I wasn’t going to blog the Orchestra Cube busking experience as Richie got there first, but on his insistence, here’s a little one from my perspective . . .
It started for me with taking my portable record player for modification, care of the circuit king, himself, Tom Bugs . . .
. . . he kindly installed a cut off switch which meant I could scratch & cut with it without a mixer. Did still need an amp though, and for the busking, and future orchestra-ing I bought an appropriately named Micro Cube.
I got to College Green a little late, with the Orchestra already in full flow . . .
It was fun, as already documented, and we even made some cash for The Cube . . . all thanks to the Street Serenade project, co-ordinated by Jesse.
We celebrated with a smiley drink in the sun . . .
I was back on my own on Saturday. Well, I was part of a line-up, starting with Fromage en Feu, a “4 piece crazy franglo music with clarinet and trombone.” who I enjoyed a lot – especially the cheeky trombonist who was propelling fat notes at passing dogs and laughing kids.
Anyway I wasn’t on my own for long as it turned into a bit of a workshop with curious skatekids wanting to have a go scratching in the open air . . .
After me was a full on Brass, or actually silver, band ( Crofts End Mission Silver Band ) . . .
If you’re reasonably on guard you might spot someone with pink hair in the band on the right there [ above ], but I was there and I didn’t even notice anything in the tree above her until a keen eyed Japanese tourist turned to me and asked, “Why is the tree full of shoes?” . . .
. . . I didn’t know at the time, but I asked Kayle & Lady ( part of the Cube Skate Team ) later and they said it’s something called “Hang em High”, the only on-line reference to which I could find was here.
To begin with the skaters stopped skating for the silver band, and sat on the benches and watched. After a while though they started competing with each other. The next group, the wonderful four piece jazz band The Blessing, wisely moved onto the green where their sound seemed to slot in perfectly with the Saturday afternoon ambience . . .
Two members of The Blessing, Jim Barr on upright bass, and Tony Orrell on Drums, are also in Quadrobe, who played at Blackout this year, as well as at The Cube for the Moog documentary screening. Jim mentioned how ill Bob Moog was, which I didn’t know at the time. As you may well have heard he very sadly died the next day.
I’ve put up a little streaming video comp of bits off my digital camera from Saturday’s busking here – you will need a reasonably good connection and Flash installed to see it though . . .