke. sorry, here's a dollar if you'll shut up.

There's an Australian musician named John butler who used to busk whilst making records independently. He's still independent and now a millionaire and selling out venues all around Australia.

Ani Difranco was a busker, too.

I can't hate buskers.

but i can hate ani difranco.

Why would you want to do that? Now that would be a waste of time.

Hang on a second...................

It's lilith fair music. that's why.

'lilith fair'?

Nah,he's not the same John Butler i was thinking of.Rags to riches buskers?Hmmm.....

do you not understand?
hoardes of sweaty, unshaven women not unsimilar to the indigo girls in a field. playing 'music.' it is a 'music festival.'

Michelle Shocked anyone?

http://images.google.com/url?q=http:...con/lilith.gif





godawful.

i mentioned her and edited it out of the post.

There you go.............

I've always felt really sorry for anyone who works in a shop outside which a busker has set up his pitch. Particularly if the busker plays violin, as the music is always so depressing that it could cause mass suicides. String quartets are okay though.

Well, I asked the question.

I'm not sweaty, unshaven, or even a woman for that matter.

Ani is queen of the female musiciansFULLSTOP

that award goes to the biggest, hairiest, most unshaven sweaty woman of all time. patti smith.

Not the guy i mentioned though.He plays the shit out of the instrument and he's so good the National lets him play in the main foyer too.
Buskers who play Beatles/Led Zeppelin/Pink floyd/Eagles and Oasis covers deserve severe stoning from random people.

Nah, Patti is good, really good, but she's no Ani. Ani's a self-made girl with integrity.

With that description of Patti, she too could be at a lilith fair.

patti is too badass for those lilith fair pussies with feelings. rock n roll nigger would offend them all.