Temple Bar Buskers
Dervla | July 19, 2006Working Temple Bar, as I do, has many advantages. However, one of the big disadvantages is having to listen to tuneless buskers from a 3rd floor office. The hot weather seems to have brought them out in droves over the last week. Temple Bar buskers range from the fantastically fabulous, the mediocre and the cat strangling warblers. Today the 3 buskers in Temple Bar Square fall into the latter category.
The most recent fabulous buskers in the square were a group of cajun/creole musicians who I could have listened to all day. These guys definitely deserved their cash donations. Then there was the guy who stood outside our door attempting to play the bagpipes. Thankfully he moved off after polite persuasion from one of my colleagues. We even had a girl with an electric piano set up outside for a few evenings. She wasn’t particularly brilliant either.
Last year we had a gentleman land outside our window promptly at 6pm every evening playing the accordion. Fondly known as “accordion man” he was a very talented accordion player but after day 14 of hearing the same set it got a bit monotonous. It seemed to be quite a lucrative business too. Accordion man has moved away from us since but can now be seen on Grafton St outside BT’s or on Liffey St entrance of Arnotts. Business still seems to be good!
I think there should be some sort of a grading system or auditioning system which decides on who plays where and when. More talented buskers to Temple Bar please 
[...] If you’ve been on Grafton Street any time recently, you’ve no doubt seen this girl, who has recently been joined by a partner in crime, and make for some pretty surreal street art. What is with the abundance of still life performers that have appeared on Grafton Street this year, seems to be far more than I can ever remember, and a lack of buskers, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, all the musical acts on Grafton Street this year seem to be of a really good quality, unlike what we’re subjected to here in Temple Bar every day! [...]
In Toronto Canada, they have auditions every year and they handout permits to those who are sucessful, and they also make a roster system with the busking locations so everyweek they change busking “stations” . If you do not have a permit you can be arrested for pan handeling wich is also ilegal in tourist hotspots. Everyone has to re- audition every year. I think it’s a very structured idea and it seems to work out very well. Every busker I have ever seen always has their permit displayed. They should do that here….but I’m sure the guards wouldn’t inforce that either and it would all fall apart.
J
Here’s a little video clip I made of my experiences with buskers on Grafton Street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlD1XwGtJCQ
just like to say that the busking scene in dublin has been ruined ,,,,,and dare i be a racist ???? well i will ,,,,for years busking was an art form ,,for which ” artists ” were paid by the public ,,,but recently what i see is many polish and czechs destroying every ounce of musical integrity while ripping off drunk tourists ,,,they play the music so loud that one has no choice but to listen to them as they fake their ” Irish ” tunes ,,,,one particular band that seem to be forever playing in Temple Bar are ” slainte ” ,,,as they like to call themselves,,,,these guys see music as a way of fattening therir pockets and couldnt care less if they repeat the same tunes for hours on end at ridiculous noise levels ,,,they con tourists into the idea that they are somehow playing ” irish ” music and word from the street has it that they have forced irish buskers out of business due to the volume of noice they make ,,,,i think its a sad state of affairs when a bunch of polish and czech boys have taken over the heart of the capitol ,,,,if a bunch of irish guys stood in Krackow beating a drum loudly would it be tolerated ???? i doubt it ,,,i imagine they see our warm and welcoming nature as a sign of our innocence and stupidity that they can take advantage of ,,,,,personally i remember the country where the likes of glen hansard and mic christopher emerged from ,,,,if they were busking today you wouldnt even be able to hear them as a bunch of polish guys would drown them out with noise ,,,,,sad isnt it ,,,,,and even more sad that us irish have allowed it to happen !!!
In response to this I think you are right and that some busking can be pretty awful – on the other hand, I’m not sure I’d like to live in a place where free performance was regulated. Let the people play if it makes them happy, just then curse them behind their backs
‘Sides, they’ll soon get the message if no one is leaving money.
In response to Claire Mooney’s comment: That was really really racist. I think a lot of ‘foreigners’ playing music in Dublin are pretty good. And if they want to declare themselves Irish, then let them! Why can’t they want to be like us? I take it as a compliment, to be honest. If they’re playing ridiculously loud, then that is somewhat inconsiderate – but do you honestly think the gardai aren’t stopping them because they’re Polish?? They wouldn’t stop Irish people either! They just don’t care enough, and that is not the fault of all Polish groups, just that one. And I don’t think they’re ‘taking advantage’ of us anymore than anyone performing to make money would be! ANd I see little ‘warm and welcoming’ about YOUR nature! And what, you think the Glen Hansards of the modern world are being down-trodden by foreign usurpers? I doubt it. If they have what it takes, they’ll be noticed, and the fact is that music is generally becoming a bit lack-lustre among young adults, so not as many talented emerging artists is, once more, not the fault of Polish people. That’s ridiculous.
Music should be free, just like speech. So I, for one, am proud to be one of the Irish that have ‘allowed it to happen’.
Apologies to Dervla for taking up a comment complaining about another. Just made me angry.
Interesting reply Jen , although a bit late,,as the damage has already been done,
lets look at some of the points you made ,
” music should be free “…………i couldnt agree with you more ,which was the whole point of my original message ,,,so if you read my message closely you might have noticed that the source of my ” complaints” was exactly that ,,,,that instead of a vibrant multi- cultural busking scene , we were left with a monopoly of ” who can play the loudest ” ” who has the biggest amplifier ” ,,which has absolutely nothing to do with music ,,if you look at some recent uploads on YouTube of New Years Eve busking from Bono ,Glen Hansard ,Mundy ,Damien Rice ,,,you might perhaps notice this ” free ” music was performed without the use of 75 watt amplifiers ,,therefore requiring a subtle level of musicianship and also allowing people the freedom to choose to listen and the freedom for other musicians to freely play somewhere within a miles radius !!!! Perhaps you might notice the intimacy and subtlelty created by these musicans for the audience ,without being offensive to anyone ,,,,,,you like the word freedom ???? me too ,,,,,however one is not free if one is dominated or supressed by the hand of another ,,,,,so as a member of the Irish “Free State ” ,,i would think its only right that should you yourself Jen make the choice to stand and speak publicly or play an instrument publicly ,,you SHOULD be entitled to do that ,,,if i however created a range of circumstances where you were unable to do this , i would be denying you that liberty wouldnt i ??
Secondly , your message lends itself to the idea that i somehow am choosing to victimise Polish people !!!! which of course my message did not ,,( if you took the time to read it carefully ) ,,,it just so happens that the particular bands i was referring to happen to come from Poland ,,logically if they happened to come from Ireland ,i would be slating them to the same degree,,but of course hinting that my attack is in somehow racist might do you well to belittle any of the actual points i was making !
Thirdly , do i think the Glen Hansards of the world are being usurped by foreign invaders ???!!!! No,,,,again if you read my message and thought about it before pleasing yourself with your reply ,you would have understood that one cannot be heard if one is drowned out by the mob ,,look through the history of time ,,power in numbers ,,power in force ,,,,,,,have a look at some of the old clips of Glen Hansard busking on Grafton Street during the nineties ,,,,,,take a stroll down Grafton Street today and try to realistically ask yourself would there be any possibilty at all that he could even be heard now ??? When you have 6 piece bands with enough equipment to play a small Wembley concert playing fifty metres down the road ???? Of course he wouldnt ,,,so he would have probably packed it in ,,,,,,if you knew something about music at all you would know that just like speech- ” empty vessels make the most noise ” ,,,,and the first thing beginning musicians do to compensate for their lack of ability is to turn up the volume ,,,,,,,
Fourthly ,,,as a woman of this world ,,,i am sure that you have heard other women of this world complain of having been ” duped ” by some man in their life ,,,someone who pretended to be something they were not ,,,someone who “stole ” affections by pretence ,feigning gestures,,,illusions ,,,deceptions,,,,,,you get the picture im sure,,,,,,,,,similarly ,,,had you bought a C.D. of a supposed Peruvian Pipe band only to discover later that the music was created by a bunch of Dublin lads wearing wigs who had never even been outside of Dublin ,,,,,,you might start feeling a little bit conned ,,,,and thats what we are speaking about here ,,,,
So to finish Jen ,,you might notice the tone of this message has a degree of frustration towards you between the lines due to the fact , ,that instead of taking the sense of my mail which was about MUSIC and the slaughtering of an art form ,,,you choose to make it about race , and considering i am happily married to a non -national i can hardly be accused of racial attacks,,,but then again me rising to your mail is foolishness on my part cos at a guess you are probably a friend of one of these groups and think the best way to defend them is taking a criticism of their HUMAN behaviour and twisting it into an attack on their race ,therefore ripping apart a fair criticism ,
So i wish you all the best , and hope while walking around the streets of Dublin you are somehow charmed by the vast quantities of noise you hear ,, and for the record take note of how very very few of these buskers are Irish ,,,and please dont fool yourself into the notion that there is a lack of Irish musicians out there ,,,because that is too ridiculous to go into ,,really ,,and finally i leave you sweetly with a quote ,,being thrown around the E.U. parliaments ” The new Nazis are the Anti Nazis “,,
If you are going to take the time to attack something i say again ,,at least let it be about the things i have said ,,dont twist them into something they are not or try to ” Paint it Black ” which is a song by the Rolling Stones that perhaps you should listen to if you can find a place where your ipod can actually be heard on the streets of Dublin.
Hi.
I am going to Ireland in August and i plan to take my guitar and busk there. My intention is to mkae some decent bucks (I think I am good enough too). I have done it before but i was only 16 and didn’t have the same experience or repetoire.
I was just wondering what is the best way to go about it. do i just pitch up with my guitar and go for it, or are there some busking ‘tricks of the trade’ that i may not know??
one thing i figured out that is quite good is to put some change of your own into your case so it makes it looks like people have been giving money already. probably the more u put in there the better, haha, cause if there is money in there people will take it as social proof that u ‘deserve’ the money.
so, any one have any ideas? how do u ride the bsuking wave. I know with busking there are ebs and flows depending on the crowd going by. how do u know when to stick around and when to leave? when are good days, in grafton street in particular, and what are ideal spots. what type of spots should I be looking for?
thanks in advance to any one who replies