Hi folks,

My name's Steven Lockmoore, I'm a musical busker from Leeds in the north of England.

A trailer for a film a couple of guys made about me and the busking scene in Leeds just went online yesterday. I'd love it if you could take a look and, if you like what you see, share it around with your friends. It's called Busking Turf Wars!

I'd love for the film to be seen around the world, because it shares a topic that is very close to all of our hearts: busking!

Plus, it's really fun to watch!

You can see the trailer over at the film's Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/BuskingTurfWars

I hope you enjoy!

Steven Lockmoore (@busker_steve)

(ANTARCTICA) Busking in Antarctica, four British Antarctic Survey's employees took part in Musequality's charity busk and world record. The coolest buskers in the world, the strings on Danny’s guitar cable froze, Paul’s saxophone froze, Tony’s fingers froze and Riet froze. The Antarctic Minkes busked as the temperature dropped from -8°C to -15°C in Antarctica. Musequality funds communal projects for disadvantaged children in developing countries giving them the skills and qualities they need to turn their lives around.

YouTube Video

(LONDON) An article in The Guardian examines where the streets have no change - and how buskers are surviving in cashless times.A recent hot topic, the article asks is it time performers turned to contactless readers? After all, dropping coins in a hat is increasingly, well, old hat.

Speaking of hats, they're down in London. Again, society is changing. Spending our money is much more convenient nowadays using plastic rather than carrying around coins and notes. Americans have gone plastic for decades but now it's becoming more of a world-wide trend.

For buskers, touchless card readers are now "the thing" since people are carrying around a lot less cash. With plastic, even if you get robbed right there on the street in broad daylight, the poor crook doesn't have access to your PIN number(s)....

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(from the You've got-to-be-kidding-me Department)
One of the themes of 2009 was that collection societies around the world went nuts trying to charge for anything they possibly could while also trying to increase the rates they could charge. Even banks went wild with their hidden charges.

Remember how one collection society wanted to charge a woman because she put on music in public for her horses? Or how about the woman who worked in a grocery store who was told to stop singing while stocking the shelves or the store would have to pay a performance fee? And, of course, we had ASCAP trying to claim that ringtones were public performances, and mobile operators needed to pay up -- beyond the license fee that was already paid on the recording.

SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, has been no exception pushing for drastically increased rates...

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(WWW) It's interesting to see what websites come up with their definition of a busker. One such site is the editable Wikipedia.org informing readers since 2001.The word "wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick". The definition of 'busker' redirects to the 'street performance' page started in 2003 which has been edited, believe-it-or-not, over a thousand times.

"Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities."

Besides the basic definition, the page also covers etymology, history, forms, collecting money, pitches, legislation, and notable performers. The latter is filled with famous and not-so-famous artists including George Michael, the Violent Femmes, and even Benjamin Franklin.

Early editing was done by the Wiki editors themselves...

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