Summer of 2013 a couple friends and i will be buying greyhound discovery passesw and traveling the us for two months. i have plans on bringing a guitar and perfoming a couple 30 minute sets in each town i visit. with the cash i make from this i am hoping to be able to me my food expenses and be able to afford another discovery pass by the time the first one expires.
I'd like to know if anyone else is interested in tagging along or maybe would like me to come through their town. Discovery passes are aroung $560 before tax and are good for 2 months. i feel this is an interesting way to tour, see the country, meet people, and have a good time. Be aware that you can only bring two bags without having to pay an extra fee and your instrument case will count as a bag.

Buskers, buskers, buskers,

I'm a young guy who try to get money playing a little guitare and singing english, spanish and german songs with his French accent. (I confess that :"I'm french"... So excuse me if I don't write really well english !). I'm not a "true" busker, according to the definition some people have here or somewhere else... I'm a student and during my free-time I go to streets and I "busk" for a while. Since I've started, I've decided to put, near my hat, a paper or a board : Each time I change it. First, I wrote sentences like : Je n'a pas de talent- merci (I've got not talent-thanks), Je travaille plus pour gagner plus (I work more to get more -money- thanks), and then I've choosen to write sentences about politic or economic news.

In fact, people give money, in this way, for three reason :
First : they have pitty of me -and they give money because they just see me like a hobo. They are not interrested by my music or my message.
Second...

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It's survival of the fittest as some resort to dirty tactics in face of stiffer competition.

Outwit, outplay, outlast.
That motto from TV reality series Survivor also holds true for the buskers in Orchard Road.

The current economic downturn is certainly not music to their ears as they have seen takings drop in recent months.

If that's not enough of a worry, they also have to fend off competition from both legitimate and illegal buskers.

But more of that later. For now, the downturn is a more worrisome test of survivor skills.

Take the case of Mr Donald Wee, 51, who strums the guitar near Shaw House.

'More people are donating coins instead of $5 or $10 notes,' he lamented.

He used to earn about $100 in two hours but can net only $40 now. The former security guard went into busking four years ago when he could not find another job after he was arrested for fighting....

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Tom Jones’s first attempt at busking began ominously as a crowd gathered around a set of speakers and a lone microphone set up on the South Bank of the Thames near the Royal Festival Hall. “It’s Tom Jones, isn’t it?” one woman asked. “I’ve never liked him since he had his nose done. He had a sensible Welsh nose in the old days.”

Skateboarders and BMX bikers gathered nonplussed at a nearby underpass. Sir Tom would be using the graffiti-covered skating area if it rained, they were told. “That would be a bit awkward,” one BMX rider said. “We’d have to ride around him.”

But any doubt that the 68-year-old singer could still thrill a crowd was dispelled the moment he stepped up to the microphone. “Can you hear me all right?” he asked. The crowd, which had swelled to about 400, cheered and raised their arms, not in celebration, but to capture the moment on their mobile telephones.
...

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A new article at the Evening Times lists the "top ten" buskers who became celebrities. Blues great BB King went town to town in Mississippi playing his guitar for loose change. The stand-up comic Eddie Izzard first took his talents to the streets of Sheffield then on to fame in Europe.Can you guess which future star was kicked out of Spain for vagrancy? How about guessing which star performed fire tricks on the streets of London? Of course, we can't forget the star who performed a mime act on the streets of New York while an acting student.

The top ten is quite entertaining and revealing while the "X" list (ex-busker) contains an incredible list of lists featuring all buskers who became *Stars*. There is a new master compilation currently being built that is due out sometime next year.

Read about...

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