"Whenever I need quick cash, I go to Times Square. It's loud and crowded
and miserable to play there but the tourists just throw money at you."
There are many people who probably quietly denote value to our
minstrels. They might be those who read the alternative press and get
their morning coffee from places other than Dean and Deluca. But mostly
they are New Yorkers who recognize what even the city and MTA have tried
to harness through its Music Under New York Program-that subway
performers are not bums playing racket.
The term 'underground' says more about these musicians than literally
the venue in which they choose to play. There is a great diversity of
sounds in the subways that make it hard to pigeonhole the music, as
'underground.' It runs the gamut from folk, to reggae, to free-style and
hip-hop, to country-western and back again; they are not necessarily at
the margins of society, but they certainly aren't the yardstick of
cultural norms.
When asked the best place to play, a man named Nicosia strumming guitar
uses hushed tones. "Bar none, Union Square. Nothing compares to the
acoustics in there. The sound is amazing," he says, a sentiment
deferentially echoed by others.
If you park yourself at the N/R stop at 14th Street-Union Square, you
can find a day's worth of mostly bohemian stylings. The sounds of music
hit you the second you step off the train, but the deep notes resonate
and bounce off the tiled walls so much that the source of the careful
wails requires a bit of a search. Upon spotting the curly-haired tuba
player, you realize he has found the perfect nexus for acoustics in the
station - a long corridor above the platform about 50 yards from
the turnstiles. Nearby an older Asian man plays classical violin
concertos on his one-stringed erhu. A recording of the music is
monitored by a partner on the uptown platform while he plays on the
downtown side.
Julio is a tiny little Latino man who ties a life-size doll to his feet
and then dances to beat infused salsa and meringue. His "partner" wears
a skimpy pink outfit and just before the music begins she lies sad and
lifeless at his feet. Once the bomba beat is set, she jumps to life and
swirls and dips through the air, creating a perfectly synchronized
spectacle which draws noteworthy crowds all over the city. Julio was
profiled by the New York Times and through his multi-station dominion,
has
joined the upper echelon of subway performers. Even within a subculture
there is a pecking order and the subway buskers are not free from
prescribing to such a hierarchy.
Performers like dancing Julio Diaz appear under the Music Under New York
(MUNY), program - one of four MTA Arts for Transit programs created in
1985 which aim to increase subway ridership by making the ride itself
more enjoyable as well as encourage the use of public transit as a
legitimate venue for the performing arts as sponsored by various NY
based corporations.
"Why do you think corporations sponsor art programs?" said Gina
Higginbotham, a consultant for Performing in Public Places, the firm
that oversees the program for the MTA. "To attract more customers."
Most subway musicians don't appreciate that explanation and the
majority, when asked, believe that MUNY was set up to regulate the
subway music industry. As soon as the MTA began implementing the MUNY,
musicians banned together as a community and challenged its
constitutionality and soon won their right to play their music anywhere
in the subway, championing the First Amendment and artistic expression
in one fell swoop.
As a result, there are now two types of musicians underground - the MUNY-accredited
artists and the freelance musicians.
"Anybody can play their music in the subway," said Higginbotham, "as
long as they don't block the flow of human traffic and as long as they
don't play their music too loud." Under MTA rules, musicians and
performers are not permitted to use amplifiers on platforms. They are
also not allowed to block commuters on their way onto a train. If they
break any of these rules police can ask them to relocate their
performance art elsewhere.
The major difference between a MUNY-accredited performer and a
freelancer lies in the fact that the city delegates several three-hour
shifts a week at prime locations for MUNY performers. MUNY musicians
also get invited to play at 150 weekly performances in select subway
stations throughout the transit system and to perform in concerts
scheduled by the MTA, sometimes in advertised venues above ground. MUNY
musicians perform under or beside a MUNY banner with their name and
contact number printed on it, advertising to the world that they are
"legitimate" and certified by New York City itself to entertain.
In the stations beneath 42nd Street, of the four acts appearing on a
Sunday afternoon, only one of them sponsored by MUNY. He was a "one-man
band" just above the N/R platform strumming original rock tunes. Few
people stopped to listen to him. Even fewer donated. Just a hundred feet
past him, in front of the blue wall between the 1/9 and the S trains,
was a girl who was claiming to be 14 years old. She put Alicia Keys to
shame and had no concept of stage fright as she belted out with bravado
as onlookers were clearly stunned by her youth. More than a few slipped
bills into the nearby gym bag filling with dollars which beg the
question of where they will be dropped.
Farther east beneath 42nd Street, at Grand Central, a woman in a
wheelchair bellows spirituals in the style of Etta James. Her
melancholic appeal is wasted before a busy, fast paced crowd with places
to be. As you walk beyond the range of her voice, it is replaced by a
smooth bass. An older Jamaican man wearing a red beret croons to a
passersby. Standing there six minutes, you realize he is singing the
same tune over and over, in a sort of on the loop, cycle of expression.
He must have tapped into the fact that the sound in the tunnel between
the S and 4/5/6 trains wouldn't
carry far enough for anybody walking by to hear him more than one time.
They all recycle their sounds and we have come to expect the sounds once
oriented. Like a TV on for comforting background noise, here in the
underground jungle, we are soothed by dissonance.
Nicole Kotsianas is a reporter for a
large newspaper based out of Atlantic City. When making frequent treks
into NY, riding the subway is her favorite part of the day no matter how
crowded. The most beautiful strangers and dissonant chords are the best
prescription society has for a case of writer's block. She can be
reached at
nicolettakotsianas@gmail.com.
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of the closing doors...