I had a great time in Vegas, but I’m sure glad I trained for this. I had to park over a mile away from the strip, and then walk a few more blocks to my spot. My gear weighs a ton! I carried two amplifiers, effects, and a battery to power them, plus my bass, didgeridoo, lunch, water, and assorted cords and cables, for a 45 minute trudge in the Nevada sun just to get to my spot. Then I played hard for about 5 hours, and trudged it all back to the van. Busking is not for the fainthearted!
So why do it?
I need to play for people. I feel it as a personal imperative, but also as a spiritual imperative, and I understand it as a cultural and sociopolitical imperative. By that I mean: I feel that the world needs live music right now more than ever. There’s nothing I can say in words that will make any difference, and I don’t want to make jokes about it because our situation is not funny. It just feels really good to play right now, and I can tell that my playing makes other people feel good too. That makes me feel even better, which makes me want to play even more, because it feels good to feel good, and it felt good to play for people in Vegas, and it felt even better, when I saw how my music got into people’s bodies, and how their bodies responded to it.
Vegas was fun, but it was also draining. Between the long hikes and the tight spaces I had to play in, I left my portable solar panel, which usually charges my battery while I play, in the van. Busking on Saturday used most of the power in my battery, and the weather did not cooperate on Sunday. It was cloudy all day, and it rained for most of the afternoon, so I went to battle “The D” and their massive sound system on Tremont St with only a 30% charge, which dropped to about 10% by the end of the night. Even if I wanted to busk on Monday, I needed a good eight hours of sunlight to recharge my battery enough to play.
Vegas resonates a very low vibration. The people I saw partying there inspired little but pity in me, but my music connected with enough of them to make it worth my time. I didn’t get out my didgeridoo at all in Vegas. Didgeridoo just seemed entirely too wholesome and holy, for this den of iniquity. Instead, I played all funk bass, “the high-roller’s strut,” for hours, and people totally dug it. Playing for drunk people in Vegas is just like playing for drunk people anywhere, except more so.
The syringes were funny! I saw lots of people sucking on the “needle” of giant, two-foot-long syringes full of brightly colored liquid. Others carried a pair of smaller syringes, about the size you might imagine they use to artificially inseminate farm animals, one full of bright red liquid, the other full of bright blue juice. Some people had all three! Who knows how many “boosters” they had! Again, it was hard to feel anything but pity for these poor people who must be shitting purple this morning.
The people who live and work in Vegas were great! Everyone was very cool. No one harassed me at all, in fact everyone was friendly and helpful. It was easy to get a shower, and use a bathroom at any hour. No one looked askance at the bedraggled hippie hanging out in their parking lot, or messed with my van during the long hours I was away.
I had never been to Vegas before, and never had any desire to do so, but it does have people, and provided a great opportunity to play. Vegas is nothing if not spectacular, and the spectacle is quite overwhelming. It was worth seeing, and seeing it from the perspective of a musician, perched in the middle of it, watching it unfold all around me, while doing what I most love to do, made it a unique and memorable experience.
Electric Earth Music 