Musicians in the Subway

Once I saw an old Chinese man playing that one-stringed Chinese violin, and when I got close I realized he was actually faking along with a recording. It made me really sad somehow.

That guy on kora is really good. I wish they had mentioned some of the other guys in the article to jog my failing memory.

the saw lady has reduced me to tears.
old man accordion players usually = a+++
people who play drums in the subway make me feel like killing.

There was this violinist at the 42nd Street Times Square station, and after I gave me some spare change he said "You try now, please try!" and the next minute I was holding his violin. (I don't play violin) and basically he gave me a 5 minute violin lesson.

He basically offers his instrument to let other people play, he says that's how he learns new songs. Another guy gives him money and the violinists hands over his violin, the next thing I know the random tourist plays an Irish jig on the violin. Everyone gives him a round of an applause and the violinist say "wow, he's pretty good" and takes a dollar out of his pocket and puts it in his own violin case. Everyone laughs.

I love it when musicians can get the audience into what they're doing.

Some dude playing Dobro at 53 and Lexington Thursday morning sounded pretty good. Usually you see good performers at the A train platform at Broadway-Nassau, in particular a bass and sax duo that play Marvin Gaye stuff sometimes. Maybe they are tuning into some Goodbye, Manhattan, Hello Brooklyn vibe. I saw this guy once at Times and Union Square, and I enjoyed his classic blues stylings. One time I saw a good Staples Singers-style family act at Grand Central, don't remember the name. I still don't like the blind guy who sings Herman's Hermits songs on the subway cars or the Peruvian pipers who play "El Condor Pasa."

Worst thing is always singing dudes with guitars. Singing dudes with guitars that play in clubs are usually bad enough, but only the bottom of the barrel in this group plays in the subway. Whereas for bucket drummers the Subway is actually where it's at gig-wise, so the bucket drummers are often good.

Also I really can't stand that neo-traditional Inca music. Sorry Incas.

Yeah, dudes with guitars, including the nabisco-wannabe who plays alt-rock and sings in a froggy-voice and strums a guitar with a Shins sticker on it latenights at 53 and Lex on the E platform. Tejano/Mexican duets including guitars are cool though.

(Hurting, Jimmy Garrison's son Matt is playing tonight with one of the great drummers, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, backing up some piano player from the island of Reunion who I know nothing about. I toyed with going but I'm staying in)

(Haha, just checked it out on youtube and looks kind of fusion-y and terrible)

Least favorite = pan pipes dudes

madonna karaoke chick lives off my stop. i see her going in to 'work' some days.

at grand central saw some wierd skronk rock meets mariachi band with some dude shouting thru a megaphone 2 weeks ago. they were fantastic.

the twin brothers who play spanish guitar kinda weird me out.

i've given money to a kora player in the last few months, don't know if it was the guy in the article. the one i heard was good. i was moderately charmed by the mariachi guys for a while but i'm tired of them (ditto the old doo-wop dudes on the n/r/w). there was a good guitar-violin duo, a guy and girl, playing christmas carols at 59th and lex in december. and once at union square there was a pretty great all-black balkan-brass ensemble -- looked like a college group or something, never seen them since.

Search: The multitudinous Meetles playing Macca's "1985" at Times Square on Sunday night.
Destroy: Two scruffy kids with a beat-up acoustic guitar and a Ray Bradbury paperback singing a Neutral Milk Hotel song somewhere in the 6,N/R,J/Q labyrinth at Canal Street yesterday.

Usually by the time I'm reduced to eating at Subway, I'm too hungry to even pay attention to the music.

I once saw a beautiful girl playing wonderful, haunting accordion music somewhere downtown - maybe the 14th st. F platform? Does anyone know who this is?

Um, in your dreams?

What I should have posted was:
http://cheezcomixed.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/inceptionp1.jpg

Whoever did that really should have shopped the over-the-shoulder shots too.

Search - Guy that plays scorching slide guitar some evenings outside Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street.
Destroy - Steel drums dude at the one end of Hungerford Bridge on the South Bank.

Least favorite = pan pipes dudes

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃,

otm

So far the thread is unanimous on that one.

Andean Pan Pipes and steel drum pop covers are probably my two least favorite musical genres.

most frequently sighted: middle-aged woman folk singer w/guitar & piercing voice, always singing the same mournful song about "waiting for a train"

funny/saddest moment: broken baritone panhandler, trudging through in a wheelchair, abruptly segues from "amazing grace" to "do ya think I'm sexy"

The other day I saw an accordion-trombone duo where the accordion guy looked like a west coast crustpunk Carlos Santana, and the trombonist looked like a west coast crustpunk Jeff Parker. They also had this girl dressed like a gypsy who was hanging out with them. They played a really shitty version of the Godfather theme.

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.