Who Taught you!

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

Mark Farneth in Boston in 1983-5 taught me everything.

Cyrus, Birdy and Gazzo in Key West in 86 put some new ideas in my head.

Butterfly directed me when it was arguably too late.

Now I rely on reruns fro the Muppet Show.

[USA BREAK DANCERS]

I started working the streets of New York City in 1983 and was taught how to get my hustle on in the streets of Times square the school of hard knocks, no permit, no auditions for cushy locations to work in, real Street Performing. The name of the crew that taught me the ropes on the mean Streets of New York were called The New York City Float committee (Not Rock Steady Crew) if anything these guys taught Rock Steady Crew how to make money on the streets aswell. While working with the New York City Float committee I had the chance to see the true king of Washington Square park at work several times and eventually became good friends with him, his name was Charlie Barnett. There were a few other acts that I watched and learned a lot from by watching there performances in Washington Square, Rick Avilez, Albert Owens, Toni Vera, CP lacy, The Original Calypso Tumbler's. I also met a couple cats later on in like 1990-92 at the fountain in Central park one of them was Tumbling Tom the other was my good buddy Jaz Angelo. Those two guys are the one's who told me about other pitches in the United States and other parts of the world and Busker festivals, Jaz Angelo actually gave me a list of festivals to contact in Europe, and Tom helped us a great deal when we went to New Orleans for the first time, I love those guys, I will never forget what they did for us....

[Cate Emily]

Like Dallas, I've learned a lot about how not to do things or how not to live my life by watching other street performers... Like, that people who fight their way to the top and dominate their pitch by force can find that they have no friends when their skills start to diminish as they get older, leaving them with smaller hats and no sympathy...

But I also learned a lot of positive things:

Sven Jorgensen was probably the biggest influence on my early career and he showed me that people will appreciate technical tricks if you present them right. Also, that I didn't need to ride a unicycle to have a good show.

I learned by watching Kenny Lightfoot that you use a quiet build to draw a huge crowd.

Probably most importantly, I learned to pare down my show to it's essentials and make the audience love me instead of my skills from Derek Derek.

And from Todd Various, I learned how to be "the right kind of asshole" . Thanks Todd. (I also learned from Todd and Key West in general that I need to get off my ass and learn how to work other pitches because what works at home, doesn't work everywhere else).

Cate

[Kate Awesome]

This is a really cool thread!

I kinda feel like when I started street performing, I existed in a bubble: I worked far away from everyone else, went years without meeting people and lived in an insular world. I honestly had never seen another living statue ever, so I was totally left to my own devices until I experienced my first festival, which is why I don't even really consider my act a statue act.

Chalkmaster Dave, while admittedly not being an influence on my act, was DEFINITELY an influence on my hustle and he taught me a helluva lot about how to stay safe on the street and the tips and tricks that separated me from being an average busker to an above-average busker.

Over the last couple of years, as I've been starting to work on my own non-statue show, I've made a commitment to watch other shows and I'm drawing inspiration from people like Steven Ragatz, Pedro and Fraser Hooper. I also give special mention to Victor Rubliar who puts up with me bouncing ideas off of him constantly.

I've been frustrated lately, though, because I've been developing a piano comedy show, and I haven't seen anybody do what I want to do with it, but, working with Paul Wildebaum has definitely been a step in the right direction.

In regards to my statue acts, my inspiration has ranged from various companies and people like the Theatre L'Ange A Fou, James Thierre and Paris Hilton....

[Kazoo]

Uncle John and my Extended Family: Best mountain musician with low cost instuments I know, taught me how to play the kazoo after trying every other instrument.

Larry the Amazing: Another vision impaired street performer and black belt in ninjitsu and taught me how to make my drawback into a way to hustle for more money and how to cripple muggers with close up fighting and a heavy wood cane if accosted.

[GlassHarper]

Who taught me?

Sorry to be so late on this response, but I've been off line (in several senses) for well over a year.

Reading thru this extensive list of mentors I find a number of folks who have inspired me, criticized me (in the best sense) or offered concrete suggestions. At the very inception of my career, however, were two entities not so far mentioned: Stephen Baird and the Street Arts Advocates (even before they had a web presence) and Jim's Performers.net.

It was escape artist Tim Eric nearly 20 years ago in Key West who asked me, "Have you ever been to New Orleans?" "No, why?" was my response. "Just go," he said. I've been in N.O. ever since and both resident performers and the slew of travelling buskers have been my college education. Thanks to all who have helped me whether directly or indirectly by my just watching the wonderful shows that have passed through. And by the way, I never stopped to watch a show but what I left a tip -- often not nearly enough, but heartfelt. Thanks Dr. Eric, Cellini, Sonny Holiday, Warpo, Doug Conn, Harry Anderson, Pete Seeger, the big guy who used to do huge juggling shows ("and the sweat is REAL!") on Jackson Square until he got disgusted with police hassles and disappeared. How can I name them all? No I mean, really, how can I name them all now that I'm nearly 74 and quickly losing my memory!

[davidkaye]

Ahhh...Grimes Poznikov, the Automatic Human Jukebox, played trumpet tunes by request from a large cardboard box. He was my inspiration that you could actually make money playing tunes. I do it very straight -- playing my button accordion on the streets and at the subway entrances, but I've always admired people who'd take it one step further.

Grimes was early 80s. Prior to that there was a band called the San Francisco Medicine Ball, which played hot jazz in front of Macy's. I think they were a 5 or 6 piece band. At the time I was astonished that people actually could make more than spare change performing.

I did get a chance to see mime Robert Shields in SF just before he got famous. He was once arrested for "miming without a license", but those days are long gone. It'd be pretty hard to get arrested for *any* kind of street performance in SF today.

[jeep caillouet]

I built the ultimate human jukebox last year. I was inspired by grimes my self. My jukebox is 8' tall 3 1/2 ' wide and 5' long. It has bubble machines, smoke machines, led rgb light shows a 30" x 24" stage ,400W pa system with a 16 channel mixer, xm radio, cd players and more. It's all made to run on 12v and is on wheels, it also weighs about 800 lbs.

[lucky john]

J-P McKendry, Rev. Mad Mitch, Alakazam

[GlassHarper]

[QUOTE=jeep caillouet;59691]"I built the ultimate human jukebox last year...."
Holly s***, Jeep, I can't wait to see it. You've been talking about it for some time and I had no idea it was going to be so complex. Hopefully I'll be able to take a trip in the spring. Best regards to all!

[davidkaye]

I built the ultimate human jukebox last year. I was inspired by grimes my self. My jukebox is 8' tall 3 1/2 ' wide and 5' long. It has bubble machines, smoke machines, led rgb light shows a 30" x 24" stage ,400W pa system with a 16 channel mixer, xm radio, cd players and more. It's all made to run on 12v and is on wheels, it also weighs about 800 lbs.

Gosh...Grimes just had a cardboard box that looked like a box a washing machine might have been delivered in.

[jeep caillouet]

It was a refrigerator box. I do have some pictures of my jukebox on my FB page. Just never figured how to post them here. I've got a couple jobs lined up this week with it so I'll try and post something later here.

[jeep caillouet]

Good to hear from you Glassharper. Yea I finally finished it . I'll tell you it is really awesome. It was built as a one person theater. I tried to add ever thing that I could think of when I built it. Now I have a ventriloquist dummy that I can change to fit the type of music that it is playing. I also have a robot the I made into a human like figure that is programable or will just dance to the music. They have been hippies, cowboys. beach bums, ray gay, Santa Claus and his elf. They are being made in there Sunday go to church clothes for a show this coming Sunday morning at 7:00am. Hoping I'm going to make Mardi GRAS this year. Is there any rule now about having a license to play music in NOLA . If I make it I only plan to be there a couple weeks.

[GlassHarper]

"Rulesw for N.O. street performing

... Is there any rule now about having a license to play music in NOLA . If I make it I only plan to be there a couple weeks.[/QUOTE]

So far no specifics. We are actively fighting a new "noise" ordinance that would forbid ANY amplification, but that is not "law" yet.

Performing on the "steps" now requires a permit from the French Market Corp. I don't know if that pre-empts the break dancers, but who wants to argue with them, for goodness sakes

Jackson Sq., so far, is fairly open, at least if you can steer clear of Little Napoleon, who is out of sorts because he was caught up in the "private security" scandal.

Your favorite spots on Royal Street are still wide open although the huge number of magicians on the street nowadays means competition for space. It would be great to see you again, since I don't travel much any more due to lung disease that makes travelling difficult.

[jeep caillouet]

Thanks ,Peter. It sure would be fun to make a road trip from KW. Seems i've just been stranded here 'bout 6 years now.