Rate the buskers in your town

[Jerzy Bondov]

Plymouth is full of knock-off Ed Sheerans and folky females. It's bleak.

Been tempted to start a Style Council-style street band with Dr Syntax Head. Shoppers would love us. And by love us, I mean hate us for not covering 'Wonderwall'.

You ever see Bald Bloke in Flat Cap with Acoustic Guitar and Shrill High Voice? Usually in the underpass up by the university. Shite. 10/10

I don't think the city will ever recover from the sad death of Bucket Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2eTH-l9cUE (bloke doing a headstand in a bucket)

[Golden E. Pump]

I live right by that underpass (I am not an underpass troll) but am not familiar with his catalogue.

Bucket Man is missed. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Bird Man for a while.

Plymouth is bleak, guys.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

I'm currently in Oslo and all the floppy haired Sheeranalike knobfuckers are nowhere to be seen. There do seem to be rather a lot of old craggy men with accordions though

[Gregory Torso]

Kid with no hands played a guitar with his feet. Pretty fly. Didn't recognise the tunes, though. 10/10.

Fully upholstered Michael Jackson impersonator, not really a busker, ate a wheel of cheese playing Smooth Criminal over and over again, an unvarnished recidivist. 1/10.

Drunk man screaming at an ant walking across his tambourine. 10/10.

[Ferris]

Grimly determined chap hitting a tambourine and mumbling half-imagined screams at passers by at the corner of Adelaide Street. Outsider genius, 9/10

Jovial rasta by the escalators at Bloor Street station, does a lot of that double echo guitar playing, took me a long time to realize he was playing a George Harrison cover. Probably licensed by the city so loses cred, 7/10.

[Desirable Industrial Unit]

There was an elderly accordion player who used to sit in the doorways of vacant shops in the town centre, who had a repertoire of exactly three songs:  'My Way', 'Delilah', and some sort of odd blend of the two where he'd get a bit creative and atonal.  I thought he was a charming character until I worked in an office directly above where the fucker was pitched, in summer with the windows open.  Those Guantanamo lads have it easy.  10/10 in certain circumstances.

[Janie Jones]

Mr Fox the human beatbox used to be a Camden fixture but I saw him last month outside Tottenham Court tube. I know this stuff is passé for the cool cats of CaB but I like it 8/10
https://youtu.be/3KzmIxBtw4I

In my town we have an opera singer in a formal frock who bellows over backing tapes. Horrible stressful noise. 3/10

[garbed_attic]

Anyone in York (I did my undergrad there a decade back) know if The Zombie is still around.

Have never been able to decide if he was a 1/10 or a 10/10

I remember a little girl just straight-up gasping in wonder at his act - "Mum, just look at that!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Xj2E11woQ

[sevendaughters]

passed three in the last few days

- a band of sorts who did earnest John Lewis folk covers, horrendous ear piss 2/10
- old man playing the spoons to weird hard trance versions of Irish folk songs, 6/10
- boring but ultimately inoffensive strummer playing a farmers' market in Warrington, 4/10

[Janie Jones]

Anyone in York (I did my undergrad there a decade back) know if The Zombie is still around.

Have never been able to decide if he was a 1/10 or a 10/10

I remember a little girl just straight-up gasping in wonder at his act - "Mum, just look at that!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Xj2E11woQ

I shat bricks. I genuinely jumped when it smashed its head on the floor and that supernatural rising thing is unsettling. I'm glad the clip showed the little fella inside at the end else I'd never have got to sleep ;-)

[garbed_attic]

I shat bricks. I genuinely jumped when it smashed its head on the floor and that supernatural rising thing is unsettling. I'm glad the clip showed the little fella inside at the end else I'd never have got to sleep ;-)

The smashing its head on the floor is definitely the set-piece, I reckon

[mobias]

There's a lot of bagpipe buskers in Edinburgh. I fantasise about slaughtering them all!

There's only one thing in life worse than a bagpipe busker but thankfully the doctor can usually burn that off the sole of your foot with a cotton bud dipped in liquid nitrogen. 

[Sebastian Cobb]

One of my favorite viz things was an article for 'bagpipe insuance'. it covered things like 'bagpipes wrapped round thon heid' and 'bagpipes shoved up arse'.

[mobias]

You don't know the meaning of the word hate until you've had a bagpipe busker position himself underneath your flat at 9am on a Saturday morning. I'm surprised some bagpiping buskers are still alive. 

[thraxx]

You don't know the meaning of the word hate until you've had a bagpipe busker position himself underneath your flat at 9am on a Saturday morning. I'm surprised some bagpiping buskers are still alive.

Someone once told me that the definition of a Scots Gentleman isa man who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't. I had to live in divs once next to some wanker who was teaching himself to play the bagpipes. I lasted 2 weeks before moving out.

[Wet Blanket]

Anyone in York (I did my undergrad there a decade back) know if The Zombie is still around.

Have never been able to decide if he was a 1/10 or a 10/10

I remember a little girl just straight-up gasping in wonder at his act - "Mum, just look at that!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Xj2E11woQ

Wow, I'd forgotten all about him. Total shite! Was the purple bloke on a bike there ten years ago? He seems to have been doing that forever

[garbed_attic]

Wow, I'd forgotten all about him. Total shite! Was the purple bloke on a bike there ten years ago? He seems to have been doing that forever

haha yes he was... I'm pretty sure it was he who once whisperingly confided to me that young ladies often flash their breasts at him...

So, I guess he has his reasons.

[Drop Dead Fred]

Posh kid playing bagpipes in town a few weeks ago. Khaki shirt. Kilt. Screeching din. Playing with his back to a large open area. Resisted every urge to sneak up behind and jab my fingers in his spine. Or blast one of those hand-horns in his earhole. 1/10

[mobias]

Someone once told me that the definition of a Scots Gentleman isa man who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't.

Gyles Brandreth is very fond of that quote and uses it whenever he does his Edinburgh fringe show. Apparently the original quote is - The definition of a gentleman is a man who can play a cornet but won't.

[sevendaughters]

today, "Woodsmoke", an earnest acoustic duo flogging CDs for a tenner, beardy him plays acoustic, unbearded him plays upright bass, talented guys in service of evil, pure Mumford cack, 2/10