Sounds from the Streets is a collection of our favourite songs recorded on the road. These live street performances from Bangkok, Barcelona, Calcutta, Marrakech, Rome, Seoul and Tokyo, recorded in trains, plazas, parks, courtyards, squares and alleyways, encapsulate what we love about our project; great music in public places, free for all to hear. We think you’ll like them too.
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1. Birds be Busking Ballad — Claudio Montuori
“Freedom of Culture”. This is the phrase Claudio Montuori gave us (in Italian) during a monologue lamenting the restrictions societies place on us. It is not a legal term like Freedom of Expression, it is a wider term, including societal taboos, economic considerations, and anything else that may limit our ability to live and act as we would like. He believes that we are not free, and those who live free are considered insane or troublesome. This is the main reason why we are forced to drink, or worse. We are not able to live free.
Claudio is a true artist. His show includes a bird hat, chirping whistles, castanets on one knee, bells on the other, squeaking toys, an accordion and his rough, husky song. It is not a show for mass audiences, rather a surprise for startling passersby, bewitching them, and leaving them with something they will not forget. We were privileged to bump into him on a small, dark cobbled alleyway near the heart of Rome, and to record this song, which he titled for us. (See the Birdman’s performer page here)
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2. Mon-Moti — Nitya Gopal das Baul
Nitya Gopal is a Bengali Baul living in Shantiniketan, just outside of Calcutta. This might not mean much to you, but for the last twenty years the Bauls have been enjoying Western appeal, touring Europe and playing on some of the world’s biggest stages. This, from a group of religious singers who have spent over a millennia playing their music in public in return for small donations. In their village the roads are not paved, their air is not conditioned, and the flicker of televisions does not spill through their windows.
Believing that you can have a direct and personal relationship with God, the Bauls take to the trains singing songs about life’s biggest questions; where are we from, who are we, what is the meaning of life? We recorded “Mon-Moti” on a train out of Calcutta, and had it translated for us afterward. It is a ‘bhakti’ devotional song, telling us to give the purity of your heart in marriage with ‘gouranga’-krishna. (See Nitya’s performer page here)
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3. Electric Morning — Paul Henry and Jesse Masterson
“There is a difference between a police officer and a police man,” Jesse told us from within his apartment, after a quick, illegal set in a courtyard in Barcelona. “A police man goes around arresting criminals; thieves, muggers, rapists. A police officer hands out tickets for jay walking. It is the officers who are fining musicians for singing in the street.”
Jesse and Paul continue to perform on the streets of Barcelona despite the blanket ban on street performers there. They play quick sets, perhaps one or two songs, moving on to avoid authorities who may have been called by annoyed neighbors. In this beautifully designed city, named European Cultural Capital in 2004, musicians have their instruments confiscated (which they can buy back for hefty fines), spend nights in jail, and are repeatedly bothered for singing, dancing and playing in the streets. Despite being world famous for its thriving busker scene, apparently buskers are bad for tourism. (See their performer page here)
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Caminando Sentando — Yerko Fuenzalida Lorca
The kora is a Malian instrument with 21 strings made from a large bottle-shaped squash covered with leather. The strings are made from intestines, producing a soft sound that’s somewhere between a harp and a spanish guitar. Yerko Fuenzalida Lorca, whom we chanced upon in Park Güell in Barcelona, studied kora in Mali, where his instructor was so impressed by his talent and motivation that he gave him a kora in a gesture of respect and appreciation. He now plays in Barcelona in parks and on sidewalks, sharing this beautiful and spiritual music with anyone who cares to listen.
We filmed this song near the top of a hill not long before sunset, with light dimming over the Barcelona cityscape, a small and appreciative crowd gathering, the kora singing us poems under Yerko’s direction, and with parakeets beginning their evening squawks. The tranquility of the moment was near enough to distract us from our filming duties.(See Yerko’s performer page here)
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Take the A Train — Hongdae Street Jazz Band
Hongdae Stree Jazz Band is a talented, international, jazz group that plays in Seoul’s tourist district of Hongdae. They are a tenacious group of musicians who play on the streets to weekend crowds for the love of their art, often dealing with drunken audiences, spontaneous stripteases, road traffic accidents (a car parked on one spectators foot), and zealous dancing. All these things add to the energy of their performance and the reasons they love to play on the street.
Hongdae Street Jazz Band is composed of a large group of members, many of whom met on the street. Members come and go and this fluidity is exemplified in their wide repertoire of songs and styles, switching from blues to jazz to popular classics with ease. (Performer page coming soon…)
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No Competition — Chami Cool
Chami Cool used to be put on the table and asked to sing when he was five years old. He was a little bit famous for his voice. After seven years of studying law, he gave it up to sing in the street. It isn’t a job or a method, it is a social network, “like Facebook, but in the neighbourhood”. He doesn’t speak English brilliantly (it is a third language, after Spanish and French), but his message is loud and clear:
“The street is real, you know? It’s really real. They people, they are real. The contact is real. In the street’s it’s the true contact. The people are are looking the truth, you know? Because we are living in a world, a little bit…like a vitrual world, lots of Facebook, lots of people, and now the people they want the truth, they want true people, with music, with lots of things like that.” And adds “It’s very important for me to play music. It’s my life.” (See Chami’s performer page here)
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Claire de Lune — Pianolito
We had mixed impressions of Pianolito after first meeting him. Nick, for example, thought he looked and sounded like an old English sitcom parody of the Gestapo; a man dressed in black, thin-rimmed glasses, a perfectionist who “cannot tolerate mistakes”, who has an “uncompromising personality”, and thinks buskers are a “capitalists: a bunch of filthy money grabbing crooks.” He’s also quite precise in his choice of words.
The interview was amazing, his playing absolutely beautiful, and in 45 minutes we had captured one of our favourite moments of the trip so far, made only better by the fact that we were robbed while filming. “You’ve just been robbed,” Pianolito stated, spying a man pick up one of our bags. Then, after Nick had left for the chase, “are the cameras still rolling? You see, that’s Barcelona.” Well said! (See Pianolito’s performer page here)
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An Eel and a Goldfish — Tim Penn
The only ex-busker on this album, we recorded this song in Tim Penn’s apartment in Bangkok. He had busked for several years in Tokyo, fighting the Yakuza, plainly refusing to speak to the locals in English (he “did not want to play the ‘white’ card”), and keeping a spreadsheet of his daily makings — also noting which day he played on, what time, what the weather was like, what his mood was, where he played, and other notes that could help him find the perfect equation to busk.
He never found it, but he was still quite successful, making over $1,000 a day on several occasions. “You’re ten times as cool in Tokyo than you actually are,” he said. “and I was a white guy from America playing the blues.” He was also selling CDs of his recordings back when everyone else was selling cassettes, and hammering the strings of two guitars at a time. Why did he stop? Because the Yakuza hits back, hard, and with metal pipes. (See Tim’s performer page here)
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Shibuya Favourites — Ethnic Minority
The “scramble crossing” in Shibuya, Tokyo, at first looks like four amassed armies charging into battle from the four corners of the 10-lane crossroads. 2,500 people cross there every time the light changes, during rush hour. It is not a place that should be difficult to assemble a crowd in. But not every street performer would have what it takes to entirely own the hearts and minds of part of the throng.
Ethnic Minority, a local jazz trio, did just that. With their fast, driven solos and unusual synth effects, they built and kept a crowd of hundreds enthralled as they killed it for fifteen minutes. At points the crowd was louder than the music, cheering them on. Then a cop turned up, closed them down, took their fingerprints and left. Such is street life in the major cities of the world. If it’s too popular and free, it might very well be illegal. (See Ethnic Minority’s performer page here)
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12 Volts — An Old Man in Djemaa el Fna
The old man was sitting on a pile of cardboard, quietly. This seemed strange and new after five chaotic days in Marrakech. In Djemma el Fna every performer is hunting for an audience, but this man was calm and still. Nick and I were drawn in and were offered our own cardboard seats. He smiled, finished his glass of mint tea, and tuned his four-string lotar. What followed was head tilted, beard pointed, intense eye contact—music amplified through a car battery powered megaphone—and some cigarette tricks I have no wish to learn.
We were used as props for his ‘magic’. Ash appeared on Nick’s hands, smoke puffed from his nostrils when he pressed my nose, and the music rattled on. At the end, when we gave him a pitiful collection of Dirhams (13ish), our pockets emptied, we became the butt of his jokes. We sat with open hands, unable to understand his words, suddenly feeling small and trapped on our cardboard platforms. The gathered crowd laughed with him, at us, and tossed their coins for the show; everyone leaving happy in the end. (See his performer page here)
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