Busking tales ...

Fellow Melrose native Gonzalo Silva has some interesting busking tales on his site. The NYC ones are particularily funny. He spotted Hal Linden and started playing the bass line to the Barney Miller show.

Also - his biographical essay explains why he had to leave the confines of the Boston music scene by 2000, even though he was enjoying local fame and all that went along with that:

It was through my efforts busking that I was able to convince a premiere club in Cambridge, called the Middle East, to give me a residency on Tuesday nights. I was certain that in time, and with little promotion, I could pull people from the subway and the streets into this corner lounge. When I started playing outside in Harvard Square during the summer of ‘98 and ‘99, with my friend Jason Gardner on drums, we were enjoying quite the little buzz. Some nights we had a line out the door. Along with local radio and press coverage, I was starting to feel like a rock star. In some small ways, I was.

Everything came easy to me then. I was being recognized on the street, I was sleeping around, people were buying me drinks, getting me high, the works. Best time of my life, not a care in the world.

Something was not right though. Things started to feel stagnant. I knew something had to change or I would forever be a fixture on the local scene, never realizing my full potential. There’s a saying amongst musicians in Boston that in order to make it from Boston, you have to get out of Boston. And so there it was. With the millennium looming, I resolved to move to New York City.