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.

Day 19: More blindness

I played again today for about 2 hours. I still have no glasses, so I again was reduced to squinting at my list of songs, which is in 10-point font and barely readable. I had a good time - I only missed a few notes, and made quite a bit of money. Nothing particularly interesting happened, however, so there's not much for me to write about. I did get a $20 bill from a girl who said my cover of Avenged Sevenfold's "Gunslinger" made her day. This is the third time that's happened with that song - there's something about the way I play it, or perhaps just the fact that I'm a street musician playing an acoustic arrangement of a country-rock song by a metal band, that gets people's attention. Or maybe its just the fact that it's an amazing song.

Day 18: Blind as a bat

Today, I had the unfortunate experience of playing an entire set without my glasses. They broke the other day, and won't be repaired until at least tomorrow. I decided to play without them, since I may not get another chance until early September, due to vacations. I played from 11:30 to about 1:45 in front of the Coop. The only other "performers" near me were the people from the Bank of America next door, who were doing some sort of promotion, an extremely energetic Greenpeace activist guy, and, near the end, a painter.
One young girl, who was 7 or 8, came up to give me money, but instead of dropping it in the bin, she tried to hand it to me. The problem, of course, was that I was in the middle of a song. After a couple of seconds, her mother directed her to the bin. The girl then proceeded to pose next to me (while I continued singing) as her mother took photos.
I ended up making about $30, which is very good for that time of day and location. I'm really not sure why I made that much, because I messed up several songs, and generally didn't play very well. In any case, if I don't play tomorrow, this will be my last post for a couple of weeks.

Day 17: Chinese tourists and starving artists

Today, I played for a couple of hours. I started in front of the Harvard Coop, but had to move about 15 minutes in when the artist on the bench across from me asked me to move. Since I was technically not supposed to be that close to him anyways (the ordinance says street performers here have to be 50 feet away or something like that, and I was 15 feet from him), I moved around the corner, to the entrance of a little cobblestone alleyway. I played there for another hour and a half, until my batteries decided to die on me. I'm beginning to think that the exertion of starting up drains a lot of battery power, because they can't seem to handle turning off and on very well.

A pair of Chinese tourists listened for a while. After they left, some guy told me that they had told him (in Chinese) that I sang "with soul" and that they really liked me. This, of course, despite the fact that they didn't speak a word of English, so they had no clue what I was singing about.

I didn't make much money, but I had a good time. I particularly have a newfound respect for the artist who asked me to move, because he did so kindly and without the dirty looks I often get from other street performers who try and get me to move.

Day 16: How's this for space?

I went out on Thursday to play, because it was a beautiful day out. However, so many other musicians had the same idea, that I was forced to play sitting on top of a 6-foot wall near Bertucci's. In addition, my microphone wasn't working, until I got mad and punched it, at which point it started feeding back in the worst way. Once I got that under control, it wasn't too bad. I didn't make much money, but I had a lot of fun playing songs I hadn't played in a while.