Day 22: Protesters and hobos

Yesterday, after a disastrous audition for the Music Performance Club at school (basically, our school's unofficial rock band), I played in front of Au Bon Pain for about 2 hours. My time was cut short, however, by a group of protesters angry about the firing of a professor (I think) from Harvard. They decided to set up about 30 feet away from me. As soon as I realized this, I tried to find a police officer, because by setting up so close to me and with their absurdly huge loudspeaker setup, they were violating Cambridge street performing and noise ordinances left and right. However, as soon as they showed up, all of the Cambridge cops nearby seemed to disappear, for whatever reason. In the end, I had to crank my amp far beyond the legal limit, and so I decided to play songs to annoy the protesters. Mostly, I went for songs with lines like "Open your eyes," in the hopes that maybe they might notice my plight, but to no avail. With my voice faltering, I was left with no course but to pull out the deadliest weapon in my arsenal: The RickRoll. If you don't know what that is, you should probably go look it up for a full explanation, but basically, it consists of singing a particular Rick Astley song to unsuspecting people.

In other funny things, a possibly drunken homeless man stood next to me for most of my set, laughing every time I sung just about anything. As one might imagine, this is rather disconcerting, especially when coupled with loud chants about justice.

On the whole, the day was quite amusing, though I made nearly nothing and left feeling rather angry at the protesters, who didn't seem to notice at all that I was 30 feet away and screaming my lungs out.

Day 21: Falling apart

Yesterday, I screamed myself hoarse over 2+ hours - I already had a cold, and singing lots was not helping. In any case, I certainly had a good time, though due to a lack of space, I had to play way down the street where there are fewer pedestrians. The employees at the store I was across from seemed rather unamused that I was singing right into their door, but they didn't ask me to move (not that they had the legal right to do so). I had my permit checked by someone from the Cambridge Arts Council, which was nice, because it let me know that someone was checking to make sure that other people without permits weren't taking my spots.

I only made about $15, but that seems to be the norm at this time of year - no tourists.

Day 20: Singing without a voice

I've been struggling with a sore throat for the last week or so, but I decided to go play in Harvard Square yesterday anyhow. As could be expected, I became extremely hoarse about halfway through, but I just played a couple of less demanding songs and rested, then went right back to the really tough stuff. As a result, I mangled a couple of notes, and I can't really sing right now, but I had fun. I made almost no money, however - probably due to the fact that school is now in session and all the tourists are gone.

I've been working on some new material, including some really challenging songs by Radiohead, that I hope to start playing in a few weeks. I've been trying to play more popular music recently, but I really dislike most of the popular songs I know, so now I have to learn a lot of new songs. My setlist is actually going to have to be cut to fewer songs than I know how to play soon.