Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 06:19:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Larry Moss <moss@balloonhq.com>
To: Balloon Twister List <balloon@balloonhq.com>
Subject: Re: busking

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 Cloud9prty@aol.com wrote:

> since we're all adding our two cents on the busking, I have a little book 
> that I too like to use as a reference.  IHalf asleep right now, but bear 
> with  me.  I believe the author's name is Jeff Collins and the book is 
> called  "Taking it to the streets"  I got ahold of it thru Larry Moss, and 
> it's  written on the topic of busking. 

I have to agree with Jimmy.  It's the best book on busking I've seen.  I
have the Groves book.  It isn't bad.  It has a lot of cool stuff in it.  My
own experiences just happen to disagree with some of what Groves says.
That's not to suggest in the least that he's wrong.  Quite the contrary.  I
encourange anyone that wants to try their hand at busking to get multiple
viewpoints.

The one thing that I really don't like about the Groves book is that he
seems somewhat apologetic about being a former busker.  He basically says
that busking was great for him until he was good enough to move on to other
things.  I also made a decent income on the street and eventually chose to
move on to other things, but it wasn't because I was "good enough" and
therefore didn't need to perform on stret corners.  It was just a personal
choice to do something different.

On the other hand, Jeff has chosen to remain a busker.  he's done stage
work and he's quite good at it.  He just prefers working the street and
easily makes as much money doing that.  I'm not sure if he has that book
currently available since I know he was working on a new edition thahe
hoped to be out by now.  If there's interest, I'll check with him on the
status of that.

Larry Moss