Street Performer Stories

Sitting at a small Central Square café, I was given an amazing history lesson of Boston and Cambridge’s busking past. I learned that Central Square is off limits to buskers, because there was const...

Been performing a few times since the last entry. I've had some interesting technical difficulties every time I've been out for a couple of weeks - most commonly, a lack of sound from my mic. Oddly enough, this happens with every mic and cable I own (so it must be the amp) and because it's intermittent, it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause. A good whack on the top of the mic often does it (with loud feedback usually the result, as I often have the mic in an awkward spot while I try to fix the problem). It has not yet forced me to return home for repairs and usually goes away within a couple of minutes so I'm considering it a minor issue for now.

Performed on Friday, got my favorite spot in the square, and almost immediately had a bin full of money, thanks to what I refer to as the "snowball effect." A lot of times, tourists and particularly large groups of tourists from countries where street performing (or tipping) is not so common don't know whether it's appropriate for them to give money to performers like me. But when they see one or two people toss money into the bin, they go "oh, that's maybe something I should do!" and the more people give money, the more people realize they would like to donate. It goes the other way, too - if people see an empty bin, they won't drop any money in, and that's how most of the worst days go. It's why I always put some money in from my own pocket when I put the bin out.

Performed yesterday. My usual spot in front of Au Bon Pain was occupied by someone busting out tunes on a penny whistle, so I set up shop in front of the Harvard Coop. That's usually not a great spot, but thanks to its shade (for the people watching, not for me), I had a lot of tourists stop and listen. One in particular stood out, a tall, older British gentleman with a very posh accent who referred to my singing as "jolly good, son" and made numerous requests for recent British pop songs. I have never met anyone who fit a stereotype quite so perfectly, and I had to stop myself from laughing a couple of times while we were talking.

Hi, and welcome to Street Performer Stories. My name is Ben Cox, and I've been playing guitar and singing on the streets of Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA for 6 years, since I was 15. I kept a blog for a few years as a teenager as a place to write down the stories of all of the interesting, unique, and sometimes weird people I meet and experiences I have when street performing, and I've decided to reboot that here. Some of it is mundane, some downright bizarre, but I hope someone out there will find it interesting.

A little about me: As mentioned above, my name is Ben and I'm 21 and have been street performing for 6 years. I look like this:

I spent a year or so at the University of Cincinnati, but that didn't work out and I ended up back here, living with my parents (weeeee!). I do some songwriting and have put out a couple of albums under the name Mimic the French, and I'm working on a couple of other musical projects at the moment.

My setlist usually includes a few of those songs, but mostly consists of covers, primarily of pop and rock songs from the last 15 years or so. On any given day, I'll have a list of about 120 songs and play maybe half of them.